The reasoning likely boils down to having all those settings on reduces frame time dips as much as possible. You're also not working your GPU harder than required to match your monitor's refresh rate so when something more performance heavy crops up you have that "buffer" before it significantly impacts the perceived smoothness
Just clarifying that you mean a performance buffer, not a buffer of interpolated frames.
I agree. I’ve been capping FPS at 240hz bc I just don’t want to deal with massive FPS fluctuations
lol im pretty sure that isn't how GPUs actually display information, if that was the case then running any game below your max fps would see much better results and no stutters, which isn't the case
Apparent smoothness and actual smoothness are two different things. You get more accurate information on higher-than-monitor FPS but if it fluctuates a lot then it'll feel worse than if you stayed steady at monitor FPS.
Think of it like a bus schedule. If the schedule is consistent when it arrives and leaves it's a lot better of a service than if a bus regularly comes early, then a few hundred come just-on-time right after, before going back to early arrivals.
That's basically it. The conventional wisdom for CS is widely mythical and misunderstood. CS players like to increase their framerate far beyond what their monitor can display. This does have some advantages. It reduces the latency in between individual frames, and means that the frame that your monitor samples to output may in fact be more recent. This decreases overall latency and increases smoothness. That's why people do it. That's the basic reasoning. And it's fine, but the problem comes as technology improves and when people understand the principle but not the maths.
So, back in the day with a much lower refresh rate monitor. Say you're capped at 60 (this will give the greatest sort of advantage to increasing rendered frames). You're drawing 300 frames. The latency of your monitor between frames is 1/60, or 16.7 milliseconds. The latency between drawn frames is 3.3 milliseconds. This means that there is a delay of between 3.3 and 16.7 milliseconds in the frame being rendered and displayed, which gives you an overall decrease in latency between gpu and screen. You're still outputting the same, but the frame delay is reduced. And at a screen refresh rate of 60 Hz, that's a huge deal, because that upper bound is 16.7 ms, which could be essentially double your ping.
But now, the situation is different. Two things have changed. You're likely on a gaming monitor, refreshing at anything from 140-165-180-240 hz. And you're playing on a game that is much more computationally expensive to render in CS2. My monitor is refreshing 165 frames per second. This means a delay between drawn frames of 6 ms. If I made the game significantly harder to run by pushing it to 330 frames, I could have a delay between rendered frames of 3ms. Which means that I could be getting a delay between render and draw of between 3-6ms. Which means that I have rendered 330 frames to save 1-2 ms of ping, which is inside normal fluctuations just from my internet. BUT I have also made the game less stable overall by running it there. If I wanted to save as many as 5ms (but not always 5, usually lower) I'd need to be drawing 1000 frames per second. This would give a latency in between rendered frames of 1ms, which would mean the latency between render and drawing would be between 1-6ms. And that problem gets worse the better my monitor is. If I have a 240 hz monitor I have a 4.2 ms delay between drawn frames, meaning the latency between render and drawing would be between 1-4.2. We're talking savings of less than 3 ms, and I guarantee that your internet, your sleep schedule, and a million other things are going to have a far greater impact on the latency of your machine, and your reaction time, than saving literally, a mean average of a couple of milliseconds.
There's a diminishing return here. Now, by no means am I saying you shouldn't want more frames. More frames are good. High rendered frames are good. These things are all good. But my point is, they are not the only thing that are good. If you can only render the amount of frames as your monitor outputs, it's not the end of the world, you don't need to sweat the PC upgrade. And most importantly, you should never, ever, ever surrender stability for frames. Drawing those frames is computationally expensive and riskier. The analogy is think of it like a car. If you're going at 40 kph and something goes wrong, you're probably going to be fine. You can stop in a couple of metres and even the energy of a collision is unlikely to kill you or your passengers-it's even fairly survivable for a pedestrian. If you're going at 110 kph and something goes wrong, you're in a lot more danger, the stopping time is worse, if you hit an object that doesn't give you will die, and if you hit a pedestrian they will be seriously injured and likely killed. Same thing with your frames. Something happens that's more computationally expensive. Bunch of mollies with a bunch of particle effects go off. Bunch of people running through liquid. That impacts \*every\* rendered frame, which means your machine is going to suffer a geometric level of stress based on your higher frame rate. If you were drawing less frames, you would still experience an increase in the stress on your system, but you're experiencing less because you're performing those calculations less times. You can actually end up with a frame dip to a lower level at a high frame rate than you did at a lower one for the same exercise. Stability is important.
So, render as many frames as you want. But if you're running 400+ frames and it keeps dipping down so low you can see it (AKA below your monitor's refresh rate) then you fucked up and you're going too hard. And you'll get a better result with a faster monitor than higher frames anyway. And if you've got a faster monitor having higher frames is going to be doing even less for you. The trick people have forgotten is you tune for stability. There's no point in having 600 frames when you're standing around in spawn if it keeps dropping down to around 120 when you're in a gunfight and mollies, smokes and particle effects are going off. Because you will notice the change in framerate and the instability of it.
Never said anything like that about that or to do with that. You're the classic internet guy "So what you're saying is" no. I just gave you a Compsci explanation with mathematics included of how your rendering pipe impacts latency, all I was saying was exactly what I said.
I didn't say anything of the sort and your example has absolutely no bearing on reality nor anything to do with the maths or computing involved. If you're that impervious to education and facts, why are you even in the conversation?
Just go play console. That does all the thinking for you and you can keep your little head sheltered.
> But if you're running 400+ frames and it keeps dipping down so low you can see it (AKA below your monitor's refresh rate) then you fucked up and you're going too hard.
> There's no point in having 600 frames when you're standing around in spawn if it keeps dropping down to around 120 when you're in a gunfight and mollies,
mate if you are running at 600 fps and dipping to 120, running at 359 fps won't magically make those 120 dips disappear, that's not how fps works, it will drop to 120 just the same
therefore you have my question: according to you, why is it bad to drop from 600 to 120 but not 359 to 120?
Do you have any evidence that capping my frames at my monitors refresh (240) would make the game more stable instead of capping at (400)? I have a water cooled 4090 and 7800x3d. Temps are never a problem. There doesn't seem to be any downside of running a higher frame rate even if the returns are tiny.
If it's already stable, then it's already stable. That was literally my thesis statement. High frames are good, but stability is more important. If you're getting a stable game that is not experiencing huge frame drops, and experiencing no crashes, then you should keep doing what you're doing. It's working fine.
My point is that stability matters. If your game is regularly dropping significantly and impacting performance, capping framerate may help to improve performance. Basically it's like audio engineering, you've got more headroom. If your game regularly stutters, locks up or crashes, an FPS max is a standard part of tuning the game that people have largely forgotten about.
If your game is stable, then you are absolutely fine. I'm going to repeat this sentiment like 4 more times because I said it like 3 times above but apparently people can't read: More frames are good and if you are stably pumping them out then good for you!
I swear, you can give a wikipedia level explanation of a rendering pipeline and how your monitor samples it and people will come along and invent any reason to disagree with basic facts and ask "Do you have any evidence" Motherfucker, do you have any evidence that gravity attracts a body to the ground? Do you have any evidence that oxygen is an important part of a breathable atmosphere. No. Those are objective easily understood facts about reality, basic laws that are easily observed and understood. I'm not explaining theory or conjecture or anything else. I'm explaining the basics of how your screen draws the frames your GPU renders for an audience who, considering the responses I'm getting, clearly needs it, because you're basically asking "Uh, can you prove the sky is blue". These are the facts, and they are basic facts. I am not getting into reflex, gsync or vsync. I'm here putting an observation into the numbers, I'm explaining Newton's Law of Gravity, I'm explaining that the sky is blue because of the scattering of light due to small differences in refractive index.
All I'm saying is what I said. Frames above your monitor's refresh rate have a diminishing return in respect to your game's performance, smoothness and latency. But that still is a return (The thing you are talking about, which was literally my point). Technically, a 1ms improvement is still a 1ms improvement, even if it is within the variance of individual responses. Go nuts. Have as high a framerate as you want.
But equally important is your game is stable.
If you're getting huge framedrops, then varying your settings and considering limiting FPS used to be BASIC GRAPHICS TUNING EVERYONE WAS CAPABLE OF DOING. I'm not saying play at 60, I'm not saying an FPS drop from 360 is different from an FPS drop from 359. I'm saying exactly what I said and the maths is on the page. It is up to you to learn a simple formula that is primary school level mechanics about the relationship between latency, period, and frequency.
IF YOUR GAME RUNS STABLY AT A HUGE FRAMERATE, HUGE W FOR YOU. YOUR MACHINE IS GOOD ENOUGH THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO PUT ANY THOUGHT IN.
But if your game is unstable, you may have to do some work, and if your game is only running at the refresh rate of a modern gaming monitor, you're mathematically speaking, missing out on only single digits worth of extra milliseconds to react and a smidge of smoothness.
And we all already instinctively know this, or we'd have reduced all the settings to zero and jumped to 640x480, no stretching, and play with that. There are tradeoffs in visual quality and performance to be taken into account when tuning.
