Advice for interplay between FPS settings and monitor's refresh rate

[Danimal]

Hi all,

I have a multiple monitor setup. 

An  IPS ultrawide ASUS ultrawide 34" (3440x1440) which overclocks to 100Hz.

And a IPS Dell 27" widescreen (2560x1440) which runs at 165Hz.

I currently have my FPS locked at 125.

Does it matter if i use the ultrawide which only goes to 100Hz or would i be better off using the Dell? Should I use the Dell anyway as its got better specs apart from the size of the screen.

Secondly, would it matter if I set my FPS higher... or is better to keep it below the Hz of the monitor?

Thirdly, with legacy, can i take advantage of the ultrawide screen resolution without "zooming-in" and losing some of the actual playing field so to speak.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers

 

[hazz]

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Does it matter if i use the ultrawide which only goes to 100Hz or would i be better off using the Dell? Should I use the Dell anyway as its got better specs apart from the size of the screen.

For a competitive advantage, you definitely want to favour higher refresh rate. You will on average see enemies sooner when coming around corners etc, because there's a lower chance of someone appearing right after a refresh.

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Secondly, would it matter if I set my FPS higher... or is better to keep it below the Hz of the monitor?

The short answer to this is: more FPS is better. You will see enemies sooner and experience less of what feels like input lag (lag between you pressing a button or moving your mouse and something happening on your screen). Even if your monitor won't get a new full frame on every single refresh, you will get at least a partial frame that has more recent information. This video explains it nicely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8ZUqT6Tfiw&t=495s

Here are a couple of other sources to back this, because FPS capping is sometimes a topic of heated debate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzp8z1i5-Hc&t=40s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbHCU--VvpQ&t=542s

 

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Thirdly, with legacy, can i take advantage of the ultrawide screen resolution without "zooming-in" and losing some of the actual playing field so to speak.

As far as I'm aware, legacy (and even 2.60b) support adding visible field to the sides instead of zooming in when using a wider resolution. Additionally on legacy you shouldn't even need to change your cg_fov when doing this. However I'm not sure if this is limited with ultrawide resolutions - maybe someone else knows better.

 

Edit: Shoutout to Aciz for pretty much all the info in this post, I think I learned all of it from him.

Edited September 20, 2022 by hazz