How to reduce input lag on ALL monitors

[dsswoosh]

I've had a lot of decent people here give me some decent help and i have found something very useful so decided to share the information here.

It works too and is possible the best thing i have discovered on the internet.


By using the method described in the link, here is what is achieved -

- VSync turned on to eliminate screen tearing
- Input lag reduced almost completely zero
- Smoother rendering


http://mystrd.at/articles/v-sync-mouse-lag-how-to-fix-it/




tl:dr -

- Turn on vsync and triple buffering in your graphics card drivers / game settings
- Download this fps limiter - http://dxtory.com/v2-home-en.html
- Navigate to advanced, limit video fps to 59 (for 60hz monitors i havnt tried this on 120hz monitors)
- Enjoy


Maybe a lot of people know this. I did not. There is a full explanation as to why it works, with formulas etc etc.


All i can say is my PC gaming experience just got 200% better.

 

[dsswoosh]

Why would you turn on Vsync AND use an fps limiter set to the refresh rate of your monitor??!?

It makes no sense and merely sounds like a placebo to me.

Because -

Since most monitors today use the 60Hz refresh rate (eg. the image is redrawn 60 times per second), it is generally exactly 60 FPS that your game gets limited to when you use V-sync.....


However, due to the nature of how V-sync works with the framebuffer, the perceived image drawn by your screen is effectively in the past, which makes your controls feel laggy and unresponsive......





So how to do that?

Simply by using V-sync AND limiting FPS exactly 1 frame below the screen refresh (eg. 59 FPS for a 60Hz screen). This means that there won't be anything for the V-sync to buffer ahead, your controls will retain instant response and no VGA power will be wasted.

Tried and tested on my current monitor.

The difference is huge for me.


If you have input lag when you turn v-sync on (like i do), try it. If you dont have input lag, dont try it.


It works. Thats all i care about. And the difference is extremely noticeable

 

[dsswoosh]

mind telling us which monitor you have?

p2370hd

 

[dsswoosh]

msi afterburner server tool box has fps limiter

it makes almost every game thats poorly coded but you can run well mostly run butter smooth

old games that almost run too fast 200-300fps also benefit huge amounts with no page tear which ive even seen on vsync before!

Could you give a few instructions how to do this please.

I cant find any frame limiters with MSI.

I would rather do this with MSI afterburner than another piece of software.

 

[dsswoosh]

This technique is horrible. Feels like playing etchasketch with BF3. Vsync off completely or it feels trippin.

Why do i get the feeling you are playing with mouse acceleration.....

 

[dsswoosh]

This is pointless, it's not reducing input lag at all. Vysnc is to do with the GPU not the screen, to sync 60 frames it has to discard any frames that go above 60fps and by doing that it skips mouse latency which causes the laggy feeling.

Your reticle in the game becomes trapped between a frame and a skipped frame, you can't see the reticle in the skipped frame so you have missed out on that input from the mouse being shown in the frame because it didn't get drawn, you didn't get to see it or feel it. If you turn Vsync off you see that extra frame (tearing) and the brain is a clever thing and uses that extra information to add to the fps you see/feel.

Which is why you don't notice it as much in outer field camera games.

"Triple buffering adds latency and jitter; it should be avoided." - John Carmack (Don't mess with The Man).

Its not pointless and i'm afraid to say you are wrong.

Vsync causes extra input lag.

The extra input lag caused by vsync is eliminated when you limit your fps to 1 below the hz of your monitor.


This is particularly useful because most players will put up with screen tearing so they do not create vsync input lag.


By using this method, you are able to eliminate screen tearing AND vsync input lag.

You also save on computational power because the vsync buffer never has to flush unnecessary frames AND as a result your PC as a whole stays cooler.



Even if the best expert replies here to say that this method "doesnt work" i will brush the comment aside as an inexperienced piece of mis-information because ive been playing games with this method since i found out about it and the proof is right in front of my eyes.

I have no screen tearing and my mouse input is instantaneous. As soon as i close dxtory and my fps syncs to 60, i get a lot of input lag again.

