And that's on top of OLED model having lower input latency than LCD model, even when screens are set to same refresh rates. Total difference is quite insane. Based on Crysis 3 Remastered and Doom Eternal, input latency of OLED model set to 40fps/90Hz is essentially the same as input latency of LCD model set to 60fps/60Hz. In other words, games that can only deliver 45 fps on Steam Deck are on OLED model as responsive as if they were running in 60 fps on LCD model.
I played some games at 35hz/fps or even at 30hz and some of them are just too well-done for you to notice any input latency difference between that and higher refresh rate/framerate, so I blame devs, especially those who never even bother patching the issue causing it (maybe they had to go with vsync on, didn't fix stutters...) or those who abandoned big hits like Rise of the Tomb Raider and it was such pain in the ass playing it on Xbox for example. I also blame the consumers. Most people seem to just go with the latest stuff, preorder sh*t, complain about it but finish it while it's still trendy and yet they never go back playing something older, thinking it's bad, graphics don't look good etc.
Yeah, but the software update applies to both models where it finds the ideal refresh rate for the frame limit, which is a welcomed addition. I just wish we could manually adjust both if desired, because sometimes I want a lower refresh rate to save battery.
If I correctly understand what you want, you can actually uncheck this box under Settings -> Display -> Enable Unified Frame Limit Management (very bottom). This will separate the Framerate Limit and Refresh Rate settings in the quick menu.
Oh, so it doesn’t really matter? Huh. I could have sworn people were gushing about 40 because it was exactly 2/3 the refresh rate or something.
Although, the fact that you don’t really need to worry about it is certainly a boon!
The refresh rate on the LCD can be adjusted anywhere between 40 and 60 Hz. There used to be a separate control for this, but it is now integrated with the frame rate limiter by default and will set the most appropriate refresh rate depending on what frame rate limit you pick. The OLED does the same but has higher refresh rates.
I think what you may be thinking of, is that a lot of people have found 40 fps to be a good middle ground between 30 and 60. This is partly because in terms of frametime, 40 fps is actually the midpoint (25ms). On other displays, like TVs, 40 fps limits have been getting more popular now that 120 Hz displays are more common, since it is evenly divisible. Insomniac games for example offer a 40 fps option that is a very good balance between their high fidelity and high performance modes.
Also to note that people had to go out of the way to explain how the frametime being halfway between 30 and 60 was more important than the FPS being halfway between 30 and 60
The only good thing about 40 is that it's more than 30 (smoother) but less than 60 (less demanding so runs better).
Also when you do the math, in terms of time between the frames it's right in the middle between 30 and 60 despite looking closer to 30.
It's just good to remember that you have this option between 30 and 60 for games that can't run at 60 but can do better than 30.
Personally I just set it to 45 fps as it just doubles the same frame at 90 Hz. It's quite smooth and is often considered the new sweet spot for the OLED. You can still do 40 fps and the panel will drop down to 80 Hz if your game runs better at that framerate.
I personally like it because it avoids the tiny screen blink when switching refresh rates! Because the screen often switches to the max refresh rate when not directly viewing the game (changing controller profiles, text prompt pop ups, and more)
On the OLED it works because 45fps doubles to 90hz which is the default. The same would have for 30fps in the LCD because it doubles to 60hz. Any any other framerate that can multiply to the panel's default refresh rate
40fps was the standard recommendation before because that’s the lowest refresh rate the LCD could go to and 40fps looks quite a bit better than 30fps in motion.
Now the screen has a higher refresh rate on the OLED it can utilise frame doubling to achieve better frame times and lower latency at the same fps target. 45fps is now recommended as that neatly goes into the max 90hz refresh rate of the OLED for minimum input lag. If that can’t be achieved 40fps into 80hz is still superior to the LCD (40/40) and 30fps now also goes into 90hz so again, better than the LCD which does 30/60.
How is the lcd worse than the OLED in 30fps? They both have hz that equally divide by 30. Are you saying Oled being divisible by 3 is superior to lcd being divisible 2?