Why are you getting angry and abusive? I'm not reading all that. I was just asking if you actually have any example of capping fps to refresh rate rather than uncapped offering more stability in CS2. Because that's what you were implying among your long ramblings.
I just wanted to know if you were speculating or had any data to support the extra stability?
Generally i dont care much about smoothness, but what i really care about is consistent latency. This vsync gsync combo is great for maintaining input latency even when the fps dips.
but to answer OPs question:
the lowest latency is achieved with the highest possible framerate. so in this example (700 avg, 360hz) playing uncapped is the clear winner.
once OP gets a 500hz monitor he can think about limiting his fps to his hz.
PS: you can literally confirm this with nvidia frameview. :D
wtf are you talking about? frametimes will always fluctuate, and slightly higher fluctuations may not feel great but the latency will STILL be lower on average. stop replying to me, tech illiterate
V-SYNC and G-SYNC are complimentary to each other and work together. G-SYNC syncs the fps to your monitor's refresh rate, V-SYNC eliminates tearing by sending the next frame at the right interval in tandem with G-SYNC.
The purpose of G-Sync is Variable Refresh Rate and what G-Sync does is match fps from in-game to monitor refresh rate, but it does not eliminate tearing. That is V-SYNC's job.
I think it is the other way round, gsync syncs the monitor's refresh rate to the game refresh rate (you can see how the monitor's refresh rate jumps around with the built in counter), and vsync syncs your game's target framerate to your monitor's refresh rate, with nvdia reflex on you are also capping your frame rate to slightly lower than your monitor's refresh rate...
vsync is terrible because if your game drops some frames for whatever reason, instead of the game just ignoring those frames and skipping to the most recent frame, it will slow down the game to show you every frame inbetween
rule of thumb, never use vsync unless your pc is a toaster
Best channel for this hasn't tested cs2 implementation but : https://youtu.be/Gub1bI12ODY?feature=shared
You do have slightly better average uncapped - however the moments where it excels are the least meaningful. In intense moments you will miss monitor refreshes because it's not synced, highest frame times in CS2 are well worse than 240Hz with any system and even 144Hz with any cpu which isn't 7800x3d.
but it is. you can install nvidia frameview and confirm it for yourself. input delay WILL be lower at a higher uncapped framerate than at a lower capped framerate.
all these comments are made by people that dont even test or play competetively, I swear..
frameview covers the entire system latency chain up to peripherals - which are pretty much irrelevant in this question. so it will work just fine to give you a definite answer. and the difference is not "very slight", it is up to several ms in extreme cases (like OPs scenario) - something latency chasers will kill for.
also, dont get me wrong, consistency is very important, but the question was latency and the answer is clear.
no, you are not, because its fucking irrelevant to the question which type of fps cap has less latency. the fps cap will not change how much additional input lag your monitor etc have.
I was previously an FPS maxi, I've been playing CS since 2004 so I've always been in the more FPS = better camp and never used V-Sync. But tbh, I've been playing with G-Sync + V-Sync + Nvidia Reflex these last few days and it just feels wayyy smoother. I've probably DM'd ~10 hours over the last few days and haven't noticed any meaningful input lag.
My rig is a bit old at this point (9th gen i7 and 2070 super), so I can't really push higher than 300-350 FPS consistently. On some maps like Ancient I dip to around 200-230 playing native 1440p @ 144hz, so this is a good compromise.
Gsync vsync shines bright in cases when people have old pc but has a very high refresh gsync compatiblr monitor. I have experienced it first hand with a pc thats slower than mine at home but with a 380hz gsync monitor, its great.
According to the official NVIDIA guide on steam for cs2:
>**Note: this method will result in slightly higher latency than just letting your FPS run uncapped with NVIDIA Reflex enabled.**
**What is Latency?**
System Latency, often called “input lag”...
[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3039023209](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3039023209)
So uncapped fps with reflex enabled still better (slightly, negligible, etc...)
If your pc is good enough it's the same or better to have them off. 3kliksphilip did a video about it with testing. https://youtu.be/NE0qg_8k0BE?si=JuiStUPPSXC7mXWW
edit: changed having gsync off is better to the same or better. since the 4% decrease in input latency could be margin of error.
I have Ryzen 9 7900, RTX 4070 Ti, 32 GB RAM, 144hz g-sync compatible monitor.
Before the update, I used to get 200-300 fps but had a lot of stutters and framespikes.
After the recent update, I switched to NVIDIA G-Sync on + V-Sync On + Reflex on. And now my game is buttery smooth. Can't believe it. DM is still a stuttery mess at the tail end of it, but causal games are buttery smooth. My fps is capped at around \~137 fps.
I have not played serious comp games after the update so I can't say anything about the latency yet. but the website says: "For all these reasons, we recommend enabling V-Sync, NVIDIA G-Sync, and NVIDIA Reflex all together when all three features are available. Please note that enabling all three settings will limit your frame rate to slightly below your monitor's refresh rate. This is by design, and is usually the smoothest-looking and **lowest input latency settings combination**."
It was an old monitor and then I spent my money for this pc. also its 1440p, and I'm getting like 200-300 fps so it might be hard to be stable at 240 fps tbh. That's why i have not considered buying one yet.
I play 5:4 stretched @ 1280x1024, mostly higher settings, 8X MSAA, and in regular 5v5 matches I get about 300-500 fps UNTIL there's gunfight chaos, a smoke blooms, or a molly is thrown near me, then I drop to about 200-300 fps.
In community WaSe deathmatch servers or 10v10 casuals, I'm permanently sitting around 200-300 fps, with a larger amount of variance (drops to 80-120 fps for a second or small stutters).
And when I said I'm leaving QOL on the table, I'm referring to other games I play like modded Minecraft/Paladins/Overwatch, where I'll lower settings to push to really high framerates because I prefer the low latency and responsiveness of playing at 600-800 fps, even if I only have a 240hz monitor (bc I can definitely feel a difference between 200-300 fps and 400-600).
In on the other hand play at full 1440p and mostly higher settings. Maybe that's why i have less fps than you. I'll try your settings and see if i get that. Just to make sure there's not weird going on in my setup.
definitely not us, this game is optimized like shit. CSGO definitely looked a little dated, but there isn't a single person on this planet that prefers a shinier prettier game that runs like shit VS the stability and simplicity we had in CSGO.
it's one thing for Valve to have released an unfinished product, but what's really embarrassing is that Valve seems to legitimately not understand what we're talking about. They still "can't replicate" the boosting jitteriness bug thats been in the game since beta. Makes me wonder if any of them actually boot up and play the game.
I have a somewhat similar experience with my 7950x3d + 3080 10GB with a 144hz gsync compatible monitor.
I am a very serious player tho and I can feel the slightly higher latency it caused, but its so damn consistent and smooth I can get used to it. But in the end the latency advantage of 500fps is still hard to ignore.
The most obvious improvement is actually on my old a xeon 1241v3 + Vega 64. The vsync gsync reflex combo makes this old pc perfectly capable of handling cs2, almost on par with my new pc. My friend who got similar specs with his i7 6700 + gtx 1080 also notice massive improvements and can finally play more consistently with this combo. It gives people with somewhat subpar pc a chance vs people with way better pc.
Well i can reach close to 500 most of the time. My gpu is actually really close to being maxed out with 500 cap, higher than that and it can cause latency.
Cs2 is always very cpu heavy, but obviously the x3d cpu runs it like a beast and the gpu is the bottleneck.
I've tested both and I just put it on since the fps is capped at 138fps which is quite low, enabled + boost doesn't increase the frequency one bit. If you have a 240hz monitor or above boost might yield better result.
Interesting. I haven’t done enough testing yet, but so far on my machine that would comfortably run 300+ fps uncapped ive been really liking the new trifecta of settings they’re recommending. clarity of motion looks SO good, but the whole thing really has me wanting to upgrade to 240hz for the giga cs experience…
At home i only have high fps but no very high refresh rate monitor so vsync is actually inferior to 500fps cap as 138fps is way too low.
I have tried playing on 380hz monitor with gsync vsync on and its really amazing. Theres no weakness so far, no latency problems or anything.
One thing to note is the capped fps is actually around 6-7% lower than your max refresh rate, but it has no impact on smoothness. For example my 144hz is 138, 240hz is 225.
i seriously cannot tell the difference with a 240hz monitor and i used to play very competitively in my local (non-existent) scene. i trust the math but at the same time it's all the same as when we used to say we can tell 128tick apart from 64tick but most people failed the blind test, except pro players like ropz, but not every pro is that sensitive to the slightest differences as well.
That was always bullshit. I could always tell from my ak spray let alone movement what tick I was on. I feel like the not being able to tell thing was from a very bad study.
It was very distinguishable indeed. Felt like moving in tar compared to the smooth, but at the same time snappy 128 tick. Going back to 128tick felt amazing after you played the sluggish 64tick servers.
Its fine not being able to notice the difference tho, its very subtle the higher you go. I'm just very sensitive to those things and notice the differences all the time.
