[DF] Steam Deck Gets Even Better: 40-60Hz Support, VRS, Refined Acoustics - Tested!

Jose92

Jose92

[Membe
Presented by Gaf's favorite Digital foundry tech expert Alex Battaglia.



VRS tested 2% increase in performance for a lot worse image quality, more and more vrs in general seems like an overhyped feature. Even though this is not a fully featured vrs and a rather crude way of implementing vrs.

Screenshot-2022-05-08-204535.png


Screenshot-2022-05-08-211041.png
 
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40Hz games is the new Holy Grail, hole fock.
Insomniac already did it, Sony should ensure that all it's first party games offer this mode. Would simplify things to much, forget performance and quality modes and stick with 40Hz.
 
Read it as VHS instead of VRS. Like, they are adding chromatic aberration to every game or something.
 
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You must be kidding me if after all the VRS hype it is something that isn't even worth using. That looks terrible.

Anyway, I think the next Steam Deck will be the one to get, still a lot of room for refinement.
 
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nominedomine said:
You must be kidding me if after all the VRS hype it is something that isn't even worth using. That looks terrible.

Anyway, I think the next Steam Deck will be the one to get, still a lot of room for refinement.
Click to expand...
It's a pretty "dumb" implementation of it, it's basically hitting the whole screen. It needs to be paired with information so it only effects parts of the screen that you wouldn't notice the degradation, not really sure why they bothered but maybe it will have it's uses in some cases or maybe they can improve it in the future.
 
40 fps becomes the new meta

i'm all for it. been using the 40 fps /120 hz vrr config since 2018. its such a good compromise point where you can push graphics and resolution further and still get a much much smoother experience than 30 fps. im so happy that it gets more attention. i've always suggested this to my friends but no one took it serious since it seemed weird to them "on paper".
 
JimboJones said:
It's a pretty "dumb" implementation of it, it's basically hitting the whole screen. It needs to be paired with information so it only effects parts of the screen that you wouldn't notice the degradation, not really sure why they bothered but maybe it will have it's uses in some cases or maybe they can improve it in the future.
Click to expand...
Yea, it only makes sense if it goes unnoticed as promised when the technology was being promoted.

01011001 said:
jesus christ, you clearly either didn't watch the video or didn't understand it. i hope for you that it's the first one.
Click to expand...
Relax man, no need to get aggressive just because I'm not impressed by the technology. Feel free to use it if you think it's great.
 
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nominedomine said:
You must be kidding me if after all the VRS hype it is something that isn't even worth using. That looks terrible.

Anyway, I think the next Steam Deck will be the one to get, still a lot of room for refinement.
Click to expand...
No VRS is only going to improve and this is a terrible implementation of it anyway, Doom Eternal has a far better VRS and improves performance significantly.
 
UnNamed said:
VRS should be a hardware feature right? Does Steam Deck have a HARDWARE compatible with VRS?
Click to expand...
steam deck's gpu is based upon the RDNA 2.0 architecture which is found in the next gen consoles. So yes it does.

The problem with this implementation is that it applies on all the shaders on the screen, but even with that the performance benefits are minimal.
 
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of course the shills at DF once again dont mention the problems that arrive with new update: THE INPUT LAG WITH 40hz is SO HIGH now
 
yamaci17 said:
interesting, is it a serious problem? do you have the hardware?
Click to expand...
Yes I have it. Usually im not sensitive to input lag but I would rather take shorter battery life than the awful input lag 40hz adds.

  • Upcapped: 31.8ms
  • 60fps cap: 75.8ms
  • 30fps cap: 145.9ms
  • 50hz/uncapped: 32.5ms
  • 50hz/50fps cap: 94.2ms
  • 50hz/25fps cap: 186.1ms
  • 40hz/uncapped: 34.3ms
  • 40hz/40fps cap: 121.1ms
  • 40hz/20fps cap: 232.0ms
40hz/40 fps has 120ms of input latency!!

That's pretty huge, how's no one noticing that?

hothardware.com

Steam Deck Framerate Limiter Blows Up Input Latency But Here's A Workaround

Own a Steam Deck? Check inside for a fix to laggy controls when using the framerate limiter.
hothardware.com hothardware.com
 
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TVexperto said:
Yes I have it. Usually im not sensitive to input lag but I would rather take shorter battery life than the awful input lag 40hz adds.

