Does Vsync reduce performance in-game?

krome4284 · May 14, 2016

I am a sort-of recent pc gamer for about 2 years. Since then I've built 3 others but I'm still learning. Until recently, I've always had V sync on because I hate screen tearing and my gpu would always keep it running at a smooth 60 fps. When the new doom came out, I turned on vsync but my frames would plummet, at the lowest, to 25 frames. I went into my settings to figure out why was my performance so crappy on low settings, while others had inferior gpus and getting better performance, and I happened to turn vsync off. My frames jumped to 200+ on low settings and 120+ on high with AA enabled.

TL;DR is does vsync lower performance in my gpu in order to keep the cap at 60 fps.

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Epicness937 · May 14, 2016

it could simply be that the gpu is not fast enough to run the game with v-sync at 60fps however that would surprise me
you could try reinstalling all the gpu drivers

ledhead11 · May 14, 2016

I was just looking on steam. Apparently both Nvidia and AMD put out new drivers yesterday. A number of AMD users stated that their performance got worse after the update. One user did state a work around that worked for them and its simple(they have a r390). Change resolution to a lower one, put your settings to max, then raise the resolution back to what you were using before. That user did 1440p>1080 and back to 1440p. If that doesn't work you may need to reinstall the old driver. Its been so long since I had a ATI/AMD I can't tell you the best way for that. If it is the driver, don't feel bad, it happens on both sides of the fence.

JimF_35 · May 14, 2016

What monitor do you have and how is it connected (HDMI, DVI or Display connector)? Probably not the problem if you where able to get high frames in other games but have to ask.

bystander · May 14, 2016

V-sync does have a few characteristics that can reduce performance, and it varies depending on the game and techniques used. In most cases V-sync limits your FPS to your refresh rate, though in OpenGL it may show you FPS higher than what is displayed. If using DirectX and you hit your refresh rate, you will get added latency. If the game does not use triple buffering and you do not use SLI or CF (with it working in the game), if you cannot maintain 60 FPS, there is a good chance your FPS will drop to 30. With triple buffering or multiGPU's functioning with the game, that isn't an issue, but display times of those frames may stutter.

V-sync is a complex animal which adds different performance issues depending on the game and your PC configuration.

Anurag20 · May 14, 2016

Same here dude.. Hope to be a student till the day I die..

All games are not created equal.. By a quirk of fate or design, Id Software has designed 'DOOM' to work on "Ultra" settings only on GPUs with 5GB or more of VRAM.. What,the F*** - right?? :kaola:

See this: Doom's 'Nightmare' graphics: image quality compared and benchmarked

Have you installed the latest Crimson Drivers for the 290X.. Upgrading to Windows 10 and installing the crimson drivers might alleviate the low FPS to some extent..

JimF_35 · May 14, 2016

Anurag20 :

That post talked mainly about performance. I am not arguing with you but this post is a better one where it comes to VRAM usage...

http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/90/much-vram-need-1080p-1440p-4k-aa-enabled/index.html

Personally I don't game at 4K, because it is just not that much better to my eyes than 1440p (or even dare I say it 1080p) and the price of Frame rates and Memory is just not worth it to me.

Instead of getting the Titan X

980ti with tons of memory I most often recommend lesser cards like the 970 (even with its memory gate problems) because most games at 1440p don't use above 3.5 GB of VRAM. Now there are games that do use more VRAM than others at those high resolution but some times driver updates will fix this.

Anurag20 · May 14, 2016

JimF_35 :

Anurag20 :

That post talked mainly about performance. I am not arguing with you but this post is a better one where it comes to VRAM usage...

http://www.tweaktown.com/tweakipedia/90/much-vram-need-1080p-1440p-4k-aa-enabled/index.html

Personally I don't game at 4K, because it is just not that much better to my eyes than 1440p (or even dare I say it 1080p) and the price of Frame rates and Memory is just not worth it to me.

Instead of getting the Titan X

980ti with tons of memory I most often recommend lesser cards like the 970 (even with its memory gate problems) because most games at 1440p don't use above 3.5 GB of VRAM. Now there are games that do use more VRAM than others at those high resolution but some times driver updates will fix this.

There is no argument at all when I didn't speak to you in the first place...

renz496 · May 15, 2016

In general yes. If your game exceed 60fps you might not notice it but for games that have much lower frame rates that it's monifor refresh rates you will see the FPS will be a bit lower when vsync being enable. Though in case of doom the problem might be the game itself. Radeon took large hit when using much higher setting.

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