# RivaTuner Statistic Server Scanline Sync



## Cvrk (Feb 24, 2019)

I think this is absolutely major. A must have if you are playing games on a PC and do not own the most expensive hardware. 

Metro Exodus needs a RTX 2080Ti just so the game can be playable. My AMD RX 480 struggles. However with the help of Scanline Sync and a Freesync enabled display all the issue are resolved, and my GPU is as powerful as ever! 
It toked a very long night and some not sleeping hours until I manged to find some info in the internet. Since I'm not that smart, I need you guys to get on board and together with the help of this app transform our gaming experience.

Here are the most important links that I found where Scanline Sync is explained i depth. I understood very little from this even tho i spend hours testing.  The results for me are incredibly positive in games like Metro Exodus, AC Odyssey. 
https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4173


__
		https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/9jeh3f

 What I understood

You need to click ADD in RTSS and select the exe of your game. Here leave Frame Limit to 0. 
For a 1080 resolution set the Scanline sync to -1020 / -1060 / -1125 (why these values vary i don't know,and why you put a _minus_ I also don't know) 
Show statistics needs t be ON. 

SyncScanline0 – index of the first scanline for framerate synchronization. No synchronization is performed when it is set to zero, otherwise this is treated as scanline index starting from top of the frame. E.g. SyncScanline0=1 means that the frame is will be synchronized with the top (or more precisely the second scanline, because indices are zero based) scanline and SyncScanline0=1000 means that each frame will be synchronized with scanline 1000 (which is located in the bottom part of screen if we use 1080p mode with total 1125 scanlines total).

SyncScanline1 – index of the second scanline for framerate synchronization. Defining two independent sycnhronization points per refresh allows us to get functionality of NVIDIA's FreeSync, when why get 2xRefresh smooth framerate). No synchronization is performed when it is set to zero, otherwise this is treated as index starting from middle of the frame. 

E.g. SyncScanline1=1 with total 1125 scanlines means that the frame is will be synchronized with the scanline 562(1125/2)+1=563 scanline and SyncScanline1=400 means that each frame will be synchronized with scanline 562(1125/2)+400=962 (which is located in the bottom part of screen if we use 1080p mode with 1125 scanlines total).


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 24, 2019)

Cvrk said:


> Metro Exodus needs a RTX 2080Ti just so the game can be playable.


Ummm, no. The "minimum" is a GTX 1050 or HD 7870 with the "recommended" being at least a RTX 2060 or RX Vega 56.

It has to be remembered that game developers know that most users don't have $1200 to $1500+ laying around to shell out just for the graphics card. In fact that is way over the budget many players have for their entire computers! So they code their games to be "playable" and provide very good "game play" and entertainment value with much lessor hardware.

As far as the value of RTSS, pretty sure most tests confirm it is like most 3rd-party "middlemen" - they add negligible if any value, and often actually may degrade value in many cases. RTSS appears to be no different.

My feeling is, card makers already want users to get the most out of their products. If RTSS was needed, card makers would include it. I feel RTSS is best for "monitoring" only.


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## Cvrk (Feb 24, 2019)

in a consumer market buying more is always better for the people selling. 
what do you do when you have lag with the rtx 2060? you get a bigger rtx. nvidia on purpose destroyed the latest drivers for the 1k series just before the rtx came out so they can prove how much you need the new cards. everyone on youtube was on to their little dirty trick and they put the good drivers back on. 

rtss is here to make things right. using amd frame cap own Adrenaline software doe snot cap frames for most games, only some actually react to it. rtss forces every single game to play nice. i have been using rtss for a long time and the results are splendid. 

now they invented something new. Scanline sync.

not to forget that if you buy a msi graphics card like i did, in the support section they offer you a few software one of them is MSI Afterburner which comes with rtss in the package. 

without rtss lag in Metro. with zero lag. same can be said for all the games out there. 

Really AMD does give you some kind of rtss....it's actually i think a better version of rtss a more powerful one with even more features. You can cap frames, you can stabilize freesync you can do lots including monitoring with on screen statistics.  So YES card makers do give you rtss - in their own platform. 

