5 ms·

Personally, I wouldn't run at 30Hz if someone paid me for it. And you don't have to either, because 60Hz support for your GPU is available (from kernel 3.17 bes

by pdknsk 12y ago

Personally, I wouldn't run at 30Hz if someone paid me for it. And you don't have to either, because 60Hz support for your GPU is available (from kernel 3.17 best I can tell). You may have to enable DP1.2 or MST in your monitor settings to use it.

vanderZwan 12y ago
To be fair, low refresh rates are much more bearable on LCD screens they used to be on CRTs, since there is no flicker. (This is assuming the task at hand doesn't require a high refresh rate of course - a reflex based game like an FPS would be a no-go)
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  This, is a really important point. LCDs are NOT CRTs. So it isn't that the top left pixel of the screen is getting dimmer and dimmer while the CRT is painting lower pixels, on an LCD it is simply not changing. What "30Hz" means in LCD terms is that if you go to change a pixel, the fastest you can do that is once every 33 mS but during the whole time it isn't changed, it stays the same intensity.
- imanaccount247 12y ago
  Basic desktop usage is unbearable at 30fps. Just dragging windows around you have to insert a deliberate pause to make sure the pointer is really where you want it to be because the screen is updating so slowly. Flicker is not the problem, slow screen updates are.
  - OxO4 12y ago
    Can confirm, I am running a UP2414Q @ 30 Hz because my 2013 13" MBPr does not support 4k at 60 Hz and it is pretty bad. I am planning on replacing the laptop soon. Otherwise the screen is great and non-4k 24" screens look terrible to my eyes now.
  - darshan 12y ago
    That is completely different from my experience; I think you must have another problem besides the 30 fps frame rate. Perhaps your machine is just having trouble pushing that many pixels? On my machine, animations are just slightly, subtly choppy -- like Android used to be before all the "butter." But there's still very much the sense of instant responsiveness.
    - imanaccount247 12y ago
      Perhaps you mouse slowly in the first place so it doesn't impact you.
      - darshan 12y ago
        I'm pretty sure I mouse as quickly as anybody. It's just that the difference between 17 ms per frame and 33 ms per frame on my system only affects the smoothness of animations. There's no perceptible lag no matter how quickly I move things around.
        to3m 12y ago
        Right - but when you stop moving the mouse, there's now an extra 17ms before you see the result. I assume that's his/her point. Maybe this wouldn't bother me any more personally, but I bet I would have noticed it when I was 23!
        Zarel 12y ago
        To add one more data point, I usually set my mouse sensitivity to maximum (people usually complain about how sensitive my mouse is when they borrow my computer), and while 30fps is fine for everything else, it's unbearable to me when mousing. I just did a test: Over 5 seconds I moved my mouse to the top of my monitor and back down 15 times, which works out to 12000 pixels per second, or 396 pixels per frame - which seems about right for how far the mouse seems to jump per frame. For comparison, Chrome's Close Tab button is 15x15 pixels, and HN's upvote button is 8x7 pixels. Framerate really is the limiting factor for how long it takes me to move my mouse onto the kinds of click targets common in computers. Another test: it takes around 6 seconds to close 7 tabs with a mouse in Chrome in 30fps, and 4 seconds to close the tabs in Chrome in 60fps.
  - baddox 12y ago
    Dragging windows does not constitute my basic desktop usage. I probably drag or resize a window at most once per day, and I'm not even using a tiling or significantly keyboard-driven window manager, it's just stock OS X.
    - imanaccount247 12y ago
      >Dragging windows does not constitute my basic desktop usage Fair enough, but it does for most people. The claim I was disagreeing with is that >30fps only matters for action games. It is noticeable for most tasks that use a mouse.
darshan 12y ago
I was able to get 60 Hz by simply enabling DP1.2 on the monitor, but then I had two virtual displays, which was quite annoying. The patches to make the whole stack properly support this sort of monitor are not quite there last I checked (a few weeks ago). Dave Airlie, who's responsible for most of the work on this at all levels (from the kernel through through the window manager) has things mostly working, but it's not ready for prime time. He ended up giving up on doing everything entirely in the kernel as he had originally tried, so now everything up the stack to the window manager needs patching. He has experimental support in GNOME. I may attempt stretching myself and seeing if I can get similar changes into kwin while I'm on winter break, but I've found 30 Hz to be entirely bearable; most of the time I don't even notice.
- thyselius 12y ago
  Is there a way to get 60Hz on a mac you think?
  - darshan 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure I came across information that up-to-date Macs can do all the necessary wrangling to make it work. If I planned to buy one and connect it to a Mac, I'd do some Googling to verify that, though.
jrockway 12y ago
In my experience, I can tell whether or not a display is at 30Hz or 60Hz, but it doesn't really affect actually getting things done. The same could be said for things like color accuracy: it's annoying that it's wrong, but it doesn't really matter for my work. That said, when it's fixable (and in the author's case it is), you should fix it.

