When would you notice low FPS

[Ciber]

Yes sometimes vsync on can make fps less smooth as if your fps is below the refresh rate of your screen there will be a delay while your gpu waits to 'sync' each frame, thus lowering your framerate and increasing lag. Sometimes this is enough to nearly halve your framerate and that is bad. Vsync on always reduces fps. Triple buffering can help with this. Howver if your fps is always much greater then the refresh rate (this is normally 60hz, so an fps much greater than 60 when vysnc is off) then your fps will be a steady 60 and therefore very smooth.

For example I play Planetside with vsync on as my PC can render some areas of the game at over 200fps and yet in busy firefights it will drop down towards 60 and this big variation in fps is noticeable in terms of how the game feels. However using vsync to limit the fps to 60 gives a constant steady fps of 60 all the time and a much more consistent aim as a result. This is an old game engine though and current games are much harder to get high fps from even on current high powered hardware.

[00mike000]

wen its rly low u wont be able to play

[SiM]

Yes sometimes vsync on can make fps less smooth as if your fps is below the refresh rate of your screen there will be a delay while your gpu waits to 'sync' each frame, thus lowering your framerate and increasing lag. Sometimes this is enough to nearly halve your framerate and that is bad. Vsync on always reduces fps. Triple buffering can help with this. Howver if your fps is always much greater then the refresh rate (this is normally 60hz, so an fps much greater than 60 when vysnc is off) then your fps will be a steady 60 and therefore very smooth.

For example I play Planetside with vsync on as my PC can render some areas of the game at over 200fps and yet in busy firefights it will drop down towards 60 and this big variation in fps is noticeable in terms of how the game feels. However using vsync to limit the fps to 60 gives a constant steady fps of 60 all the time and a much more consistent aim as a result. This is an old game engine though and current games are much harder to get high fps from even on current high powered hardware.

Thanks very constructive comment...
So it is best only to use vsync when fps is very high...

wen its rly low u wont be able to play

Thanks very constructive comment...
sarcastic that time if you didn't get it...

[Oobie-]

Im in the same boat as Agent. Going from 60 - 100fps I can notice the difference between the 2. Going below 55fps becomes annoying to play in and I can notice the drop also.
A lot of my friends play on TFT's and they don't seem to notice something below 50fps, and while I do, its not as apparent as it is on CRT's (which is what I play on)

SiM - vsync turned on will limit your fps to your monitors refresh rate - most likely 60 or 75. If the game you are running can easily do 75fps or 80fps then yes, you can put vysnc on without any problems. Whether its best or not is personal preference

[moogle]

But would using it make the fps less smooth?

btw... I think my card can draw quick enough...
my card >>> moogle's card

yea it would, when you reach those areas where the fps drops without vsync it will be even jerkier
But yea your card can draw it quick enough.

[Lord Midas]

If your card is fast enough then turn vsync on. It removes tearing.

[DougMcDonald]

One thing to mention regarding frame rates in movies (I know it's a bit out of synch with the posting order) is that to maintain smoothness they use a huge amount of motion blur to compensate for the low framerate.

This is why when pausing them you very rarely get a smooth image (unless the screen itself has very little movement in it)

Generally games do not offer such a motion blur effect (except when they are trying to look intentionally blurred) so they struggle to get away with less frames, as the human eye is better at detecting jerkiness than it is with blurring.

That aside I agree with Agent and co, anything fast paced I tend to notice <60, slower games can often get away with lower framerates.

As a slightly different but related point, people (scientists etc) will often say that the eye in general has difficulty determining the difference between say 60 and 80 fps or 80 and 100. Personally I think such differences can be noticed (but maybe not in a "did you see that" type of way) but again it very much depends on how fast the game you're playing is.

[sleepyhead]

Hmm to the OP...like many have said, it is game dependent.

It feels very laggy on NWN2 with everything on but I don't know why that is. Just seems...laggy. I haven't managed to display FPS yet to give a definitive answer.

On FPS games...well good old Elite Force was always run at 125fps (capped max)...although 333 was the sweet spot (though deemed as cheating online).

I cannot remember what I used to run UT2003 however I turned stuff down/off to improve FPS during online gaming (I was never good at UT games online.... )

I remember F.E.A.R. running over 40FPS all the time and that felt smooth but there wasn't alot of fast action (a-la strafe jumping in Quake/EF). In comparison, QUAKE/EF felt very sluggish at 40fps if strafe jumping.