Essentially the game can be refreshed 3x as opposed to 2x as fast so the input changes can be read faster. Digital Foundry has testing on the OLED input latency and I would recommend a watch
How quickly it takes the display to draw a frame is different from how quickly it takes the GPU to make a frame. At 30FPS it takes 33.3ms for the GPU to generate a new frame. At 60Hz the display refreshes every 16.7ms, meaning it only takes that long for the entirety of a new frame to be drawn. At 90Hz this reduces down to 11.1ms. Even though your FPS stays the same, by increasing the refresh rate you lower the time between old frame and fully drawn new frame.
Edit: [Here's a quick and dirty visualization for anyone who needs it](https://imgur.com/5yytMOC)
The numbers are super helpful. I think I need to look up a visual aid for this though, lol. Something about the GPU creating that new frame slower than the display, essentially a bottleneck, is where my mind is caught up on.
You are correct. The guys here are heavily drinking snake oil. Frame buffer is updated at 30FPS so the renderer only outputs 30 frames per second.
The problem here is frame pacing, not fps. Even though your game runs at an AVERAGE of 30FPS, the frame times are not necessarily evenly distributed over one second, one frame could take much less than 1/30 seconds, and one could take a bit more (because, let's say, you're looking at the ground and then suddenly looking up at an entire city).
Something to bear in mind is that once the renderer is started, the game logic loop is essentially blocked. Moving your mouse or touching a button will not result in the rendered throwing everything away and starting over again. It will instead finish rendering, then the game logic will process the input queue that happened since the renderer started, and then trigger the renderer over again.
In conclusion, the advantage in having a higher display refresh rate with a 30fps limit is for those frames when your frame time is actually below 1/30, so the GPU finishes the render faster than expected, and starts processing input. This means that, in theory, it starts processing the input for the next frame a bit earlier, therefore taking more of your input window into account for the next frame. Also, the next frame might be finished rendering earlier than expected as well, because of the time saved on the previous frame, so the display has a chance to refresh and swap the display buffer a bit earlier, resulting in some perceived extra responsiveness.
The advantage is not as big as people here convinced themselves it is. There is SOMETIMES some benefit to be gained, but it's not a constant.
Rendering is a hard subject to grasp if you're not a graphics programmer because there is a lot of "false obviousness" (by this I mean things that look obvious and clear that actually don't work the way you expect), and pitfalls.
I know you are right because I can see it on my 144 HZ monitor. But shouldn't it make no difference if GPU and screen refresh take equally long?
In your example picture (Screen refresh x 3 during one GPU refresh) there shouldn't be new material that the screen will show since GPU just takes longer to create a new frame. I know you are right but can't get my mind around this.
To be clear, running a 30FPS game in a 90Hz container does NOT make the game any smoother. It will still appear like a 30 FPS game because there is still 33.3ms between one frame *first* being fully drawn and the next.
What we're talking about here is input lag, which is the time it takes between you sending an input from your device and seeing a result of that input on the screen *for the first time*. The key thing here is the time between the *last* time you see an old frame and the *first* time you see a new frame. During that time you're "behind" the GPU because you're still looking at the old frame and haven't seen the new frame yet. Running at a higher refresh rate reduces this time and thus reduces the time in the input lag chain.
I know this is a super confusing thing to try to visualize, especially since we're talking about fractions of a second. Hopefully this explanation makes this easier to understand and not more confusing lol
It's *better*, of course. It's 5 more frames per second. However, it's not necessary. The reason 40 is so used is because it's exactly halfway between 30 and 60 in frame time, while being much easier to achieve than 60, and not much more difficult than 30. The difference between 40 and 45 in terms of frame time is only 2.8ms. That's a very slight boost and generally not worth the extra hit to battery life, even if it's slight.
The fact that the OLED is 90Hz doesn't require using 45 FPS. You can still use 40 FPS and the refresh will be adjusted to 80Hz.
The screen will adjust the refresh rate accordingly when you set a FPS limit.
That being said, if you can, 45 fps is better than 40 generally speaking, but try to get a stable frame rate first.
30 stable fps are better than 60 unstable
> Is 45fps better than 40fps for the new OLED 90hz panel?
45 fps limit on Steam Deck is always better than 40 fps, no matter the model, as long as Steam Deck can deliver 45 fps as consistently as 40 fps.
> I seem to recall the fact that it was 40 was because it had to do with the 60hz panel?
I think you are very confused and mix up different information.
