Monitors for W:A

[Impossible]

There is a sort of revolution happening in the world of monitors right now; OLEDs have become much cheaper in recent months. like $300 level cheap.

Generally, there are few points why monitors matter in worms

Here's interesting thing about roping in worms:
although the game supports any frame rate since 3.8 update, the in-game physics is still capped at 50fps (update every 20ms). Yet most people play with 60hz monitors.

This means that every 6th frame doesn't have its own physics update. So, it still shows motion during this frame (as it interpolates the movement), but the physics doesn't update, so you can't do input during this frame, and everything moves 2x slower between this "artificial" frame, which visually feels like small stutter, and the input feels like it's a bit inconsistent. Think about doing a pump, there's just no one who can do them consistently, it has this random element to it. Yet there's many games with 1 frame timings that people make consistently (fightings, speedruns, souls-like games, etc), it's definitely possible. i just think W:A has inconsistency that is related to stretching 50 real frames into 60 visual ones.

So, how about playing with 50hz?
I actually didnt realize this back when I was active, so I just tested it now (for nvidia users, you can force 50hz in the nvidia panel even if your monitor doesn't support it 'officially'). The game feels less smooth at 50hz, but much more consistent, I ended up doing pumps like 90% of the time. At 60hz only ~50-60% was succesful (this is very anecdotal as I only tested it for 5 minutes, but still very interesting)

So what about high refresh rates, like 240, or say 500hz?
I'm actually not sure if this would help with consistency. At 500hz, you will see 9 frames, before you hit the "real" 10th frame, where the actual physics of the game will be calculated and displayed. There's going to be 20ms delay between input updates.
It may not sound like much, after all, human reaction is 250ms on average. However, a system with human feedback loop (like W:A) is a different story. You can see on Microsoft Research channel how even 1ms of latency is crucial for a realtime feedback

W:A adds inconsistent latency, 20ms worst-case (if you clicked right after the end of the physics tick), or close to 1ms if you clicked right before it. You will only really notice this inconsistency at high frame rates, although the overall movement will be very smooth. Only at 50Hz the game will produce frames along with physics updates, which probably makes the game more predictable.

Waiting for players who tried high/slow framerates to reply here and share observations


By the way, why the game updates at 50hz?
Back when the game released, CRT monitors tried to move away from 60Hz. CRT monitors had noticeable flickering, so manufacturers always tried to overclock them higher, to 70-75-82-85-100Hz, just so it feels better to the eyes (I remember how by looking at them with peripheral vision, the flicker was visible even with 75hz+). And so there was no this 60Hz standard thing back then. So maybe that's why? Also, the game math works much more elegantly if you refresh the frame 50 times. Perhaps it was another reason.

The cool thing about CRTs is that they had very low latency (they are actually still used in medicine and motion-testing benchmarks as reference monitors for their low latency). They work kind of like hardware oscilloscopes for video signals, without any buffering. It took 20 years before we got monitors with similar low latency (OLED). The roping on CRTs must have been amazing (I don't remember..)

All this time we played with a 10-20ms higher delay comparing to what the devs used during game development. OLEDs are much closer to "the way it was meant to be played".

Maybe there is someone among us who already plays W:A on OLED? would be interesting to hear back
Another thing about OLEDs is the absolute black, which is kinda cool for backgrounds in worms.

ok i turned this into a whole article .. just wanted to know your opinion, and what monitors do you guys use?

[TheKomodo]

Think about doing a pump, there's just no one who can do them consistently, it has this random element to it.

Nah, it's pretty easy:

[Korydex]

Hey Impo, you hit a nerve!

Last one I had was 19" CRT LaCie and with XGA+ resolution it was actually ok for me to use it even on daily basis. Sadly it's broken now and I decided it's time to switch to something new. Wish I had the money for a good OLED monitor but I had to go with 23" IPS DELL. With FHD resolution It's ok for most things but it's a lot harder for me to play WA with it (some other games are perfectly fine). Latency is acceptable, but I can't comfortably see little important things that are especially important in default schemes where you have some pixel perfect stuff.
Probably changing the resolution or getting a bigger screen solves this problem but actually it adds a lot of other ones. I don't like moving my head a lot. Afaik e-sportsmen prefer something like 24". I would go even smaller for WA and use lower resolution.

I think I will always prefer CRT for WA and other old games, unless they have some significant graphics update.

[Impossible]

Think about doing a pump, there's just no one who can do them consistently, it has this random element to it.

Nah, it's pretty easy:

which monitor do you use?

Wish I had the money for a good OLED monitor

well, if you'll feel like buying one, you can get AOC Q27G41ZDE for 33k rub on ozon. and MSI MSI MAG 271QP X28 for 35k (you'll also have to pay ~2k for таможня as they are delivered from china. those are two models that came out few days ago and surprisingly, they are also cheaper then the less powerful counterparts. they all use 3rd gen qd-oled panels from samsung, that you can find on 100k+ rub models

[Sensei]

Hey Impo, was just asking this in Discord the other day..seems like something you could know how to solve. Last couple of years I've used Acer xf240h (24", 144hz, TN panel, full hd). Everything was perfect for W:A. Now put it as 2nd monitor and upgraded to: Dell g2724d (27", 165hz, IPS, 2k res). Continued playing on full hd for W:A because 2k feels too weird. Picture is a bit grainy but can live with that. What I can't live with are constant freezes while roping. Game is not smooth at all, even though fps doesn't drop under 800 or something.

Could it be new monitor? New gpu? Went from 1070ti to rx7800xt.

Is there any radeon setting I need to turn on? Thanks.

[Impossible]

Hey Impo, was just asking this in Discord the other day..seems like something you could know how to solve. Last couple of years I've used Acer xf240h (24", 144hz, TN panel, full hd). Everything was perfect for W:A. Now put it as 2nd monitor and upgraded to: Dell g2724d (27", 165hz, IPS, 2k res). Continued playing on full hd for W:A because 2k feels too weird. Picture is a bit grainy but can live with that. What I can't live with are constant freezes while roping. Game is not smooth at all, even though fps doesn't drop under 800 or something.

Could it be new monitor? New gpu? Went from 1070ti to rx7800xt.

Is there any radeon setting I need to turn on? Thanks.

Did the problem start after the monitor upgrade, or GPU upgrade? Since you have 2 monitors, you can turn off one and try to run the game on each monitor separately.
So:
1. if the problem disappears on both, the problem is in the dual monitor setup.
2. if the problem is only on one, the problem is in that particular monitor.
3. if the problem persists with both monitors, then the problem is not with the monitors.

most likely there's something with the settings.

try to open amd software, open W:A profile, and turn off Radeon Anti-Lag and Radeon Chill.
Also worth trying: force v-sync off, it may cause stutters simillar to what you describe.
Also try right clicking on WA.exe, Properties → Compatibility, and Disable fullscreen optimizations. It may give stuttering in some games too