Frame rate difference Full screen/Windowed

[Bluescaster 21]

Hi All,

I've not noticed this before so I think it is a new thing on my FS9, if anyone have observations I'd be grateful to see them?

Since changing to Windows 10, I've only recently been able to work out (from reading this Forum:-)  how to operate the top FS Menu in 'Full Screen' mode.  My previous Operating System was not a problem. However, now delighted I could use my Sim of choice (FS9) in 'Full Screen', my Frame Rate seems to be limited to 60fps. Is this as it should be, or have I made a mistake in setting options or something?

In 'Windowed' mode the fps are in the hundreds (as they were when I was using Windows 7)  The performance seems fine so I shouldn't be quibbling one might venture - especially as I can recall the time when 60 fps would have been unbelievable 😉  That said, I am curious if nothing else.

Observations welcomed.

Kind Regards,

Blue

[Dave Morgan 68]

Hi.

I think it's a Win 10 thing: it limits the fullscreen framerate to the monitor's refresh rate.

There is occasional talk of various vertical-sync settings but I've never had any success with them on my GTX 1060 nor with Nvidia Inspector. The only solution has been to use a borderless window application, though that still leaves popup panels undocked.

The 60 fps has one advantage in that a lot of routines within FS9 have to complete within one frame. Some extend the frame time, so reducing fps, but others are just dumped if they over-run. Sound wavs are usually dumped so sounds get corrupted above a certain framerate and turn into a sh***ty buzzing. I imagine there are other things that will benefit from the extra time (texture loading or autogen perhaps) though I'd be hard pressed to prove any.

D

Edited June 23, 2020 by Dave Morgan
for a little extra

[Luis Hernandez 570]

If you see well, those 60 FPS are actually smoother than the hundreds of FPS that you see in windowed mode, because of the way Win10 forces Vsync. Too bad it's too hard to switch tasks from FS9 in Fullscreen mode.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Luis Hernandez

[Dave Morgan 68]

11 hours ago, Luis Hernandez said:

If you see well, those 60 FPS are actually smoother than the hundreds of FPS that you see in windowed mode, because of the way Win10 forces Vsync. Too bad it's too hard to switch tasks from FS9 in Fullscreen mode.

That's a good point, and one I'd forgotten.

Having framerate locked to refresh rate reduces tearing of the image when you pan your viewpoint. 60 Hz is great for me: the combination of good monitor and elderly eyes means I don't ever see any flicker.

[PebbleBeach 120]

On 6/23/2020 at 6:01 PM, Luis Hernandez said:

If you see well, those 60 FPS are actually smoother than the hundreds of FPS that you see in windowed mode, because of the way Win10 forces Vsync. Too bad it's too hard to switch tasks from FS9 in Fullscreen mode.

That's a great theory. But there is no evidence that I know of to support your opinion. 

[Luis Hernandez 570]

4 hours ago, PebbleBeach said:

That's a great theory. But there is no evidence that I know of to support your opinion. 

It's not an opinion: it's the result of observations in my laptop (specs in signature). It may depend on system configuration, of course and I'll understand if it does not work in yours.

For your reference, I've never been able to use the 1/2 refresh rate in either FS9 or FSX, either windowed or fullscreen (or even DX9 or DX10 in FSX), despite all the reports of people that have been able to do this in Win10.

[PebbleBeach 120]

Still an opinion until we hear from further examples depicting the same issue.

[Bluescaster 21]

Many thanks to all who gave their observations, I was most interested. What a very helpful Forum this is 😉

Stay safe everyone!

Regards,

Blue