[Tech Help] refresh rate

[DevilsOwn]

I know that it's important to have the game resolution and the monitor resolution at the same settings, but does anyone know if having different refresh rates on them matters at all?

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

By refresh rate do you mean fps?

Edit: I ask because your screen resolution refresh rate (the Hertz) is not the same as the game fps setting.

 

[TheGrayGhost]

By refresh rate do you mean fps?

Edit: I ask because your screen resolution refresh rate (the Hertz) is not the same as the game fps setting.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Vsync synchronize your refresh rate?

 

[DevilsOwn]

yeah, see, that's why I asked, cause I haven't got a clue my monitor refreshes at 75 Hertz and the game at 60, just trying to fix everything I can before I throw the pc out the window cause I don't see colors correctly in SA

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

To be honest, I actually have no idea what Vsync does. lol. I do know how ever it does not sync the fps to the refresh rate of your screen.

yeah, see, that's why I asked, cause I haven't got a clue my monitor refreshes at 75 Hertz and the game at 60, just trying to fix everything I can before I throw the pc out the window cause I don't see colors correctly in SA

Yea the monitor refresh rate should not matter in consideration of the fps.

But what do you mean you can not see colors correctly? Perhaps the colors just look that way in SA. (I may not get to reply again, so hopefully someone else can help you from here out, going out of town here soon)

 

[Old Man of UO]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Vsync synchronize your refresh rate?

VSync was introduced when CRT's were interlaced (meaning two frames of every-other line were sequentially posted). VSync forces a full frame of graphics and eliminates the interlacing, producing a smoother image. Some of us still use CRT's, but most are now using LCDs. LCDs in general have a default frame rate of 60HZ, but newer (and expensive) LCD monitors have 120 HZ and even 240 HZ. The video appears smoother, but the caveat is that it can take a whopping amount of memory and processing power to keep up with that! Theoretically, to VSync at 60 HZ pushes twice as much as 30 HZ.

NOW... if you are using a 75 HZ monitor and VSync to 60 HZ (which is the max in SA, and HZ=FPS in this case) you can't fill a full frame at 75HZ, so you video card waits until it has a full buffer. This results in an apparent frame rate of about 40 FPS, because it keeps waiting to fill the buffer between screen redraws. Of course, if the game can VSync anything faster than 75 HZ, then you are golden.

SO... you might get improved performance from a CRT monitor by turning down the refresh rate of your monitor to 60 HZ!!


Wikipeida:
Vertical synchronization refers generally to the synchronization of frame changes with the vertical blanking interval. Since CRTs were nearly the only common video display technology prior to the widespread adoption of LCDs, the frame buffers in computer graphics hardware are designed to match the CRT characteristic of drawing images from the top down a line at a time by replacing the data of the previous frame in the buffer with that of the next frame in a similar fashion. If the frame buffer is updated with a new image while the image is being transmitted to the display, the frame buffer gives it the current mishmash of both frames, producing a page tearing artifact partway down the image.

Vertical synchronization eliminates this by timing frame buffer fills to coincide with the vertical blanking interval, thus ensuring that only whole frames are seen on-screen.

Sophisticated software such as computer games and CAD packages often allow vertical synchronization as an option, because it delays the image update until the vertical blanking interval. This produces a small penalty in performance, which can be enough to reduce a program's frame rate below the refresh rate of the monitor on computationally strained systems.

whew! my head hurts

 

[TheGrayGhost]

To be honest, I actually have no idea what Vsync does. lol. I do know how ever it does not sync the fps to the refresh rate of your screen.



Yea the monitor refresh rate should not matter in consideration of the fps.

But what do you mean you can not see colors correctly? Perhaps the colors just look that way in SA. (I may not get to reply again, so hopefully someone else can help you from here out, going out of town here soon)

Actually oO basically what it does is it waits for a whole frame to be rendered until it is shown. So, it sort of does sync up the refresh rate with the FPS or Vice Versa .


Edited to Add: Did you really manage to type up all that before I got my two little sentences in???? Geez! But thanks! lol.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

....
Vertical synchronization eliminates this by timing frame buffer fills to coincide with the vertical blanking interval, thus ensuring that only whole frames are seen on-screen.
....

I do not know specifically what UO means when it says VSynch, but I assumed and still do that it enables the above quote.

As a generalization, it produces a smooth transition from frame to frame, unlike some of the earlier graphics (games) that did not do this and produced ghosted images.

But heck the decay rate on some of the phosphors of the CRT's could do that quite nicely without the aid of not using the VSynch.

 

[Old Man of UO]

I do not know specifically what UO means when it says VSynch, but I assumed and still do that it enables the above quote.

As a generalization, it produces a smooth transition from frame to frame, unlike some of the earlier graphics (games) that did not do this and produced ghosted images.

But heck the decay rate on some of the phosphors of the CRT's could do that quite nicely without the aid of not using the VSynch.

Well, the refresh rate of a monitor isn't directly affected by the phosphor decay rate... but that is an argument form a long time ago I don't remember much about. I forgot CRTs when I got my first LCD!

