General FPS question

[Valid]

This pertains to "frames per second" not "first person shooter." Does it REALLY matter if your video card can push out >90 frames per second? How many monitors support a refresh rate of >85hertz at the desired resolution anyway? Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm assuming that the monitor with a refresh rate of 85hertz at 1024 x 768 resolution will render 85 scenes a second. If the video card pushes out more than this, won't the extra frames simply be wasted?

[Zuck Gou :)]

Yeup, but usually they are there for those 'heavy battle scenes' which cut the FPS in half. I think the human eye can't see more than 30 FPS.

[Kev]

soo....is there a setting to make the maximum framerate be say 75 to match 75hz.....and special toggles for the video card?

[WyrmMaster]

You can enable v-sync, but therse no point. Those extra frames dont hurt, and they give you some overhead when things slow down in a battle, as mentioned before. You can see them, but there nice to have.

[MartinT]

Hey if you set your video properties to 32bit colour depth, at least 1024x768 and min. 75hz refresh rate you'll have great looking gameplay , if you want to enable other goodies supported by your vid card thats cool too. Just don't sweat the other stuff, enjoy your games and leave everything else for the engineers.

[Ferg]

The human eye can only see 24 fps. Movies use only 24 fps for that reason. So if you can get around 40 then in the most intense graphics you should be able to stay over the 24 fps and your eye will never see the difference.

[Zuck Gou :)]

24....30

Whats the difference ::D

[BboySkid]

6

[Zuck Gou :)]

Quiet you

[Shadow ÒÓ]

he's right tho.........

=)

[Ottoman]

I thought in "real life"
we see at 120 fps...
after a certain point, things get smoother and smoother,
u can cram smaller frame increments into that one second... higher detail and stuff..

[Zuck Gou :)]

Im confused...in REAL life, what are frames?

[Nagorak]

Ferg (Jul 07, 2001 08:27 p.m.):
The human eye can only see 24 fps. Movies use only 24 fps for that reason. So if you can get around 40 then in the most intense graphics you should be able to stay over the 24 fps and your eye will never see the difference.

Actually this is absolutely NOT true. People have different rates of perception, just like they have different quality eyesight. You absolutely CAN see more than 24 frames per second. Anyway, when you're interacting with a game you will discover you are much more aware of how responsive your computer is. If, for example, you're just sitting back and watching a game of Q3a (or anything else), chances are you could not tell the difference between 30 and 90 FPS. BUT, when you are actually playing the game you can tell that your fps is lower or higher based on how sluggish the responsiveness is.

Up around 50-60 fps or so, you're generally not going to really notice anymore. 24 fps is great for movies, but for games it is HORRIBLY sluggish. I know that when my frame rate drops down into the mid twenties I absolutely can tell the difference from when it is higher.

I agree that fps isn't everything, but I think you're not taking into account that more powerful graphics cards can run in higher resolutions. I couldn't care less whether my card was turning out 60 or 100 fps, but I COULD care if it could run at 1600*1200 at a decent frame rate, instead of say 1024*768.

[Nagorak]

Zuck Gou :) (Jul 09, 2001 02:50 a.m.):
Im confused...in REAL life, what are frames?

He's saying that in RL we can notice changes that occur in as little as 120th of a second. I'm not sure if that number is entirely accurate but it sounds a hell of a lot more realistic than 24 fps. Next time you are watching a movie, look in the background of the shot (off in the 'distance'), you'll notice it is very choppy. Now go outside and take a panoramic look around...if you notice choppiness then maybe it's time to "unplug" for a bit ;-).

[Zuck Gou :)]

Ah alrite, thats what I wanted to know.

You think anyone has like a disease or injury that makes them see below 120FPS in RL? That'd be crazy.

[Mord-Sith]

I dont have any scientific proof but I have have vsync on I only get about 40-50 fps and if its off I get arround 120 (this is in counter-strike). Whenever I reinstall drivers I always forget to turn vysinc back off and I can always tell.

As far as maximum refresh rates for monitors go youll just have to look at the specs. My viewsonic will go up to about 180Mhz but I dont know at what resolution.

[Pinky]

The higher the frame rate for gaming, the better the response. It's a rather simply equation.

As for full motion of 2d, 24-30fps is fine -- but when rendering 3d action animation for games, more is better to offset any PC sluggishness.

