Maybe a stupid question about FPS and Monitor Hz

umboma

umboma

umboma

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Hey peeps,

Can anyone help me understand this as I said in the thread title it maybe a stupid question but I have a 60hz monitor and the max FPS I can get no matter what game I play is 60.

Anyway the way I see it is:

If you have a monitor thats 60Hz the maximum FPS you are going to get is 60, No matter how good your graphics card is the monitor is holding you back.

And

If you do have a 120Hz monitor you'll only get too 120fps if you have a really good card 680 for example, So the max FPS is 120 even if you have 680 in sli??

So thats why ppl say get a 120hz monitor over 60hz because "A" it has a faster refresh rate and "B" it'll allow you to achieve 120FPS also resulting in smoother play?

is this correct?
 
Monitor refresh rate != Frames Per Second

Heck, I can play CS:S on my 60Hz monitor at 300FPS. The two are not the same.

The refresh rate determines how fast the monitor displays the picture. FPS determines how many frames are shown per second.
 
Pretty much yes, although for most people 60 FPS is perfectly smooth enough, however some 'pro' FPS (first person shooter) players seem to prefer/need a 120 Hz screen.

Your graphics card might be able to render 300 FPS but your screen will only be displaying 1/5 of those frames.
 
This is whats getting me, 60hz is that not how many times the monitor will refresh the picture per second, so 60 times?? while 120FPS is obvious what that does, do they not have to marry up to achieve the same number IE if you want 120FPS you need to have a120Hz monitor?

How come I only get 60FPS max no matter what game I play??
 
And thats where "tearing" occurs as the screen is showing different parts of each frame at the same time.
 
The refresh rate determines how fast the monitor displays the picture. FPS determines how many frames are shown per second.
Click to expand...

Haven't you just said the same thing?

the refresh rate of the screen does determine how many frames can be displayed by the screen, per second. However you GPU can generate more frames per second than this, but they will be wasted. for instance if you're generating 300FPS in CS:S, 240 are being wasted!

So you have this technology called "v-sync" which syncs the GPU and monitor, such that the GPU doesn't waste power and only generates the required number of FPS, thus you're limited to 60 FPS.
 
beejjacobs said:
Haven't you just said the same thing?

the refresh rate of the screen does determine how many frames can be displayed by the screen, per second. However you GPU can generate more frames per second than this, but they will be wasted. for instance if you're generating 300FPS in CS:S, 240 are being wasted!

So you have this technology called "v-sync" which syncs the GPU and monitor, such that the GPU doesn't waste power and only generates the required number of FPS, thus you're limited to 60 FPS.
Click to expand...

OK this makes so much more sense now. so i was sorta right, when he said he can get 300fps on a 60hz screen threw me a bit,

So in my case as I have a 60hz monitor I'm best useing Afterburners FPS Limiter to max my FPS to 59/60 so a lot of frames are not being wasted and thus less tearing on screen :D
 
umboma said:
OK this makes so much more sense now. so i was sorta right, when he said he can get 300fps on a 60hz screen threw me a bit,

So in my case as I have a 60hz monitor I'm best useing Afterburners FPS Limiter to max my FPS to 59/60 so a lot of frames are not being wasted and thus less tearing on screen :D
Click to expand...

Aye, also using Vsync will reduce your electricity bill as it won't be wasting GPU power by rendering more frames per sec than your screen can actually show.
 
umboma said:
OK this makes so much more sense now. so i was sorta right, when he said he can get 300fps on a 60hz screen threw me a bit,

So in my case as I have a 60hz monitor I'm best useing Afterburners FPS Limiter to max my FPS to 59/60 so a lot of frames are not being wasted and thus less tearing on screen :D
Click to expand...

You just need vsync enabled either in game or through your GPUs control panel.

I run a HTPC through a 3DTV, in 3D mode at 1920x1080 it's 24hz so the FPS is never going to go higher than 24, it's ok for movies but gaming is a no no. If I drop the res down to 1280x720 the TV can manage 60hz so 60 FPS is possible. This is a restriction of the HDMI 1.4 interface but we dont need to go into that.

Now i only have an OC'd 460 in the HTPC by using the lower res I can up the games graphics settings. BF3 runs at ultra pretty much in 3D at 60FPS dropping to 30ish with lots of action on screen, granted it's at 720P but it still looks cool as does crysis 2.

That's the real trick, finding the graphics settings to balance image quality and still get a decent FPS count depending on your hardware. Your monitor has a native resolution which you want to use to get the best image quality, you can use afterburner to put the FPS on the OSD so as you change the in game texture and AA settings etc you can see what effect it is having on your frame rate......if you are dropping below 30 that's pretty bad and almost unplayable, so you then need to think about lowering some of the graphics options till you find a setting that suits.
 
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Depends whats games you play. For fast paced FPS's like CSS you're still better off setting your FPS to around double your monitors refresh rate as it seems a lot smoother and you can definately tell the difference. I cureently play on a 120Hz monitor at 300fps, but when I used to have a 60Hz monitor and could only get around 80fps I instantly noticed a difference when I bought my current PC with the same 60Hz monitor and 300 FPS it was soooooooooo much smoother.

I don't think it makes as much of a difference in other games and you generally need to be very good at the game to notice the difference and/or take advantage of it.

Stable FPS is important as well as you will notice the difference when you're jumping from 50 FPS to 80 and back again all the time it's no good. So setting Vsync is good for that when you're jumping around your monitors refresh rate. I can safely say thuogh that I've never experienced tearing when playing at 300FPS and only 60HZ.
 
Krono5 said:
I don't think it makes as much of a difference in other games and you generally need to be very good at the game to notice the difference and/or take advantage of it.
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Certainly makes a difference in CoD2/CoD4, I wouldn't play either at less than (a solid) 125fps, I tend to run them locked to 250fps.

If you don't have these set, you can't jump to certain places on most of the maps.
 
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