Stutter Stutter or Smooth as Butter

[jimortality]

Brands Hatch especially, even in practice screen stutter. I think it's not just me and maybe down to the unreal engine? I've tried all different things so if you're smooth as Butter, please post your settings and how you're eliminating it. Thank you.

Acer Predator X34p
I 7-6700k
Nvidia 1080ti
16gb Ram a lam.
And not forgetting my brand new Master Cooler 212 Evo

 

[Neilski]

Update: can't record it... I see a lot of weird stuff when turning swiftly in counter strike and recording at 480 fps but there's no scan out visible at all...

I have tried pretty hard but failed to find any definitive info on what happens to the "dot clock" (using the old analogue terminology) with Gsync. I also failed to find any kind of video of a Gsync monitor running with visible frame updates like you get with the RTSS FCAT bars turned on.
To show what I mean, take a peek at this video: https://streamable.com/zpn01e which shows the streaks of black/white changes taking more or less as long as the frame time on my 60 Hz monitor.
You can potentially put this question to bed and save my sanity though, since you own a Gsync monitor and have access to an adequately fast camera
If you switch on the same FCAT bars (my video uses the "2 bars" setting), get your Gsync panel running in proper Gsync mode with a game running at (say) 50 fps, or better still a variable frame rate between 50 and the panel's maximum, and then get the 240 fps camera to record what happens, it should show one of two things happening: either the time taken for the frames to hit the monitor will be a small fraction of the frame update rate while frames are arriving at low rates (like 50) or the frames will arrive slowly at low fps and rapidly at high fps. (If it's the latter, I need to find a hat to eat )
What do you reckon? Does that sound like a massive pain in the backside? (Not worth prioritising vs. real life, obvs )

 

[Bomberos_]

Did I reply to this thread already? Not sure.....
I set the monitor to 60Hz, use Vsync and a FPS cap at 60fps. If I change any of these I got stuttering.
End of (my) story (at least).

at least i like to share my experience here too. i need to do the same settings like "DrRob" explained before. After a long time of try and error, maybe this post here is also helpfull for somebody else with these strange stuttering problems. I play many racing games, but never had those massive problems like in ACC.

 

[DrRob]

To be fair: In th meantime I tried to use G-Sync / Adaptive Sync but unfortunately my monitor isn't in the G-Sync compatible list and it shows. So again back to my above statement.

 

[RasmusP]

Btw if you didn't find this info yet, everyone:
The low Latency setting in the Nvidia control panel works like this:
Off = no limiter, pre-rendered frames = default
On = no limiter, pre-rendered frames = 1
Ultra = -1 fps limiter, pre-rendered frames = 1

That's why people without gsync get stuttering with "ultra". 1 whole fps is way too much to "not notice it but reduce the lag a little".

So "on", running vsync tester, note down the exact hz of your monitor, install rtss, edit in the denominator into the profile-file, set the limit to 0.03 fps and be happy won't change for now.

BTW Rob I forgot if you tried this.. Did you play around with this? Maybe wrong hz number assumed?

Anyway, I agree, using vsync and putting rtss exactly to the refresh rate hz is the smoothest.
Tbh it's even smoother than gsync. I sometimes get few hiccups that don't show in frame time graphs...
But it's still so damn worth it

 

[DrRob]

@RasmusP Good point made. I am not sure if I tried all available settings. I tried ultra for sure.
Didn't install RTSS. Is it mandatory to make it work correctly? It is third party, right?
I was under the impression that Alternative Sync should work without additional third party tools.
As I said I had regular stutters on my 49" ultrawide, which is not listed as "G-Sync compatible", so no surprise there.
What I saw however is that inbetween the stutters car movement was relatively fluid even at FPS as low as 35-40 FPS. I see potential there, hands down.

My plan is to be more aware of this the next time I upgrade, which might this Fall/Winter.
Currently waiting on the next gen GFXs and possibly the Samsung Odyssey G9.

[EDIT] I am a noob here and not really eager to invest to much time on this when I could do some racing instead.

 

[RasmusP]

Good point made. I am not sure if I tried all available settings. I tried ultra for sure.
Didn't install RTSS. Is it mandatory to make it work correctly? It is third party, right?
I was under the impression that Alternative Sync should work without additional third party tools.

