PSA: TURN OFF NVIDIA REFLEX

[Cap'n Crud]

Maybe it's just my system but turning off reflex my fps went from fluctuating wildly from like 48-52 while just standing there to a smooth 60 even with hardware lumen on high. It also seems to help a lot with the weird load-in issue when you go from indoors to outdoors, where it slowly loads everything in right in front of you.

Playing on a 4090 laptop at 1440p DLSS quality with most things maxed out except shadows and post-processing I think. Worked wonders for me, hope it helps some of you too.

[catch22atplay]

It may depend on 3 things, type of monitor, vrr and which gpu driver. I just use my 55" tv so 60hz refresh and it can't do any vrr. Not losing fps using reflex but drops latency a hair. RTX-4080 with 576.40 driver and not using vsync as it's horrid latency for me. So capped at 66 here instead when playing.

Just tried 4k ultra settings hw rt lumen ultra, dlss quality. Wanted to stress the gpu a bit. So outdoors was 50fps with reflex off, on and on+boost. So no change to fps. Tried it with framegen on as well and was 90fps and no change. Not sure the setting does anything as it's forced On by the driver. Think they added the ability to use boost. But off i don't believe works as it's not supposed to. Also tried fullscreen and borderless as well with no difference. And note fullscreen did work better with 576.28 driver. That or i'm remembering incorrectly.

Checking PC latency the one we feel the most ie mouse movement etc there's a huge difference. Reflex off PC Latency is 66ms and with it on it's 33ms. Relative latency goes from Reflex Off 22ms to On 16ms. Note at 66fps uncapped. And still no change when using boost. Framegen ON was R Lat=17ms and PC Lat=52ms at 66fps capped and different area for that test. And ofc no change when trying off, on or boost. So oddly Reflex off and framegen off has worse PC latency then framegen On and Reflex On (can't be turned off). That's 66ms vs 52ms. Not that's a bit of a shocker. Note they felt about the same. No Framegen and Reflex On was far superior and you felt it.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3482375050

As a comparison 60hz vsync is about 26ms R Lat and 120ms PC Latency for me and not really playable no reflex. Reflex On is R lat=18ms and PC Lat=90ms. So Reflex is working. The problem is i need under 90ms PC Latency at all times or i'm turning vsync off as it feels like crap. With Reflex on it may drop to say 60ms but it can increase to 134ms with avg of 90ms. Note this is borderless. Fullscreen can perform better latency wise but alt/tab one time and fps takes a dump and have to restart game. So not really an option for me. I've played with Turning on and off fullscreen optimizations for the game's exe files and windowed optimizations in windows/graphics/xxxgame.

So if disabling Reflex works for you it may work for some others. Especially if they have a vrr monitor i'd give it a try. Reflex shouldn't effect loading but hey computers do weird things they often shouldn't. I used to hate reflex as it messed up a lot of my games. But lately and i mean last 2 drivers it seems pretty good for me. Oh it worked in Starfield a year ago. Now the game just crashes for me. Can't be bothered to figure out why atm. It was 100% stable since release but it seems to really hate 570 drivers.

So VRR?

[kdodds]

That's how badly this game is optimized. Also 4090 here, desktop though. Turning on Reflex costs 5-10 frames for me in a specific location, but makes them "more stable" overall (50fps-200fps) than having it off (40fps-280fps). It's noticeably more stable in specific areas, for example, an inn with a fireplace goes from 40-140fps to 60-90fps. Just what I'm experiencing, don't shoot the messenger. So it costs some frames staring at a particular spot, but overall is more stable when moving about.

[Mav99]

The problem is Reflex, not just with this game.

In Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and Horizon Forbidden West Reflex seems to cause random graphics glitches, like black faces or other weird issues, that show up and disappear without any real explanation. After turning Reflex off, none of that ever happened again.

And it's not just Reflex that's causing issues but also the "Low Latency" option in the nVidia control panel. In Indiana Jones and the Great Circle having that on "Ultra" also hurts frame-rates badly.

If you feel the need to use either of that, it might be best to set Low Latency just "On", not "Ultra" and to use Reflex with caution and possibly without the "Boost" feature. After all, in order to lower latency, Reflex and the Low Latency feature alter the way a game would usually render it's frames and that doesn't seem to work so well sometimes...

Personally I rarely use frame generation and I never had an issue with high latency that was not caused by issues with the game itself, so I usually have both of these settings OFF.

[Dyna]

I think it is best to just look into this yourself and enable and disable to see if it feels better and give more FPS.

Last i mentioned that i had a few more FPS with it disabled on my 3000 series a 4000 series reported the opposite. Driver versions can also impact results.