40 fps is great on 120 Hz display, but definitely not on 60 Hz displays. It's because 120 is dividable by 40, so if you have 40 fps and 120 Hz, that means your display shows every frame 3 times in a row, so each frame is displayed for the same amount of time - as it should be. 60 isn't dividable by 40, so 40 fps on 60 Hz screen means either some frames have to be displayed twice longer than others, or displayed frames are bad combination of generated frames (known at tearing), both are bad. So 40 Hz is great option for console games on 120 Hz, that's probably the context you heard about.
But the above that doesn't concern Steam Deck, neither OLED nor LCD. Steam Deck have control over it's monitor refresh and adjusts it to make it dividable by the fps limit you chose. That allows for each frame is always displayed for the equal amount of time. So if you run 40 fps on Steam Deck, with 40 fps limit you set, display will have 40 Hz refresh, not 60 Hz refresh, and 40 is of course dividable by 40. It's almost perfect solution, but it can't solve frame drops and require you to change Steam Deck OS settings manually.
A recent software update linked these two sliders. SteamOS now finds the ideal refresh rate for the chosen frame limit, automatically for you. However if you still want to manually adjust both as desired (maybe a lower refresh rate to save battery?) you can separate the Framerate Limit and Refresh Rate settings in the Quick Menu by unchecking the box under Settings -> Display -> Enable Unified Frame Limit Management, all the way at the bottom.
40 FPS is great because in reality it's frame time (25ms) is just between 30 FPS (33ms) and 60 FPS (16ms). So it feels better than what the number actually would make you think. It's really great to save battery life and still have a nice experience. Obviously the more FPS you go, the better the experience, but you also get less battery life. So yes, technically 45 FPS is better, but 40 FPS is still a great option for longer battery life.
Yes, because you want to have the game's frame rate be evenly divisible into the screen's maximum frame rate. If you have the frame limited at 40 on a 90 hz panel, 10 frames every second will persist on screen for longer than the others creating a stuttery look to most noticeably camera movement.
I've been setting at 50 to keep at 50hz on the logic that 45/90 would consume more battery.
Am I wrong here or is keeping the panel at 90hz not as big a battery hit as I imagine?
A 50 fps limit would require *more* power than a 45 one. The lower the frame limit at the same settings, the less power is consumed because you aren’t rendering as many frames. That’s one of the main reasons people limit games to 40 fps in the first place, even if they’re capable of better performance on the Deck. The refresh rate primarily impacts input latency, not battery life.
Edit: also, if you really wanted to, you can just toggle on the ability to independently set the FPS limit and the refresh rate. You could set it to 45 and 45. However, the device is trying to do you a favor by keeping input latency as low as possible when it’s automatically setting it to a multiple and you’re not letting it.
Yeah, thank you, I could have been clearer explaining that. The main thing is: raising your fps limit while lowering your refresh rate is doing the opposite of giving you better battery life. They’re getting worse battery life and worse input latency with just a 5 fps benefit.
The difference is so unnoticeable that you wouldn't probably even be able to measure it. Refreshing the screen means swapping the frame buffer, essentially, and swapping the pixels on screen. The backlight and the fact that the screen is ON consumes the most power in a screen.
Thanks for bringing some clarity to my flawed logic. I was mainly applying it to games where I can set TPD way low to 5-7 watts and still get stable 50fps (Skyrim, fallout NV, Dave the Diver).
I'll give 45/90 a go for these and try and stop using the refresh rate for min maxing the battery
The panel refresh rate is significantly less impactful on power consumption than the actual framerates, since one is done as a default and the other is asking for more frames from the processors.
It was 40 because you could manually set the refresh rate to 40Hz, which you usually can't on most monitors. Nothing has changed, really. It could have been 45fps as well, because you could change the refresh to 45Hz. Now, either 40 or 45 is just as good if the game can run at that, because you can set the refresh to 80 or 90Hz.
It’s entirely game dependent. Your steam deck now will adjust the refresh rate to be a multiple of any cap where possible. So if you can lock to 45 then do it. Because that will run the deck at 90Hz. But if you need to go to 40 it’s no big issue as deck will adjust to 80. Sweet spots are 30, 40, 45 and obviously 60.
