Bought a 144hz monitor, but no games will use it.

[votemarvel]

So I bought myself a nice little Acer GN246HLBbid gaming monitor that runs at 144hz. I've checked the control panel and the Nvidia one and that refresh rate is selected.

Yet none of the games I own will run at anything close to that in frames per section.

I've done suggested tinkering for Rise of the Tomb Raider for example and the only place I am getting 144 frames per second is on the loading screens, the rest of the time it stubbornly sticks to around 60fps.

Arkham Knight will at least let me chose 90fps but I'll be damned if I can get higher than that.

What am I doing wrong here because I'm really not feeling the love for my purchase at the moment. Though since the Witcher 3 is the one game I've tried that lets me use the full refresh rate of my monitor, I guess I have a reason to dive back into that game.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

What are your specs and are you sure they can handle running those games at +144fps? Do you have V-sync on?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

You need a very powerful PC to run a lot of games that are on the market today at 144fps, even on 1080p. Also, 144hz monitors are not important unless you're a professional gamer. I'm sorry to say but you made a very bad purchase. You should have done more research.

 

[votemarvel]

i5-4460, GTX970, 16gb of DDR3 RAM are the basics. The monitor has a resolution of 1080p.

I've tried Rise of the Tomb Raider with vSynch on and off, in Fullscreen and Windowed.

No matter what I do the game won't break out of the 60s. I see it hit 65 every now and then but nothing more. I've even put everything on Low to make sure it wasn't just a performance issue but again no joy.

With the Witcher 3 however was as simply as just setting the framerate limit to unlimited in the options.

 

[CaitSeith]

So I bought myself a nice little Acer GN246HLBbid gaming monitor that runs at 144hz. I've checked the control panel and the Nvidia one and that refresh rate is selected.

Yet none of the games I own will run at anything close to that in frames per section.

I've done suggested tinkering for Rise of the Tomb Raider for example and the only place I am getting 144 frames per second is on the loading screens, the rest of the time it stubbornly sticks to around 60fps.

Arkham Knight will at least let me chose 90fps but I'll be damned if I can get higher than that.

What am I doing wrong here because I'm really not feeling the love for my purchase at the moment. Though since the Witcher 3 is the one game I've tried that lets me use the full refresh rate of my monitor, I guess I have a reason to dive back into that game.

Here are some examples of games from 2014 running in a 144hz monitor, and an explanation of it.


You are doing nothing wrong. Basically, support for framerate higher than 60fps is pretty much an afterthought in games (specially multiplatforms), so very few have it.

 

[Avnger]

i5-4460, GTX970, 16gb of DDR3 RAM are the basics. The monitor has a resolution of 1080p.

I've tried Rise of the Tomb Raider with vSynch on and off, in Fullscreen and Windowed.

No matter what I do the game won't break out of the 60s. I see it hit 65 every now and then but nothing more. I've even put everything on Low to make sure it wasn't just a performance issue but again no joy.

With the Witcher 3 however was as simply as just setting the framerate limit to unlimited in the options.

Devs don't, except in some few cases, program for anything above 60. Spec-crazy gamers keep pushing 4k/144fps as if it's a new standard when devs are barely hitting 1080p/60fps. Honestly, you bought a 144hz monitor 5+ years early to really take advantage of it.

 

[Kerg3927]

If you can afford to spend $100-$200 extra for a 144hz monitor with G-Sync, there is no reason not to, IMO. The G-Sync is supposed to keep the game running smoothly at whatever fps the hardware and software allows. It's nice to know that whatever game you're playing is going to run buttery smooth at the highest framerate your computer is capable of pushing. If you're like me and spent 3-4+ hours a day gaming, and the monitor lasts 4-5+ years, that's not a bad investment, IMO.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

Games that go over 60fps aren't that rare, there are plenty of games that do.

Any Counter Strike
Call of Duty (Though they're locked at 91fps for some reason)
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Witcher 3
Doom 2016
Battlefield 1
Rainbow Six Siege
GTA V
The Division

The list goes on. I bought my 144hz monitor 4 years ago and it was worth every penny, I'll never be able to go back to 60hz. You just need the right specs and/or tweak the settings to get higher frames.