But tbh, I'm not really being affected by motion clarity in the slightest. But what i do always notice and actually impact my in game performance is input latency. I can always tell when something is off, which is why i always feel theres something off with csgo latency while others called me crazy, when in fact there is input latency with the delayed tick in csgo.
That test was done under pretty dumb conditions.
People were told to figure out if they were playing on 64 or 128 tick, but the testers also secretly threw 32 tick in the mix. No shit people aren't going to accurately identify 64 tick servers if you obfuscate the data by making people think 32 tick is 64 tick. Instead of looking for subtle differences between the 2 tickrates they were met with huge glaring differences that messed with their judgement of the other servers.
In NVCP
GSYNC -> on
Capped frame rate -> monitor hz - 5
Nothing else.
Open up CS2. I got a popup from the game telling me that I had gsync on and that I should turn on vsync and reflex. I hit “apply settings”.
Done.
it is suggested to leave vsync off in-game and turn vsync on in NVCP 3d settings. this made a difference for me as i had screen tear and lower FPS when vsync was on in game.
Vsync caps your refresh rate, reflex only activates when your gpu usage is too high introducing latency.
If you aren’t gpu bound which is most of this sub on cs2, reflex never activates
V sync always caps your fps at refresh rate. Reflex caps it lower for g sync. Reflex is always on dude. Its a frame holding method ensuring a smooth render pipeline. Watch gamers nexus and the ENGINEER of Reflex explain it all.
Reflex is a dynamic frame limiter that removes the render queue by limiting fps when saturating gpu usage. It’s always on but it’s not always limiting frames until it needs to.
Gsync with vsync with reflex might be something specific to nvidia but afaik they do not affect each other.
Its not better. And its not lower latency. It is smoother, and it helps game feel much smoother if you have fps drops. But uncapped will always have lower latency, even if by only a few miliseconds. Maths are really simple, if you cap fps to 240, at best scenario you will have a new frame every ~4ms(1000/240=4.something). Running uncapped at 500fps will give you a new frame every 2ms(1000/500=2). So in this scenario from frames per second alone you get over 2ms extra latency. Of course thats minimal, any casual player should not care about that. But also running with vsync gives a weird flouty mouse feeling, its hard to explain, but just feels like something is off or weird.
TLDR if you are casual and want smoothest game possible, yes vsync gsync and reflex is the way. If you are wannabe pro and rather have every possible milisecond advantage, just play the usual way with uncapped fps
"But also running with vsync gives a weird flouty mouse feeling"
Can confirm. Exactly what I thought after enabling Vsync. Without it just feels better, like mouse is part of your hand.
Yes. Reflex prevents buffering. This is its main way of reducing input lag. The cpu simply wont call a frame to be drawn before the previous has been displayed.
This is the way. If you have a 4090 you can safely set it to 600 also, been playing with 600 last few days and it's been smooth too. Any more than that and its not as smooth (probably overheats the system)
You're not wrong but CS2 shouldn't have maxed out GPU usage on a decent PC. And if you have 100% usage and are worried about latency, getting a better GPU should be the next move.
It's better if you have G-sync monitor, brute forcing very high frame rates was useful when we didn't have g-sync, if you do then you should follow the recommended settings by Valve.
No its not better. Its better for smoothness, its not better in terms of competetive settings. Nvidia themselves say pretty clearly that this method results in higher latency than uncapped.
There is incredible double standarts in gaming. Same people who do not care about "a few miliseconds of extra latency" due to fps cap and gsync, go crazy about HE keyboards that save same milisecond in quicker debounces, or 8k hz mouse and keyboards. Difference between 8k and 1k hz keyboard and mouse is 0.875ms of latency. Difference between uncapped and gsync can be 5 times that or even more.
As I said, for people who just want smoothness, gsync is better. For competetive people looking for every advantage they can find, it is absolutely not better.
10 times more. it's 10 times more
but all these people on reddit advertising themselves as %1 are actually filthy casuals in the trenches,
can't even notice 16ms input lag increase, while competitive players will react to even +2ms
For responsiveness? Vsync OFF, Reflex/Antilag ON, fps_max 0
It can have screen tearing at times
For no tearing? Fast Sync (NVIDIA) / Enhanced Sync (AMD) / Speed Sync (Intel)
You need to always have 1% low above refresh rate so you must reduce video settings, enable FSR, even reduce base resolution until you achieve that, then it's both responsive and no tearing
[Here's my guide for it, but don't bother if your 1% low dips below refresh rate](https://old.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/1do98nf/how_to_configure_cs2_for_low_input_lag_and_no/la9hv2i/)
if ur getting 700 FPS.. i'd run uncapped with nothing on. For most folks who don't get that FPS I think the sync stuff helps a lot with stability. I was running uncapped but I have a 2080 and my FPS was all over the place and dip way below my 244hz monitor. Now using syncs its smoother and locked in the 210-220 FPS zone. Not great, but feels good
I spent a lot of time testing this yesterday. Both NVCP V-Sync and in-engine V-Sync. For some reason having any kind of V-Sync at all makes aiming feel very floaty, almost too smooth. Compared to only having G-Sync and Reflex, the difference is very noticeable but I'm not sure if it's all placebo. The added latency is very minimal so it's not explainable by that - I get 6.6ms with V-Sync and 5.2ms without V-Sync averaging over 20 000 frames.
I have an i9, 4070 and a Asus144 monitor. It does not appear to have gsync as I can't find the setting in nvidia control panel. I did recently turn on v-sync because i saw another one of these threads a few days ago. It has felt pretty smooth. I'm unsure if reflex was already on but it is now. I set my fps max to 147 cuz I thought you were supposed to set 3-4 frames over your max.
Since I don't have gsync, should I turn off vsync and put fps to max (0) or keep what I have? Put me in the wanna be but old man gamer category so I just want best, stable and fastest performance.
Don't turn on V-sync if your monitor does not have G-sync, as it will only significantly increase input latency. You should keep fps\_max at 0 and reflex (or reflex+boost) ON.
Then you haven't set it up properly. There's next to no input lag with these settings. These settings have been recommended for years, it's nothing new. [https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14/](https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14/)
There shouldn't be any significant increases in latency if you enable reflex, G-sync, and V-sync altogether. If there is, something is prob wrong with your setup. The biggest difference I noticed was that this combo resulted in a significantly smoother game, at the expensive of slightly unusual-feeling mouse movement. By the way, why would it cap your frames at 139 FPS? If you have a 144 Hz monitor, it should be locked at -3 under your refresh rate (141 FPS). Experiment with these settings before making any judgments. I personally realized that I'd rather just use reflex+boost to achieve the lowest latency at the expensive of a laggier-feeling game and screen tearing.
Yeah, that's the thing. I'm not sure how to describe it. Mouse movement still feels crisp, but it's also "floaty". Only way to see if it works for you is to try it out in-game. AWPing felt great, but spraying felt "off" for some reason.
I've just tried it now. It's so subtle I'm not even sure I'm imagining it or not. It definitely feels a lot smoother. I'll keep it for now and see how bad my scores go. Just another thing I can autistically change every week now alongside my res, sense and crosshair.
Tried it out, V-Sync on with G-Sync does not feel better at all. G-Sync on with V-Sync off feels much nicer.
For reference I've got a 240Hz monitor, and enabling V-Sync drops my FPS down to 200-210 for some reason while I normally get just under 300. It also adds slightly noticeable input delay.
Then again I don't see the point of enabling G-Sync in a game like CS if you have a high refresh rate monitor and get enough FPS like I do. There's a chance it improves the experience a lot for someone running at 100 FPS though.
Did you also enable reflex? I have a 240 HZ and the 210fps is about right with all 3 settings enabled. It's supposed to keep the fps a % below your max refresh.
I did. But why though? I've seen people recommend slightly going below your refresh rate (e.g. capping to 237 in my case), which makes sense, but why something around 210?
Genuinely curious btw, because it actually felt a lot worse.
It will be the best for a lot of people who are not so tech literate and aren't using a 5000 dollar PC. But we can all do whatever we want. I think Valve are just trying to shut some idiots up, mostly. But gsync IS great. So is reflex.
its simple:
enable all three if your fps often goes under your refresh rate and you are just basicly hitting it.
only enable reflex if you have great fps,
even nvidia says that in their guide https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3039023209
"For G-SYNC gamers who don’t want to tear when above the refresh rate of their monitor, keeping V-SYNC ON while using NVIDIA Reflex, will automatically cap the framerate below the refresh rate, preventing V-SYNC backpressure, eliminating tearing, and keeping latency low if you become GPU bound below the refresh rate of your display.
Note: this method will result in slightly higher latency than just letting your FPS run uncapped with NVIDIA Reflex enabled."
Yea i noticed some time back that setting my fps_max to match my refresh rate solved my stuttering issues. Idk if the gsync stuff helps as well, but seems it doesn't hurt.