 The issue is most games do not listen, is as if they ignore the amd software.  Origins and Odyssey, Far Cry 5 they work flawlessly with AMD Adrenaline. 
However most other games don't. 

I have not played a game yet that ignored RTSS. It just simply works.


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 24, 2019)

Cvrk said:


> rtss is here to make things right.


Sounds like marketing hype in a sales pitch to me.


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## Viruzz (Feb 24, 2019)

Cvrk said:


> in a consumer market buying more is always better for the people selling.
> what do you do when you have lag with the rtx 2060? you get a bigger rtx. nvidia on purpose destroyed the latest drivers for the 1k series just before the rtx came out so they can prove how much you need the new cards. everyone on youtube was on to their little dirty trick and they put the good drivers back on.
> .



Get a nice tin foil hat for birthday.

Nvidia doesn't nerf the drivers and never did, its nothing but dumb neckbeard conspiracy.
Nvidia driver team tests 4 last generations of GPUs.
Everything older just NOT tested, they said it plain and simple, if it has a bug no one knows nor tests or fixes [unless its serious] but they never make old driver bad, its insane and no one would do that, its criminal BTW and no sane engineer going to take such work.
If you spoke Russian i could provide a nice Interview with Nvidia Russia from last week, apparently they have huge offices in Russia and they do mostly driver optimizations, they actually big and said they have 50 open positions.
In same interview they spoke to AMD Russia,  they also asked them what do they think about Nvidia conspiracies that they made drivers worse and they also said that its insane.
Tons of people compared old cards using old andnew drivers, lots of games gained FPS over time actually.

Here is Nvidia Russia driver optimization intervew, its in Rusian thou.









Some driver comparisons for old cards:
www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/70125-gtx-780-ti-vs-r9-290x-rematch.html


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## Bill_Bright (Feb 24, 2019)

Viruzz said:


> its insane and no one would do that, its criminal BTW


Insane? Yes. Criminal? No. Poor business practice? Definitely. 

It is just not financially justified to go back more than a few generations. That is, there is no financial incentive (returns on the investment) to continue support on such legacy products when those products are no longer being produced. By the same token, it is not financially justified to dedicate development resources (time and labor) to go back and break or create and introduce new bugs into old drivers, then dedicate more resources to take down or over-write the old drivers with the new buggy ones. 

So yeah, time to invest in tin futures again.


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## rtwjunkie (Feb 25, 2019)

Cvrk said:


> nvidia on purpose destroyed the latest drivers for the 1k series just before the rtx came out so they can prove how much you need the new cards. everyone on youtube was on to their little dirty trick and they put the good drivers back on.


Now come on. I call BS.  This theory has been around for years, and has been debunked several times, with in-depth testing.   On a personal level, my 1080Ti has not been hurt at all performance-wise.


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## Vayra86 (Feb 25, 2019)

Cvrk said:


> in a consumer market buying more is always better for the people selling.
> what do you do when you have lag with the rtx 2060? you get a bigger rtx. nvidia on purpose destroyed the latest drivers for the 1k series just before the rtx came out so they can prove how much you need the new cards. everyone on youtube was on to their little dirty trick and they put the good drivers back on.
> 
> rtss is here to make things right. using amd frame cap own Adrenaline software doe snot cap frames for most games, only some actually react to it. rtss forces every single game to play nice. i have been using rtss for a long time and the results are splendid.
> ...



Great opening post, and then you had to add this wall of utter BS. Its too bad. Leave the conspiracy theory out of it or better yet, remove it before this topic degenerates into you-know-what.

Everybody likes good information, nobody likes the same old regurgitated crap every time. And no, you don't need a 2080ti to run Metro either.


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## Cvrk (Feb 25, 2019)

still waiting for the actual geeks that know what Input Lag is to show up and do the math for all of us.
reason why i started this thread begging with @Vayra86 . I also like good info, however you are right it tuned into a mess very fast. It could be my fault as well, your right.

Some very smart geeks on BlurBusters figured it out and found the values mentioned to me in the first post. Still waiting for someone to do the math for 2k and 4k values. And why do we need negative values for Scanline Sync, when for capping you need positive values.
Than we can consider this a successful informative post.

Simple enough I am interested in the science behind RTSS - there are millions that use RTSS out there some in our TPU community.


