On my PC, I limit my FPS to 24 (via graphics card settings). It uses far less power, and runs considerably cooler.
You should at least make your frame limit be equal to your screen refresh rate.
GSync isn't magic. It can only do so much. In this situation, where you've tied your frames to 24 (for some reason?) and your monitor refresh rate is 165Hz, GSync isn't going to save you. GSync will help you if there are sudden, brief drops in FPS below the refresh rate and keep things in sync. It will not save you if your refresh rate is 165Hz and your frame rate is 24...
> Maybe when electricity prices go back down, I'll turn it up
I don't think you'll notice the extra $5 a month it costs to run that a couple hours a week.
We should at least use a real reason why you'd do this. Saving a smidge of power is not one of them.
You should, instead, under-clock your monitor refresh rate to something low, like 75 or 60Hz, then frame-limit to that number as well.
Downclock your monitor to something like 60Hz, then pin your frames there too.
0.2 kw * 8 hours * 30 days * €0.60 =
1.6 kw/h/d * 30 days * €0.60 =
48 kw/h * €0.60 =
€28.80 per month
I game about 3-6 hours a day, but I also do a lot of (unreal) programming on the same computer. So according to measurements, it draws about 2-3kw/h a day. Without limiting the framerate, it's closer to 10kw/h per day. We're talking a savings of ~€4 per day. That's over €100 per month in savings.
> Downclock your monitor to something like 60Hz, then pin your frames there too.
I'm not sure what my monitor rate has to do with fps. They are two totally independent measurements that are very rarely synced if you are doing any kinds of graphically intensive work, even if you pin them to the same rate. The monitor will still double-post frames every so often, or even skip a frame. Another good example is a paused video which is 0fps, but the monitor doesn't care. It just keeps showing the same frame over and over again. The same thing happens here, and with (g|v)sync, there's never any tearing.
Again, your setup is so far from ideal, you should reconsider. Reduce your refresh rate to some multiple of 24 if you insist on 24 for some unknown reason.
It's one of those situations where you are being so clever you're hurting yourself and not realizing it.
They picked a random 24 FPS target (maybe based off old movies for some reason?), but their monitor refreshes at 165Hz. The mis-match of frames and refreshes is so off, they will experience tearing even with mostly-static backgrounds.
Basically, nothing the parent poster is doing makes sense. Neither for power savings nor viewing pleasure.
Not random, and not "old movies". Modern day movies are still 24fps, it's part of what makes movies look the way they do, motion blur.
> but their monitor refreshes at 165Hz
So? It refreshes the image 165 times a second, regardless of video framerate. It just so happens that many of those 165 refreshes in this case will be the same image over and over. Pause a video, so 0 fps, or 1 fps depending on your take, the monitor is still refreshing 165 times a second because it doesn't have anything to do with the video in this case.
You will experience tearing with this much of mis-alignment. It's why things like GSync/FreeSync even exist.
> motion blur
You can enable motion blur in most game settings...
If the game is a rpg or any casual genre where timing is not important and lack of it doesn’t impact gameplay or competitiveness, what’s it matter if they run at 24fps? Maybe they run that low to screen capture at a lower frame rate to not needlessly burn cpu converting 60 or 160 fps down to 24? And most games cap at 30 or 60, yet higher refresh rate monitors don’t have tearing issues or everyone would be throwing a fit. My son has a 120hz monitor and plays countless games capped at 60. Is it the fact they all divide into the refresh rate that stops the issue?
It happens in both directions.
Yes, staying at some multiple of your refresh rate is the general advice. So 60 would be ok on a 120Hz screen.
The OP's comment that started all this, is doing 24fps at 165hz, which is 6.875. They claim to be in the gaming world too, which makes their bizarre decision even more puzzling. Just don't do this.
Even if it is exactly a multiple or even the same number, without vsync, you’ll still get tearing. Why? Because fps is a dynamic number. It’s a measure of how many frames your card can generate in a second. By the time you measure, the frames are already output and gone from the buffer.
The refresh rate on the monitor is a constant, never changing value.
Even if you set the fps to 30, you’ll sometimes render 30.1 or 29.9 frames in a second due to random jitter from the geometry/shader complexity quickly changing on the screen.
There is no such thing as constant fps.
This is better, because we're talking about the lower range right now anyway.
That said, I think the difference between 144Hz and 72Hz is a lot more subtle and can't be seen if you try to glance at them directly. Try viewing them with peripheral vision and there's a difference in smoothness. That shows up in things like moving a window around (or even just moving a mouse). It makes a huge difference in input latency/response, but the difference can't be seen easily by just staring directly at a moving image.
I went outside and took a 4k video at 24fps and played it back. It looks smooth as butter, just like a movie. Then I took the same video, but recorded at 60fps and re-encoded it in 24fps. It looks like the example on this website, where it looks jumpy.
I assume this is because of motion blur.
20fps uses 70 watts, full speed is 200 watts. Times 5 hours, times 30 days, times €0.60.