Introduction
Im writing this article to explain to people why FPS, Hz, and vsync are all misunderstood, and I hope the people of Enemydown appreciate this information, During this article I will cover:
* Windows XP
* FPS
* Hz
* vsync
Windows XP
We all upgrade our monitors and graphics cards in hope of better FPS, but a fault/bug in Windows XP is stopping us getting the FPS we deserve during gameplay, if we have our Hz set at 85 upon loading up our PC's you would expect it to stay that way upon launching CS or any other game, but this is far from the truth, the fault/bug automatically changes our refresh rate (Hz) to 60, which is why when we have vsync switched on many users will have fps stuck at 60fps.
FPS
People believe to increase FPS gain turning vsync off is the solution, this is also far from the truth, turning vsync off does appear to give us FPS gain, but with our Hz set at 60, we do not see anything above 60 fps even though the graphics card is dishing it out.
Hz
As already mentioned our Hz is set at 60, giving us a maximum of 60 FPS at all times despite what many people believe, the cure to our problem is a program called refresh lock, this cures the fault/bug XP is creating and allows us to have above 60 Hz.
vsync
vsync is totally misunderstood when it is changed to alter FPS, what vsync does is it equals out what our Hz and FPS are, for example when I mentioned that people with vsync on get stuck at 60 FPS, this is because vsync is syncing there FPS to what there Hz setting is.
Solution
Fix the windows XP bug using Refresh Lock
If you play CS, set "max_fps 100" (Note if your Hz is 85 you might just want to set your FPS at 86-90). Use the maximum Hz your monitor will allow. Keep vsync on. I made Refresh Lock launch upon loading my PC, you also have to right click it in the taskbar and click "enable", not everytime just the once.
Sensitivity
After installing Refresh Lock I now have my Hz set at 100, but I use 640x480 during my CS, a lot of you will use 800x600 1024xblah so you will probably get 85 Hz max depending on your hardware, anyway after putting my Hz to 100 I launched CS, I noticed my mouse smoothness was slightly faster, this was because CS was running smooth, I had to drop my sensitivity from 3.2 to 2.5 for it to feel the way I had it before.
Downloads
www.kgb-hq.com/sUBA/refreshlock.zip
I hope this opens peoples eyes to how FPS and Hz work along with vsync and Windows XP.
GL