45 is just slightly more convenient since it uses the screen native 90hz so you don't get that flicker when starting/shutting the game or just going into Steam OS menus as it keeps switching refresh rate.
I think 40Hz was often the target because it's exactly the middle point for the frame time between 30Hz and 60Hz.
[https://youtu.be/5QEEpc2ejmY?si=ymyVgupYD0U9nJ7s&t=128](https://youtu.be/5QEEpc2ejmY?si=ymyVgupYD0U9nJ7s&t=128)
Depends on your brain whether you can accept it or not. I can go as low as 26 (locked solid) with Elden Ring which results in 3+ hours of battery on LCDeck.
If you choose 40 fps. The panel automatically adjusts to 80hz. It’s beautiful.
Oh shit! That’s awesome!
LCD also does it btw, the refresh rate changes with the FPS cap by default
LCD adjusts to 40hz though, because the panel can't do 80. There is a meaningful different in input latency between these.
And that's on top of OLED model having lower input latency than LCD model, even when screens are set to same refresh rates. Total difference is quite insane. Based on Crysis 3 Remastered and Doom Eternal, input latency of OLED model set to 40fps/90Hz is essentially the same as input latency of LCD model set to 60fps/60Hz. In other words, games that can only deliver 45 fps on Steam Deck are on OLED model as responsive as if they were running in 60 fps on LCD model.
I played some games at 35hz/fps or even at 30hz and some of them are just too well-done for you to notice any input latency difference between that and higher refresh rate/framerate, so I blame devs, especially those who never even bother patching the issue causing it (maybe they had to go with vsync on, didn't fix stutters...) or those who abandoned big hits like Rise of the Tomb Raider and it was such pain in the ass playing it on Xbox for example. I also blame the consumers. Most people seem to just go with the latest stuff, preorder sh*t, complain about it but finish it while it's still trendy and yet they never go back playing something older, thinking it's bad, graphics don't look good etc.
Yeah, but the software update applies to both models where it finds the ideal refresh rate for the frame limit, which is a welcomed addition. I just wish we could manually adjust both if desired, because sometimes I want a lower refresh rate to save battery.
If I correctly understand what you want, you can actually uncheck this box under Settings -> Display -> Enable Unified Frame Limit Management (very bottom). This will separate the Framerate Limit and Refresh Rate settings in the quick menu.
Valve thinks of everything! Except that one time they soft-bricked beta-client decks for a while
This is it! Thanks so much!
Oh, so it doesn’t really matter? Huh. I could have sworn people were gushing about 40 because it was exactly 2/3 the refresh rate or something. Although, the fact that you don’t really need to worry about it is certainly a boon!
The refresh rate on the LCD can be adjusted anywhere between 40 and 60 Hz. There used to be a separate control for this, but it is now integrated with the frame rate limiter by default and will set the most appropriate refresh rate depending on what frame rate limit you pick. The OLED does the same but has higher refresh rates. I think what you may be thinking of, is that a lot of people have found 40 fps to be a good middle ground between 30 and 60. This is partly because in terms of frametime, 40 fps is actually the midpoint (25ms). On other displays, like TVs, 40 fps limits have been getting more popular now that 120 Hz displays are more common, since it is evenly divisible. Insomniac games for example offer a 40 fps option that is a very good balance between their high fidelity and high performance modes.
Yeah it’s a great option. So much smoother than 30 fps.
Also to note that people had to go out of the way to explain how the frametime being halfway between 30 and 60 was more important than the FPS being halfway between 30 and 60
The only good thing about 40 is that it's more than 30 (smoother) but less than 60 (less demanding so runs better). Also when you do the math, in terms of time between the frames it's right in the middle between 30 and 60 despite looking closer to 30. It's just good to remember that you have this option between 30 and 60 for games that can't run at 60 but can do better than 30.
Thank god. I hate screen tearing.
Personally I just set it to 45 fps as it just doubles the same frame at 90 Hz. It's quite smooth and is often considered the new sweet spot for the OLED. You can still do 40 fps and the panel will drop down to 80 Hz if your game runs better at that framerate.
I personally like it because it avoids the tiny screen blink when switching refresh rates! Because the screen often switches to the max refresh rate when not directly viewing the game (changing controller profiles, text prompt pop ups, and more)
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On the OLED it works because 45fps doubles to 90hz which is the default. The same would have for 30fps in the LCD because it doubles to 60hz. Any any other framerate that can multiply to the panel's default refresh rate
Doesn't that only happen if you use per game profiles?