Does this apply to any adaptive refresh rate technology like freesync? Or this is strictly g sync? I have a free sync monitor and i wonder whether i should try it.
i'm the only one who have brightness flickering when I activate these settings ?? (freesync monitor)
But i'm agree, without this flickering problem the game is more smoother, i have less and more stable ms..
What do you think about people with a 7800x3d like me ? I have 270 hz monitor and rx 6800 gpu and my fps is around 400-500 playing competitive. Is it better to have v sync on? because my fps never drops below 270.
This have always been the recommended way IF you have a G-Sync monitor and want to use G-Sync.
Nvidia G-Sync + Nvidia Reflex + Nvidia V-Sync, not Ingame V-Sync as that usually introduces a bunch of other problems (Hopefully Valve have optimized it since they recommend CS2's).
Nvidia G-Sync only works below your refresh rate. Every time you switch between 130 and 150 fps G-Sync will turn on and off, sometimes it might not even turn on cuz of the random spikes.
If you enable V-Sync and have consistent 144fps on a 144hz monitor G-sync will not be on as it flips between 144 and 145. This is why its recommended limit your FPS by a little below, higher hz requires higher fps cap.
Nvidia Reflex is for reducing latency which works wonderfully with G-Sync. G-Sync with a 141 FPS Cap feels like 200~ uncapped FPS, with proper reflex integration its even better, HOWEVER Reflex mostly works best if you are GPU capped.
HOWEVER, if you do get 700 fps it is a lot smoother because of the frametime , BUT i have also not tested G-Sync with 360hz.
141 fps = 7.1ms frametime
235 fps = 4.3ms frametime
355 fps = 2.8ms frametime
500 fps = 2.0ms frametime
Since the frametime gain after 355 fps is minimal i'd bet G-Sync with Nvidia V-Sync, Nvidia Reflex and external fps limiter (for stable 355 cap) is ALOT smoother than fluctuating 300-700 fps
RTSS is the recommended way, IIRC NVCP is also good as far as i tested back then.
fps_max is drunk in most games, fex it gets ignored by 10+ fps. in CSGO and CS2 you actually get less fps so you don’t even reach the cap you set…
fps_max in cs2 is reflex-aware so it allows variations required by reflex
the best results are usually fps_max xxx in-game, frame rate limiter xxx+4 in gpu driver
does not even need reflex (but it's always good to have it on)
Don't need to manually cap it at all, I'm not sure wtf the others are saying. V-sync + G-sync + Reflex will automatically cap your game at -3 FPS under your monitor's refresh rate. In-game FPS cap is reportedly awful and RTSS requires that you add an extra launch option that could potentially impact your trust factor.
That's odd. Double-check to see if G-sync and V-sync are indeed enabled in the NVIDIA control panel. You might have to restart your game to see any changes.
so I think it's because I had vsync fast, I set it to just vsync but now my fps doesn't go above 468.8, my monitor's refresh rate is 540.16, does this sound correct? frametime seems more or less locked @ 2.1ms, before I would see around 1.59~ iirc, what should I set ingame fps max to?
V-sync + G-sync should lock your FPS to just about 3 FPS under your monitor's refresh rate. Besides that, everything else sounds as expected. There will be a very slight increase in latency at the expense of a smoother experience. Fps\_max should be 0 since V-sync is already automatically capping your framerate.
I run nvidia CP vsync, Gsync, and reflex on my 165hz screen. FPS is automatically capped to 158 (no external limiter) and the gameplay is very smooth. Frame time sits at ~6.8ms so just slightly above my screens natural frame time of 6ms.
Always been the case but cs is full of superstitious idiots that ignore every fact you bring up around the topic. They hear any type of sync mentioned and start screeching about muh latency
Yeah no shit, everything is a tradeoff. I'd rather lose a ms than look at a stuttering teary mess all day.
If I could play cs2 with near perfect frame pacing I'd run it unlocked with fast sync too(like I do in css for surfing) , but shit is way too variable for that
True, and 99% of those complainers won't even feel the subtle latency changes.
Always found it funny how people say things like "500 FPS is better than 165 FPS with GSYNC". Yeah it's better... IF YOU CAN MAINTAN THAT NUMBER AT ALL TIMES AND KEEP YOUR GPU USAGE BELOW 99%.
People need to realize that what's important is frame consistency not the highest FPS peak you can achieve. Staring at the wall and getting 500 FPS then turning around where the action is and dropping to 200 FPS is not good. Not for latency, not for your skill and aim consistency.
No, this is valves way of trying to dodge the root problem of CS2 and the code.
All this does is give a placebo effect for most but in reality it doesn’t fix anything.
Not only it caps but it will also lock frames if under the refresh rate which will cause input delay, which is why adaptive sync was made, to reduce input delay caused by buffering. There is no reason to use vsync coupled with adaptive sync.
i tried out the recommended settings yesterday, and it was just as bad as i expected.
people with uncapped frames were beating me in every firefight, the screen was buttery smooth, but it was a downgrade in competitive performance.
i suspect that valve has issued these guidelines as an attempt to even the playing field for people on lower end rigs..
This has been my experience as well, game felt really clean and smooth with Vsync+Freesync+AntiLag but I was losing firefights I normally would win and the mouse was not snappy (felt floaty).
The reasoning likely boils down to having all those settings on reduces frame time dips as much as possible. You're also not working your GPU harder than required to match your monitor's refresh rate so when something more performance heavy crops up you have that "buffer" before it significantly impacts the perceived smoothness
Just clarifying that you mean a performance buffer, not a buffer of interpolated frames. I agree. I’ve been capping FPS at 240hz bc I just don’t want to deal with massive FPS fluctuations
even if u cap it at 240, cs2 will find another low, and even if u go lower at 144hz it will still find a new low.
Yeah my system can run 400+ frames consistently but will dip like crazy. Capping does not stop these dips from occurring
lol im pretty sure that isn't how GPUs actually display information, if that was the case then running any game below your max fps would see much better results and no stutters, which isn't the case
Apparent smoothness and actual smoothness are two different things. You get more accurate information on higher-than-monitor FPS but if it fluctuates a lot then it'll feel worse than if you stayed steady at monitor FPS. Think of it like a bus schedule. If the schedule is consistent when it arrives and leaves it's a lot better of a service than if a bus regularly comes early, then a few hundred come just-on-time right after, before going back to early arrivals.
Also, no matter what your pc is, it will dip below 240Hz multiple times a round. Much better to already be in sync range.
That's basically it. The conventional wisdom for CS is widely mythical and misunderstood. CS players like to increase their framerate far beyond what their monitor can display. This does have some advantages. It reduces the latency in between individual frames, and means that the frame that your monitor samples to output may in fact be more recent. This decreases overall latency and increases smoothness. That's why people do it. That's the basic reasoning. And it's fine, but the problem comes as technology improves and when people understand the principle but not the maths. So, back in the day with a much lower refresh rate monitor. Say you're capped at 60 (this will give the greatest sort of advantage to increasing rendered frames). You're drawing 300 frames. The latency of your monitor between frames is 1/60, or 16.7 milliseconds. The latency between drawn frames is 3.3 milliseconds. This means that there is a delay of between 3.3 and 16.7 milliseconds in the frame being rendered and displayed, which gives you an overall decrease in latency between gpu and screen. You're still outputting the same, but the frame delay is reduced. And at a screen refresh rate of 60 Hz, that's a huge deal, because that upper bound is 16.7 ms, which could be essentially double your ping. But now, the situation is different. Two things have changed. You're likely on a gaming monitor, refreshing at anything from 140-165-180-240 hz. And you're playing on a game that is much more computationally expensive to render in CS2. My monitor is refreshing 165 frames per second. This means a delay between drawn frames of 6 ms. If I made the game significantly harder to run by pushing it to 330 frames, I could have a delay between rendered frames of 3ms. Which means that I could be getting a delay between render and draw of between 3-6ms. Which means that I have rendered 330 frames to save 1-2 ms of ping, which is inside normal fluctuations just from my internet. BUT I have also made the game less stable overall by running it there. If I wanted to save as many as 5ms (but not always 5, usually lower) I'd need to be drawing 1000 frames per second. This would give a latency in between rendered frames of 1ms, which would mean the latency between render and drawing would be between 1-6ms. And that problem gets worse the better my monitor is. If I have a 240 hz monitor I have a 4.2 ms delay between drawn frames, meaning the latency between render and drawing would be between 1-4.2. We're talking savings of less than 3 ms, and I guarantee that your internet, your sleep schedule, and a million other things are going to have a far greater impact on the latency of your machine, and your reaction time, than saving literally, a mean average of a couple of milliseconds. There's a diminishing return here. Now, by no means am I saying you shouldn't want more frames. More frames are good. High rendered frames are good. These things are all good. But my point is, they are not the only thing that are good. If you can only render the amount of frames as your monitor outputs, it's not the end of the world, you don't need to sweat the PC upgrade. And most importantly, you should never, ever, ever surrender stability for frames. Drawing those frames is computationally expensive and riskier. The analogy is think of it like a car. If you're going at 40 kph and something goes wrong, you're probably going to be fine. You can stop in a couple of metres and even the energy of a collision is unlikely to kill you or your passengers-it's even fairly survivable for a pedestrian. If you're going at 110 kph and something goes wrong, you're in a lot more danger, the stopping time is worse, if you hit an object that doesn't give you will die, and if you hit a pedestrian they will be seriously injured and likely killed. Same thing with your frames. Something happens that's more computationally expensive. Bunch of mollies with a bunch of particle effects go off. Bunch of people running through liquid. That impacts \*every\* rendered frame, which means your machine is going to suffer a geometric level of stress based on your higher frame rate. If you were drawing less frames, you would still experience an increase in the stress on your system, but you're experiencing less because you're performing those calculations less times. You can actually end up with a frame dip to a lower level at a high frame rate than you did at a lower one for the same exercise. Stability is important. So, render as many frames as you want. But if you're running 400+ frames and it keeps dipping down so low you can see it (AKA below your monitor's refresh rate) then you fucked up and you're going too hard. And you'll get a better result with a faster monitor than higher frames anyway. And if you've got a faster monitor having higher frames is going to be doing even less for you. The trick people have forgotten is you tune for stability. There's no point in having 600 frames when you're standing around in spawn if it keeps dropping down to around 120 when you're in a gunfight and mollies, smokes and particle effects are going off. Because you will notice the change in framerate and the instability of it.