[ZemX]

Reflex IS the low latency setting in the driver. They are the same feature. And reflex ON will normally cap framerate at around 3-5% below the refresh rate of the monitor. That's any game. e.g. If I am running with gsync+vsync on at 100Hz refresh, turning on Reflex will cap me around 97fps.

Can't say I've noticed problems in this game with it. I am running vsync forced on in the driver, gsync on, FG and DLSS balanced on in the game. I also have overridden DLSS to preset J for scaling in the driver. Looks better.

I do sometimes run into parts of the game world where framerate dips for no apparent reason. Like sections of forest in the open world where I was humming along at 97fps and suddenly it's dipped to 70s. It's weird. But most of the time, no, it's steadyish in the 90s somewhere and with just the usual short hitches while travelling every now and then.

[MechBFP]

My solution is to just play games that don't rely on boatloads of AI garbage that ruin the image and create ludicrous input lag. You do you though.

[1MantisPhoenix]

Originally posted by catch22atplay:

It may depend on 3 things, type of monitor, vrr and which gpu driver. I just use my 55" tv so 60hz refresh and it can't do any vrr. Not losing fps using reflex but drops latency a hair. RTX-4080 with 576.40 driver and not using vsync as it's horrid latency for me. So capped at 66 here instead when playing.

Just tried 4k ultra settings hw rt lumen ultra, dlss quality. Wanted to stress the gpu a bit. So outdoors was 50fps with reflex off, on and on+boost. So no change to fps. Tried it with framegen on as well and was 90fps and no change. Not sure the setting does anything as it's forced On by the driver. Think they added the ability to use boost. But off i don't believe works as it's not supposed to. Also tried fullscreen and borderless as well with no difference. And note fullscreen did work better with 576.28 driver. That or i'm remembering incorrectly.

Checking PC latency the one we feel the most ie mouse movement etc there's a huge difference. Reflex off PC Latency is 66ms and with it on it's 33ms. Relative latency goes from Reflex Off 22ms to On 16ms. Note at 66fps uncapped. And still no change when using boost. Framegen ON was R Lat=17ms and PC Lat=52ms at 66fps capped and different area for that test. And ofc no change when trying off, on or boost. So oddly Reflex off and framegen off has worse PC latency then framegen On and Reflex On (can't be turned off). That's 66ms vs 52ms. Not that's a bit of a shocker. Note they felt about the same. No Framegen and Reflex On was far superior and you felt it.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3482375050

As a comparison 60hz vsync is about 26ms R Lat and 120ms PC Latency for me and not really playable no reflex. Reflex On is R lat=18ms and PC Lat=90ms. So Reflex is working. The problem is i need under 90ms PC Latency at all times or i'm turning vsync off as it feels like crap. With Reflex on it may drop to say 60ms but it can increase to 134ms with avg of 90ms. Note this is borderless. Fullscreen can perform better latency wise but alt/tab one time and fps takes a dump and have to restart game. So not really an option for me. I've played with Turning on and off fullscreen optimizations for the game's exe files and windowed optimizations in windows/graphics/xxxgame.

So if disabling Reflex works for you it may work for some others. Especially if they have a vrr monitor i'd give it a try. Reflex shouldn't effect loading but hey computers do weird things they often shouldn't. I used to hate reflex as it messed up a lot of my games. But lately and i mean last 2 drivers it seems pretty good for me. Oh it worked in Starfield a year ago. Now the game just crashes for me. Can't be bothered to figure out why atm. It was 100% stable since release but it seems to really hate 570 drivers.

So VRR?

It also depends on IF you use the windows hardware scheduling options ... AND if you rebar.. or not.

[peon]

Is this really surprising? There is a known cpu cost with using reflex, but in situations where your using framegen, you kinda need it. I dont even turn it on unless im using that feature.

[catch22atplay]

Reflex is forced On when framegen is enabled. Doesn't matter that you can change the Reflex setting in game it doesn't override it.

For gsync yes you should be 3fps or whatever it is below refresh with Reflex On as that's the perfect setting for gsync to eliminate tearing. For non gsync users there is no limit unless vsync is On then it's the same as monitor refresh rate. Vsync off we lower tearing by going a few over refresh rate.

Low latency mode isn't horrible but i don't use it as there's a fps cost although minor. Ultra low latency mode i wish it was removed from nvapp. It's always been horrible for me. fps loss and inconsistent frame pacing makes it unusable. Sure if you want to play Counterstrike at 300fps and need that extra 0.5ms drop in latency go for it. But seriously only a professional player needs that setting. Remove it from nvapp maybe leave it in control panel. Or just leave it in nvprofileinspector only. Can't tell you how many times people complained about fps in other games and it was Ultra Low Latency mode causing the issue.

I always have HAGS On so no idea how Reflex is effected by it. And Rebar i see no benefit using it in this game. It's Off by default but i've tried enabling it via nvpi and saw no change with Reflex On or Off.