Impact of Monitor Resolution?

[paulb]

I currently have a Dell 38" monitor - 3,840 x 1,600. It's a widescreen 2300R curved monitor. It's a nice monitor and I only use it for flight simming.

 

Finding myself with some free money, I have been looking at a 40" Dell monitor - 5,120 x 2160 curved widescreen 2500R.

 

So, to the point of this post - I know that higher resolution uses more graphics card memory, but will it also impact on frame rate? I am not a frame rate counter but I do want a fluid, smooth display experience without any stuttering.

 

Any thoughts please? 

 

[Sniper31]

Yes, higher resolutions will affect performance Paul, but by how much depends on several factors. Of course your CPU and GPU matter the most. One important thing to look at for any monitor that you want to use for gaming/simming is the refresh rate. Higher is better. Decent quality gaming monitors have refresh rates in the 144Hz range, whereas good quality gaming monitors have refresh rates in the 240Hz range. Refresh rate matters quite a bit in simming in regards to smoothness. It gets real techy and I do believe @renault Pete can break that aspect down better for you. In real rough terms though, the higher the refresh rate, the better your overall PC system is at smoothly displaying your sim (and other games too). Of course, you get better performance with a better CPU and GPU tied in to this. 

 

Maybe Pete can chime in more with a better technical discussion about the importance of refresh rates.

[paulb]

24 minutes ago, Sniper31 said:

Yes, higher resolutions will affect performance Paul, but by how much depends on several factors. Of course your CPU and GPU matter the most. One important thing to look at for any monitor that you want to use for gaming/simming is the refresh rate. Higher is better. Decent quality gaming monitors have refresh rates in the 144Hz range, whereas good quality gaming monitors have refresh rates in the 240Hz range. Refresh rate matters quite a bit in simming in regards to smoothness. It gets real techy and I do believe @renault Pete can break that aspect down better for you. In real rough terms though, the higher the refresh rate, the better your overall PC system is at smoothly displaying your sim (and other games too). Of course, you get better performance with a better CPU and GPU tied in to this. 

 

Maybe Pete can chime in more with a better technical discussion about the importance of refresh rates.

 

Thanks Landon,

But I am not really concerned about the refresh rate. It is quite low on the Dell monitors but that makes no difference to me as I only use that pc for MSFS, P3D and XP11.

My last two monitors have had low refresh rates and were still great for simming.

I totally agree with you that games (shooters etc) need a high refresh rate. 

[Sniper31]

Actually Paul, a higher refresh rate will make more of a difference in simming, and especially so in MSFS. I don't play shooters (did enough of that in real life...lol), but I mostly use my PC for simming. I have lots of monitors and have compared high refresh to low refresh rates across 1080P, 1440P and 4k, and in all instances, the higher refresh rate monitors produce hands down smoother performance in MSFS especially. I would not steer you this direction for no reason. I don't have stock in any monitor companies...lol. I am just trying to help you reach the smoothest flying for you  

Edited October 13, 2022 by Sniper31

[paulb]

Thanks Landon. I am always happy to learn. But I thought that refresh rate was the same as frames per second? 

I think that my current monitor has a refresh rate of 60hz. But if I limit my frame rate to 30 why would a higher refresh rate make a difference?

Not debating here, just trying to understand better! 

[Sniper31]

Okay Paul, again, Pete is better explaining this particular tech. That said, I will give it a go. 

