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KNOWLEDGE

Are frames beyond your monitor's refresh rate wasted?

For your eyes, yes. For your hands, not quite. Your monitor shows a fixed number of frames, but you can still feel the time between moving the mouse and seeing the result.

MythIntermediate2 min readDisplay and latencyPerformance and bottlenecks

Rigmint, Updated

The short answer

For your eyes yes, for your hands no. You never see frames above the refresh rate, but on average they shorten the time between your input and the picture.

Key points, with evidence

  • In general, higher FPS correlates with lower system latency, though the relationship is far from one to one.

    SourcedStated verbatim, or as plain arithmetic, in the source given.Jump to source 1

  • That latency is what you perceive as directness, even though you never see the extra frames.

    InferenceFollows from the source given, but is not stated there verbatim.Jump to source 1

  • With FreeSync or G-Sync the monitor matches its refresh rate to the card, giving a tear-free and flicker-free picture.

    SourcedStated verbatim, or as plain arithmetic, in the source given.Jump to source 2

The myth

Any frame beyond your monitor's refresh rate is completely wasted. We almost say this sentence on our own optimisation page, and yet it is too simple.

What is actually true

For your eyes it holds. Your monitor displays a fixed number of frames per second, and anything above that you simply do not see.

What you can notice is the time between moving your mouse and the picture on screen. NVIDIA says it themselves: in general, higher FPS correlates with lower system latency, even though the relationship is far from one to one. That latency is exactly what you feel as directness.

The grain of truth

This time it sits on the other side than usual: the myth is right about seeing and wrong about feeling.

What to do instead

If your monitor supports FreeSync or G-Sync, turn it on: the monitor then matches its refresh rate to the card's frame rate, and AMD describes the result as tear-free, flicker-free gaming. How to set it up, and why capping slightly below the refresh rate pays off, is covered on the optimisation page.

Without variable refresh rate, and in competitive games, you can happily let the card render past the refresh rate: you keep the lower latency even though you never see the extra frames.

Review status

Last checked against its sources
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Evidence density
3 of 3 key points carry a source
Open question
No open question recorded

Sources

  1. NVIDIA: Introducing NVIDIA Reflex (Zusammenhang von FPS und Systemlatenz)
    Publisher
    NVIDIA
    Published
    No publication date stated
    retrieved
    Supports
    On average, higher frame rates are associated with lower system latency, but the relationship is not one-to-one.
  2. AMD: FreeSync Technology (variable Bildwiederholrate)
    Publisher
    AMD
    Published
    No publication date stated
    retrieved
    Supports
    FreeSync adjusts the monitor's refresh rate to the graphics card's frame rate, resulting in gaming without tearing or flickering.

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