 

[votemarvel]

I'm not fussed on the price as I got it, new second hand as my brother would say. So it was a decent deal and I get to turn my old monitor over to my spare PC.

A shame to find out that many games will not properly support it but at least I get to play the games which do a little more smoothly.

Babyfarts, how are you getting Rise of the Tomb Raider to make use of your monitor? Could you post a picture or two of your settings so I can duplicate them. It'd be much appreciated.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

I'm not fussed on the price as I got it, new second hand as my brother would say. So it was a decent deal and I get to turn my old monitor over to my spare PC.

A shame to find out that many games will not properly support it but at least I get to play the games which do a little more smoothly.

Babyfarts, how are you getting Rise of the Tomb Raider to make use of your monitor? Could you post a picture or two of your settings so I can duplicate them. It'd be much appreciated.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is quite a demanding (And honestly not the best optimized) game, the recommended specs are a 980ti and a i7 3770k after all. When it came out I had a 970 and a i7 6700k and I was also around 60fps on a mix of high and very high settings, so your fps is normal with your current specs. If you want higher framerates for ROTTR I'm afraid you have to upgrade your hardware.

So Rise of the Tomb Raider DOES support framerates above 60 but you need high-end specs for it.

 

[votemarvel]

So Rise of the Tomb Raider DOES support framerates above 60 but you need high-end specs for it.

I tried running the game at the lowest of settings and the highest number it reached was the aforementioned 65fps.

I know I'm not going to get that far above 60 FPS on the higher settings (though the in game benchmarks show it should be possible at some points), but I'm sorry I don't believe that it isn't possible at the lowest settings, especially if something as unoptimised as Arkham Knight can manage it.

So I repeat my request for the settings you are using, they would genuinely be of help to me.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

So Rise of the Tomb Raider DOES support frame rates above 60 but you need high-end specs for it.

I tried running the game at the lowest of settings and the highest number it reached was the aforementioned 65fps.

I know I'm not going to get that far above 60 FPS on the higher settings (though the in game benchmarks show it should be possible at some points), but I'm sorry I don't believe that it isn't possible at the lowest settings, especially if something as unoptimized as Arkham Knight can manage it.

So I repeat my request for the settings you are using, they would genuinely be of help to me.

What about other games? I know you said you tried Arkham Knight and Witcher 3 but did you try any other games? And what do you mean when you said ''chose 90fps'' for Arkham?

I can install it and do some benchmarks tomorrow to see what differences I'm getting between graphic settings. Some games do have a nasty habit of not getting a performance increase worth mentioning when changing graphic settings.

My personal settings wouldn't do much good to you though since my hardware is too different compared to yours.

 

[votemarvel]

That'd be much appreciated and I realise I came across as a bit angry in my last post, so I apologise for that.

Arkham Knight has a setting in the options to limit the frame rate. The available options are 30, 60, 90. Nowhere in the options can I find a way to go past that 90fps cap.

I'm keen to see your settings for Rise of the Tomb Raider simply because there could be a clue in there as to why I can't break out of the 60s when apparently I should be able to.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

That'd be much appreciated and I realise I came across as a bit angry in my last post, so I apologise for that.

Arkham Knight has a setting in the options to limit the frame rate. The available options are 30, 60, 90. Nowhere in the options can I find a way to go past that 90fps cap.

I'm keen to see your settings for Rise of the Tomb Raider simply because there could be a clue in there as to why I can't break out of the 60s when apparently I should be able to.

No problem, man.

Yeah, you should be able to break out of 60fps because the game isn't hard-locked at 60fps. I'm assuming you turned off vsync in the
graphic options

Until then (I'm installing the game as we speak but my internet isn't the fastest), if you haven't you can try going into Nvidia Control panel > Manage 3D settings > Turn Vertical Sync off.

Also, run the benchmark in Tomb Raider for me.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

That'd be much appreciated and I realise I came across as a bit angry in my last post, so I apologise for that.

