Borderless Windowed poor performance (stuttering/seemingly low fps)

[Geirr]

The internal FPS limit does not function properly on Borderless Window with high refresh monitors and never has, it introduces a faulty vsync which will result in you getting the divised rate of the current potential framerate instead of divising the peak refresh rate, similar issues can be seen in Grim Dawn when using vsync+borderless.

ie, on a 144hz display, if you can only achieve 82fps the 1/2 limit will result in 41fps in Borderless window, instead of the 72 that Fullscreen achieves.

utilise RTSS to achieve your desired frame cap instead when using borderless.

Else, use Fullscreen, Windows 10+ optimizes fullscreen modes to behave closer to borderless windowed.

I do agree that it may have never worked right for some users, but mine was working just fine for me up until recent driver updates. Likewise, I don't think the cause of the issue is down to dividing potential vs actual.

I think the bigger issue is what I found experimenting with GPU-Z, which is that the graphics card itself is not being utilized properly when the half and fourth rate options are selected. My graphics card is running at 900MHz~ when I am using half or fourth. Despite half being north of 60fps, on a 144hz refresh rate monitor. However, if I set the refresh rate to a non-native 60hz or 72hz and then attempt a false "Full" refresh rate cap, it works fine and the clock gears up to it's normal 1700MHz~1980MHz ranges.

What is telling is the fact that I also see the 900MHz~ core clock range when the game is minimize and the reduce fps while minimize option is enabled. So is something about the game thinking it is minimized when running at half or fourth? Some kind of failure to call for proper resources due to windows borderless full screen optimization? Hard to say.

I think all the developers need do, to fix this, is ensure that the game is properly demanding the graphics card perform as if it is running a game instead of running at speeds usually reserved for photoshop or watching a blueray movie. Especially when "faking" a lower refresh rate monitor manages to marshal these same-such resources properly.