  • Upcapped: 31.8ms
  • 60fps cap: 75.8ms
  • 30fps cap: 145.9ms
  • 50hz/uncapped: 32.5ms
  • 50hz/50fps cap: 94.2ms
  • 50hz/25fps cap: 186.1ms
  • 40hz/uncapped: 34.3ms
  • 40hz/40fps cap: 121.1ms
  • 40hz/20fps cap: 232.0ms
40hz/40 fps has 120ms of input latency!!

That's pretty huge, how's no one noticing that?

hothardware.com

Steam Deck Framerate Limiter Blows Up Input Latency But Here's A Workaround

Own a Steam Deck? Check inside for a fix to laggy controls when using the framerate limiter.
hothardware.com hothardware.com
Click to expand...
i think that can be fixed. maybe not. console games have lower vsync latency in certain games (witcher 3, battlefront 2 comes to my mind)i wonder what techniques they're using on consoles when it comes to vsync'ing

valve should look into it
 
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TVexperto said:
Yes I have it. Usually im not sensitive to input lag but I would rather take shorter battery life than the awful input lag 40hz adds.

  • Upcapped: 31.8ms
  • 60fps cap: 75.8ms
  • 30fps cap: 145.9ms
  • 50hz/uncapped: 32.5ms
  • 50hz/50fps cap: 94.2ms
  • 50hz/25fps cap: 186.1ms
  • 40hz/uncapped: 34.3ms
  • 40hz/40fps cap: 121.1ms
  • 40hz/20fps cap: 232.0ms
40hz/40 fps has 120ms of input latency!!

That's pretty huge, how's no one noticing that?

hothardware.com

Steam Deck Framerate Limiter Blows Up Input Latency But Here's A Workaround

Own a Steam Deck? Check inside for a fix to laggy controls when using the framerate limiter.
hothardware.com hothardware.com
Click to expand...

You could always not use the framerate limiter. Using the framerate limiter is redundant in the first place since you can now arbitrarily set the refresh rate of the display to your own liking and pair it with vsync which limits the framerate to the displays refresh rate. Leave the framerate limiter uncapped.
 
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TVexperto said:
Yes I have it. Usually im not sensitive to input lag but I would rather take shorter battery life than the awful input lag 40hz adds.

  • Upcapped: 31.8ms
  • 60fps cap: 75.8ms
  • 30fps cap: 145.9ms
  • 50hz/uncapped: 32.5ms
  • 50hz/50fps cap: 94.2ms
  • 50hz/25fps cap: 186.1ms
  • 40hz/uncapped: 34.3ms
  • 40hz/40fps cap: 121.1ms
  • 40hz/20fps cap: 232.0ms
40hz/40 fps has 120ms of input latency!!

That's pretty huge, how's no one noticing that?

hothardware.com

Steam Deck Framerate Limiter Blows Up Input Latency But Here's A Workaround

Own a Steam Deck? Check inside for a fix to laggy controls when using the framerate limiter.
hothardware.com hothardware.com
Click to expand...
Ugh

Of all the times to focus on input lag so closely...

We could have used this kind of attention for the last 3 years or the next 3 years but Valve push the envelope and they get this treatment?

I mean, great. We have a way to improve input lag now. We've needed it for a long time. Steamdeck being the proof point hurts.
 
Mister Wolf said:
You could always not use the framerate limiter. Using the framerate limiter is redundant in the first place since you can now arbitrarily set the refresh rate of the display to your own liking and pair it with vsync which limits the framerate to the displays refresh rate. Leave the framerate limiter uncapped.
Click to expand...
thats true. im just happy i got one at all. i ordered like 5 hours after preorder started and got mine 2 weeks ago
 
nominedomine said:
You must be kidding me if after all the VRS hype it is something that isn't even worth using. That looks terrible.

Anyway, I think the next Steam Deck will be the one to get, still a lot of room for refinement.
Click to expand...
Did you even watch the video. It's used in gears 5 and explains why that game is still the best looking game of last generation.
 
Calverz said:
Did you even watch the video. It's used in gears 5 and explains why that game is still the best looking game of last generation.
Click to expand...
Ok... I'll take your word for it.