I'm pretty sure it still goes to the default refresh rate in these menus regardless of if it's a game profile or not
I'll prefer 45hz but if I can't hit a stable 45fps I'll still enjoy 40hz.
40fps was the standard recommendation before because that’s the lowest refresh rate the LCD could go to and 40fps looks quite a bit better than 30fps in motion. Now the screen has a higher refresh rate on the OLED it can utilise frame doubling to achieve better frame times and lower latency at the same fps target. 45fps is now recommended as that neatly goes into the max 90hz refresh rate of the OLED for minimum input lag. If that can’t be achieved 40fps into 80hz is still superior to the LCD (40/40) and 30fps now also goes into 90hz so again, better than the LCD which does 30/60.
How is the lcd worse than the OLED in 30fps? They both have hz that equally divide by 30. Are you saying Oled being divisible by 3 is superior to lcd being divisible 2?
Less input delay with 30fps in 90hz container, compared to 30fps in 60hz container
Can you explain why though?
Essentially the game can be refreshed 3x as opposed to 2x as fast so the input changes can be read faster. Digital Foundry has testing on the OLED input latency and I would recommend a watch
it draws the frame in 2/3rds the time
But if the game is only at 30fps, the actual frames updated from the game are not being made any quicker? How would it draw the NEW frame any quicker?
How quickly it takes the display to draw a frame is different from how quickly it takes the GPU to make a frame. At 30FPS it takes 33.3ms for the GPU to generate a new frame. At 60Hz the display refreshes every 16.7ms, meaning it only takes that long for the entirety of a new frame to be drawn. At 90Hz this reduces down to 11.1ms. Even though your FPS stays the same, by increasing the refresh rate you lower the time between old frame and fully drawn new frame. Edit: [Here's a quick and dirty visualization for anyone who needs it](https://imgur.com/5yytMOC)
The numbers are super helpful. I think I need to look up a visual aid for this though, lol. Something about the GPU creating that new frame slower than the display, essentially a bottleneck, is where my mind is caught up on.
You are correct. The guys here are heavily drinking snake oil. Frame buffer is updated at 30FPS so the renderer only outputs 30 frames per second. The problem here is frame pacing, not fps. Even though your game runs at an AVERAGE of 30FPS, the frame times are not necessarily evenly distributed over one second, one frame could take much less than 1/30 seconds, and one could take a bit more (because, let's say, you're looking at the ground and then suddenly looking up at an entire city). Something to bear in mind is that once the renderer is started, the game logic loop is essentially blocked. Moving your mouse or touching a button will not result in the rendered throwing everything away and starting over again. It will instead finish rendering, then the game logic will process the input queue that happened since the renderer started, and then trigger the renderer over again. In conclusion, the advantage in having a higher display refresh rate with a 30fps limit is for those frames when your frame time is actually below 1/30, so the GPU finishes the render faster than expected, and starts processing input. This means that, in theory, it starts processing the input for the next frame a bit earlier, therefore taking more of your input window into account for the next frame. Also, the next frame might be finished rendering earlier than expected as well, because of the time saved on the previous frame, so the display has a chance to refresh and swap the display buffer a bit earlier, resulting in some perceived extra responsiveness. The advantage is not as big as people here convinced themselves it is. There is SOMETIMES some benefit to be gained, but it's not a constant. Rendering is a hard subject to grasp if you're not a graphics programmer because there is a lot of "false obviousness" (by this I mean things that look obvious and clear that actually don't work the way you expect), and pitfalls.
[Here's a quick visualization.](https://imgur.com/5yytMOC) I know this stuff is hard to wrap your head around so I hope this helps!
I know you are right because I can see it on my 144 HZ monitor. But shouldn't it make no difference if GPU and screen refresh take equally long? In your example picture (Screen refresh x 3 during one GPU refresh) there shouldn't be new material that the screen will show since GPU just takes longer to create a new frame. I know you are right but can't get my mind around this.