by pdknsk 12y ago

vanderZwan 12y ago

To be fair, low refresh rates are much more bearable on LCD screens they used to be on CRTs, since there is no flicker. (This is assuming the task at hand doesn't require a high refresh rate of course - a reflex based game like an FPS would be a no-go)

ChuckMcM 12y ago
This, is a really important point. LCDs are NOT CRTs. So it isn't that the top left pixel of the screen is getting dimmer and dimmer while the CRT is painting lower pixels, on an LCD it is simply not changing. What "30Hz" means in LCD terms is that if you go to change a pixel, the fastest you can do that is once every 33 mS but during the whole time it isn't changed, it stays the same intensity.
imanaccount247 12y ago
Basic desktop usage is unbearable at 30fps. Just dragging windows around you have to insert a deliberate pause to make sure the pointer is really where you want it to be because the screen is updating so slowly. Flicker is not the problem, slow screen updates are.
- OxO4 12y ago
  Can confirm, I am running a UP2414Q @ 30 Hz because my 2013 13" MBPr does not support 4k at 60 Hz and it is pretty bad. I am planning on replacing the laptop soon. Otherwise the screen is great and non-4k 24" screens look terrible to my eyes now.
- darshan 12y ago
  That is completely different from my experience; I think you must have another problem besides the 30 fps frame rate. Perhaps your machine is just having trouble pushing that many pixels? On my machine, animations are just slightly, subtly choppy -- like Android used to be before all the "butter." But there's still very much the sense of instant responsiveness.
  - imanaccount247 12y ago
    Perhaps you mouse slowly in the first place so it doesn't impact you.
    - darshan 12y ago
      I'm pretty sure I mouse as quickly as anybody. It's just that the difference between 17 ms per frame and 33 ms per frame on my system only affects the smoothness of animations. There's no perceptible lag no matter how quickly I move things around.
      - to3m 12y ago
        Right - but when you stop moving the mouse, there's now an extra 17ms before you see the result. I assume that's his/her point. Maybe this wouldn't bother me any more personally, but I bet I would have noticed it when I was 23!
      - Zarel 12y ago
        To add one more data point, I usually set my mouse sensitivity to maximum (people usually complain about how sensitive my mouse is when they borrow my computer), and while 30fps is fine for everything else, it's unbearable to me when mousing. I just did a test: Over 5 seconds I moved my mouse to the top of my monitor and back down 15 times, which works out to 12000 pixels per second, or 396 pixels per frame - which seems about right for how far the mouse seems to jump per frame. For comparison, Chrome's Close Tab button is 15x15 pixels, and HN's upvote button is 8x7 pixels. Framerate really is the limiting factor for how long it takes me to move my mouse onto the kinds of click targets common in computers. Another test: it takes around 6 seconds to close 7 tabs with a mouse in Chrome in 30fps, and 4 seconds to close the tabs in Chrome in 60fps.
- baddox 12y ago
  Dragging windows does not constitute my basic desktop usage. I probably drag or resize a window at most once per day, and I'm not even using a tiling or significantly keyboard-driven window manager, it's just stock OS X.
  - imanaccount247 12y ago
    >Dragging windows does not constitute my basic desktop usage Fair enough, but it does for most people. The claim I was disagreeing with is that >30fps only matters for action games. It is noticeable for most tasks that use a mouse.

darshan 12y ago

I was able to get 60 Hz by simply enabling DP1.2 on the monitor, but then I had two virtual displays, which was quite annoying. The patches to make the whole stack properly support this sort of monitor are not quite there last I checked (a few weeks ago). Dave Airlie, who's responsible for most of the work on this at all levels (from the kernel through through the window manager) has things mostly working, but it's not ready for prime time. He ended up giving up on doing everything entirely in the kernel as he had originally tried, so now everything up the stack to the window manager needs patching. He has experimental support in GNOME. I may attempt stretching myself and seeing if I can get similar changes into kwin while I'm on winter break, but I've found 30 Hz to be entirely bearable; most of the time I don't even notice.

thyselius 12y ago
Is there a way to get 60Hz on a mac you think?
- darshan 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure I came across information that up-to-date Macs can do all the necessary wrangling to make it work. If I planned to buy one and connect it to a Mac, I'd do some Googling to verify that, though.

jrockway 12y ago

In my experience, I can tell whether or not a display is at 30Hz or 60Hz, but it doesn't really affect actually getting things done. The same could be said for things like color accuracy: it's annoying that it's wrong, but it doesn't really matter for my work. That said, when it's fixable (and in the author's case it is), you should fix it.