We often neglect to get too involved in the discussion of what options people should always enable when they play games. Rather, we tend to focus on what we test with. Honestly, our recommended settings for playing the games we test would be very similar to the settings we use to benchmark with one very important exception: we would enable triple buffering (which implies vsync) whenever possible. While it's not an available option in all games, it really needs to be, and we are here to make the case for why gamers should use triple buffering and why developers need to support it.
Most often gamers, when it comes to anything regarding vsync, swear by forcing vsync off in the driver or disabling it in the game. In fact, this is what we do when benchmarking because it allows us to see more clearly what is going on under the hood. Those who do enable vsync typically do so to avoid the visual "tearing" that can occur in some cases despite the negative side effects.
We would like to try something a little different with this article. We'll include two polls, one here and one at the end of the article. This first poll is designed to report what our readers already do with respect to vsync and double versus triple buffering.
{poll 134:300}
After reading the rest of this article, our readers are invited to answer a related poll which is designed to determine if arming gamers with the information this article provides will have any impact on what settings are used from here on out.
First up will be a conceptual review of what double buffering and vsync are, then we'll talk about what triple buffering brings to the table. For those who really want the nitty gritty (or who need more convincing) we will provide follow that up with a deeper dive into each approach complete with some nifty diagrams.
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Scalarscience - Saturday, June 27, 2009 - link
...I'm posting this as a reply but please use the reply button on the previous post unless you're really wanting to reply to this particular post...The next thing that I see COMPLETELY neglected in this article and most of the comments--outside of 1 or 2 mentions of higher framerates increasing your movement rate--is that many games will use the engine's currently processing frame for collision & 'hitscan' decisions. My experience/understanding is that this is in addition to the input latency issues covered above, and in fact is MORE important to me than just worrying about visual tearing.
Hitscan is a term I learned more from the original UT game, I know there was a term CS players used back in the 1.x days too but it slips my mind (and probably more terms now). Basically it applies to projectiles who have 'infinite' velocity, ie, hit their targets immediately when calculated. Hitscan isn't the only type of calculation used for in-game weapons by any means, but the it's the one who (imo) is most affect by latency & discontinuities in the gameplay (caused by bad prediction or perhaps a stalling render thread) so it's the one that is most discussed. My impression is that the hitscan issues apply to other collisions & weapon hits as well, modified by how their weapons work.
As FPS players are not only concerned with 'what they see' but also what their 'shots' and 'movements' are translating into (especially in competitive online fps games) this is one of the main reasons that players used to force vsync off even if they could get their CRT to do 100hz or higher. Older games do have things directly tied to the render thread (physics, movement speed etc) but as time has gone on that's been reduced and methods of 'prediction' have been added, which means that the discussions get complicated over time. Also some games will use client side detection for certain things (instead of correlating things from the server's perspective to make the final 'decision') which can reduce apparent latency for hitscan style shots
Konstantineb - Saturday, June 27, 2009 - link
Would like to know if anandtech is considering an Arma 2 review with some GPUs performance data.The game is realy good looking, and it deserves a review from anandtech....StarRide - Friday, June 26, 2009 - link
Since WoW's triple buffering actually says it might cause input lag, I'm beginning to wonder if WoW's triple buffering implementation is actually just 3 frame render ahead...profoundWHALE - Monday, January 19, 2015 - link
"I'm beginning to wonder if WoW's triple buffering implementation is actually just 3 frame render ahead... "Congradulations, you just accurately described a triple-buffer as a "3 frame render ahead", which it is. It's really not that difficult a concept.
We apply the same concept to a youtube video. We buffer ahead so we get a smooth, steady frame-rate, although in the case of video streaming, we are buffering many, many frames.
This means that if you have terribly low fps, you'll see a bigger hit to latency with triple-buffering than someone with 100 fps.
30 fps = 33.3 ms per frame, meaning that you can end up with latency of about 100 ms with triple buffering
120 fps = 8.33 ms per frame, meaning that you can end up with latency of about 25 ms with triple buffering
Vsync will continue rendering as usual, but will simple make sure that only an exact multiple is displayed, so if your average fps is about 45 fps and you have a 60 Hz refresh rate, you'll get a steady output of 30 fps. The downside is you'll probably get an effect similar to the 3:2 pulldown where some frames will last as short of a time as 25 ms, and as long as 33 ms.