 

So, the idea of limiting your frame rate to half of your refresh rate has been around for a good while now. It worked for some in P3D (not sure about X-Plane as I never have used it), but it is built into MSFS, so it works much more effectively. If your monitor refresh rate is 144Hz, then you can limit your frame rate in MSFS to 100%, 50%, 30% and not sure if they still have the 20% option after SU10 has come out. So say you pick the 100% option in MSFS. That means you are limiting your frame rate to 100% of your monitor refresh. If you have a monitor that is 144Hz, then that is your frame limit. Now of course, you have to have the other PC components that allow you to reach a frame rate of 144, so mainly a high end CPU and GPU and some balancing of the MSFS settings. Next is the 50% option. That one is much more attractive, as medium high to high end PC components have the capability to run at 50%. If you are using a 60Hz monitor, the 50% gives you 30 FPS. Is that smooth enough for you? That is a whole separate debate that I don't want to get into here. For some it is, and others it is not. Personally, I like more than 30FPS. 30 FPS is just not smooth enough for me personally. So, since I am running a monitor that has a refresh rate of 144Hz, I set 50% in MSFS, and that limits my frames to 72. My system can reach and run at that no problem. Even flying the Fenix with some AI going and into some complex scenery like EGLL. Now, there are some caveats. I run at 1440P resolution and my MSFS settings are a mix of some Ultra, mostly HIGH and some MEDIUM settings. It is hard to explain into words the smoothness I experience in MSFS with this setup. Now, I have a high end system. I am running a Ryzen 5800X3D, an EVGA 3090Ti GPU, 64 Gbs RAM, and I have MSFS running on an NVMe M.2 drive. I also have a couple good 4K monitors. I have tried extended tests running MSFS on those 4K monitors (both of which have refresh rates of 60Hz) and I don't get anywhere near the smoothness I get with my 2K setup (that is two monitors running at 1440P and 144Hz refresh). After tuning and balancing my MSFS settings under this setup, I have it where I balanced between being CPU and GPU limited in MSFS. 

 

That is the best I can explain it, but without someone that can dig deeper into why the higher refresh rates help with smoothness, that is about all I can offer. There really is no way to explain it better then experiencing it for yourself. But, I understand that involves taking a leap of faith and making a purchase, and the last thing I want to coerce someone into spending money on something they are not comfortable with. I will leave you with this. This all works well enough for me that I have TWO 4K monitors AND a 4K TV just sitting in my closet, not being used. At some point I will probably donate them to someone in need, I won't let them go to waste. But there you go.

[paulb]

22 minutes ago, Sniper31 said:

Okay Paul, again, Pete is better explaining this particular tech. That said, I will give it a go. 

 

So, the idea of limiting your frame rate to half of your refresh rate has been around for a good while now. It worked for some in P3D (not sure about X-Plane as I never have used it), but it is built into MSFS, so it works much more effectively. If your monitor refresh rate is 144Hz, then you can limit your frame rate in MSFS to 100%, 50%, 30% and not sure if they still have the 20% option after SU10 has come out. So say you pick the 100% option in MSFS. That means you are limiting your frame rate to 100% of your monitor refresh. If you have a monitor that is 144Hz, then that is your frame limit. Now of course, you have to have the other PC components that allow you to reach a frame rate of 144, so mainly a high end CPU and GPU and some balancing of the MSFS settings. Next is the 50% option. That one is much more attractive, as medium high to high end PC components have the capability to run at 50%. If you are using a 60Hz monitor, the 50% gives you 30 FPS. Is that smooth enough for you? That is a whole separate debate that I don't want to get into here. For some it is, and others it is not. Personally, I like more than 30FPS. 30 FPS is just not smooth enough for me personally. So, since I am running a monitor that has a refresh rate of 144Hz, I set 50% in MSFS, and that limits my frames to 72. My system can reach and run at that no problem. Even flying the Fenix with some AI going and into some complex scenery like EGLL. Now, there are some caveats. I run at 1440P resolution and my MSFS settings are a mix of some Ultra, mostly HIGH and some MEDIUM settings. It is hard to explain into words the smoothness I experience in MSFS with this setup. Now, I have a high end system. I am running a Ryzen 5800X3D, an EVGA 3090Ti GPU, 64 Gbs RAM, and I have MSFS running on an NVMe M.2 drive. I also have a couple good 4K monitors. I have tried extended tests running MSFS on those 4K monitors (both of which have refresh rates of 60Hz) and I don't get anywhere near the smoothness I get with my 2K setup (that is two monitors running at 1440P and 144Hz refresh). After tuning and balancing my MSFS settings under this setup, I have it where I balanced between being CPU and GPU limited in MSFS. 