Ah we mixed stuff up here a bit hehe.
Adaptive Sync works without any 3rd party tools. You should use a limiter about 3 fps below the refresh rate though to not run into vsync or out of the adaptive sync range. With vsync causing input lag and running beyond the sync range will cause tearing ofc.

My point was about rtss allowing for the 0.03 fps limit, which causes fluctuating input lag as we learnt, which from my experience still feels a LOT better! and doesn't cause visible stutter.
However rtss doesn't have the digit value available at default and need a 1 line edit in the file via notepad.

If you'd run vsync tester (website) and tell me your exact refresh rate value I could simply send you my profile. It doesn't need the exe path of the games, only the name of the exe, which is identical for everyone

inbetween the stutters car movement was relatively fluid even at FPS as low as 35-40 FPS. I see potential there, hands down.

Yeah, that's the beauty of it! I always limit my games on the 1% low value. Or a bit above. So I never have frametime spikes and very fluid running games. This value is different for every game though so while I play one game at 97 fps, I run the Witcher 3 for example at 52 fps.

[EDIT] I am a noob here and not really eager to invest to much time on this when I could do some racing instead.

We all shouldn't forget this! Sadly I find myself setting up stuff and editing things to my liking more than actually playing games or driving, lol.

But as I said, I can just send you the profile cfg files for rtss if you'd tell my your exact refresh rate.

Web browser "VSYNC synchronization", display Hz, and input lag tester

Mine is 99.866 Hz btw
So vsync + limiter would mean 99.83 fps

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Ultra = -1 fps limiter, pre-rendered frames = 1

I do not believe this is accurate, prerendered queue is 0 on Ultra, thus stuttering if CPU cannot keep up. Didn't see framerate limited either, was still at 60 for me with VSync.

Gamescom Game Ready Driver Improves Performance By Up To 23%, And Brings New Ultra-Low Latency, Integer Scaling and Image Sharpening Features

Apex Legends, Battlefield V, Forza Horizon 4, Strange Brigade and World War Z now run even faster, retro and pixel games look better with Integer Scaling, modern games look sharper with NVIDIA Freestyle, and input responsiveness can be improved with our new low latency modes.

www.nvidia.com

To select a Low Latency mode, open the NVIDIA Control Panel, head to “Manage 3D Settings”, and scroll down to “Low Latency Mode”. Three options are available:

• Off: The game’s engine will automatically queue 1-3 frames for maximum render throughput
• On: Limits the number of queued frames to 1. This is the same setting as “Max_Prerendered_Frames = 1” from prior drivers
• Ultra: Submits the frame just in time for the GPU to pick it up and start rendering

​

 

[RasmusP]

I do not believe this is accurate, prerendered queue is 0 on Ultra, thus stuttering if CPU cannot keep up. Didn't see framerate limited either, was still at 60 for me with VSync.

Gamescom Game Ready Driver Improves Performance By Up To 23%, And Brings New Ultra-Low Latency, Integer Scaling and Image Sharpening Features

Apex Legends, Battlefield V, Forza Horizon 4, Strange Brigade and World War Z now run even faster, retro and pixel games look better with Integer Scaling, modern games look sharper with NVIDIA Freestyle, and input responsiveness can be improved with our new low latency modes.

www.nvidia.com

​

G-SYNC 101: Optimal G-SYNC Settings & Conclusion | Blur Busters

Many G-SYNC input lag tests & graphs -- on a 240Hz eSports monitor -- via 2 months of testing via high speed video!

blurbusters.com

Low Latency Mode* Settings:

*This setting is not currently supported in DX12 or Vulkan.

• If an in-game or config file FPS limiter is not available, RTSS is prohibited from running, a manual framerate limit is not required, and framerate exceeds refresh rate:
  Set “Low Latency Mode” to “Ultra” in the Nvidia Control Panel. When combined with G-SYNC + V-SYNC, this setting will automatically limit the framerate to ~59 FPS @60Hz, ~97 FPS @100Hz, ~116 FPS @120Hz, ~138 FPS @144Hz, ~224 FPS @240Hz, etc.

I trust these guys with their 1000 fps camera, nerding the crap out of vsync,gsync etc

As far as I understand all this gpu, buffers, scanout etc stuff, there is no "0" pre-rendered frames. There simply needs to be a buffer where the image is stored in.
However by limiting the frame rate below the vsync refresh rate you can keep this buffer from becoming full, which would enable the cpu to queue frames in the first place.