There are 17 pages of info in BlueBusters, however it is not enough. More smart analysis needs to be made.


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## Vayra86 (Feb 25, 2019)

Cvrk said:


> still waiting for the actual geeks that know what Input Lag is to show up and do the math for all of us.
> reason why i started this thread begging with @Vayra86 . I also like good info, however you are right it tuned into a mess very fast. It could be my fault as well, your right.
> 
> Some very smart geeks on BlurBusters figured it out and found the values mentioned to me in the first post. Still waiting for someone to do the math for 2k and 4k values. And why do we need negative values for Scanline Sync, when for capping you need positive values.
> ...



Send Unwinder an email I'd say, if you really want to get into the code. Otherwise you're just circling around it no matter what you do (as in: you get basic info that tells you 'what it sorta does').

As for latency, you'd need some pretty classy equipment to really get button-to-pixel latency recorded. As in high speed camera or a lag tester.


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## Viruzz (Mar 2, 2019)

Bill_Bright said:


> Insane? Yes. Criminal? No. Poor business practice? Definitely.
> 
> It is just not financially justified to go back more than a few generations. That is, there is no financial incentive (returns on the investment) to continue support on such legacy products when those products are no longer being produced. By the same token, it is not financially justified to dedicate development resources (time and labor) to go back and break or create and introduce new bugs into old drivers, then dedicate more resources to take down or over-write the old drivers with the new buggy ones.
> 
> So yeah, time to invest in tin futures again.



Sorry for late replay, but Drivers are part of the hardware you paid for, so making it worse on purpose is criminal by the manufacturer is a criminal
Imagine if you go to your yearly checkup and oil/filters change with your 7 years old car and they have new system update that worsens your mileage, they made so the automatic gear uses the most Uneconomical setup possible and it takes twice as long to achieve your top speed.

P.S. In that Interview they said that they test 4 generations back.


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## Malik Sajid (Mar 3, 2019)

Cvrk said:


> still waiting for the actual geeks that know what Input Lag is to show up and do the math for all of us.
> reason why i started this thread begging with @Vayra86 . I also like good info, however you are right it tuned into a mess very fast. It could be my fault as well, your right.
> 
> Some very smart geeks on BlurBusters figured it out and found the values mentioned to me in the first post. Still waiting for someone to do the math for 2k and 4k values. And why do we need negative values for Scanline Sync, when for capping you need positive values.
> ...


Scanline sync value doesn't function as a fps limiter but it's meant to sync the tear line with a certain vertical line in your monitor.

Now let's say that your 1080p monitor got 1125 vertical line [1080 visible lines +  45 invisible lines], so if you use 500 as a sync value you'll get the tear line in the middle of your monitor [Vsync off], hence you can get rid of tearing by kicking out the tear line out of your monitor visible space by adjusting that value.

As for the negative value it's just working as an offset relative to the last scanline, if you enter -40 you're basically telling RTSS to sync the tear line to the last scanline - 40 = 1125-40 = 1085
so -40 is working just the same as 1085, -100 gives the same results as 1025 in case your total vertical lines is 1125.


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## Viruzz (Mar 4, 2019)

Malik Sajid said:


> Scanline sync value doesn't function as a fps limiter but it's meant to sync the tear line with a certain vertical line in your monitor.
> 
> Now let's say that your 1080p monitor got 1125 vertical line [1080 visible lines +  45 invisible lines], so if you use 500 as a sync value you'll get the tear line in the middle of your monitor [Vsync off], hence you can get rid of tearing by kicking out the tear line out of your monitor visible space by adjusting that value.
> 
> ...



So whats the best number for 4K resolution? and 3840x1600 resolution?


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## Malik Sajid (Mar 5, 2019)

Viruzz said:


> So whats the best number for 4K resolution? and 3840x1600 resolution?


Well, the best value depends on the sync mode you're using.

