Why IS this so graphics intensive?

[katewalker]

I've got shadows off, pixel art smoothing off, CRT set to zero, CRT Bloom off, VSync off and in windowed mode, but even on a modern gaming laptop, running Balatro gets the graphic card fans a-churning like heck.

This is such a simple-looking game in the graphics department, what the heck is making my GPU work so hard?

[Goblin]

Originally posted by katewalker:

VSync off

There's your issue, you're running at 500 FPS instead of your monitor's refresh rate.

[snakeskip]

Turning vsync off without another form of frame capping will always use 100% of available GPU unless there's a CPU bottleneck. In any game with any settings.

There's no point turning vsync off in this game. I don't know why the option even exists.

[Terribad]

Originally posted by snakeskip:

Turning vsync off without another form of frame capping will always use 100% of available GPU unless there's a CPU bottleneck. In any game with any settings.

There's no point turning vsync off in this game. I don't know why the option even exists.

For people who use freesync/g-sync I guess. Plus it was probably easier to test that way.

[winterplantkill]

I can run it on a desktop PC with no dedicated graphics card 32GB RAM and an i7 3rd gen without a hitch.

[snakeskip]

Originally posted by Terribad:

For people who use freesync/g-sync I guess. Plus it was probably easier to test that way.

Nowadays G-Sync works perfectly well with vsync turned on. Vsync caps the fps to the refresh rate and G-Sync protects against occasional FPS drops. I'm not sure those drops ever happen in Balatro, though.

Earlier (years ago I think) you had to deactivate vsync in game to enable G-Sync.

Source: have G-Sync activated for all games, including Balatro. Also vsync always on because I hate tearing and I'm never going to need a frame rate above 144 in any game.

[Arakus]

Originally posted by snakeskip:

Originally posted by Terribad:

For people who use freesync/g-sync I guess. Plus it was probably easier to test that way.

Nowadays G-Sync works perfectly well with vsync turned on. Vsync caps the fps to the refresh rate and G-Sync protects against occasional FPS drops. I'm not sure those drops ever happen in Balatro, though.

Earlier (years ago I think) you had to deactivate vsync in game to enable G-Sync.

Source: have G-Sync activated for all games, including Balatro. Also vsync always on because I hate tearing and I'm never going to need a frame rate above 144 in any game.

very confused by this comment - the whole point of Gsync is that it prevents tearing itself, you don't need to also have vsync on (or at least I've never had tearing with gsync on/vsync off). And as for FPS caps, you can just enable a global FPS cap a little above your screen refresh rate in Nvidia Control Panel (and it has per game options if certain games need capped to 60 for physics reasons or whatever)

[katewalker]

Originally posted by snakeskip:

Turning vsync off without another form of frame capping will always use 100% of available GPU unless there's a CPU bottleneck. In any game with any settings.

There's no point turning vsync off in this game. I don't know why the option even exists.

Ah! And I show my ass. I have no idea what vsync is actually for, and usually turn it off in the quest to reduce graphic quality as much as possible. XD I will fix that when next I boot the game up, thanks!

[snakeskip]

Originally posted by Arakus:

very confused by this comment - the whole point of Gsync is that it prevents tearing itself, you don't need to also have vsync on (or at least I've never had tearing with gsync on/vsync off). And as for FPS caps, you can just enable a global FPS cap a little above your screen refresh rate in Nvidia Control Panel (and it has per game options if certain games need capped to 60 for physics reasons or whatever)

G-Sync (and Freesync) synchronizes the display refresh rate to the frame rate **when** the frame rate drops below the preset display refresh rate. Nowadays it works perfectly well with vsync. When both are activated, FPS is effectively capped to whatever your display refresh rate is. But you still get the bonus of G-Sync: your display's refresh rate will adapt to a lower frame rate whenever the GPU is not able to meet the preset refresh rate. Which means lesser FPS drops and smoother motion. And less input lag.

When using vsync there's no need to cap frames otherwise unless you specifically want a lower frame rate for some game. Which I often do to save energy. In case of Balatro you could certainly cap to 60 FPS.

Here's a good explanation:
https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/

Like I said, this changed some years ago. Earlier you had to disable vsync to enable G-Sync.

[snakeskip]

Originally posted by katewalker:

I have no idea what vsync is actually for, and usually turn it off in the quest to reduce graphic quality as much as possible. XD I will fix that when next I boot the game up, thanks!

Vsync synchronizes the rendering frame rate to your display's refresh rate. It allows smooth motion, gets rid of tearing and makes sure your GPU renders only as much as your display device is capable of displaying. In case of Balatro it basically allows your GPU to idle for the most time.

Disabling vsync in case of Balatro means that the vast majority of pixels your GPU is rendering is never shown to you. That's because your GPU is working full time rendering way too many frames per second for your display to keep up. That's wasting energy for no gain. If energy consumption in games or software in general were regulated like it is in electronics, having the option to turn vsync off in a game like this would be disallowed.

I generally recommend keeping vsync on in all games if you're not interested in tweaking. It's the decades old traditional way of synchronizing video game graphics and providing smooth motion. Disabling it has marginal benefits in ultra competitive fast paced gaming but not much else.

[ReASonZ]

The real question is why this game dont have yet a FPS cap of 60-144... There is absolutely no need for my games to run on 500 fps on my pc.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by ReASonZ:

The real question is why this game dont have yet a FPS cap of 60-144... There is absolutely no need for my games to run on 500 fps on my pc.

That's the real question. The super high framecap is even set up using a variable, but then said variable is just never changed and not available to the user. Vsync isn't intended for capping framerate, it's intended to prevent screen tearing. The fact it can be used as a workaround on most people's setups is no reason to not give people control.

[phantom]

Originally posted by ReASonZ:

The real question is why this game dont have yet a FPS cap of 60-144... There is absolutely no need for my games to run on 500 fps on my pc.

Something I will continue to standby is developers having gotten lazy at optimization because of people's mindset of "just get a better computer to run games."

I remember a certain game's client or whatever being so horribly optimized it ran worse than the actual game (which was 3D) and tons of comments jumped to say the fault was people not getting better computers.

[snakeskip]

Originally posted by Goblin:

Vsync isn't intended for capping framerate, it's intended to prevent screen tearing.

Yes, the main benefit is preventing tearing. But vsync works perfectly fine for capping as well and it has been traditionally used for it too. The intention of vertical synchronization is to synchronize page flipping when using multiple buffers. Which then allows smooth motion without artifacts like tearing or incomplete frames.

Vsync caps the rendering frame rate when used with double buffering. With triple buffering it does not.