Hey Andy, thanks for sharing but here are a few things that have been brought up on the forums that would agree and disagree with your observations. (comments inside the quote box) KeiKei did a great piece of work to elaborate on this (which you can read here: http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.p...ery-low-input-lag-(but-in-expense-of-details)) but here's the synopsis... In order for vsync video to give you such smoothness and locked fps, it creates a buffer of the rendered images before it is sent to your monitor for display. This delay has been approximated to be as long as 0.2s, this is about the same time delay as the average human's reaction time. This time delay allows for the game to organise the rendered frames in the buffer so that they are sent to your monitor at a) the correct (locked) fps and b) in the correcting timing so that screen tearing does not occur. This delay is very real and i had to record the motion of my wheel at quick speed with and without vsync video to calculate the time delay....not that a camera was needed to observe the delay (called input lag) in action. A lot of people who followed KeiKei's advise to remove vsync video and solve the stutter problems by having uber high constant/consistent frame rates in the 180fps region found that their lap times both lowered and became much more consistent. I know you said that you had 100-280fps but if you had those moments of unsmoothness when the fps dipped to 100, then that is the reason. I can't explain why, but this smoothness suddenly deteriorates if the fps drops below 150fps and worsens the lower it goes. I have made a full-time compromise of graphics in order to not have this input lag hinder my driving performance. It is a very real problem and i would urge you to reconsider using vsync video as the performance gain without input lag can be really quite substantial (so long as you can fix the stuttering issue as well ofc).
I will second that. VSync is evil and will kill your consistency. Raw laptimes aren't effected as much. Mainly just consistency and ability to recover the car when the rear snaps unexpectedly. The lag is very small yes. Keep in mind that the physics engine is running real time and you are taking .2secs to react to something that is already .2secs behind the physics engine. It sounds small, but if you add it up it is nearly a half a second to react. That is eternity when driving a car. Just thing about driving a real car in real life at 70mph around a turn and the rear end snaps, are you really going to wait 400ms to react to it? And that is exactly why VSync kills consistency.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yk99aNeFL8&feature=player_detailpage#t=51s And yeah, I agree. Those stutters kill consistency. Alongside with some slow-mo moments during driving. Heck, even famous input lag is barely noticeable.
@DrR1pper I read through all this thread carefully including keikei's findings as you suggested and it's all great info. It's a pity really that lots of people only partially agree with the various settings etc. It just makes it a little harder to find perfect settings that work for most of us lol. Especially the debate over whether to VSYNC or NOT to VSYNC, (Video, Software or GPU). After all my research and testing of the various settings, sadly I still can't really make my mind up what's best for me and my PC/RF2. I was almost sure at one time I read on some forum that some people were saying that using VSYNC was very bad, and some others saying that it was best to use it on a 60HTz monitor to maintain steady, smooth frame rates without any lag as has been mentioned here. Problem is, here's the exact same debate again here on ISI's forum and still nobody seems certain which is right? I looked at the video(s) of people moving their steering wheel and I could clearly see that the on screen steering wheel was moving AFTER the real wheel had been moved showing HUGE amounts of lag! But, I have tested the same thing on my own PC with RF2 (I use an XBOX360 wired controller though I do own a wheel), I tested it with all the VSYNC options, VSYNC OFF and the various Auto Detail and other suggestions made by KeiKei and others and I have to be really honest here that when I move the controller, the onscreen wheel appears to MOVE EXACTLY in time with my thumb on the thumbstick? I have looked at it really closely and carefully and I see no delay at all and I don't think my eyesight can be that bad lol. I tried it in the Megane and also in the Formula Renault 3.5 so that I could see the road wheels too and both look like they're moving in sync with my hand movements? I'm not saying I'm right or wrong with any of this I really don't know what to think, as all I want is for the game to look as good as possible without too much compromise and with the physics and GFX engine matching each other as perfectly as my PC can manage. One thing I do know is that I can't have Auto Framerate Detail set that way as it just makes the game look too bad with cars appearing and disappearing on the track (In track side cams watching replays) and it just looks bad lol. Out of pure interest though related, no matter what settings I use now I NEVER get ANY stuttering anymore and the only thing I changed that remains constant is the Replays setting in the PLR file >> Record To Memory="1". I will always stay with this setting as it has no effect I have noticed on the game with 8GB+ RAM and I will be going up to 16GB DDR3 in a week or two so def no worries then! So that's where I am right now, still reading and testing KeiKei's (Thanks for all your research) various settings and trying to figure out what's best for me/my system/RF2. Maybe I'll report back a satisfactory outcome soon with any luck Andy_RF2