Arkham Knight has a setting in the options to limit the frame rate. The available options are 30, 60, 90. Nowhere in the options can I find a way to go past that 90fps cap.

I'm keen to see your settings for Rise of the Tomb Raider simply because there could be a clue in there as to why I can't break out of the 60s when apparently I should be able to.

There's a lot of games that lock animation speed to frame rate (it's stupid and lazy, but easy for developers to program), which could be the cause of why your game is refusing to push a higher framerate. A higher framerate would literally break the animations of the game.

Not sure if that's the case with Tomb Raider, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the reason that Arkham Knight caps the framerate at a max of 90fps.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

So I ran the benchmark with these settings

And here's the result

As you can see I have an average of ~100fps on max settings at 1080p.

This is the low preset setting with no AA

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I don't really see how you would come close to utilising that kind of refresh rate on most modern games with a 970.

Spoiler

I imagine you're already making significant compromises on quality settings just to have it up around the 60fps mark with that hardware. Unless you're really into CS(which you'd see the buttery smooth benefit on) you're going to have a hard time finding currently popular games you can drive that monitor at full-whack with.

Sorry.

 

[IceForce]

Console ports are notoriously bad for not supporting anything higher than 60fps (30fps, in some cases). And since these ports make up a good portion of PC videogames, this will be why you're finding games that don't max your refresh rate.
Also, as others have mentioned, your GPU is bottlenecking your monitor a bit.

As sexy as a 144Hz monitor is, it's not really worth it unless you have a high-tier GPU to power it and/or you're into multiplayer games in a big way, (I can confirm that a high-refresh-rate monitor is great for playing Overwatch).

 

[votemarvel]

SNIP

I didn't realise that you didn't have the game installed. Had I known I would not have pressed you as I did. Many thanks for taking that time.

I don't really see how you would come close to utilising that kind of refresh rate on most modern games with a 970.

By lowering the settings of course. I value frame rate over graphical frippery. I strive to find the best balance.

Console ports are notoriously bad for not supporting anything higher than 60fps (30fps, in some cases). And since these ports make up a good portion of PC videogames, this will be why you're finding games that don't max your refresh rate.
Also, as others have mentioned, your GPU is bottlenecking your monitor a bit.

As sexy as a 144Hz monitor is, it's not really worth it unless you have a high-tier GPU to power it and/or you're into multiplayer games in a big way, (I can confirm that a high-refresh-rate monitor is great for playing Overwatch).

Thanks for the input.

I just find it weird that The Witcher 3 will keep a pretty decent frame rate well over 60fps at 1080p with a mix of medium and high settings, but Rise of the Tomb Raider is apparently so demanding with everything on Low that I shouldn't expect more than 60fps.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

So I ran the benchmark with these settings

(les snip)

Big ups to this man, did you really download and install a game just to benchmark for a stranger online? Fantastic, everyone needs a game tech bro like you!

Meanwhile, with my connection, I have an archive of 1TB of game backups from Steam and GOG in case I want to roll them out on any new or different computers, just to avoid having to download anything again because it takes a stupendous amount of time, and my ISP throttles me after like 5 hours of max bandwidth.

Anyway, OT: I think the biggest problem is poor optimization of ports, and higher demands than you realize. I know there's no rhyme or reason for Witcher 3 to perform better than RotTR at high specs, but that's just how it is. Imagine my dismay at achieving under 30fps trying to run Forza Horizon 3 on my GTX 970, I practically bought the card for that game, but it's a mess. Also, different configurations just perform differently, why so many Titan people had BS with Arkham Knight, and others with 960's had smooth sailing for example.

Just try to bottom out your settings and res and run the benchmark on RotTR again, OP. Then slowly tweak up from there to see what's the sweet spot between quality and performance.

Edit: Just read that you've already tried that. Quick look on some threads and I noticed some people said you have to have Exclusive Fullscreen and Fullscreen ticked in the options box, in case you don't already. Other than that, sorry I don't have any other options other than making sure VSync is off everywhere, as mentioned by others. But that doesn't seem to be the case if your gameplay seems locked, and not the menus.