Input lag, stuttering and skipped frames

[Storm]

My major concern about this solution is inevitable input lag, stuttering and skipped frames that will be caused by the way how windowed mode and DWM works in newest versions of Windows. Magpie had it, every single game in windowed/borderless mode had it. Is there any way to actually fix this issue in 2021?

[Storm]

Andvari eredeti hozzászólása:

Uh, borderless has made a large leap in recent times that unless your system has issues, it's virtually imperceptible to fullscreen which is a legacy mode by now. Look up RTSS or Fast Sync. You do you though.

First of all, exclusive fullscreen is the best, effective and most popular mode out there. The fact that borderless is kinda pushed forward hard these days and widely used by streamers doesn't make it "modern".
Second, it always was and will be problematic due to DWM as I explained before, so far years past and still no workaround including different RTSS settings.
Last, but not least, Fast Sync has similar problem with skipped frames as windowed mode unless you have twice more fps than your display refresh rate, but at this point with 120+ fps you don't need FSR at all.

(ノ°□°)ノ eredeti hozzászólása:

Beliefs that Windows force vertical sync on windowed games, or have huge input lag, have been carried over from the days of Windows 8. Borderless full-screen windows are now the preferred method for new games and do not have any of the mentioned drawbacks. For example, a borderless LS window runs in independent flip mode with a delay of 3ms (with the tearing flag enabled) to 15ms (disabled), which is still less than 1 frame time on my system.

Read above about "preferred method for new games". Intependent flip mode is another hot topic when it comes major Windows updates and graphics subsystem. So no, this is not "beliefs", this is a fact that was discussed and researched for years. If one ingnoring screen tearing or frame inconsistency doesn't make it non-existent. Seriously that feels kinda awkward to explain to a developer of a commercial software.

[(ノ°□°)ノ]

Thunda Gawd eredeti hozzászólása:

Andvari eredeti hozzászólása:

Uh, borderless has made a large leap in recent times that unless your system has issues, it's virtually imperceptible to fullscreen which is a legacy mode by now. Look up RTSS or Fast Sync. You do you though.

First of all, exclusive fullscreen is the best, effective and most popular mode out there. The fact that borderless is kinda pushed forward hard these days and widely used by streamers doesn't make it "modern".
Second, it always was and will be problematic due to DWM as I explained before, so far years past and still no workaround including different RTSS settings.
Last, but not least, Fast Sync has similar problem with skipped frames as windowed mode unless you have twice more fps than your display refresh rate, but at this point with 120+ fps you don't need FSR at all.

(ノ°□°)ノ eredeti hozzászólása:

Beliefs that Windows force vertical sync on windowed games, or have huge input lag, have been carried over from the days of Windows 8. Borderless full-screen windows are now the preferred method for new games and do not have any of the mentioned drawbacks. For example, a borderless LS window runs in independent flip mode with a delay of 3ms (with the tearing flag enabled) to 15ms (disabled), which is still less than 1 frame time on my system.

Read above about "preferred method for new games". Intependent flip mode is another hot topic when it comes major Windows updates and graphics subsystem. So no, this is not "beliefs", this is a fact that was discussed and researched for years. If one ingnoring screen tearing or frame inconsistency doesn't make it non-existent. Seriously that feels kinda awkward to explain to a developer of a commercial software.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/demystifying-full-screen-optimizations/

[Storm]

(ノ°□°)ノ eredeti hozzászólása:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/demystifying-full-screen-optimizations/

This article is nothing but another useless support bunch of genetic non-related tips that usually got many dislikes as "not helpful" in main support forum. Look for comments below this article. Also fullscreen optimizations and DWM is not the same thing. Microsoft completely ingnoring this issue for years and even forced borderless mode into their UWP games from Windows Store, adding another nail into coffin of plans to became as popular as other PC gaming platforms.

You can find many tests and benchmarks, tons of discussions on reddit or hardware forums for last 5 years about issues with framepacing and minimal/average fps that was introduced in Windows 8 with DWM and FO. And yes there were people who tried to deny or ignore it, of course, but it was explained and tested in many cases.
https://www.reddit.com/r/allbenchmarks/comments/ggcsvc/windows_10_fullscreen_optimizations_vs_fullscreen/

Unfortunately as I can see nothing changed, there is still people who ignore or not understand it and there is still no reliable solution, but dirty workarounds on the level almost nobody would even try to use them.

[(ノ°□°)ノ]

You don't like article or fullscreen optimizations itself?

Take a look at the conclusion of the article you sent:
"However, and if we consider an usability / performance approach between the different presentation modes too, the most consistent, balanced and overall recommended option throughout all different display / sync scenarios, would be the "Win10 Fullscreen Optimizations" (FSO) presentation mode."

Sure fullscreen optimizations is not a DWM. I believe it's for bypassing DWM, which is independent or direct flip.

I think it all depends on the specific game and its implementation. Here are some quotes from the same article:

"While Border (DX11) FSO and FSE modes were almost on par in terms of frametime consistency, the FSB one was significantly smoother than both FSO & FSE in the 99-99.9th frametime percentile range"

"However, stability-wise, the FSE mode was significantly less consistent than both FSO and FSB modes"

"In fact, while stability on FC5 FSE mode was complete stuttering mess under the V-Sync scenario, FSO & FSB modes showed no significant differences in stability between them and didn't show any similar frame pacing issue."

"Stability-wise, and while there weren't remarkable differences between modes in FPS percentiles and FPS Lows metrics, there was a noteworthy worse frame pacing behavior under FSE vs both FSO and FSB modes."

"However, there were major differences between modes in terms of frametime consistency, being FSO mode significantly better than both FSE and FSB modes, and FSE the worst one showing a noteworthy frame pacing issue on this scenario."

As you can see these problems are also present in FSE.

[Storm]

(ノ°□°)ノ eredeti hozzászólása:

As you can see these problems are also present in FSE.

It is. But back to my opening post, this is a huge drawback of current way to use FSR from windowed mode only. Workaround for fullscreen would be great, even better a more precise and deep integration so UI and postprocessing wouldn't be affected by raw FSR scaling. No luck so far, so I will stick with Magpie and LS when it's possible without stuttering and bad framepacing.

[(ノ°□°)ノ]

If we talk about universal solution for every game, capturing a window content is the only way. There is no problem to capture exclusive fullscreen game and upscale it but it’s impossible to show it above fullscreen window. In theory, it’s possible to do it on second monitor.

[Storm]

That should be awesome. Any chance you can make with LS in future updates?
P.S. Ironically, one of few dirty workarounds for borderless issues also require to use second monitor...

[(ノ°□°)ノ]

Well, already wasted two weeks trying to implement some crazy features, but to no avail. Why not try this, at least I'll do a test to see if it works.

[elshepe613]

In fact, this window mode problem is caused by call of duty black ops 3, which when you put it in a window every time you move the mouse, the fps drops to 1, which makes it impossible to play it.

[(ノ°□°)ノ]

Thunda Gawd eredeti hozzászólása:

That should be awesome. Any chance you can make with LS in future updates?
P.S. Ironically, one of few dirty workarounds for borderless issues also require to use second monitor... :lunar2020ratinablanket:

Everything seems to be working fine.