For vsync off, enter -100 in the scanline sync field, if the tear line isn't visible then you're good to go, if it's visible consistently in the bottom of the screen, then you need to push it further out, go and lower the negative value to -80, -60, etc until you are no longer seeing the tear line.
The offset works with any resolution, you just need to experiment with the negative values.
_________________________________________
For fastsync/enhanced sync unlike vsync off, you don't get consistent input lag across the entire panel, so the tear line positioning does matter.

with this syncing mode enabled, input lag wise you need to sync the tear line to the last scan line in your monitor but that will produce stuttering due to how fastsync/enhanced sync is working, to solve this issue you need to create a buffer zone against the bottom of your screen to prevent stuttering..

So enter "1" in the scanline sync value to sync the tear line to the first scanline in your screen, that gives input lag by only a whole refresh cycle with zero stuttering
enter "800" (1600/2) for 3840x1600 resolution, that will lower the input lag by a half a refresh cycle, the probability of stuttering is increased a little bit.
You may have got the idea, increase the scanline value, tear line get pushed to bottom, input lag get lowered, stuttering increased.


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## Viruzz (Mar 7, 2019)

Malik Sajid said:


> Well, the best value depends on the sync mode you're using.
> 
> For vsync off, enter -100 in the scanline sync field, if the tear line isn't visible then you're good to go, if it's visible consistently in the bottom of the screen, then you need to push it further out, go and lower the negative value to -80, -60, etc until you are no longer seeing the tear line.
> The offset works with any resolution, you just need to experiment with the negative values.
> ...




Thanks but I dont get the last part
If I use Fast Sync and in 4K i should enter 1 but if i change the resolution to  3840x1600 i should use 800?


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## Malik Sajid (Mar 7, 2019)

Viruzz said:


> Thanks but I dont get the last part
> If I use Fast Sync and in 4K i should enter 1 but if i change the resolution to  3840x1600 i should use 800?


It's better to combine scanline sync with vsync off to get similar results as freesync on non-VRR monitors, but you can still use it with fastsync, it will give you lower input than normal vsync anyway.

Now to answer your question, you're dealing with your monitor vertical line so what does matter here is the second number in the resolution;
so 3840 x 1600 has 1600 vertical lines
4K 3840 x 2160 has 2160 vertical lines
What we are entering in the scanline sync field in RTSS is the vertical line that we want to sync the tear line with.

With fastsync mode, you can sync with any vertical line since the tear line isn't visible anyway..
so for 3840 x 1600 you can enter any value between 1~1600.. 1 for the first vline, 1600 for the last one
for 4K 3840 x 2160 you can enter any value between 1~2160.. 1 for the first vline, 2160 for the last one

but the trick here as I've said before is with fastsync the closer you sync to the bottom of the screen the more stuttering you get and the less input lag you get..
so you need to find a sweet spot to sync the tear line, I believe that spot is 3/4 of the number of the vertical line.

To wrap all that up and give you a short direct answer..
for 3840 x 1600 --> enter "1200" that's 3/4 of 1600
for 4k 3840 x 2160 --> enter "1620" 3/4 of 2160

As you may have noticed, it's simpler, more efficient to pair scanline sync with vsync off instead of fastsync, you get 0 stuttering, lowest and consistent input lag across the whole panel just as same as freesync/ gsync.

Any further questions are welcomed.


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## ArbitraryAffection (Mar 7, 2019)

Bill_Bright said:


> Ummm, no. The "minimum" is a GTX 1050 or HD 7870 with the "recommended" being at least a RTX 2060 or RX Vega 56.
> 
> It has to be remembered that game developers know that most users don't have $1200 to $1500+ laying around to shell out just for the graphics card. In fact that is way over the budget many players have for their entire computers! So they code their games to be "playable" and provide very good "game play" and entertainment value with much lessor hardware.
> 
> ...


My 570 handles it great on 1080p ultra. 40-50fps but very smooth and playable


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## Viruzz (Mar 7, 2019)

Malik Sajid said:


> It's better to combine scanline sync with vsync off to get similar results as freesync on non-VRR monitors, but you can still use it with fastsync, it will give you lower input than normal vsync anyway.
> 
> Now to answer your question, you're dealing with your monitor vertical line so what does matter here is the second number in the resolution;
> so 3840 x 1600 has 1600 vertical lines
> ...




