What frame rate for driving games?

Countcussy

Countcussy

Countcussy

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Having built my new rig a few weeks ago, I recently purchased the OcUK 24" monitor to go with it. It has raised a question as regards gaming which you regular PC gamers should be able to help me with.

A while ago I downloaded the demo of DiRT, and loved it. It played really well at 1280 x 1024 on my 19" CRT, and I got quite good at it.

So on Saturday I bought the full game, and it looks awesome on my 24", but, all of a sudden, I was rubbish. Compared to the demo, the controls felt sluggish, I was worried that they had ruined the full game.

However, stupid me did not realize that framerate also affected the controls. With all settings on high at 1920 x 1200, the game looked amazing and appeared to run smooth. Only when I downloaded fraps and checked the framerate did I realise that the game was running between 25-30 fps.

Once I had lowered the res and adjusted the detail level, I got above 40 fps and the difference in playability is like night and day.

I feel such a NOOB :o

So, what framerate do you guys aim for when playing driving games? Do you always try to get 60 to sync with the LCD, or does it differ from game to game?

:)
 
Last edited:
Zefan said:
Make sure v-sync is disabled, that'll sort out most laggy controls.
Click to expand...

I always thought V-sync on a TFT was a must. Am i wrong?

Or, is it:

V-Sync ON if fps is higher than monitor refresh rate (60hz)
V-Sync OFF if fps is lower than monitor refresh rate (60hz)

Or, is it not that simple.
 
Countcussy said:
I always thought V-sync on a TFT was a must. Am i wrong?

Or, is it:

V-Sync ON if fps is higher than monitor refresh rate (60hz)
V-Sync OFF if fps is lower than monitor refresh rate (60hz)

Or, is it not that simple.
Click to expand...

Vsync is only to stop tearing on of the screen if the frame rate goes above the refresh rate of the monitor.
 
So, typically something like Pro Evo would require V-sync on, as the monitor can not handle the amout of frames the GFX card is sending it. Where as when playing something graphically intensive at less tha 60fps it would be better switched off.

Yes?
 
exactly. If you want to stop the screen tearing then it is a good thing to turn on V-sync but this will limit your fps to the refresh rate of the monitor. If the framerate drops below the refresh rate, you can experience sudden drops in fps down to 30 which can start to chug. To help, you can turn on triple buffering but this and vsync both affect input lag.

So in short, best bet is to turn it off but raise your detail/res until you get somewhere between 40-55 average. This will feel smooth enough for most users whilst keeping the controls responsive.

DiRT is very system hungry (especially on Vista) but due to motion blur, feels relatively smooth even at 25-30 fps (imo).

I run it at 1280x1024, 4xMSAA, everything on high and it's fine apart from one or two races where there are multiple cars in view and it chugs a little. XP seems to add 10-15fps in my experience.
 
I find driving games tend to be a bit more forgiving since most people don't use a highly precise/responsive device like a mouse (although my housemate at uni played Motorhead using the mouse). In FPS games I need 45fps bare minimum but preferably 75fps+ for a smooth experience. whereas in driving games around 45-50fps normally feels kinda OK. Even with drops to 35fps it doesn't overly affect my driving.

Note that there is a big difference between being able to notice a difference, and a game being unplayable. Just because I can play a driving game at 40fps doesn't mean that I won't turn the details down to aim for 75fps.
 
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