 

[dsswoosh]

I will probably give this a try, but dxtory isn't a frame limiter it's a game capture program, but there is an option to frame limit. I know I'm being picky but if you are only going to use it for frame limiting you might as well use afterburner.
Regards

The latest Afterburner 2.2.3 doesnt appear to have a frame limiter option.

The latest beta build has expired and no longer works.


As of this current moment in time, unless someone can show me otherwise, it is not possible to frame limit with MSI Afterburner.

 

[dsswoosh]

Go to the plane icon in your system tray open it then press on the wrench its in there.
Regards

There is no wrench icon. Nor are there any (obvious) settings for frame limit options.

I'm using MSI Afterburner build 2.2.3

Spoiler

 

[dsswoosh]

youve clicked the wrong plane icon,its the plane icon with the number 60 written on it.If it`s not visable its either hidden by windows 7 or its in the settings/user interface tab of the screen you have opened using the normal plane icon.In there is an option to select single icon mode only,disable that and hopefully correct icon will show up in your tray.

Looking at your screenshot again it looks like windows 7 is hiding your icons.Always turn that ****e off as its better to see whats running at all times to avoid confusion like this.Select customise and then tick show all icons if i remember correctly.2 plane icons should be viewable now so click on the one with 60 written on it and follow my directions from around 12 posts before this one.

Just tried all what you suggested.

I have every icon on my screen, and i only get one plane icon even if i tick/untick the single icon mode only - makes no difference.

I dont get another plane icon with 60 written on it.

Any other suggestions you can think of? I would much prefer to frame limit with msi rather than dxtory

 

[dsswoosh]

I'm not in front of a pc at the moment but go into monitor settings in Afterburner choose something to display like FPS and tick OSD so it displays on screen and that may bring the plane icon up.
Regards

Still no luck, it just refuses to appear


Ah well, ill stick with dxtory for now, perhaps a future build of MSI will correct itself on my machine.

Thanks for trying.

 

[dsswoosh]

Okay fair enough I will try it for my own eyes if what you say is true, will it reduce tearing too?

Eliminates it completely.


The only downside as someone else mentioned is that you are fitting 59 frames in a 1 second period that is drawing 60 frames, which means 1 frame gets repeated (or skipped, i cant tell which).

The does cause the slightest of hitches every 1 second.

It's so small though i struggle to tell its even there, and would never have noticed it unless it was pointed out.

You can only see it if you face a wall then strafe sideways. Even then it is negligable and hard to tell.

 

[dsswoosh]

Okay I'll look out for this as it sounds like it could put my aim off in counter strike as I'm very sensitive to motion. Are you playing all games like this now, what's compatibility like? I saw a comment on that website someone had a formula for 60Hz being 60*2+1 = 121Hz, he never explained why? I'm guessing it's double the 60hz so two frames get projected together to double the chance of a perfect refresh plus the one extra to stop the dropped frame of 60Hz going to 59.

I dont know how it would work with 120hz monitors.

My guess would be to frame limit at 119 fps.

Compatibility works with all games because dxtory limits the fps from the actual gpu, which is better than in-game commands because it is limiting at source rather than discarding excess frames.

I cant play games without doing this now, the input lag i notice is terrible compared to not doing it. Dont know how i never noticed it before.

Im getting a 120hz monitor today. But it also has very low input lag, so im not sure if i would need to still frame limit.

 

[dsswoosh]

Surely this is only for LCD's?

Those running CRT's don't need vsync, as you don't tend to get tearing.

Yep.

I forgot that people still use CRT's ><

 

[dsswoosh]

Silly question, presumably this would still work for games where your machine cannot provide a constant fps of 59? i.e. Say it drops to 35fps during a battle, this method would still a) reduce tearing and b) prevent input lag?
Why have I never heard of this before if it is so simple as capping the fps at 59? It's taken nearly decade for someone to work this out and make it public knowledge?

It would still work, yes. Ignore the "no" answer.

The reason it would work is because vsync would work in its normal fashion and sync at half rate, eliminating the tearing as it normally would.

In this situation, you would still get vsync lag particularly when your fps would jump and go above 60.