First time when you said FreSync I understood that its better to mix but if its not, then just VSYNC OFF and Scanline -100 for any resolution and its visible try to lower it down, right?
BTW, they have more hidden settings there Scanline Sync X2 and Scanline Sync x/2 when you click on the text

P.S. when i use scanline sync with vsync off, can i use rivatuner to limit the FPS to 60? or i should not do that?
Is there any benefit for scanline sync compared to use no FPS limit and enable FastSync?

P.P.S. Why is there no help file with this program nor any explanations how to use it, even on guru3d


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## Malik Sajid (Mar 7, 2019)

Viruzz said:


> First time when you said FreSync I understood that its better to mix but if its not, then just VSYNC OFF and Scanline -100 for any resolution and its visible try to lower it down, right?


That's right. lower the negative value to get the tear line out of the screen.



Viruzz said:


> BTW, they have more hidden settings there Scanline Sync X2 and Scanline Sync x/2 when you click on the text


S-Sync X2 allow RTSS to cap fps at (Refresh rate x2)
X/2 allow it to cap at half of the refresh rate in case you can't maintain 60fps on a 60hz monitor e.g.



Viruzz said:


> P.S. when i use scanline sync with vsync off, can i use rivatuner to limit the FPS to 60? or i should not do that?


You shouldn't. When you using scanline sync, RTSS will automatically cap fps to refresh rate so there's no need to limit it, just make sure to set 0 as the FPS limit.



Viruzz said:


> Is there any benefit for scanline sync compared to use no FPS limit and enable FastSync?


Yes, of course! using scanline sync combined with vsync off will result in lower input lag compared to Fastsync as you in the first case don't use any kind of synchronization.



Viruzz said:


> P.P.S. Why is there no help file with this program nor any explanations how to use it, even on guru3d


I don't know man, you need to ask Unwinder who is gonna refer you to a +90 messy pages thread called "RTSS development thread"


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## Cvrk (Mar 9, 2019)

After about 2 weeks of testing everyday playing around with the settings in games like Far Cry New Dawn, Metro Exodus and the very horribly optimized Dirt Rally 2.0 
I can confirm the following:

- RTSS will not improve your graphics, however  you always need some sort of form of sync to make the picture look crystal without tearing. There are many variations Enchanted Sync, VSync GSync,Freesync ...and God knows what Sync. You have to sync it or else it looks bad. 
Syncing will reduce FPS. We need all the FPS you can get, and for a little bit of tearing we are always giving up on the sync. 

RTSS has options implemented in both AMD & NVIDIA software's. But with a bit more brains and extra features. Using RTSS is like pressing the Advanced mode button(that does not exit) in AMD Adrenaline. 

- Make sure tearing is visible before you enable RTSS for Scanline Sync. If it's not broken don't fix it. 
(Best example is Destiny 2 and AC Odyssey. No need for RTSS these games are incredible optimized and do wonders with stock settings / default and my Freesync monitor. )

- If you are going to use RTSS ALWAYS keep VSync option OFF in the game under graphics. 

- Scanline Sync X2 does not do anything for me. I think that is for monitors of 144Hz and above 

- If you have 1080 res you should go with -1060. For 2048  res you should go for -1090. For 3840  res the value should be -3600.

Play around with these numbers. Cuz they are different a lot. I mean a lot. And trust me it;s gonna be different from one game to another(don't know why). 

Other than this I urge you to real all 17 pages of this https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4173
It's the mots in depth content on the matter on the internet from what I could find. RTSS works like a charm and you should always play each game with this app ON. 

You are always gonna have tearing even with the most powerful graphics cards. So RTSS is a must.


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## AlexUnwinder (Mar 12, 2019)

Malik Sajid said:


> I don't know man, you need to ask Unwinder who is gonna refer you to a +90 messy pages thread called "RTSS development thread"



Posts like that are direct reason why many free products disappear from the scene one day. Seriously, you really don't know why evil developer of free software refuse to provide 24/7 online support to poor Malik Sajid and send you to read something previously discussed in "messy thread"? That's sarcastic question, no need to answer.


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## Cvrk (Mar 13, 2019)

Just because the software is free does not mean it makes no money. Still I understand paying an outsourcing company to provide support is incredibly expensive.