Really bizarre that guys like you get so defensive about VRS having a bad show. Why do you care so much about VRS?
 
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nominedomine said:
Ok... I'll take your word for it.

Really bizarre that guys like you get so defensive about VRS having a bad show. Why do you care so much about VRS?
Click to expand...
Because there are people like you spreading FUD. It's not being implemented correctly on the steam deck. If you watched the video, it would explain this to you.
 
Calverz said:
Because there are people like you spreading FUD. It's not being implemented correctly on the steam deck. If you watched the video, it would explain this to you.
Click to expand...
If even when it's applied to everything (to the point it completely degrades the image) all you get is a 2% improvement in performance it is pretty much worthless. What am I missing?
 
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TVexperto said:
Yes I have it. Usually im not sensitive to input lag but I would rather take shorter battery life than the awful input lag 40hz adds.

  • Upcapped: 31.8ms
  • 60fps cap: 75.8ms
  • 30fps cap: 145.9ms
  • 50hz/uncapped: 32.5ms
  • 50hz/50fps cap: 94.2ms
  • 50hz/25fps cap: 186.1ms
  • 40hz/uncapped: 34.3ms
  • 40hz/40fps cap: 121.1ms
  • 40hz/20fps cap: 232.0ms
40hz/40 fps has 120ms of input latency!!

That's pretty huge, how's no one noticing that?

hothardware.com

Steam Deck Framerate Limiter Blows Up Input Latency But Here's A Workaround

Own a Steam Deck? Check inside for a fix to laggy controls when using the framerate limiter.
hothardware.com hothardware.com
Click to expand...
Weirdly the issue is gone on my deck. Before the patch, shortly after the Deck's release, 30fps cap was unplayable for me because of the input latency I noticed instantly after picking up any game with it and I mentioned this on Reddit and somewhere here and didn't got any attention. Also friends of mine told me "hm, didn't notice the input delay", so I was truly wondering.

Now, after the "manual" refresh rate update this issue isn't anymore for me, too. So I genuinely wondering what is going here and if the cap alone is really introducing the increased latency or if there some settings or update branches or other things going on in the background causing this.

And typically I'm very sensible to input delay; that was the reason why I've got a Gsync monitor years ago because I hate screen tearing and couldn't bear v-sync induced increased input delay. At times, in shooters, v-sync was unplayable for me.
 
also for anyone that hasn't watched the vid, this is beta for the SteamDeck, so these features could improve on official release. this is cool to see how much support the deck is getting from Valve from feedback
 
TVexperto said:
Yes I have it. Usually im not sensitive to input lag but I would rather take shorter battery life than the awful input lag 40hz adds.

  • Upcapped: 31.8ms
  • 60fps cap: 75.8ms
  • 30fps cap: 145.9ms
  • 50hz/uncapped: 32.5ms
  • 50hz/50fps cap: 94.2ms
  • 50hz/25fps cap: 186.1ms
  • 40hz/uncapped: 34.3ms
  • 40hz/40fps cap: 121.1ms
  • 40hz/20fps cap: 232.0ms
40hz/40 fps has 120ms of input latency!!

That's pretty huge, how's no one noticing that?

hothardware.com

Steam Deck Framerate Limiter Blows Up Input Latency But Here's A Workaround

Own a Steam Deck? Check inside for a fix to laggy controls when using the framerate limiter.
hothardware.com hothardware.com
Click to expand...

Unrelated.
They talked mostly and demonstrated who much more smooth the screen and movement looks using 40Hz. This is a little game changer, have close to 60fps fluidity at much lower framerates, without resorting to VRR.
Besides this highlight DF still remains true even with your criticism. 40Hz even with 40fps cap still have less latency than the traditional 30fps cap. 40Hz uncapped have almost the same latency as uncapped.

As long as you know how it works and how it can benefits you I can't see any negatives here, and DF explained to you how you can explore this new settings to get the best results.
 
nominedomine said:
If even when it's applied to everything (to the point it completely degrades the image) all you get is a 2% improvement in performance it is pretty much worthless. What am I missing?
Click to expand...
🤦‍♂️ as I said. It's not been implemented correctly on steam deck. You hear "VRS bad" and instantly think it's bad in every case scenario. You have obviosuly heard Xbox uses vrs and instantly decide "well if it's bad on steamdeck, it's terrible on Xbox. Xbox bad".
 