Cappin at 59 fps, even if you are runnin at 30fps ensures that the vsync buffer still never has to flush excess frames, and thus results in moments that would have had input lag, not having them.

well, tested this in Max Payne 3 multiplayer, here are my findings:

- i am currently having vsync ON
- i have limited the fps through MSI afterburner to 59

result: much smoother aim, no tearing. i was so used to playing with the input lag that i couldn't hit a door of a barn when i turned the FPS limiter on. i also had to lower the mouse sensitivity from 3 to 2 and get used to it for a couple of days.

so yes, for me it does work. i will turn off vsync completely tonight and test how the controls feel. vsync seems redundant with the FPS limiter. also, i will check and test out the adaptive vsync and what it does with the controls vs smoothness.

in running on Gigabyte GTX580 SOC with DELL U2412M

Exactly.

All these naysayers who say this method would be "pointless" i know for fact have not tried this method.

All the reasons why they think it wont work are irrelevant.

It works. And it works for exactly the reason explained on the web page i linked on my original post.


I have no idea why Nvidia or ATI driver settings do not allow this cap, since it clearly results in smoother gameplay.

But i can tell you that Steam-Valve actually has a code implemented to handle this situation, and if activated, limits frames per second to 1 below the hz of the monitor refresh rate.

 

[dsswoosh]

Yes (see my original post to this thread). It is possible to reduce the input lag penalty (additional input lag) caused by Vsync but you can't reduce the base latency of a monitor using this method.

I love how you understand the whole situation and had the correct reply as the very second post before any debate ever started about it LOL

 

[dsswoosh]

the question is, why use vsync at all, when you have the fps limiter turned on? isn't vsync redundant? i mean, i can't see the benefit of vsync if the fps won't go above 59.

Because pushing 59 frames per second through vsync forces 1 of those frames to get repeated, resulting in 60 frames per second hitting the monitor and v-syncing properly so you dont get any screen tearing.

With a 59 fps frame limit and no vsync you will still get screen tearing because you arent sending 60 frames per second to the monitor.

As mentioned, sending 59 frames per second + 1 repeat frame will result in a SLIGHT hitch every second. (almsot impossible to see).


Its by far the best way to play games on a 60hz monitor because you have 0 screen tear, 0 extra mouse lag AND a cooler running PC because no excess frames are flushed out of the vsync buffer (which is what causes vsync mouse lag and requires extra computational power).

 

[dsswoosh]

Well I tried it and it worked really good on sniper elite, even took out the tearing on the super fast bullet camera sideviews. Then I tried it in FO3 and I noticed the stuttering it seems you need to be constantly over 60FPS. I don't know which I like more with it on or off but I haven't tried Counter Strike yet that will be the real test.

Stupid ccc won't force vsync either on any games.


found this..

Edit* Gonna try this for triple buffering, D3DOverrider I don't think it was working through CCC.

Ha, well i guess this puts all the doubters to shame.

Where the heck did you find this ????!

 

[dsswoosh]

I found it in a discussion about fps limiter vs vsync. Read my edit above I ******* love this triple buffering and fps limit 59 vsync magic. This threads title is misleading and needs changing to "How to reduce input lag on all games and prevent tearing" as it not really anything to do with the monitor but the graphics card.

What i meant was, where do you find those options?

Are they an nvidia/ati hidden setting somewhere or is it a 3rd party program?

 

[dsswoosh]

nvidia driver functions and apparently it used to have an fps limiter too. I have an ATI card so I'm using RadeonPro to force triple buffering. I tried D3DOverrider but it wouldn't launch so I found RadeonPro and you have to enable triple buffering in directx games as enabling it in the drivers page is opengl only, this made the big difference to me.

Gonna play some more Risen now with this trick

Wonder why they removed these options then?

It is a clear improvement by a mile on most monitors.

 

[dsswoosh]

I dont see why he suggest 2 frames per second underneath the monitor hz.

All i see that achieveing is doing the exact same thing as having it 1 frame per second underneath the monitor hz, but there will be 2 repeating frames in the "60" cycle instead of 1......