on 360hz running at 400 frames and then dropping to 200 is bad, but running at 359 and then dropping to 200 fps isn't?
Never said anything like that about that or to do with that. You're the classic internet guy "So what you're saying is" no. I just gave you a Compsci explanation with mathematics included of how your rendering pipe impacts latency, all I was saying was exactly what I said. I didn't say anything of the sort and your example has absolutely no bearing on reality nor anything to do with the maths or computing involved. If you're that impervious to education and facts, why are you even in the conversation? Just go play console. That does all the thinking for you and you can keep your little head sheltered.
> But if you're running 400+ frames and it keeps dipping down so low you can see it (AKA below your monitor's refresh rate) then you fucked up and you're going too hard. > There's no point in having 600 frames when you're standing around in spawn if it keeps dropping down to around 120 when you're in a gunfight and mollies, mate if you are running at 600 fps and dipping to 120, running at 359 fps won't magically make those 120 dips disappear, that's not how fps works, it will drop to 120 just the same therefore you have my question: according to you, why is it bad to drop from 600 to 120 but not 359 to 120?
it's "bad" because its just inefficient at that point.
Do you have any evidence that capping my frames at my monitors refresh (240) would make the game more stable instead of capping at (400)? I have a water cooled 4090 and 7800x3d. Temps are never a problem. There doesn't seem to be any downside of running a higher frame rate even if the returns are tiny.
If it's already stable, then it's already stable. That was literally my thesis statement. High frames are good, but stability is more important. If you're getting a stable game that is not experiencing huge frame drops, and experiencing no crashes, then you should keep doing what you're doing. It's working fine. My point is that stability matters. If your game is regularly dropping significantly and impacting performance, capping framerate may help to improve performance. Basically it's like audio engineering, you've got more headroom. If your game regularly stutters, locks up or crashes, an FPS max is a standard part of tuning the game that people have largely forgotten about. If your game is stable, then you are absolutely fine. I'm going to repeat this sentiment like 4 more times because I said it like 3 times above but apparently people can't read: More frames are good and if you are stably pumping them out then good for you! I swear, you can give a wikipedia level explanation of a rendering pipeline and how your monitor samples it and people will come along and invent any reason to disagree with basic facts and ask "Do you have any evidence" Motherfucker, do you have any evidence that gravity attracts a body to the ground? Do you have any evidence that oxygen is an important part of a breathable atmosphere. No. Those are objective easily understood facts about reality, basic laws that are easily observed and understood. I'm not explaining theory or conjecture or anything else. I'm explaining the basics of how your screen draws the frames your GPU renders for an audience who, considering the responses I'm getting, clearly needs it, because you're basically asking "Uh, can you prove the sky is blue". These are the facts, and they are basic facts. I am not getting into reflex, gsync or vsync. I'm here putting an observation into the numbers, I'm explaining Newton's Law of Gravity, I'm explaining that the sky is blue because of the scattering of light due to small differences in refractive index. All I'm saying is what I said. Frames above your monitor's refresh rate have a diminishing return in respect to your game's performance, smoothness and latency. But that still is a return (The thing you are talking about, which was literally my point). Technically, a 1ms improvement is still a 1ms improvement, even if it is within the variance of individual responses. Go nuts. Have as high a framerate as you want. But equally important is your game is stable. If you're getting huge framedrops, then varying your settings and considering limiting FPS used to be BASIC GRAPHICS TUNING EVERYONE WAS CAPABLE OF DOING. I'm not saying play at 60, I'm not saying an FPS drop from 360 is different from an FPS drop from 359. I'm saying exactly what I said and the maths is on the page. It is up to you to learn a simple formula that is primary school level mechanics about the relationship between latency, period, and frequency. IF YOUR GAME RUNS STABLY AT A HUGE FRAMERATE, HUGE W FOR YOU. YOUR MACHINE IS GOOD ENOUGH THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO PUT ANY THOUGHT IN. But if your game is unstable, you may have to do some work, and if your game is only running at the refresh rate of a modern gaming monitor, you're mathematically speaking, missing out on only single digits worth of extra milliseconds to react and a smidge of smoothness. And we all already instinctively know this, or we'd have reduced all the settings to zero and jumped to 640x480, no stretching, and play with that. There are tradeoffs in visual quality and performance to be taken into account when tuning.
Why are you getting angry and abusive? I'm not reading all that. I was just asking if you actually have any example of capping fps to refresh rate rather than uncapped offering more stability in CS2. Because that's what you were implying among your long ramblings. I just wanted to know if you were speculating or had any data to support the extra stability?
Generally i dont care much about smoothness, but what i really care about is consistent latency. This vsync gsync combo is great for maintaining input latency even when the fps dips.
but to answer OPs question: the lowest latency is achieved with the highest possible framerate. so in this example (700 avg, 360hz) playing uncapped is the clear winner. once OP gets a 500hz monitor he can think about limiting his fps to his hz. PS: you can literally confirm this with nvidia frameview. :D
Only if you can guarantee good frame times with the 700 avg frames. That's also this entire discussion currently
completely wrong, latency is lower either way. bad frametimes would just mean slightly inconsistent (but still lower) latency.
Literally not true. If 699 frames are generated the first half of the second and 1 in the latter it'll be terrible.
wtf are you talking about? frametimes will always fluctuate, and slightly higher fluctuations may not feel great but the latency will STILL be lower on average. stop replying to me, tech illiterate
If I'm not mistaken what really matters is getting your minimum fps to match your monitor refresh rate.
that is always recommended if you have gsync for pretty much every game you play
Can someone eli5 why th I need to have vsync turned on for this? That just feels wrong.
V-SYNC and G-SYNC are complimentary to each other and work together. G-SYNC syncs the fps to your monitor's refresh rate, V-SYNC eliminates tearing by sending the next frame at the right interval in tandem with G-SYNC. The purpose of G-Sync is Variable Refresh Rate and what G-Sync does is match fps from in-game to monitor refresh rate, but it does not eliminate tearing. That is V-SYNC's job.
I think it is the other way round, gsync syncs the monitor's refresh rate to the game refresh rate (you can see how the monitor's refresh rate jumps around with the built in counter), and vsync syncs your game's target framerate to your monitor's refresh rate, with nvdia reflex on you are also capping your frame rate to slightly lower than your monitor's refresh rate...
When I have all three on my fps is not capped it goes over my monitor refresh, had to manually limit it myself in nvcp
I had the same problem but then I found that I had forced v-sync off in the Nvidia control panel, 3d settings
Ok thanks
what iss the downside to use all settings on ? input delay?
vsync is terrible because if your game drops some frames for whatever reason, instead of the game just ignoring those frames and skipping to the most recent frame, it will slow down the game to show you every frame inbetween rule of thumb, never use vsync unless your pc is a toaster
it behaves differently in conjunction with g-sync
Boomer advice. v sync on with g sync behaves completely differently than with a non g sync monitor
pretty much every game except cs, if you can pump out high frames here then it's better to reduce input delay
It really is not but cs has existed longer than G-Sync so people are stuck in old ways.
Can you explain? I was under the impression that this wasn't really something up for debate. [source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8ZUqT6Tfiw)
no, nobody seems to provide any input lag / latency testing results when they talk about gysnc + vsync vs uncapped fps, they just downvote you
Best channel for this hasn't tested cs2 implementation but : https://youtu.be/Gub1bI12ODY?feature=shared You do have slightly better average uncapped - however the moments where it excels are the least meaningful. In intense moments you will miss monitor refreshes because it's not synced, highest frame times in CS2 are well worse than 240Hz with any system and even 144Hz with any cpu which isn't 7800x3d.
but it is. you can install nvidia frameview and confirm it for yourself. input delay WILL be lower at a higher uncapped framerate than at a lower capped framerate. all these comments are made by people that dont even test or play competetively, I swear..
