What does maxframesahead settings actually do?

[bastardo 12]

I'm talking about the settings:

 

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead

and

GPU_MaxFramesAhead

 

Everyone tells you to change these settings to 1 yet no one actually seems to know what they do, so what do they exactly? I dislike changing settings I don't understand.

[DropBearChick 1216]

It initiates the self destruct feature on your computer

(Apparently it increases your fps)

[MetapoliC 263]

Everybody says it will increase your FPS but nobody can tell why. I was in the same situation but I wasn't thinking much about it, I just set it to 1 and I did saw the difference.  To understand some settings you have to turn them on/off to see for yourself. 

[silent (DayZ) 23]

It initiates the self destruct feature on your computer

(Apparently it increases your fps)

 

What these settings really do Andrew?

[DropBearChick 1216]

Not this again and i have no clue

[antonio_micael69@hotmail.com 3]

IF you have 0 max frames ahead your GPU will not prepare frames before they are displayed, causing less stress in the GPU but as a consequence the game will stutter a bit and decrease mouse lag since you have more frames because there is less stress on the GPU.

The more max frames you pur, for example 3, before the frames are displayed, the GPU is already calculating the 3 frames ahead, making the game run "smoother" less stutter but at lower FPS and increasing mouse input lag.

 

You can read the rest of this post at if you need more explanations

Source: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=143811

 

EDIT : forgot this, - Max Frames to Render ahead only applies when V-Sync is OFF.

When V-sync is on, then double-buffering or triple-buffering are used.

Edited April 18, 2014 by KGangsta

[kichilron 8550]

Especially noticeable on BIS games:

 

Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames:  If available, this option - previously known as 'Max Frames to Render Ahead' - controls the number of frames the CPU prepares in advanced of being rendered by the GPU. The default value is 3 - higher values tend to result in smoother but more laggy gameplay, while lower values can help reduce mouse and keyboard lag. However extremely low values such as 0 may hurt performance, so I recommend this option be kept at its default of 3 globally, and only adjusted downwards in specific game profiles. Remember, in most cases mouse lag is due to low framerates, so adjusting this option is not an automatic cure to lag issues, nor should it be the first thing you try. Finally, it only works in DirectX games, not OpenGL games. 

Edited April 18, 2014 by kichilron

[enforcer1975 1111]

But always keep in mind nothing will help if that hardware is on the lower end of the foodchain...

[monolith1985 109]

so should we set it to 3, instead of 1?