Wrong refresh rate used in game

[jmroon]

I'm trying Apollo out for the first time tonight. It aims to solve my main pain points I've had with streaming in the past, which is great!

However, I may have caught an issue. I'm unsure if this is user error or if there is a workaround.

I have a Steam Deck OLED as the client (90Hz), and a 5900X + 4070 Ti PC as the host. These are my A/V settings:

I have headless mode enabled, as to leverage the virtual display. This is ideal for me as I have Gsync enabled displays, and have a non-Gsync virtual display can address frametime issues.

When launching Steam Big Picture, I can inspect the virtual display and see that it is correctly set to 90Hz. However, it also exposes more refresh rates:

Unfortunately, some games don't allow selecting the refresh rate in game. This is the case for Metaphor ReFantazio. It switches the display to 240Hz once the game opens.

It feels as though the additional refresh rates should not be present when creating the virtual display. I haven't attempted to leverage EDID overrides as a workaround, but that is my current thought. I'm just not sure if the override will persist.

[ClassicOldSong]

Why would a game change refresh rate...

These values are there for convenience, and 2560*1440 is a built in value that has 240fps reported.

You can set resolution scale of the app you launched in Apps tab to something a little bit higher than 100%, then there will be no preset framerates other than the client requested one. This also acts as super sampling.

[ClassicOldSong]

Took a search and found everyone is complaining about framerate being locked to 60 in this game... Do you have any mods installed to remove this limit?

[jmroon]

Not sure where you got that information from, but the game only has issues with 60 fps menus with vsync off (which a particular mod does fix). Otherwise, the game has arbitrary framerate support (see PC gaming wiki)

I do agree it's strange for the game to change refresh rates, but it's not unheard of. Many games do have the ability to select a refresh rate in exclusive fullscreen. This game just doesn't expose that ability and seems to prefer the highest refresh rate.

The unfortunate thing is this game has serious performance and frame pacing issues in borderless window mode, so exclusive fullscreen is a near necessity.

edit: oh I know the 60 fps issue you saw. If you alt-tab the game it will lock to 60 fps until you toggle borderless/fullscreen again. Not an issue if you don't alt-tab.

[ClassicOldSong]

Yeah, try the resolution scale I mentioned above and see if it works for you

[jmroon]

Well this is very odd. I tried the resolution scale. It correctly creates the display:

As soon as I tab into the game, the resolution of the virtual display changes to 2560*1440 and 240Hz. I have no idea how this would happen.

I can confirm this only happens with the virtual display. The game does not alter my physical display resolution or refresh in any way. If I lower my physical display from its native 165Hz to 120Hz, it will stay there.

[jmroon]

I thought I might use CRU to completely limit available resolutions, but unfortunately it looks like every streaming session registers a new display, so there will be no way to leverage that.

[ClassicOldSong]

It has more modes than 2560x1440x240, but why it's choosing this specific one...

Can you try clear monitor caches following the guide in FAQ and try again?

[jmroon]

I'm going to say there's something really wrong with my Windows install and/or drivers. Deleting those entries has resulted in my monitors no longer both connecting after a reboot. I can only connect one at a time, as it goes into an endless connection loop with both on.

Gonna reinstall Windows and report back

[jmroon]

So I didn't end up reinstalling Windows, but I did come across a scenario that can break things.

I have 3 DP inputs on my GPU:
Port 1: Monitor 1
Port 2: Monitor 2
Port 3: unoccupied

If I change this configuration at all, say by plugging Monitor 1 into Port 3, it will result in one display failing to connect over and over again. If I shut down Apollo and clear my monitor caches, it works. However, as soon as I restart Apollo, it will break a display until I revert to the initial configuration.

[ClassicOldSong]

Should be part Windows part monitor's flaw... I had a monitor, every time my computer goes to sleep, it'll go to sleep as well, but it then sends a disconnect signal to my computer and my computer wakes up immediately... Then it stuck into the sleep and wake up loop...

[ClassicOldSong]

Ah, I think I know why your display flickers: recent upstream update introced a new library to handle display configs, that could make things worse. Go to Apollo's install directory, in config folder, delete display_device.state.