 

That is the best I can explain it, but without someone that can dig deeper into why the higher refresh rates help with smoothness, that is about all I can offer. There really is no way to explain it better then experiencing it for yourself. But, I understand that involves taking a leap of faith and making a purchase, and the last thing I want to coerce someone into spending money on something they are not comfortable with. I will leave you with this. This all works well enough for me that I have TWO 4K monitors AND a 4K TV just sitting in my closet, not being used. At some point I will probably donate them to someone in need, I won't let them go to waste. But there you go.

 

Many thanks Landon for providing such a full response. Much appreciated.

 

I now need to sit down in a dark room and think about it all 

[renault]

@paulb

@Sniper31

 

 

Thank you for an excellent explanation Landon 

 

Sorry for not responding earlier.
We have an ongoing family situation that required us to be away for the last few days.

 

The refresh rate of a monitor as you all know simply is the maximum number of times in a second that that 
 the screen image will be updated by a program.
 
Videos or computer games only display stationary images. The "illusion" of motion occurs because our brains are really good
 at stitching together still images slightly displaced in time and amalgamating them into what we then perceive as a smooth motion.
 
 However, every one of us has a slightly different ability to do this.  So for some,  20 still images /second may appear to be smooth and fluid motion
 while for others anything less than 100 images/second may still allow us to discern individual still images and we would wish for a higher rate.
 
When we are not able to do this and create a smooth sequence , our brain interprets the images as "jerky, stuttering or any descriptor you wish to use".

The most important comment  perhaps is that there is no right or wrong .  

 

It is really a very personal reaction to how your brain is able to amalgamate this information.
 
 As I mentioned in the beginning , the refresh rate of a monitor is the maximum number of individual images it can update and display  in 1 second.
 
 Many monitors are designed to display either 50 or 60 hz/sec as it is easy to synchronize this frequency with the power frequency coming into your home.
 This frequency is very precisely regulated.  However , there are some monitors which can display  refresh rates of 144 - 240 hz or so.
 
 So the first question perhaps is what is the refresh rate of the human eye. Although it is open to debate , most authors would suggest that perhaps the maximum
 we can comfortably see is between 50 - 90 fps. (1)  
 
 Another way to look at refresh rate is that it is the time available for the image sent to your eyes and then to your brain to be interpreted.
 Unfortunately, the process is not completely perfect, and some information may get lost in the translation so to speak.  So it is generally thought that
 slightly more than 60 hz/sec refresh rate  is preferable as when information is lost we are not able to form a complete image.
 
 However, the process by which the our brain interprets motion has one important element that hails from the time we were living in caves and learning
 how to heat meat over an open fire.  Our ancestors survived because we became very , very good and detecting changes in motion, since that generally might mean
 something that would be severely injurious to our health and well being was about to make its presence known.
 
 In other words, we are very good at determining the difference between motion and changes in light intensity . The end result is that we can see
 flickering light at 50 or 60 hz and generally we don't feel that is a pleasant experience.  Recent research (2)  is indicating that we may actually be able
 to perceive flickering at upwards of 500Hz (500 times per second).

 

Normally screen flickering is not an issue with flight simulation, but with a LCD monitor it can occur if the refresh rate is simply too low. 

Most monitors get around this issue by inserting a blank black frame between images which reduces

flickering  - reference 5 -- Blur Busters Black frame insertion test.
 
 If we generally can't see much beyond 60 hz/sec then why does a higher refresh rate monitor often just look better as Landon has mentioned.
 
 Well one reason is that a higher refresh rate monitor reduces blur and means that more information reaches your eyes in a given interval of time.
 If what you are viewing is very fast paced then your eye/brain will have an easier job of creating an amalgamated image as blurred images are more difficult
 to interpret.  
 
 Of course this has to go hand in hand with have a hardware rendering chain that is capable of supplying a frame rate which is computable with 
 the refresh rate of the monitor as Landon mentioned.