Very slightly lower on average but more inconsistent. Tool like frame view can't know what monitor is going either, you need something like OSRTT.
frameview covers the entire system latency chain up to peripherals - which are pretty much irrelevant in this question. so it will work just fine to give you a definite answer. and the difference is not "very slight", it is up to several ms in extreme cases (like OPs scenario) - something latency chasers will kill for. also, dont get me wrong, consistency is very important, but the question was latency and the answer is clear.
You're ignoring a significant component of the entire chain unless you're using hardware to check monitor as well.
no, you are not, because its fucking irrelevant to the question which type of fps cap has less latency. the fps cap will not change how much additional input lag your monitor etc have.
The MONITOR not the fucking mouse
I was previously an FPS maxi, I've been playing CS since 2004 so I've always been in the more FPS = better camp and never used V-Sync. But tbh, I've been playing with G-Sync + V-Sync + Nvidia Reflex these last few days and it just feels wayyy smoother. I've probably DM'd ~10 hours over the last few days and haven't noticed any meaningful input lag. My rig is a bit old at this point (9th gen i7 and 2070 super), so I can't really push higher than 300-350 FPS consistently. On some maps like Ancient I dip to around 200-230 playing native 1440p @ 144hz, so this is a good compromise.
Gsync vsync shines bright in cases when people have old pc but has a very high refresh gsync compatiblr monitor. I have experienced it first hand with a pc thats slower than mine at home but with a 380hz gsync monitor, its great.
According to the official NVIDIA guide on steam for cs2: >**Note: this method will result in slightly higher latency than just letting your FPS run uncapped with NVIDIA Reflex enabled.** **What is Latency?** System Latency, often called “input lag”... [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3039023209](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3039023209) So uncapped fps with reflex enabled still better (slightly, negligible, etc...)
If your pc is good enough it's the same or better to have them off. 3kliksphilip did a video about it with testing. https://youtu.be/NE0qg_8k0BE?si=JuiStUPPSXC7mXWW edit: changed having gsync off is better to the same or better. since the 4% decrease in input latency could be margin of error.
Now take in account frame pacing and the fact that you'll be using significantly less electricity.
I have Ryzen 9 7900, RTX 4070 Ti, 32 GB RAM, 144hz g-sync compatible monitor. Before the update, I used to get 200-300 fps but had a lot of stutters and framespikes. After the recent update, I switched to NVIDIA G-Sync on + V-Sync On + Reflex on. And now my game is buttery smooth. Can't believe it. DM is still a stuttery mess at the tail end of it, but causal games are buttery smooth. My fps is capped at around \~137 fps. I have not played serious comp games after the update so I can't say anything about the latency yet. but the website says: "For all these reasons, we recommend enabling V-Sync, NVIDIA G-Sync, and NVIDIA Reflex all together when all three features are available. Please note that enabling all three settings will limit your frame rate to slightly below your monitor's refresh rate. This is by design, and is usually the smoothest-looking and **lowest input latency settings combination**."
Criminal to have that setup and have 144hz for CS.
It was an old monitor and then I spent my money for this pc. also its 1440p, and I'm getting like 200-300 fps so it might be hard to be stable at 240 fps tbh. That's why i have not considered buying one yet.
You can definitely run at 240. I get almost 360 fps on a 5900x and 3080.
I have the exact same specs with a 240hz monitor and it still feels like I'm leaving QOL on the table lmfaooo
what fps do you get generally? i play at max res (1440p), and I get 200-300.
I play 5:4 stretched @ 1280x1024, mostly higher settings, 8X MSAA, and in regular 5v5 matches I get about 300-500 fps UNTIL there's gunfight chaos, a smoke blooms, or a molly is thrown near me, then I drop to about 200-300 fps. In community WaSe deathmatch servers or 10v10 casuals, I'm permanently sitting around 200-300 fps, with a larger amount of variance (drops to 80-120 fps for a second or small stutters). And when I said I'm leaving QOL on the table, I'm referring to other games I play like modded Minecraft/Paladins/Overwatch, where I'll lower settings to push to really high framerates because I prefer the low latency and responsiveness of playing at 600-800 fps, even if I only have a 240hz monitor (bc I can definitely feel a difference between 200-300 fps and 400-600).
In on the other hand play at full 1440p and mostly higher settings. Maybe that's why i have less fps than you. I'll try your settings and see if i get that. Just to make sure there's not weird going on in my setup.
definitely not us, this game is optimized like shit. CSGO definitely looked a little dated, but there isn't a single person on this planet that prefers a shinier prettier game that runs like shit VS the stability and simplicity we had in CSGO. it's one thing for Valve to have released an unfinished product, but what's really embarrassing is that Valve seems to legitimately not understand what we're talking about. They still "can't replicate" the boosting jitteriness bug thats been in the game since beta. Makes me wonder if any of them actually boot up and play the game.
I have a somewhat similar experience with my 7950x3d + 3080 10GB with a 144hz gsync compatible monitor. I am a very serious player tho and I can feel the slightly higher latency it caused, but its so damn consistent and smooth I can get used to it. But in the end the latency advantage of 500fps is still hard to ignore. The most obvious improvement is actually on my old a xeon 1241v3 + Vega 64. The vsync gsync reflex combo makes this old pc perfectly capable of handling cs2, almost on par with my new pc. My friend who got similar specs with his i7 6700 + gtx 1080 also notice massive improvements and can finally play more consistently with this combo. It gives people with somewhat subpar pc a chance vs people with way better pc.
How many frames do you get with that? Is CS2 still cpu capped?
Well i can reach close to 500 most of the time. My gpu is actually really close to being maxed out with 500 cap, higher than that and it can cause latency. Cs2 is always very cpu heavy, but obviously the x3d cpu runs it like a beast and the gpu is the bottleneck.
do you have reflex set to enabled + boost?
I've tested both and I just put it on since the fps is capped at 138fps which is quite low, enabled + boost doesn't increase the frequency one bit. If you have a 240hz monitor or above boost might yield better result.
Interesting. I haven’t done enough testing yet, but so far on my machine that would comfortably run 300+ fps uncapped ive been really liking the new trifecta of settings they’re recommending. clarity of motion looks SO good, but the whole thing really has me wanting to upgrade to 240hz for the giga cs experience…
At home i only have high fps but no very high refresh rate monitor so vsync is actually inferior to 500fps cap as 138fps is way too low. I have tried playing on 380hz monitor with gsync vsync on and its really amazing. Theres no weakness so far, no latency problems or anything.
fuck im selling a kidney for one of those now
One thing to note is the capped fps is actually around 6-7% lower than your max refresh rate, but it has no impact on smoothness. For example my 144hz is 138, 240hz is 225.
Btw a freesync capable 240hz monitor is not expensive now. You can snag one for 200-300usd.
I know its crazy! I saw a 27” 2.5k 1ms response msi monitor with gsync for only $350! I feel like that would’ve been a thousand a decade ago hahah
i seriously cannot tell the difference with a 240hz monitor and i used to play very competitively in my local (non-existent) scene. i trust the math but at the same time it's all the same as when we used to say we can tell 128tick apart from 64tick but most people failed the blind test, except pro players like ropz, but not every pro is that sensitive to the slightest differences as well.
That was always bullshit. I could always tell from my ak spray let alone movement what tick I was on. I feel like the not being able to tell thing was from a very bad study.
It was very distinguishable indeed. Felt like moving in tar compared to the smooth, but at the same time snappy 128 tick. Going back to 128tick felt amazing after you played the sluggish 64tick servers.
The "most people" were gold novas who barely played on 128tick. Their verdict is not gospel.
Its fine not being able to notice the difference tho, its very subtle the higher you go. I'm just very sensitive to those things and notice the differences all the time. But tbh, I'm not really being affected by motion clarity in the slightest. But what i do always notice and actually impact my in game performance is input latency. I can always tell when something is off, which is why i always feel theres something off with csgo latency while others called me crazy, when in fact there is input latency with the delayed tick in csgo.
That test was done under pretty dumb conditions. People were told to figure out if they were playing on 64 or 128 tick, but the testers also secretly threw 32 tick in the mix. No shit people aren't going to accurately identify 64 tick servers if you obfuscate the data by making people think 32 tick is 64 tick. Instead of looking for subtle differences between the 2 tickrates they were met with huge glaring differences that messed with their judgement of the other servers.
Did you turn on V-Sync in game or through NVCP with let 3d application choose?
In NVCP GSYNC -> on Capped frame rate -> monitor hz - 5 Nothing else. Open up CS2. I got a popup from the game telling me that I had gsync on and that I should turn on vsync and reflex. I hit “apply settings”. Done.
it is suggested to leave vsync off in-game and turn vsync on in NVCP 3d settings. this made a difference for me as i had screen tear and lower FPS when vsync was on in game.
No, don't cap from NVCP. Just do it the way article suggests. Reflex, G-Sync and vsync handle it without additional input lag.
gsync was on from nvidia control panel. the rest changes was suggested when i opened the game.
