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[Discontinued][17-09-22] RatRefresh - refresh rate switcher, stops LCD tearing
Rataplan626:
Metalhammer, I think it's fairly safe to 'underclock' your LCD. Most LCD's I know are 60 or 75Hz native, and pretty much all arcades are just over 60 but mostly range from 55-60Hz in my experience. As long as the LCD syncs to it it's safe as far as I can tell. Setting it to a higher rate than it was designed for would theoretically strain the display a bit more, but all my monitors just give a 'input out of range' message as soon as I yank it up too much.
The 'stability' question I'm not sure about what you mean. If you set a refreshrate to 59.59, your videocard will send 59.59 frames a second, not more, not less. These devices all have very accurate frequency generators and I have so far not seen any issues. When I set my display to an 'odd' resolution, it just stays there and works.
Hardware dependent is not as much of the issue as software is. You will need a driver that supports EDID override. Now NVidia and AMD already do, Intel does and is currently implementing that on multiple driver branches. So the chances are yours already supports it, if mot the beta driver might work out. On my system I still run the beta driver although I believe by now the final version with EDID support is out.
Another part is the monitor itself. My screen work from about 49 - 64Hz from the top of my head, others might do more or less. But practically all games I play work with something between 55-61Hz.
Metalhammer:
Hi Rataplan,
I agree my question about stability was not so clear ;)
I mainly meant if you can keep you screen at a custom resolution for some time without keeping handy an extinguisher :P
On the cabinet I'll have a Fujitsu Scenicview B19-5 with a n NV Gtx 1050 while at the moment I can play with a Gtx 460 and an old Samsung (cannot remember the model!) ;)
I did today few test on my rig (the proper one I use daily) and I set some custom resolution even though Nvidia panel don't allow you to use fractions for the refresh rate.
The outcome was absolutely disappointing since I tried to come as close as possible to the game refresh rate but tearing started to appear and was pretty terrible :-[
For example Double Dragon (running @57.44Hz) when viewed at 57Hz looked way worse than at 60Hz ???
... I really hope the decimals will be able to do the trick otherwise my enthusiasm will go straight through the drain :angry:
Take care and speak to you soon :)
I'll keep you posted !
Rataplan626:
Now that's exactly where EDID overrides come in. Usually the custom resolution settings from the graphics card vendors themselves only allow for integers for refreshrate, but an EDID override steers on a specific pixelclock which enables you to get a very specific refreshrate. So you could use CRU to set the exact refreshrate (with decimals). Or just use RatRefresh of course ;)
Also, to get the best results, use syncrefresh 1 and disable vsync in your mame.ini. That makes the game sync to the refreshrate rather than the other way around, which keeps everything smooth as butter even if the set refreshrate is off by 0.01 Hz or something. With regular vsync you would then skip a frame every so many frames.
Metalhammer:
Ok, so if I got it right, I need to use synch to monitor refresh rate and triple buffer together, right ? ... if so, it's my actual config already ;)
One thing I didn't (probably) get: RatRefresh forces a specific resolution into the register/CRU and then turns it into the current one ?
In other words, do I need to use CRU in order to be able to set a specific refresh rate or can I simply run RatRefresh and it will take care of everything ?
If the latter, what about passing the tool a not supported resolution ? Will windows black screen and will I need to boot in safe mode :( ?
Cheers :)
Rataplan626:
If refreshrate matches and sync refresh is on I'd not enable triple buffering as it just generates a little overhead then.
You can supply a -min and -max switch with minimum and maximum refrrshrates for your setup. If the requested rate is beyond the tool just quits (or sets 60Hz, I'm not sure at the moment). I tested it by using ratrefresh from command line, setting rates until my monitor stopped syncing to the signal. Of course it's black screen than. But you press up or f3 to get the previous command back on the prompt, delete the last so many characters with backspace and just type in another refresh rate. You could always boot in vga-mode but thats too cumbersome in my opinion.
For now you need CRU one time to get the proper registry key for your monitor. After that you'll only need RatRefresh. I think the opening post is very complete. Read that again and just try - really you'll enjoy your games much more!
I currently have a testversion ready where you can query the system, it'll reply with the detected monitors, and then you can just pass the display name to the tool and it'll work the rest out. But there's a few bug I'll first have to work out.
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