If you keep the buffer being stuck between "empty", which is the stutter you'll experience with ultra and "almost full", there won't be a queue.
However with 1 fps below hz you'll get 1 frame be displayed twice once per second.
If you limit 0.5 fps below hz, you'll get that 1 frame stutter every 2 seconds.

Anyway, I did the following just now:
rtss limiter off, content manager fps limiter off.
AC vsync off.

Nvidia panel:
vsync on, gsync active, low latency first at "on", then quit the game, put it to "ultra" and go on track again.

I made sure that I reached about 260 fps when not being in fullscreen mode so there won't be any bottleneck.
Hitting alt+enter in AC would go into fullscreen again and trigger nvidia vsync.

I put afterburner refresh cycle to 100ms and used the inbuilt benchmark for 45 seconds while being in fullscreen and not touching anything.

Here are the results:
Low Latency = "on":
15-06-2020, 21:29:53 acs.exe benchmark completed, 4483 frames rendered in 45.891 s
Average framerate : 97.6 FPS
Minimum framerate : 92.6 FPS
Maximum framerate : 99.8 FPS
1% low framerate : 59.0 FPS
0.1% low framerate : 53.0 FPS

Low Latency = "ultra":
15-06-2020, 21:31:50 acs.exe benchmark completed, 4382 frames rendered in 45.282 s
Average framerate : 96.7 FPS
Minimum framerate : 93.6 FPS
Maximum framerate : 97.2 FPS
1% low framerate : 79.6 FPS
0.1% low framerate : 55.9 FPS

To be honest I have no idea how the minimum, 1% and 0.1% happened, guess while saving the benchmark or something like that. Maybe I should run this for 10 minutes...

Anyway you can see that the maximum peak got limited by "ultra" about 2.7 fps below "on". The average is about 1 fps lower.

For me this indicates that blurbusters are right and that "ultra" introduces a limiter.

EDIT:
did one 10 minute run and one... well.. I forgot to stop it.. 26 minute run:

15-06-2020, 22:01:51 acs.exe benchmark completed, 60938 frames rendered in 613.344 s
Average framerate : 99.3 FPS
Minimum framerate : 96.6 FPS
Maximum framerate : 99.9 FPS
1% low framerate : 85.3 FPS
0.1% low framerate : 58.8 FPS
15-06-2020, 22:30:30 acs.exe benchmark completed, 160512 frames rendered in 1650.438 s
Average framerate : 97.2 FPS
Minimum framerate : 96.4 FPS
Maximum framerate : 97.2 FPS
1% low framerate : 97.0 FPS
0.1% low framerate : 96.9 FPS

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I could see constant 60fps during play in COD with occasional drops when stutter happened due to CPU not being able to deliver frame on time. That could explain average fps being lower. I would guess with limiter in place it would be 59 max, which is not what I have observed.

 

[RasmusP]

I could see constant 60fps during play in COD with occasional drops when stutter happened due to CPU not being able to deliver frame on time. That could explain average fps being lower. I would guess with limiter in place it would be 59 max, which is not what I have observed.

How did you measure it?

I mean I ran 10 minutes and over 20 minutes as you can see above. The maximum fps with "on" hit the maximum hz of my monitor while on ultra the maximum fps are stuck at 97.2.
I can reproduce it by only changing that one setting as you can see, looking at the maximum fps of the 45 second runs.
It's clearly limited with the ultra setting, not sure how else I can prove it to you...

I could run Fraps with the frame to frame time recording, throwing it into excel and sorting it by shortest time (maximum fps)?

Also blur busters say that the fps limit by ultra is only 1 fps at 60 hz while being 3 fps at 100 Hz.
I'm accurately matching this...
I'm gonna repeat the benchmarks tomorrow with my monitor set to 60 hz. Let's see if the difference is clearly visible there too.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

How did you measure it?

I mean I ran 10 minutes and over 20 minutes as you can see above. The maximum fps with "on" hit the maximum hz of my monitor while on ultra the maximum fps are stuck at 97.2.
I can reproduce it by only changing that one setting as you can see, looking at the maximum fps of the 45 second runs.
It's clearly limited with the ultra setting, not sure how else I can prove it to you...