 

If this is available , then the higher refresh of the system looks better, because there is more information presented to us 

as there are more individual images .  Our brain is able to stitch this greater number of temporal still images into a much more cohesive and

pleasing fluid motion experience as a result.

 
 If the image is being sent to the  monitor at a very low rate (low fps) you may end up with duplicate images interspersed with those which have changed, so it is

a bit of a tricky  situation as to whether it will always look better.

 

 Our brains when presented with a series of still images slightly displaced in time fill in the gaps between images by blurring and we perceive this
 as a fluid continuous motion, rather than a series of images.  But put too many images into the sequence that haven't been displaced in time  and

most of us would probably object.

 

For example , a 60 hz monitor that is receiving a 30 fps input would have an additional image which is essentially a duplicate of each temporal one (changing in time).

Some people may not notice , but others may have the sensation that they are watching a slide shown trying to mimic smooth motion. The monitor test that I have included in the references,   Blur Busters (5)  has a really good example of this  (Variable rate refresh simulation) . 
   
 An often overlooked parameter though that is an important part of refresh rate is the monitor response time (4).  Various manufactures define it differently, but in 
 essence it is the time in milliseconds to change from grey to grey midtones in a colour image which is in motion. Simply put , how quickly can a pixel on a monitor
 change from one colour to another. Faster response times reduce blurring and ghosting. Ideally a response time of between 1 - 5 ms is good
 for a gaming monitor.  
 
 So, just to summarize .  generally speaking most of us can perceive 60 hz/second as a good fluid motion experience.

 

 If our application is able to supply the monitor with a consistent fps at this rate then this would appear as a sweet spot to aim for.

Some of us, though may find at even a lower rate of 30/45 fps  also appears to be smooth and fluid, while other would find that a

lower fps/refresh rate gives a stuttering and unsatisfactory experience. 

 

However as we have this innate built in sensitivity to motion detection, a critical part of a good experience  is stability in the fps, regardless

of the actual value.  
 
 As I said at the beginning, there is no right or wrong answer with this as in reality it is about individual human perception.

The best answer I believe is to chose what you like. 

 

If it looks good to you , regardless  of how it appears to a colleague then you have the answer which will

give you the best flight sim experience on your particular hardware configuration and settings.

 If you want to experiment with your monitor and have some fun to see what all this looks like visually, have

a play with the Blur Busters website (5).

 

I hope this is of some help

Cheers

Pete
 
  
 References:
 
 1) How many frames per second can the human eye see
https://www.healthline.com/health/human-eye-fps
 
2)  Perception of flicker 
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep07861
  
3) Samsung - Refresh rates of monitors.
https://insights.samsung.com/2022/03/07/how-does-refresh-rate-work-for-monitors/
 
 4) Monitor Response time
https://www.benq.com/en-us/knowledge-center/knowledge/gaming-monitor-input-lag-versus-response-time-whats-the-difference-and-why-should-i-care.html
 
 5)  Blur Blusters --  Different Monitor Tests - Have a try , some are quite interesting , but all are good tests to try on your monitor 
https://www.testufo.com/

 

[paulb]

Wow! That is really informative Pete. Your post should be a stickie.

 

I will read your post and links carefully.

 

Thank you very much for taking the time and effort. It is much appreciated.

 

Best wishes

Paul

[renault]

14 hours ago, paulb said:

Wow! That is really informative Pete. Your post should be a stickie.

 

I will read your post and links carefully.

 

Thank you very much for taking the time and effort. It is much appreciated.

 

Best wishes

Paul

You're most welcome Paul

I'm pleased you found it of interest

Cheers

Pete

[Sniper31]

@paulb @renault 

See Paul, I told you Pete could break it down much more technically then me  Pete, thanks for stepping in taking the time to put all that info on here, especially since you've been dealing with some family stuff. I hope all is well on that front, or at least not getting any worse. 

 

Cheers,

Landon