@AlexUnwinder are the values of what I just said in post #20 close to the reality? Please provide feedback with a direct example how the Scanline Sync  should be set for 1080 and 4k resolutions on monitors with 60hz and very important can Scanline Sync  exist at the same time with Free Sync technology Does one defeat the purpose of the other?

off topic: again, i am humbled of the quality in people that the TPU community holds. The caliber of good people thta can be found here is impressive. Starstruck that the actual man himself, creator of the beautiful RTSS actually hangs around TPU


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## Malik Sajid (Mar 13, 2019)

AlexUnwinder said:


> Posts like that are direct reason why many free products disappear from the scene one day. Seriously, you really don't know why evil developer of free software refuse to provide 24/7 online support to poor Malik Sajid and send you to read something previously discussed in "messy thread"? That's sarcastic question, no need to answer.


Woah! chill out glorious Alex Unwinder and don't put words in my mouth. No need to put yourself in the victim cage, No one called you an "evil developer" or even asked you to provide 24/7 online support to poor Malik!
It's a free software and you have all the power not to dedicate a neat and clean release notes index in 1st page, but we also have the same right to call things by their right name, so yeah that thread is a messy one and no one asked you to do anything about it.


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## mtcn77 (Mar 14, 2019)

Isn't SS x2 double v-sync and negative values lead to triple buffering? I told Turkish natives previously you have to have vsync with GSync taking the Linus benchmark as basis.


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## Cvrk (Mar 14, 2019)

@mtcn77 in English this time? 

my monitor only does FreeSync. i keep FreeSync and SS x2 enbaled?


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## mtcn77 (Mar 14, 2019)

60 fps rendered 30 displayed is like triple buffered double v-sync. With Nvidia, FreeSync or not, Vsync lowers input lag.


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## AlexUnwinder (Mar 15, 2019)

Cvrk said:


> Just because the software is free does not mean it makes no money. Still I understand paying an outsourcing company to provide support is incredibly expensive.



Scanline sync functionality doesn't make any money and it is not a commercial thing. That's a hobby and feature, which I simply find interesting to develop in my free time and share with community.



Cvrk said:


> are the values of what I just said in post #20 close to the reality?



The values provided there are incorrect. The purpose of scanline synchronization is to hide tearline inside vertical blanking interval. To achieve that you need to sync presentation to rasterizer position, located a few scanlines above the bottom of frame. Those few scanlines are required to render frame before it can be actually displayed. So for 1080p (with typical VTotal of 1125 scanlines)  it should be somewhere inside 1125-delta range, where the delta depends on  your GPU performance and application's 3D workload (read it as GPU rendering time). So there is no and won't be unified solution for everyone, you should tune it yourself for your specific system and your specific target 3D application. And yes, custom configuration can be required for each 3D application.
Also, context help for that feature in RTSS is explaining you how to interpret negative values. Positive values are explicit scanline indices, negative ones are translated to scanline index using index=VTotal-value formula. So for VTotal 1125, to start presentation lets say 25 scanlines before the end of frame you can specify 1100 and -25 to achieve exactly the same effect.



Malik Sajid said:


> t's a free software and you have all the power not to dedicate a neat and clean release notes index in 1st page, but we also have the same right to call things by their right name, so yeah that thread is a messy one and no one asked you to do anything about it.



Everything regular user needs to know about scanline sync is reflected in the context help for that feature. Also I'm quite certain that I'm spending a lot of time daily (probably more than you spend on gaming ) on documenting everything in release notes and in the forum. But yes, I document things just once so new users need to use search a bit, if the question was already asked and answered before. Those who wish to find answers, can easily do it.


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## Viruzz (Mar 16, 2019)

AlexUnwinder said:


> Scanline sync functionality doesn't make any money and it is not a commercial thing. That's a hobby and feature, which I simply find interesting to develop in my free time and share with community.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Hi,
If 1125 is the value for full HD, which one to use for 4K?

Thanks


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## AlexUnwinder (Mar 22, 2019)

Viruzz said:


> Hi,
> If 1125 is the value for full HD, which one to use for 4K?
> 
> Thanks



You don't have to care about VTotal and absolute scanline indices, that's exactly why negative values support was introduced. -100 means that you present a frame exactly 100 scanlines before the end of vertical blanking interval.


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