I could run Fraps with the frame to frame time recording, throwing it into excel and sorting it by shortest time (maximum fps)?

Also blur busters say that the fps limit by ultra is only 1 fps at 60 hz while being 3 fps at 100 Hz.
I'm accurately matching this...
I'm gonna repeat the benchmarks tomorrow with my monitor set to 60 hz. Let's see if the difference is clearly visible there too.

I'll try to retest with FreeSync, that 60 fps was with regular VSync.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I'll try to retest with FreeSync, that 60 fps was with regular VSync.

Yep, it's only variable refresh rate sync when it works this way, just confirmed through another test.

 

[RasmusP]

Yep, it's only variable refresh rate sync when it works this way, just confirmed through another test.

Just tested with gsync disabled and you're correct, no difference between on and ultra now.
Would be interesting to measure the input lag difference now as I would think that with vsync only, there shouldn't be any.
Maybe Nvidia updated the ultra mode to not cause the stuttering for vsync users anymore?

 

[DrRob]

@RasmusP At least my "ultra" + vsync setting does not cause stutter. Not sure if and when something was fixed by Nvidia, switched to Ultra recently to test and just left it as is. Not on the newest driver I believe.

 

[Neilski]

Mini updates:

I (more or less) finished my photodiode lag measurement stuff and have taken some depressingly godawful initial measurements from ACC - around 100 ms. FFS!
But hey, my AC lag started around that level too and I got it down to more like 30 ms so I can only hope that ACC turns out the same way. (I note though that lots of people seem to have bad lag in ACC and I can't recall a single person posting evidence of low lag...) I have a list of things to try, which ought to be quick now that I have a system in place.

Also, I came across this page on the Blurbusters site which seems to confirm my assumption that GSync (etc.) just add a big fat VBI when the frames aren't coming at full speed - so the scanout remains as quick as it can be (see snipped pic).

 

[Typicalmars1680]

Anyone have any info in non scientist launguage? Hahaha I love how far you guys hVe gone into this btw! I’m running Ryzen 5 3600 and 2060 super 5760x1080 mid to high settings and the stutter in game is brutal for me, it’s not constant but normally comes at the worst of times, (about to pass someone) entering or exiting a tough corner etc.. any info on what I should do?? HELLLLPPP normal Ac and every other aim I play run flawless with this pc just not acc.

 

[Alex Townsend]

Anyone have any info in non scientist launguage? Hahaha I love how far you guys hVe gone into this btw! I’m running Ryzen 5 3600 and 2060 super 5760x1080 mid to high settings and the stutter in game is brutal for me, it’s not constant but normally comes at the worst of times, (about to pass someone) entering or exiting a tough corner etc.. any info on what I should do?? HELLLLPPP normal Ac and every other aim I play run flawless with this pc just not acc.

Need to know your settings in the sim and also what screens you have.
I'm running same resolution as you but with a 2070S and a 3800x
My monitors are 144hz running g-sync compatible mode and I'm getting between 90 and 115fps without stutter.

Obviously my settings are nowhere near max and are between low and high which some wouldn't want to entertain but it's all a balancing act right?

 

[Case_]

5760x1080 sounds pretty high for a 2060 Super.

 

[RasmusP]

Anyone have any info in non scientist launguage? Hahaha I love how far you guys hVe gone into this btw! I’m running Ryzen 5 3600 and 2060 super 5760x1080 mid to high settings and the stutter in game is brutal for me, it’s not constant but normally comes at the worst of times, (about to pass someone) entering or exiting a tough corner etc.. any info on what I should do?? HELLLLPPP normal Ac and every other aim I play run flawless with this pc just not acc.

I have a 1070 at 3440x1440. That's 4.9 Mio pixels, while you're running 6.2 Mio pixels so I guess with balanced settings you're between 50-90 fps.

We need to know your in game, Nvidia and maybe afterburner/rtss settings.

Are you using vsync (which one), gsync compatible, rtss limiter or any other limiter etc.

Full screen or borderless?

 

[Bomberos_]

i still wonder why i have stuttering when my monitor is in 144Hz mode. it's the only game, where i need to reduce the monitor setting (the setting in windows 10) back to 60Hz, only than my stuttering ingame disappear. vsync on or off makes no differents...