FPS vs Refresh Rate

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Sil3nc3
Posts: 160
Joined: Sun May 14, 2017 7:37 am

There is a massive misconception between your monitors refresh rate and fps so I figured I'd share an article than breaks it down. For those that dont want to read the article here is a break down.
Your GPU is responsible for providing fps and your monitors refresh rate displays the fps provided by your GPU. If you are using a 60 hz monitor and your target fps is 120 that means your display will refresh 120 fps 60 times per second. It does not mean you are limited to 60 fps. Of course the higher refresh rate the more ofter your 120 fps will be displayed
https://www.avadirect.com/blog/frame-ra ... resh-rate/
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BENSTER
Posts: 127
Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2010 7:51 pm

Yeah, your simplified version isn't making sense.  If your graphics card is providing 120 FPS, and your monitor can only refresh at 60 hz (also knows as 60 times per second) then you are effectively only going to see half the frames your video card renders.  Here is a quote from the article you linked:  
 if you have an 80hz display and your computer is capable of outputting 120 FPS, your screen will still only be able to show 80 different images per second.
Now what baffles my mind is that I've set my FPS to 60 fps in game, and it lags terribly, and over corrects my mouse movements.   I have a Freesync monitor with a Nvidia card, at at the highest resolution I'm limited to 60hz.  I'm not sure what my refresh rate is in game, i'm using higher than 1080p in my in game settings.
Sil3nc3
Posts: 160
Joined: Sun May 14, 2017 7:37 am

You are still producing 120 frames! As far as your issue with resolution and ha check the last paragraph of this post.
*note* the following was pulled directly from the link provided in the first post

Does that mean that your frame rate is limited by your screen’s refresh rate? No; they are two separate things. Remember that FPS is how many frames your gaming computer is producing or drawing, while the refresh rate is how many times the monitor is refreshing the image on the screen. The refresh rate (Hz) of your monitor does not affect the frame rate (FPS) your GPU will be outputting. However, if your FPS is higher than your refresh rate, your display will not be able to display all of the frames your computer is producing, so although the refresh rate doesn’t technically limit the frame rate, it does effectively set a cap.

It’s also important to remember that even if your gaming PC is capable of generating 90 FPS in your favorite game at your preferred settings, and even if your monitor supports 90Hz, 120Hz or more, you could still be capped by the lower refresh rate capabilities of the ports on your graphics card and display. Read our blog post on DisplayPort vs HDMI vs DVI vs VGA to learn about the pros, cons and limitations of the different types of connections. For example, some gaming monitors feature 120Hz refresh rates, but have HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.4. This means that you can only take advantage of the 120Hz refresh rate if your use DisplayPort; you’ll be stuck at 60Hz if you use HDMI gpu, your
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BENSTER
Posts: 127
Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2010 7:51 pm

Your quoting a lot now, having to reread it to see what point you are getting at.  

I took issue with your statement:  
means your display will refresh 120 fps 60 times per second

simply read your are saying this example would yield 7200 fps.  120 x 60 = 7200 is a bit crazy, perhaps it was misspoken.

I totally agree my video card is putting out 125 FPS as I cap it in game at that frame rate, but I never experience the tearing when I play.  Only time I experienced tearing I had bad ram in a video card.  EVGA was great at upgrading my card to a newer model.  

I often wonder though if the reason I'm dead before I see a person is the monitor is dropping frames.  I just can't believe it is, but it's great fodder for a tech argument I'll never prove either way.
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{ESC}zeno
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Joined: Fri Apr 30, 2010 12:27 pm

i use 333 fps
WARNING: YOU ARE NOW BREATHING AND BLINKING MANUALLY
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BENSTER
Posts: 127
Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2010 7:51 pm

33, 76, 125, and 333 are the magic FPS settings for Quake 3, and they make a slight difference in jumping in COD4 as well.  ESC kicked for higher than 250 FPS for a long time.
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