This is why things like Gsync and Freesync are awesome, because we can just throw vsync and buffering out the window and instead of trying to sync the input the the output, we sync the output to the input.
profoundWHALE - Monday, January 19, 2015 - link
I should clarify that the real world lag from triple buffer isn't as bad as the numbers I put out there, but because you have vsync, you will have greater input lag so it still gives a good idea of what latencies you could be looking at.MamiyaOtaru - Friday, June 26, 2009 - link
Triple buffering is obv. better than double, but I'd still not use it.In the final set of comparison shots, two thirds of the screen on the double buff without vsync example is newer than the corresponding screen in the triple buffering example. This means tears, yes, but that's newer info you aren't getting until later with triple buffering.
With double, a mouse movement that starts halfway between screen refreshes can (if the framerate is high enough) show up as soon as a new frame is rendered and swapped to the front to be read by the monitor. Granted, it will only show up on some bottom portion of the screen, with older info above, but in triple buffering that movement will not show up at all until the monitor finishes the current refresh and starts another.
In the horse example posted, the max time between input and reaction on screen is 3 times greater with triple buffering than with double w/o vsync, even if with the latter that reaction is only shown on the bottom 2/3rds or 1/3rd of the screen. It's *there* and it isn't until later with triple buffering.
But it's sure as hell better than double buff with vsync :) And visually better than double buff w/o vsync. A nice compromise. But let's not pretend there are precisely 0 drawbacks. If you'd prefer faster reaction time and can accept tearing to get it, you'll not want triple buffering, as that shuts out any new info until the monitor has drawn a completed, now out of date frame.
It's similar to interlaced vs progressive. Progressive looks nicer, no artifacts. But given the same bits per second, interlaced will have a higher framerate as it isn't drawing the whole frame each time. With double buffering you get bits of several frames rendered onto the screen at once. Artifacts, but you're getting more up to date info *even if that more up to date info isn't on the whole screen*.
justniz - Friday, June 26, 2009 - link
This article makes it sound like triple-buffering is always best, which is just not true.If you play games that require fast reactions and you have powerful enough hardware that you dont get tearing on double-buffering then DONT USE TRIPLE BUFFERING.
Why?
Because triple buffering adds an extra frame's worth of delay before you see the picture. Its only maybe 1/30 to 1/60th of a second extra, but in twitch/frag games removing that delay may be enough to give you the edge.
DerekWilson - Friday, June 26, 2009 - link
triple buffering does not add an extra frame of delay.triple buffering is always the best option, even for twitch shooters where a bad tear can look like something that's actually there and distract the gamer.
having powerful hardware does not reduce tearing. in fact, at higher framerates there is always a higher chance of tearing than at lower frame rates (at 300 FPS tears will happen every frame, whereas at 40 FPS, tears cannot possibly happen every frame -- the lower the frame rate, the less likely or often tearing occurs).
you still get the reduce lag "edge" that is apparent in double buffering without vsync, but you get the most recently fully completed frame of animation rather than a composite of multiple frames starting with the one that triple buffering would have given you in full.
MamiyaOtaru - Friday, June 26, 2009 - link
ou get the most recently fully completed frame of animation rather than a composite of multiple frames starting with the one that triple buffering would have given you in full.starting with, but ending with newer stuff, which is exactly the point. Triple buffering is offering the most up to date feedback on your input only up until the point a tear would happen in double buffering.
DerekWilson - Friday, June 26, 2009 - link
i did note that this is the only potential advantage of double buffering without vsync, but that in order to actually benefit from it, it needs to be a visible artifact (the frames need to be different enough to cause a visible tear) and you only get the benefit in the percentage of the frame that comes after the tear.part of the double buffered frame is the same as the triple buffered frame ... if you need information from this part of the screen (if you're looking there) you still won't get the benefit and the peripheral distraction of tearing can ... well ... distract.
some people may see this as a real advantage, but i certainly think the downside certainly outweighs any potential upside.