If I remember it correctly, I also can get no stutter at all by disabling the Replay feature. But of course I can't see my amazing shunts anymore
Driving almost a half a second behind doesn't kill consistency? Hmmm. Hahaha. Stop drinking the KoolAid, turn off VSync and give it a real run. Not sure what sort of racing you are doing. If it is simply hotlaping offline or with AI. But doing a 4 hour stint in an endurance race, consistency is very important. I have Niels to thank for opening my eyes to how bad VSync is. It had a dramatic effect on my league racing. I am sure you have seen the gazilion videos on YouTube talking about input lag caused by VSync but here is mine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjHqXKqeDgE But go on and keep on racing to delayed visuals and repeat to your self that it doesn't matter. Hahaha
I believe the some of the newer GPUs handle VSync differently and the lag isn't such a big problem anymore. If you have verified that the animated wheel is in sync with your real wheel then you are probably good to go even with VSync on. But for the most part it does cause lag. I have actually had people argue with me that the animated wheel is out of sync but that the rest of the display isn't. This is completely untrue. Then you have the people that fully acknowledge that there is lag but think it doesn't have an effect on your driving. This is totally delusional. I am all for VSync as long as it doesn't cause lag. The smooth framerate that VSync produces is much better. I have an HD5770 and when VSync is on it causes big lag. I wish I knew about VSync's problems back when I was into FPS games. That is a community that caught on to the VSync problems a long time ago. I guess the moral of the story is to do some testing of your own and find settings that put the animated wheel in sync with your real wheel. If it is in sync with VSync on then call yourself lucky.
Trouble is that I still don't really know for sure what exactly does work for me.....haha! LOL Andy_RF2
I've been suspecting too that there may be some differences at hardware level with new GPU's or some ATI cards. I mean with my nVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 cores (self overclocked) the input lag with vsync on is so huge that one simply cannot drive without clearly noticing it. Who knows maybe some cards have built-in triple buffering and for those input lag is not that bad.
Well if you can't see the lag between your real wheel and wheel on screen then it's possible that input lag isn't bad. For me the best method finding differences between low lags is to drive a fast and sensitive car (for example FIA F2). With lower lag I have more confidence for the car and I'm able to catch/control slides better. Usually I'm faster too and of course be more consistent with lap times.
Have to admit input lag really isn't anything compared to stutters or slow-mos which I had with early builds. It was terrible and completely undrivable back then. I was having wet dreams about 200 ms input lags back then.
here's something I have tried just to see the effects, and this is what I saw,anyone else? Leaving the PLR Framerate switch to 0(zero) setting, Vsync off as well for the 1st test. I drove on Seabring, 4 lap race, 1st part mostly cloudy, 2nd part rain, 3rd part cloudy, last part rain. The rain comes and goes at the same time, each time. Kinda rythmic. 2nd part of this "test", turn on vsync. Same weather settings etc. The rain comes n goes much later.. All to do with the timings? As in the rain comes later with vsync on. and quite early with vsync off.. I thought it was interesting anyway.. Time of day scaling also I set to Normal for this... Just found it curious, don't know if anyone else saw this. As for me, I flow back n forth with the settings, PLR settings, game settings, display. I go back and forth between, all maxed out HDR, AA, all display to full or Max with Vsync on, getting 60 frames with a 19 AI grid on most tracks, to high hundreds with everything on high, and reflections off and sync off, but lots of the microstutter that annoys me. There is a HUGE differance in the way the car drives, and the way I drive. Lap times are close if I drive carfully with vsync on,. but when I turn it off I am faster and can drive like a madman and catch most of my mistakes... IE power slides and drifts are much easier with sync off... My thoughts on this anyway, thought I'd chime in. One last thing I guess on this post, I tried most of the settings mentioned here, and while I like the 200 FPS driving, really do, well not 200FPS, but you know what I mean, I like the Eye candy quite a bit too, I like the immersion. So for the most part I stick to sync to video, and hdr on and all else at max, runnig at 60 frames a sec. K done.