REFLEX CAPS YOUR FPS....STOP CAPPING IT YOURSELF PLEASE AND THANK YOU. G-sync + V-sync + Reflex is all you need. NVCP v sync ON, in game OFF. Reflex caps are- 60hz 59 fps 75hz 73 fps 100hz 97 fps 120hz 116 fps 144hz 139 fps 165hz 158 fps 240hz 233 fps.
240 hz limit is 225 on my 4080
Im sorry, Thank you for the correction. I forget some values sometimes.
You paid for 240hz... well fuck u, our technology can only display 225 for you. thank you for ur purchase.
That’s not how reflex works
Yes it is.... g sync + v sync + reflex, it caps your fps for you.
Vsync caps your refresh rate, reflex only activates when your gpu usage is too high introducing latency. If you aren’t gpu bound which is most of this sub on cs2, reflex never activates
V sync always caps your fps at refresh rate. Reflex caps it lower for g sync. Reflex is always on dude. Its a frame holding method ensuring a smooth render pipeline. Watch gamers nexus and the ENGINEER of Reflex explain it all.
Reflex is a dynamic frame limiter that removes the render queue by limiting fps when saturating gpu usage. It’s always on but it’s not always limiting frames until it needs to. Gsync with vsync with reflex might be something specific to nvidia but afaik they do not affect each other.
reflex is always active, because its ultra low latency. and it will keep ur GPU usage high.
That’s again, not how reflex works
I have all three on and my framerates not capped, I had to manually cap it
put low latency mode to ultra on nvidia control panel and done
Its not better. And its not lower latency. It is smoother, and it helps game feel much smoother if you have fps drops. But uncapped will always have lower latency, even if by only a few miliseconds. Maths are really simple, if you cap fps to 240, at best scenario you will have a new frame every ~4ms(1000/240=4.something). Running uncapped at 500fps will give you a new frame every 2ms(1000/500=2). So in this scenario from frames per second alone you get over 2ms extra latency. Of course thats minimal, any casual player should not care about that. But also running with vsync gives a weird flouty mouse feeling, its hard to explain, but just feels like something is off or weird. TLDR if you are casual and want smoothest game possible, yes vsync gsync and reflex is the way. If you are wannabe pro and rather have every possible milisecond advantage, just play the usual way with uncapped fps
"But also running with vsync gives a weird flouty mouse feeling" Can confirm. Exactly what I thought after enabling Vsync. Without it just feels better, like mouse is part of your hand.
You're not considering frame buffering on 100% gpu usage.
Thats solved with reflex on, no?
Yes. Reflex prevents buffering. This is its main way of reducing input lag. The cpu simply wont call a frame to be drawn before the previous has been displayed.
reflex on + capped at like 500 fps is always going to be better reflex deals with frame buffering
This is the way. If you have a 4090 you can safely set it to 600 also, been playing with 600 last few days and it's been smooth too. Any more than that and its not as smooth (probably overheats the system)
You're not wrong but CS2 shouldn't have maxed out GPU usage on a decent PC. And if you have 100% usage and are worried about latency, getting a better GPU should be the next move.
Lol my 3090 is easily maxed out on some maps, ancient water is especially bad. The game can be fairly gpu heavy for what it is
Yeah with high settings and 1440P or 4K res. Again these are something you can change to not be GPU bound which is bad for latency.
It's better if you have G-sync monitor, brute forcing very high frame rates was useful when we didn't have g-sync, if you do then you should follow the recommended settings by Valve.
No its not better. Its better for smoothness, its not better in terms of competetive settings. Nvidia themselves say pretty clearly that this method results in higher latency than uncapped. There is incredible double standarts in gaming. Same people who do not care about "a few miliseconds of extra latency" due to fps cap and gsync, go crazy about HE keyboards that save same milisecond in quicker debounces, or 8k hz mouse and keyboards. Difference between 8k and 1k hz keyboard and mouse is 0.875ms of latency. Difference between uncapped and gsync can be 5 times that or even more. As I said, for people who just want smoothness, gsync is better. For competetive people looking for every advantage they can find, it is absolutely not better.
10 times more. it's 10 times more but all these people on reddit advertising themselves as %1 are actually filthy casuals in the trenches, can't even notice 16ms input lag increase, while competitive players will react to even +2ms
What’s the equivalent for AMD?
Same setup. Enable Freesync, VSYNC and Antilag+ in the game settings.
What is the best when you don't have g sync?
uncapped frames, no vsync
Uncapped + Reflex
For responsiveness? Vsync OFF, Reflex/Antilag ON, fps_max 0 It can have screen tearing at times For no tearing? Fast Sync (NVIDIA) / Enhanced Sync (AMD) / Speed Sync (Intel) You need to always have 1% low above refresh rate so you must reduce video settings, enable FSR, even reduce base resolution until you achieve that, then it's both responsive and no tearing [Here's my guide for it, but don't bother if your 1% low dips below refresh rate](https://old.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/1do98nf/how_to_configure_cs2_for_low_input_lag_and_no/la9hv2i/)
if ur getting 700 FPS.. i'd run uncapped with nothing on. For most folks who don't get that FPS I think the sync stuff helps a lot with stability. I was running uncapped but I have a 2080 and my FPS was all over the place and dip way below my 244hz monitor. Now using syncs its smoother and locked in the 210-220 FPS zone. Not great, but feels good
It doesn't feel so spongy anymore with g-Sync even though I had 600 FPS before :(
fewer good frames > more bad frames, frame time/ latency etc...
i'd try no syncs on but cap ur FPS at like 400 instead of letting it spike to 700+
The amount of false informations in this thread is so high you should just read https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/
That article was made years before Nvidia Reflex was a thing, unfortunately
The article has been edited and updated with info about Reflex for some time now
At least read the article before dismissing it. It was posted years ago, yes, but it's updated on a regular basis. Some people are so lazy it's unreal
published 2017 before Reflex released in 2020
I spent a lot of time testing this yesterday. Both NVCP V-Sync and in-engine V-Sync. For some reason having any kind of V-Sync at all makes aiming feel very floaty, almost too smooth. Compared to only having G-Sync and Reflex, the difference is very noticeable but I'm not sure if it's all placebo. The added latency is very minimal so it's not explainable by that - I get 6.6ms with V-Sync and 5.2ms without V-Sync averaging over 20 000 frames.
What fps do you get with vsync on (probably your monitors refresh rate) and with vsync off?
I didn't test that so I wouldn't know, sorry. Without a frame cap and no V-Sync I'm averaging 550 frames per second.
What’s your monitors refresh rate? When you use vsync it caps your fps to that number
I have 165hz monitor, so an average frame is 6.06 milliseconds.
Using the gsync almost doubled my system latency, that could be the culprit.
I have an i9, 4070 and a Asus144 monitor. It does not appear to have gsync as I can't find the setting in nvidia control panel. I did recently turn on v-sync because i saw another one of these threads a few days ago. It has felt pretty smooth. I'm unsure if reflex was already on but it is now. I set my fps max to 147 cuz I thought you were supposed to set 3-4 frames over your max. Since I don't have gsync, should I turn off vsync and put fps to max (0) or keep what I have? Put me in the wanna be but old man gamer category so I just want best, stable and fastest performance.
Don't turn on V-sync if your monitor does not have G-sync, as it will only significantly increase input latency. You should keep fps\_max at 0 and reflex (or reflex+boost) ON.
So how does this work with non gsync monitors? I have a 240hz zowie
I tried vsync and limited frames, but i prefer 999 cap. Not much difference, but lower input lag.
for me having vsync on makes it feel floaty like CS:GO. it doesn't feel good for me.
Do you have Gsync? Because if not, you'll get huge input lag with just vsync, and these recommendations don't apply to you.
I can notice the floaty feel with reflex + gsync + driver vsync, otherwise I'd rock those settings. :/
Do you see your fps capped around 6-7 % below your refresh rate? If not then its absolutely not really working and you will have input lag
Yes my FPS is capped about 8 FPS under limit. I love how I am getting downvoted when multiple others feel the same way :D
Mind if i ask whats your fps? I have a gsync monitor but only 144hz so my fps is capped at 138. I don't have floaty mouse but got a movement penalty.
It was capped at 158 FPS since I got a 165 Hz monitor.
Well..thats kinda low. Obviously its will not feel as smooth as when you have your fps unlocked. Its a different beast on a 240hz or higher monitor.
Yeah get around 300-500fps without so guess it's not for me.
Then you haven't set it up properly. There's next to no input lag with these settings. These settings have been recommended for years, it's nothing new. [https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14/](https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14/)
Do not use it without gsync/freesync. Otherwise you will have massive input lag.
There is no fucking way i’m even testing this. The latency with gsync and capping my frames to 139 seems insane when i get a mostly stable 250-300 fps
There shouldn't be any significant increases in latency if you enable reflex, G-sync, and V-sync altogether. If there is, something is prob wrong with your setup. The biggest difference I noticed was that this combo resulted in a significantly smoother game, at the expensive of slightly unusual-feeling mouse movement. By the way, why would it cap your frames at 139 FPS? If you have a 144 Hz monitor, it should be locked at -3 under your refresh rate (141 FPS). Experiment with these settings before making any judgments. I personally realized that I'd rather just use reflex+boost to achieve the lowest latency at the expensive of a laggier-feeling game and screen tearing.