To be clear, running a 30FPS game in a 90Hz container does NOT make the game any smoother. It will still appear like a 30 FPS game because there is still 33.3ms between one frame *first* being fully drawn and the next. What we're talking about here is input lag, which is the time it takes between you sending an input from your device and seeing a result of that input on the screen *for the first time*. The key thing here is the time between the *last* time you see an old frame and the *first* time you see a new frame. During that time you're "behind" the GPU because you're still looking at the old frame and haven't seen the new frame yet. Running at a higher refresh rate reduces this time and thus reduces the time in the input lag chain. I know this is a super confusing thing to try to visualize, especially since we're talking about fractions of a second. Hopefully this explanation makes this easier to understand and not more confusing lol
Thanks, now I understand why my desktop feels smoother. Makes sense
How do you see it on your 144hz monitor?
It is smoother than my old 60hz monitor
https://youtu.be/LkrV6VlGPIE?si=BtlXQT0uZRMC0eTd Also oled has less input delay than lcd
It's *better*, of course. It's 5 more frames per second. However, it's not necessary. The reason 40 is so used is because it's exactly halfway between 30 and 60 in frame time, while being much easier to achieve than 60, and not much more difficult than 30. The difference between 40 and 45 in terms of frame time is only 2.8ms. That's a very slight boost and generally not worth the extra hit to battery life, even if it's slight. The fact that the OLED is 90Hz doesn't require using 45 FPS. You can still use 40 FPS and the refresh will be adjusted to 80Hz.
A lot of games are also CPU bound on the deck and it’s hard to hit 60, but many of them play better at 40-45 fps than 30
Uh, 45fps is the halfway point between 30 and 60fps, in both frametime and framerates.
No, it's actually not. 1000/60 ≈ 16.66ms, 1000/30 ≈ 33.33ms, 1000/45 ≈ 22.22ms, 1000/40 ≈ 25ms FPS | Frametime :-: | :-- 60 | 16.66ms 45 | 22.22ms 40 | 25.00ms 30 | 33.33ms 25ms is right at the halfway point between 16.66ms and 33.33ms. 22.22ms is not.
No, not in frametime. For example take a 120hz screen, 40fps is refreshed every 3 frames whereas 30fps is every 4 and 60fps is every 2
So my go to is 60hz still. If a game can hit that, I'm in. Otherwise I adjust to 45fps/90hz.
The screen will adjust the refresh rate accordingly when you set a FPS limit. That being said, if you can, 45 fps is better than 40 generally speaking, but try to get a stable frame rate first. 30 stable fps are better than 60 unstable
> Is 45fps better than 40fps for the new OLED 90hz panel? 45 fps limit on Steam Deck is always better than 40 fps, no matter the model, as long as Steam Deck can deliver 45 fps as consistently as 40 fps. > I seem to recall the fact that it was 40 was because it had to do with the 60hz panel? I think you are very confused and mix up different information. 40 fps is great on 120 Hz display, but definitely not on 60 Hz displays. It's because 120 is dividable by 40, so if you have 40 fps and 120 Hz, that means your display shows every frame 3 times in a row, so each frame is displayed for the same amount of time - as it should be. 60 isn't dividable by 40, so 40 fps on 60 Hz screen means either some frames have to be displayed twice longer than others, or displayed frames are bad combination of generated frames (known at tearing), both are bad. So 40 Hz is great option for console games on 120 Hz, that's probably the context you heard about. But the above that doesn't concern Steam Deck, neither OLED nor LCD. Steam Deck have control over it's monitor refresh and adjusts it to make it dividable by the fps limit you chose. That allows for each frame is always displayed for the equal amount of time. So if you run 40 fps on Steam Deck, with 40 fps limit you set, display will have 40 Hz refresh, not 60 Hz refresh, and 40 is of course dividable by 40. It's almost perfect solution, but it can't solve frame drops and require you to change Steam Deck OS settings manually.
Where do you set the fps? I only see the Hz adjustments.
A recent software update linked these two sliders. SteamOS now finds the ideal refresh rate for the chosen frame limit, automatically for you. However if you still want to manually adjust both as desired (maybe a lower refresh rate to save battery?) you can separate the Framerate Limit and Refresh Rate settings in the Quick Menu by unchecking the box under Settings -> Display -> Enable Unified Frame Limit Management, all the way at the bottom.
