Monitor Refresh Rate affects game FPS in 2D and 3D

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
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I didn’t set this already posted and thought I’d share my latest “lesson learned.” I’ve been following many threads here and various “YouTubers” to try to get the best performance out of my system (both 2D and in VR). While it’s been good, it never has been as crisp and clear (or fast) as shown in the videos. My framerate was around 30Hz regardless of whether I was 2D or 3D. So, while it was “good enough” it was puzzling.

While looking for the HAGS setting today I serendipitously stumbled upon a refresh rate setting in Windows 11. So, I flipped it from 30 to 60Hz. (Okay, I don’t have the fastest monitor). It immediately lifted the framerates in both 2D and 3D / VR. Subjectively, I “believe” the images are crisper. But, that is completely subjective. Anyway, in all of the videos I’ve watched, I haven’t seen this setting discussed, so I thought I would mention it, just in case there are others who are relatively new and still trying to get everything tuned just right.

I found the setting here:

  • System → Display → Advanced Display → Choose a refresh rate.

I’m sure this is already known to 99% of the folks here, but in case you’re in that 1% with me, I hope this helps. :slight_smile:

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I use 60Hz with FPS limiter set to 30 FPS in game. Smoothest for my setup.

The FPS limiter in the game is really just the V-sync present interval, so it’s entirely dependent on refresh rate, regardless of what the interface says.

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You can also set it in the nVidia Control Panel.

I run 144Hz with no FPS limiter.

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I have a LG 144 Hz monitor G-Sync Compatible, connected to GTX 1080 Ti GPU

After having tried many alternative methods, discussed here in the forum or described in YouTube video, I end up in using no FPS lock (neither in MSFS nor in NVidia Control Panel) and no V-Sync

I have set G-Sync compatibility mode on in NVCP for fullscreen and windowed

This setting gives me the smoothest experience with FPS between 40-60

In busy airports and complex airliners, FPS drops to around 20, ofc no longer smooth still manageable on ground

Still I understand that different choices may work better for other simmers, so many H/W combinations out there…