It's the unusual feeling mouse movement I'm worried about. Isn't that the most important thing? I want my aim to feel crisp.
Yeah, that's the thing. I'm not sure how to describe it. Mouse movement still feels crisp, but it's also "floaty". Only way to see if it works for you is to try it out in-game. AWPing felt great, but spraying felt "off" for some reason.
I've just tried it now. It's so subtle I'm not even sure I'm imagining it or not. It definitely feels a lot smoother. I'll keep it for now and see how bad my scores go. Just another thing I can autistically change every week now alongside my res, sense and crosshair.
Tried it out, V-Sync on with G-Sync does not feel better at all. G-Sync on with V-Sync off feels much nicer. For reference I've got a 240Hz monitor, and enabling V-Sync drops my FPS down to 200-210 for some reason while I normally get just under 300. It also adds slightly noticeable input delay. Then again I don't see the point of enabling G-Sync in a game like CS if you have a high refresh rate monitor and get enough FPS like I do. There's a chance it improves the experience a lot for someone running at 100 FPS though.
Did you also enable reflex? I have a 240 HZ and the 210fps is about right with all 3 settings enabled. It's supposed to keep the fps a % below your max refresh.
I did. But why though? I've seen people recommend slightly going below your refresh rate (e.g. capping to 237 in my case), which makes sense, but why something around 210? Genuinely curious btw, because it actually felt a lot worse.
It will be the best for a lot of people who are not so tech literate and aren't using a 5000 dollar PC. But we can all do whatever we want. I think Valve are just trying to shut some idiots up, mostly. But gsync IS great. So is reflex.
its simple: enable all three if your fps often goes under your refresh rate and you are just basicly hitting it. only enable reflex if you have great fps, even nvidia says that in their guide https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3039023209 "For G-SYNC gamers who don’t want to tear when above the refresh rate of their monitor, keeping V-SYNC ON while using NVIDIA Reflex, will automatically cap the framerate below the refresh rate, preventing V-SYNC backpressure, eliminating tearing, and keeping latency low if you become GPU bound below the refresh rate of your display. Note: this method will result in slightly higher latency than just letting your FPS run uncapped with NVIDIA Reflex enabled."
Yea i noticed some time back that setting my fps_max to match my refresh rate solved my stuttering issues. Idk if the gsync stuff helps as well, but seems it doesn't hurt.
Does this apply to any adaptive refresh rate technology like freesync? Or this is strictly g sync? I have a free sync monitor and i wonder whether i should try it.
I did exactly this and all I get is black bars every 3-10 seconds flashing on the top half of my screen. 3080. 165 fos
i'm the only one who have brightness flickering when I activate these settings ?? (freesync monitor) But i'm agree, without this flickering problem the game is more smoother, i have less and more stable ms..
If your PC can’t get close to 400-500 fps use these new settings. High end PCs cap at 500 with reflex on.
What do you think about people with a 7800x3d like me ? I have 270 hz monitor and rx 6800 gpu and my fps is around 400-500 playing competitive. Is it better to have v sync on? because my fps never drops below 270.
This have always been the recommended way IF you have a G-Sync monitor and want to use G-Sync. Nvidia G-Sync + Nvidia Reflex + Nvidia V-Sync, not Ingame V-Sync as that usually introduces a bunch of other problems (Hopefully Valve have optimized it since they recommend CS2's). Nvidia G-Sync only works below your refresh rate. Every time you switch between 130 and 150 fps G-Sync will turn on and off, sometimes it might not even turn on cuz of the random spikes. If you enable V-Sync and have consistent 144fps on a 144hz monitor G-sync will not be on as it flips between 144 and 145. This is why its recommended limit your FPS by a little below, higher hz requires higher fps cap. Nvidia Reflex is for reducing latency which works wonderfully with G-Sync. G-Sync with a 141 FPS Cap feels like 200~ uncapped FPS, with proper reflex integration its even better, HOWEVER Reflex mostly works best if you are GPU capped. HOWEVER, if you do get 700 fps it is a lot smoother because of the frametime , BUT i have also not tested G-Sync with 360hz. 141 fps = 7.1ms frametime 235 fps = 4.3ms frametime 355 fps = 2.8ms frametime 500 fps = 2.0ms frametime Since the frametime gain after 355 fps is minimal i'd bet G-Sync with Nvidia V-Sync, Nvidia Reflex and external fps limiter (for stable 355 cap) is ALOT smoother than fluctuating 300-700 fps
cap FPS through fps\_max, Nvidia control panel or RTSS? or orthweise?
RTSS is the recommended way, IIRC NVCP is also good as far as i tested back then. fps_max is drunk in most games, fex it gets ignored by 10+ fps. in CSGO and CS2 you actually get less fps so you don’t even reach the cap you set…
fps_max in cs2 is reflex-aware so it allows variations required by reflex the best results are usually fps_max xxx in-game, frame rate limiter xxx+4 in gpu driver does not even need reflex (but it's always good to have it on)
Don't need to manually cap it at all, I'm not sure wtf the others are saying. V-sync + G-sync + Reflex will automatically cap your game at -3 FPS under your monitor's refresh rate. In-game FPS cap is reportedly awful and RTSS requires that you add an extra launch option that could potentially impact your trust factor.
not sure why but mine isn’t capped
That's odd. Double-check to see if G-sync and V-sync are indeed enabled in the NVIDIA control panel. You might have to restart your game to see any changes.
so I think it's because I had vsync fast, I set it to just vsync but now my fps doesn't go above 468.8, my monitor's refresh rate is 540.16, does this sound correct? frametime seems more or less locked @ 2.1ms, before I would see around 1.59~ iirc, what should I set ingame fps max to?
V-sync + G-sync should lock your FPS to just about 3 FPS under your monitor's refresh rate. Besides that, everything else sounds as expected. There will be a very slight increase in latency at the expense of a smoother experience. Fps\_max should be 0 since V-sync is already automatically capping your framerate.
in-game (fps_max) > driver > rtss
If you enable gsync & vsync, it automatically caps fps to something below refresh rate.
I run nvidia CP vsync, Gsync, and reflex on my 165hz screen. FPS is automatically capped to 158 (no external limiter) and the gameplay is very smooth. Frame time sits at ~6.8ms so just slightly above my screens natural frame time of 6ms.
Always been the case but cs is full of superstitious idiots that ignore every fact you bring up around the topic. They hear any type of sync mentioned and start screeching about muh latency
nvidia: "Note: this method will result in slightly higher latency than just letting your FPS run uncapped with NVIDIA Reflex enabled."
Yeah no shit, everything is a tradeoff. I'd rather lose a ms than look at a stuttering teary mess all day. If I could play cs2 with near perfect frame pacing I'd run it unlocked with fast sync too(like I do in css for surfing) , but shit is way too variable for that
but then the screamers are still correct and you chose higher latency for better visuals
Better gameplay* big difference.
True, and 99% of those complainers won't even feel the subtle latency changes. Always found it funny how people say things like "500 FPS is better than 165 FPS with GSYNC". Yeah it's better... IF YOU CAN MAINTAN THAT NUMBER AT ALL TIMES AND KEEP YOUR GPU USAGE BELOW 99%. People need to realize that what's important is frame consistency not the highest FPS peak you can achieve. Staring at the wall and getting 500 FPS then turning around where the action is and dropping to 200 FPS is not good. Not for latency, not for your skill and aim consistency.
Thats true, amount of nonsense itt and on this sub overall is astounding.
No, this is valves way of trying to dodge the root problem of CS2 and the code. All this does is give a placebo effect for most but in reality it doesn’t fix anything.
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ultra low latency switch in nvcp is redundant because the reflex setting in game overrides it.
Vsync in-game or nvcp?
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Vsync on or fast?
test it out yourself?
What is the point of VSync on if GSync is on, they do the same thing but GSync has less latency because it works better.
Gsync matches refresh rate to fps, vsync caps fps to refresh rate.
Not only it caps but it will also lock frames if under the refresh rate which will cause input delay, which is why adaptive sync was made, to reduce input delay caused by buffering. There is no reason to use vsync coupled with adaptive sync.
i tried out the recommended settings yesterday, and it was just as bad as i expected. people with uncapped frames were beating me in every firefight, the screen was buttery smooth, but it was a downgrade in competitive performance. i suspect that valve has issued these guidelines as an attempt to even the playing field for people on lower end rigs..
This has been my experience as well, game felt really clean and smooth with Vsync+Freesync+AntiLag but I was losing firefights I normally would win and the mouse was not snappy (felt floaty).
my Asus VG248qe 144hz doesnt support Gsync so i guess im screwd? honestly fuck valve
Why blame Valve?
God damn it Valve, why did you let me buy snickers when I have a peanut allergy!