Calverz said:
🤦‍♂️ as I said. It's not been implemented correctly on steam deck. You hear "VRS bad" and instantly think it's bad in every case scenario. You have obviosuly heard Xbox uses vrs and instantly decide "well if it's bad on steamdeck, it's terrible on Xbox. Xbox bad".
Click to expand...

Yes the Tier 2 implementation uses it on darker areas where it isn't going to be visible during gameplay, just putting it over the whole image is a bad implementation. Plus the performance gains on Gears 5 and Doom Eternal were far higher than 2%, more like 15%.
 
Riky said:
Yes the Tier 2 implementation uses it on darker areas where it isn't going to be visible during gameplay, just putting it over the whole image is a bad implementation. Plus the performance gains on Gears 5 and Doom Eternal were far higher than 2%, more like 15%.
Click to expand...
Yes. When used correctly it can be pretty effective. My guess is valve have just gone with an overall implementation here because it's too much work to apply to games individually? I have no idea.
 
Calverz said:
Yes. When used correctly it can be pretty effective. My guess is valve have just gone with an overall implementation here because it's too much work to apply to games individually? I have no idea.
Click to expand...

Looking at what The Coalition and id said it needs more work than flicking a switch so you're probably right.
 
nominedomine said:
You must be kidding me if after all the VRS hype it is something that isn't even worth using. That looks terrible.
Click to expand...


Man, you're just on a streak of posting half baked things lately lol.

Alex *VERY CLEARLY* says THIS (the static steam deck) implementation of VRS is terrible while also giving an example of where it works with the Gears 5 example.
 
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Riky said:
Looking at what The Coalition and id said it needs more work than flicking a switch so you're probably right.
Click to expand...
Ah ok. That explains why valve have done it this way. It's good that it's there as an option I suppose. Guess it all depends on the game you are playing and level of detail you want etc.
 
yamaci17 said:
he says frametimes. have u even watched the video?

frametime is a better metric for measuring smoothness
Click to expand...
Yeah, I get that linearly raising framerate is not a linear increase in timing between frames. But, also, smoothness is perceptual and not accurately measured by either metric. It is partly based on even frame pacing, frame rate, type of motion, and based on artistic technique. If just relying on framerate then 60fps is not enough to consistently feel "smoothness".
 
IIRC, for Gears Tactics VRS Tier 2 there's a 7% performance increase for quality mode and a 16% performance increase for performance mode. In Wolfenstein Youngblood it's a 5% increase. On a big screen TV you need to use quality mode, but on a small screen like Deck you could get away with performance mode, most likely. I made a video comparing quality mode to normal mode.
 
CrustyBritches said:
IIRC, for Gears Tactics VRS Tier 2 there's a 7% performance increase for quality mode and a 16% performance increase for performance mode. In Wolfenstein Youngblood it's a 5% increase. On a big screen TV you need to use quality mode, but on a small screen like Deck you could get away with performance mode, most likely. I made a video comparing quality mode to normal mode.
Click to expand...


Checks out.

Gears Tactics reportedly had a 14% performance improvement on the consoles with no difference in perceptible IQ.

devblogs.microsoft.com

Moving Gears to Tier 2 Variable Rate Shading - DirectX Developer Blog

The team at The Coalition haven’t stopped innovating since bringing Tier 1 VRS to Gears Tactics, and have brought Tier 2 VRS support to both Gears 5 and Gears Tactics. The team saw similarly large perf gains from VRS Tier 2 – up to 14%! – this time with no noticeable visual impact. See for […]
devblogs.microsoft.com devblogs.microsoft.com
 
yamaci17 said:
40 fps becomes the new meta

i'm all for it. been using the 40 fps /120 hz vrr config since 2018. its such a good compromise point where you can push graphics and resolution further and still get a much much smoother experience than 30 fps. im so happy that it gets more attention. i've always suggested this to my friends but no one took it serious since it seemed weird to them "on paper".
Click to expand...
It's good, but a lot of us have TV's that don't support 120 hz @ 4K. We still need the performance and quality options. Actually, IMO, the best thing would be if the PS5 supported 1440p output (because my tv supports 1440@120, but 4k@ only 60, lol).
 
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