1 reply to this topic

[RacerX]

Has anyone found a normal solution to MWO respecting the screen refresh of a variable refresh rate monitor? I have not and the internet has been of little help. I have been working through this issue for years and have yet to find a satisfactory answer. Below is an outline of the issue, supporting information, and limited work arounds.

Issue: MWO is limited to 60FPS in Mech lab/Lobby screen. This causes the monitor to set itself to 60hz regardless of what the graphics driver or Windows 10/11 are set to. In my case, I have a 240hz G-Sync compatible monitor. When a match launches, the FPS will increase from 60 FPS to whatever the computer is capable of producing but the screen refresh remains locked at 60Hz.

Game Behavior:

1) Will witness drawing, tearing, and what I would describe as wavy behavior with graphics at 60hz and an FPS above 60.

2) I can track monitor refresh via a setting in the Monitors OSD that allows refresh to be displayed on the screen.

Limited workarounds:

1) Power off the monitor, wait a few seconds, and then power on the monitor.
- Result: monitor will reset and allow a variable refresh. After power up, the game would run with a variable refresh rate until I ALT-Tabbed from the game or restarted the game.

2) Force MWO to display in a full screen window.
- Result: MWO is forced to use the static refresh set in Windows. In my case, 240hz. This refresh rate is respected regardless of game play or the 60FPS limit in Mech Lab.

3) Turn off and then turn on FreeSync settings in Monitor's OSD. I had to do this for multiple HP gaming monitors.
- Result: The monitor would reset. After the reset, the game will run with a variable refresh rate until I ALT-Tab to another window, restarted the game, or exit to Mech Lab. Then I would have to repeat the process at the beginning of the next match.

Additional Information:

1) I have owned multiple high refresh gaming monitors, gaming PCs, and gaming laptops over the last five years and can easily reproduce this issue on all of them. This includes the high refresh panels of the laptops. However, I can only track the laptop panels indirectly since Windows does not have a monitor frequency metric that I can reference in real time.

2) This happens equally on Windows 10 and Windows 11 systems.

3) When performing an online search, I was able to find reports of this happening with WoW and a few other games. I have not found any real solutions presented.

4) MWO: Forums - Capped At 60Hz - Why? (mwomercs.com)

5) Game capped at 60 fps? :: MechWarrior Online General Discussions (steamcommunity.com)

6) I also found forum posts from Microsoft on general gaming and a few on the World of Warcraft forums for WoW. This issue goes back at least 9 yrs.

Best work around:

1) Play MWO in a full screen Windows. Set Windows 10/11 resolution and refresh to highest available.
- result - All the benefits of a high refresh monitor improve game performance and visuals. But, it is still not as good as the promised variable refresh.

Please note that I have tried multiple computers, multiple operating systems, reloaded the drivers, tried different cables, checked Windows resolution and refresh, checked graphics drivers resolution and refresh match Windows settings, tested with FreeSync, Tested with G-Sync, and tested with V-Sync on and Off. All drivers are up to date. Everything is patched to latest levels. And firmware for all systems are at their latest levels including system BIOS updates.

Thoughts?

[Tarl Cabot]

There are a few other threads, and for a few of them, at least one was due to graphic/design program that was interfering. The OP of that thread did a reformat, windows up and installed only MWO, tested it several times, etc, then started installing programs, two at a time, at which point a newly installed program generated the issues. Uninstalled, issue went away. Then he reviewed the program's website on timing updates. He installed the previous version, no issues but as soon as he allowed that program to update, the issue appeared. He reverted back to the previous version, had said he would wait and check for the NEXT version update.

For a few others, it was a program overlay but I do not recall which overlay, be it Teamspeak, Xbox, Discord, Steam.

https://mwomercs.com...60hz-on-launch/

Two monitors and Vsync enabled
https://mwomercs.com...-are-connected/

read the last post

justcallme A S H, on 20 October 2018 - 07:18 AM, said:

I get to my monitor cap of 165hz no problem on some maps at 1440p.

Definitely not the game doing it. I found be cause I'm dual monitor that Nvidia control panel was locking everything to 60fps because it was using the lowest refresh rate if all monitors plugged in.

A few YouTube guides about on how to fix that permanently and I've been fine since.

https://mwomercs.com...ock-monitor-hz/