Question Is it better to cap frame rate with RTSS or NVCP v3 Limiter?

[MiLik97]

This question popped into my head after watching Battle(non)sense’s video about this here:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W66pTe8YM2s


It’s been 3 years since he posted that video, and now I’m wondering if anything has changed since then.

With all the updates the RTSS received, and NVIDIA drivers released, have these frame rate limiters improved in a way so that the input lag is now closer to that of the in-game’s FPS limiters?

Also, what about frame times? Which of these two provides more consistent and stable frame times?

I don’t have proper tools to monitor input delay, and as frame times are concerned, I can only use MSI Afterburner’s OSD, so I was hoping you can help me with this, as it seems you’ve done plenty of testing with these tools,

So, out of these two, which one provides the least amount of input lag, and consistent, stable frame times?

 

[Frag Maniac]

Either works pretty well, but it may depend which one the game you're playing works with if one doesn't.

Honestly, I would just try both and look in Task Manager to see which uses the least RAM if both work and you can't decide. I know RTSS uses very little RAM, but I've never checked the resource use of Nvidia's Control Panel frame limiter.

 

[MiLik97]

Either works pretty well, but it may depend which one the game you're playing works with if one doesn't.

Honestly, I would just try both and look in Task Manager to see which uses the least RAM if both work and you can't decide. I know RTSS uses very little RAM, but I've never checked the resource use of Nvidia's Control Panel frame limiter.

Well, to give a better idea of which games I would use these two on, the games that I play are mostly competitive games like CS GO, Starcraft 2, Fighting Games, DotA 2, etc.

Most of them aren’t GPU bound, in fact, only a few of them are.

For example: Starcraft 2 LotV, and many fighting games are locked to 60 FPS by default, and my GPU usage hovers around 22-50% (depending on the game), while CPU usage percent varies across different games and different cores, as some of these games utilize either only one core, two cores, or all 4 of them.

One thing that I noticed on these 60 FPS-locked games while testing both RTSS and NVCP MFR was that:

• Without limiters, the frametimes fluctuated around the 16.6ms range by 0.1-0.9ms (meaning every second, or split second it went from, 16.6 to 16.5, 16.7, 16.2, 16.9, 17.2…)
• When either of the two limiters were enabled, and set to 60 FPS (even tho the games are already capped at that value) the frametimes immediately stabilized at 16.6ms and didn’t move at all from there. Like, the OSD frametime graph was a beautiful flat line, and never had any spikes in it
• When either of these two limiters were enabled, the CPU usage remained the same, however, the GPU usage went up when using only NVCP’s MFR.

When I was using RTSS, the GPU usage remained the same as without limiters enabled, however, immediately after enabling NVCP MFR, the GPU usage went up in most games.

The ones that had low GPU usage (22-30%) remained the same when using MFR, however, the ones that had (35+%) went up by 25-45%, resulting in a GPU usage within the range of 60-80% (again, game dependant)

So, with this information in mind, is there something wrong with MFR, or is it normal for it to behave like that (as it’s a driver-level limiter)?

Most of the tests were monitored via MSI Afterburner’s OSD.

Also, sorry for the long message, just wanted to be as informative as I could.

 

[shoaibshaikh]

The best approach for capping frame rates depends on various factors, such as the specific system configuration, the game being played, and personal preferences. RTSS (RivaTuner Statistics Server) and NVCP (NVIDIA Control Panel) v3 Limiter are both popular options for capping frame rates, with their own strengths and weaknesses. RTSS is known for its flexibility and precision, allowing for fine-grained frame rate control, while NVCP v3 Limiter is integrated with the NVIDIA Control Panel, making it more convenient for NVIDIA GPU users. Ultimately, the best method may vary for different users and scenarios, and experimentation is recommended to find the optimal solution for your specific setup.

 

[NeverReadyEddie]

I have used NVCP typically but last night after enabling an on screen frame time chart I noted my cap of 116 in Back4Blood was a very tiny bit jittery, so tiny little bumps, not spikes. I set 115 in RTSS (so I didn't have to restart the game and change NVCP) and the frame time line went absolutely perfectly flat. So in conclusion it looks like RTSS is a better FPS cap that NVCP.

I also have now implemented a nice set of Hotkeys to set RTSS FPS caps in-game so when I gamestream in another room I can set it to 60 FPS to match the lounge TV for smoother streaming, then 116 FPS for my 120Hz OLED TV, and finally 141 FPS for my 144Hz monitor. I can easily set the correct one in-game then so its more flexible than having to change it each time in NVCP and reboot the game if I forgot to set it correctly before launching the game.