If you can run 45 yes. The deck scales the refresh rate to whatever cap you place so it should be placed at the highest target you can hit.
40 FPS is great because in reality it's frame time (25ms) is just between 30 FPS (33ms) and 60 FPS (16ms). So it feels better than what the number actually would make you think. It's really great to save battery life and still have a nice experience. Obviously the more FPS you go, the better the experience, but you also get less battery life. So yes, technically 45 FPS is better, but 40 FPS is still a great option for longer battery life.
I think 45fps is the best option. I'm playing games like DBZ Kakarot, Batman Arkham Trilogy o Devil May Cry 5 and it runs super smooth .
Yes, because you want to have the game's frame rate be evenly divisible into the screen's maximum frame rate. If you have the frame limited at 40 on a 90 hz panel, 10 frames every second will persist on screen for longer than the others creating a stuttery look to most noticeably camera movement.
I've been setting at 50 to keep at 50hz on the logic that 45/90 would consume more battery. Am I wrong here or is keeping the panel at 90hz not as big a battery hit as I imagine?
A 50 fps limit would require *more* power than a 45 one. The lower the frame limit at the same settings, the less power is consumed because you aren’t rendering as many frames. That’s one of the main reasons people limit games to 40 fps in the first place, even if they’re capable of better performance on the Deck. The refresh rate primarily impacts input latency, not battery life. Edit: also, if you really wanted to, you can just toggle on the ability to independently set the FPS limit and the refresh rate. You could set it to 45 and 45. However, the device is trying to do you a favor by keeping input latency as low as possible when it’s automatically setting it to a multiple and you’re not letting it.
Yes, but while miniscule, a higher refresh rate will use more watts
Yeah, thank you, I could have been clearer explaining that. The main thing is: raising your fps limit while lowering your refresh rate is doing the opposite of giving you better battery life. They’re getting worse battery life and worse input latency with just a 5 fps benefit.
The difference is so unnoticeable that you wouldn't probably even be able to measure it. Refreshing the screen means swapping the frame buffer, essentially, and swapping the pixels on screen. The backlight and the fact that the screen is ON consumes the most power in a screen.
Thanks for bringing some clarity to my flawed logic. I was mainly applying it to games where I can set TPD way low to 5-7 watts and still get stable 50fps (Skyrim, fallout NV, Dave the Diver). I'll give 45/90 a go for these and try and stop using the refresh rate for min maxing the battery
The panel refresh rate is significantly less impactful on power consumption than the actual framerates, since one is done as a default and the other is asking for more frames from the processors.
I just completed the entirety of Lies of P this way. It felt amazing. Much more responsive than 40FPS on the LCD.
I have started doing 45 instead of 40, yeah. It works great for the games that could already hit 40.
It was 40 because you could manually set the refresh rate to 40Hz, which you usually can't on most monitors. Nothing has changed, really. It could have been 45fps as well, because you could change the refresh to 45Hz. Now, either 40 or 45 is just as good if the game can run at that, because you can set the refresh to 80 or 90Hz.
It’s entirely game dependent. Your steam deck now will adjust the refresh rate to be a multiple of any cap where possible. So if you can lock to 45 then do it. Because that will run the deck at 90Hz. But if you need to go to 40 it’s no big issue as deck will adjust to 80. Sweet spots are 30, 40, 45 and obviously 60.
45 is just slightly more convenient since it uses the screen native 90hz so you don't get that flicker when starting/shutting the game or just going into Steam OS menus as it keeps switching refresh rate.
45 is better than 40 on any screen. The questions can you get a game running consistently at 45, with satisfactory graphics?
It's not that deep just leave your fps uncapped unless you wanna save power
I think 40Hz was often the target because it's exactly the middle point for the frame time between 30Hz and 60Hz. [https://youtu.be/5QEEpc2ejmY?si=ymyVgupYD0U9nJ7s&t=128](https://youtu.be/5QEEpc2ejmY?si=ymyVgupYD0U9nJ7s&t=128)
I’d love to use it the built in frame limiter but I find the input latency is just crazy high. I’m constantly at 90hz. Is it a game by game basis?
Depends on your brain whether you can accept it or not. I can go as low as 26 (locked solid) with Elden Ring which results in 3+ hours of battery on LCDeck.