Triple buffering: "Why we love it" - Overclock.net

brain_stew · 06-26-09

For whatever reason most gamers seem oblivious to the inherent benefits of triple buffering in games. It gives you the performance of standard double buffering but without the ugly (in my eyes game breaking) tearing that comes with it. Anandtech have just put up an article that explains the process and why you should all be such a fan of it, and have it enabled in most every PC game, to paraphrase them:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anandtech

So there you have it. Triple buffering gives you all the benefits of double buffering with no vsync enabled in addition to all the benefits of enabling vsync. We get smooth full frames with no tearing. These frames are swapped to the front buffer only on refresh, but they have just as little input lag as double buffering with no vsync at the start of output to the monitor. Even though "performance" doesn't always get reported right with triple buffering, the graphics hardware is working just as hard as it does with double buffering and no vsync and the end user gets all the benefit with out the potential downside. Triple buffering does take up a handful of extra memory on the graphics hardware, but on modern hardware this is not a significant issue.

For anyone that doesn't like tearing, it will essentially give a significant framerate boost in every game you enable it in, for all practical purposes its a free GPU upgrade.

If you're at all interested in the way that games render, want to know why triple buffering rocks or are sceptical of the benefits then I highly recommend you read the article:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3591&p=1

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Forcing Triple buffering in D3D games.

Now, the article has one glaring omission, and that's advice as to how to enable triple buffering in games that don't use OpenGL (an increasingly tiny minority these days) or explicitly include an option to enable it ingame. See, although your Nvidia and ATI control panel include to enable triple buffering in games, this setting only applies to OpenGL games, even though this may not be particularly clear.

This is where D3DOverrider comes in, as it allows you to force vsync and triple buffering in any game that uses Direct3D, which is the vast majority of games on the market today. It uses close to zero resources, is easy to use with both global and per application profiles available and I consider it to be one of the most essential programs for any self respecting PC gamer.

The program is installed in a package along with Rivatuner, which is another essential program for PC hardware enthusiasts as it allows you to do all manner of tweaking, OCing and monitoring and is useful for all manner of tasks. Download it here:

http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner

Now, since D3DOverrider is a separate program you will need to launch it separately, on first launch, simply set:

"Start with Windows" to on
"Detection level" to medium
"Force Triple Buffering" to on
"Force Vsync" to on

I recommend that you do not force Vsync through your drivers in addition and just leave the setting to the default "application controlled."

Now when you launch a D3D game you should here a standard Windows success "beep" to indicate that triple buffering has been forced. Now, if for whatever reason this causes problems with a particular program, simply click the "Add profile" cross in D3DOverrider, navigate to the relevant game executable, and create a new profile with it, where nothing is forced on.

You can now enjoy all your games with a perfect tear free image but without the undesirable framerate and input latency hit that comes with vsync. Enjoy!

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For reference here's some example images from the article that help illustrate what is happening with the three different rendering techniques.

Standard double buffering:

Double buffer Vsync:

Triple buffering:

Note: If you are a dual GPU SLI/Crossfire user you will not be able to use tripple buffering. Sorry, folks.

DuckieHo · 06-26-09

Buffering causes input lag? If so, no thanks...

ljason8eg · 06-26-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by DuckieHo

Buffering causes input lag? If so, no thanks...

Yeah it causes some. So does Vsync in some games though. Setting pre rendered frames to zero seems to help though.

Crooksy · 06-26-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljason8eg

Yeah it causes some. So does Vsync in some games though. Setting pre rendered frames to zero seems to help though.

CS: Source comes to mind.

Admiral Mudkipz · 06-26-09

Interesting. I'll try it out.

adventfred · 06-26-09

so should we use it or not

meticadpa · 06-26-09

It's useful if used in conjuction with V.Sync.

brain_stew · 06-26-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by adventfred

so should we use it or not

Yes! Well, that's unless you're a fan of tearing. Triple buffering will produce a much higher framerate and much less input lag than standard v-sync.

Its basically v-sync without the major drawbacks.

adventfred · 06-27-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by brain_stew

Yes! Well, that's unless you're a fan of tearing. Triple buffering will produce a much higher framerate and much less input lag than standard v-sync.

Its basically v-sync without the major drawbacks.

nice will do

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Triple buffering: "Why we love it"

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