Hrmm interesting. I loaded an older Nvidia driver (from May) and it defaults to VSYNC on. This latest drivers defaults to Use application setting. Games are capped at 144FPS again after I switched it to ON.
So Vsync has to be on in the Nvidia control panel for Gsync to work?
No, Vsync doesn't work like this and neither does Gsync.
Gsync replaces Vsync. Vsync should be disabled, otherwise Gsync doesn't work. Vsync is designed to cap your FPS at your monitor's refresh rate, but Gsync dynamically adjusts your refresh rate to your FPS in real time. If you are capable of higher than 144 FPS in any game, you will want to cap your FPS. I use 120 FPS cap standard and 120hz refresh.
Note: Some games run in what's called "Windowed Full Screen Borderless" mode. This is NOT true full screen. Example Game: Blade and Soul
In Blade and Soul's case, Gsync does not work in this mode and can cause insanely low FPS as a result. It was a combination of poor game code and bad driver development from NCSoft & Nvidia. This issue occurs only when you enable Gsync in full screen & Windowed mode. You can force BNS into true full screen mode where Gsync will work, but since then NCSoft broke their game even more, this has a negative impact on performance as well. In short, you will not want to use Gsync in this particular game, and cap your refresh and/or fps at 120 fps & 120hz.
It is ok to have a higher refresh rate than FPS, but NOT ok to have higher FPS than refresh rate. That is where you start missing frames entirely. In the case of FPS based games, this can be a damning technical limitation because you won't see where that next 1 shot kill comes from. (You literally will never see it coming)
Example of good refresh vs bad refresh: 60hz + 120 FPS = You miss 1 out of every 2 frames, due to limitations of your monitor. 120hz + 60 fps = You don't miss any frames your PC is just not capable of manufacturing higher than 60 FPS and your monitor capability exceeds your PC's performance output level which is a good thing.
That being said, I have a monitor that I can overclock the refresh rate to 185hz. Some monitors can overclock refresh rates, but others can't.
Hope this helps...