But the important point is, if you monitor's refresh rate doesn't match UOSA's FPS, or at least multiples of it (e.g., 2X or 3X), then it has to wait until it has a full buffer. This could cause some people to get jaggies or stuttering.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

NOW... if you are using a 75 HZ monitor and VSync to 60 HZ (which is the max in SA, and HZ=FPS in this case)

You can over-ride the "in client" setting for fps and set it higher...which is why I assumed it was not doing that. But I guess I could also be wrong as I never asked a Dev how it exactly is syncing, such as client to monitor or monitor to client, if it is client to monitor than it would sync at 75 (at least for Devil) but if it is monitor to client then you would have to manually set it to 75.

So, as long as you are refering to the Clients FPS you can in fact set it above 60.

OK cut short because I have to leave now, so I will see you all the begining of next week (maybe sooner if I use my phone )

 

[DevilsOwn]

But what do you mean you can not see colors correctly? Perhaps the colors just look that way in SA. (I may not get to reply again, so hopefully someone else can help you from here out, going out of town here soon)

wow, guys, that's a whole buncha information!

and as to the colors..... compare the shots below.. many, many items are default colors for me in SA... pretty sure it's my sub-par graphics card, but like I said, trying everything

check the paintings..... and I cannot see fire red plants, they're plain....

*sigh*

 

[DevilsOwn]

NOW... if you are using a 75 HZ monitor and VSync to 60 HZ (which is the max in SA, and HZ=FPS in this case) you can't fill a full frame at 75HZ, so you video card waits until it has a full buffer. This results in an apparent frame rate of about 40 FPS, because it keeps waiting to fill the buffer between screen redraws. Of course, if the game can VSync anything faster than 75 HZ, then you are golden.

SO... you might get improved performance from a CRT monitor by turning down the refresh rate of your monitor to 60 HZ!!


whew! my head hurts

done!

(and remember, Dev, more isn't always better!)

 

[Old Man of UO]

done!

(and remember, Dev, more isn't always better!)

WAIT! Did that help?

 

[DevilsOwn]

oh no, I'm sorry, there is no noticeable difference that I can see have set the monitor back to 60 Hertz


was admonishing myself as it was my own fault the monitor was set higher... I did it thinking it may help somewhere or other (and it's not a CRT monitor)

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

oh no, I'm sorry, there is no noticeable difference that I can see have set the monitor back to 60 Hertz


was admonishing myself as it was my own fault the monitor was set higher... I did it thinking it may help somewhere or other (and it's not a CRT monitor)

Just kind of curious here, I am assuming you have an LCD display. As a Generalization most LCD's have a 60hz refresh rate. So making it something other than 60 may make it look worse.

Now then, assuming you have a LCD monitor, does your Monitor and Video Card have VGA as the only output and input?

BY chance does it have DVI as an output on the card and DVI as input on the Monitor? If so which one are you using, the VGA or the DVI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface

The DVI interface uses a digital protocol in which the desired illumination of pixels is transmitted as binary data. When the display is driven at its native resolution, it will read each number and apply that brightness to the appropriate pixel. In this way, each pixel in the output buffer of the source device corresponds directly to one pixel in the display device, whereas with an analog signal the appearance of each pixel may be affected by its adjacent pixels as well as by electrical noise and other forms of analog distortion.

Previous standards such as the analog VGA were designed for CRT-based devices and thus did not use discrete time display addressing. As the analog source transmits each horizontal line of the image, it varies its output voltage to represent the desired brightness.[1] In a CRT device, this is used to vary the intensity of the scanning beam as it moves across the screen.

DVI cable connectors are designed in such a way as not to allow the user to connect the cable in an incorrect position or orientation. DVI connectors are available in five models, differing in the way they handle analog or digital transfers.

In the digital transfer one or two channels are present. Video and monitor cards which are exclusively digital cannot be connected to analog, but can be connected to equipment that handles both analog and digital signals. The DVI standard also supports the Display Data Channel (DDC) and the Extended Display Identification Data (EDID), which allows computers to communicate with different monitor extensions.

"DVI-I" stands for "DVI-Integrated" and supports both digital and analog transfers, so it works with both digital and analog Visual Display Units. "DVI-D" stands for "DVI-Digital" and supports digital transfers only.

 

[Petra Fyde]

What graphics card do you have Dev?

I can't see some colours, my frostwood arcane circle shows as default. It's because my GeForce 4 MX420 is too old to have the 'shaders' that are needed to show it.

 

[DevilsOwn]

yeah, Petra, that's what I'm blaming this on..... I have Intel G33/G31 chipset, which does not have Hardware Transform and Lighting, and it seems the correct color display may depend on having that function? A new video card would be less expensive than a whole new machine (which I don't really think is needed) but the tower is a slim one and I need to search for a compatible low-profile card... in the meantime, as long as I'm sure that's what it is (and it's really looking that way) I'll just deal

thanks for the help, everyone!

 

[Crysta]

They did say they were looking into fixing things not showing hued on some cards because of the sharders, so is a chance they'll work it out.. they said it was something to do with the fallback programming for if your card doesn't have whats needed not working quite right or such.

 

[Old Man of UO]

They did say they were looking into fixing things not showing hued on some cards because of the sharders, so is a chance they'll work it out.. they said it was something to do with the fallback programming for if your card doesn't have whats needed not working quite right or such.

Crysta, do you have a link to that? I missed that discussion. Thanks

 

[Crysta]

It isn't always possible to give links to things that are said.

 

[Old Man of UO]

It isn't always possible to give links to things that are said.

No problem... I just didn't want to quote it to someone else and not see it happen. Thanks for looking.