In my hunt for a laptop, I’ve noticed that 120 Hz or G-Sync typically adds $200 to the total cost of a laptop while having both together adds like $600 (funny how that works). I think I’m going to be forced into picking either a 60 Hz G-Sync laptop. or a 120 Hz laptop. I’ve never messed around with quicker-than-60 Hz before, so I’ve been doing some reading about how V-Sync & Triple Buffering work, and how they both work with 120 Hz. However, I’m not entirely sure as I can’t find any definitive, understandable answer.
My understanding is that with a 60 Hz display with V-Sync and Triple Buffering, the game is only buttery smooth if it’s right at 60 FPS—not more or less. A 60 Hz monitor shows a frame every .016 seconds. If the FPS drops between 59-45 FPS, the monitor will basically display 45FPS (V-Sync -> 30 FPS, Triple Buffering = 1.5 x 30 FPS) in 60 Hz until the GFX card can produce more than 59 FPS or less than 45 FPS. This happens because it’ll show the last completed frame if a the GFX hasn’t completed a new frame by the .016 seconds it should refresh. If the FPS drops below 45, it’ll show 30 FPS, while at 60 FPS it’ll show 60FPS. Over 60 FPS and it can skip over whole frames sometimes right? (If you have 61 frames and it can only show 60, 1 has to go).
Let’s say my graphical performance usually runs around 50-70 FPS. Stuttering happens because the 60 Hz monitor will basically show either 45 FPS with some repeats or 60 FPS with some lost frames, so the display will basically jump to either 45 FPS or 60 FPS multiple times in each second. If it drops to the 45 FPS, some frames will show twice, while above 60 FPS, some frames will be lost, creating basically a teeter-tottering studder, right? [A 60 Hz monitor will always show 60 FPS, just sometimes some of them would be the same frame... if a frame is repeated, it’ll display it for .033 seconds]
With a 120 Hz monitor, the above situation is basically doubled, right? Anything 90-120 FPS will be running at 90 FPS (V-Sync -> 60 FPS, Triple Buffering 1.5 x 60 FPS) while anything 60-90 FPS would be showing as... 45 FPS, or would it be 60 FPS because of the .008 seconds / frame?
So if I could only power the game to around 110-130, it’d basically be either going 90 or 120 FPS but with a lot less stuttering (harder for human eye to notice a frame for .016 seconds [a doubled 120 Hz frame] versus one .032 seconds [a doubled 60 Hz frame]) plus losing 10 frames is less proportionately to 120 Hz than to 60 Hz.
Is my understanding correct? A 120 Hz panel would, in essence, make stuttering 2x as hard to notice unless I was running FPS all over the place?
This post was edited by Interesting on Dec 9 2017 05:36pm