[JigPu]

Yeah... Movies are shown at 24fps and TV at 30. This is just the area where images are blured together in our brain and seems to be "fluidic" (love that word 8)). Our eyes actually have a higher "refresh rate" than that. I don't know for sure what it is, but it has to be awfully fast. If you've ever heard of insterting subliminal messages into stuff by flashing for only one frame a picture of someting, you know that the eye can see pretty fast, and it's the brain doing the bluring (even though it sees every frame).

More frames per second are definiatly better. Running Descent 3 at a normal 30fps (my pooter ain't OC'd and it has the same yucky video card that came with it), I can see definite choppiness when I come from a long hallway and frame rates of over 50. All the extra frames are there just in case...

Bigger Is Better
JigPu

[Paul -The Mad Hatter]

The reason why 24 fps is fine for movies (on top of what people already said) is because your not really thinking, or interacting like with a game. imagine seeing life at 24 fps second, it would just be a blury mess.

when I play games I can tell when its 30 or 50 fps, expecially if i'm moving alot. If youre just walking down a hallway you could probably get away with 30-35 fps. but under 'intense' action its really hard on my eyes.
I like to play games with 50 + fps

[Valid]

I feel kind of proud of myself for getting a decent string going. I also feel kind of weird because besides the initial post, I didn't say anything. So basically, I just want to ask this question to cement things in my mind. Frames-per-second pushed out by the graphics card that are in excess of the monitor's refresh rating are wasted, are they not?

[Eil Atan]

Actually, just to clear some stuff up, movies aren't shown at 24 fps. Originally, when the projector was invented, movies were filmed around 60 fps, and played back at 60 fps. However, it was quickly discovered that making movies of any length would be incredibly expensive if everything was shot at 60 fps. Frame rates went down until eventually it was settled upon that a film could be shot at 24 fps without dropping action. However, when played back at 24 fps from a projector, there is still a flicker to films. To correct this, each frame of a motion picture is doubled, and then played back by the projectionist at 48 frames per second to create the smooth action you see in the theatre. With games though, anything over 30 fps seems to be fine... But just a little history I thoght I'd throw into the mix... :-)

[JigPu]

If you mean "wasted" as in not shown then yes. The frames are going to the screen faster than it can draw them, so it only draws some (I think...). However, when lots of stuff comes onto the screen as in heavy battle, it is the computer that can't keep up, and so will slow down its fps. The frame rate drops and less frames are sent every second. If your computer normaly ran at 50fps where nothing was going on, and then dropped down to 30, you would notice the slower screen updates. However at 90fps and then dropping down to 70, you really won't notice anything because it is WAY too fast.

To sum up, yes the frames are not shown on screen. However the high frame rate is used to ofset the lower frame rates of intense battle scenes and such. This is just to make the game look better because is isn't jerking around....

Hope this settles it...
JigPu

[dozier768]

this is a question that will never die. if you really want to find out play counterstrike with your fps limit set to 24 then play it, then set at 100 and play it, then tell me you dont see a difference

[Zuck Gou :)]

I think 50 is a nice number for FPS

[JEFF]

the fps rate is specific to you.you don't actually see in frame rates.your brain tricks you into thinking your seeing fluidly.kind of like racing,at 160 mph a drivers brain oc's making responses faster and seeing ahead farther.the longer he drives at this speed the more accustomed to this he will become.after awhile slowing down he would tend to be to repsonsive for 30 mph,for awhile.
its like seeing a stop sign in the distance,you dont actually read it your brain fills in the letters before you can actually read them,but your not aware of it.we are not aware of just how much our brain fills in for us most of the time.one of the few times you will notice this is reading a sign from a distance,getting closer you find it says somthing else,your brain filling in details for you,incorrectly(remind you of a p4?).
now with that said frame rates vary , so does your mind.if you can tell a difference frame rates matter whatever they are.is more than your monitor can handle a waste sure,but only if it remaines that high which it usually does'nt.
did you know you see with only 1 side of your brain and talk with the other?

[Cheezwiz]

Only those poor souls with crappy monitors.
Mine hits 100Hz at 1600x1200 so I'm happy.

[Cheezwiz]

And the human eye can definitely see more than 30fps. I can tell the difference myself, between 60 and 90.
Also, high fps is critical, because many of those same graphics cards that hit 99fps in CS will also be running around 30 in action. And I hate to go below 30. It's a pretty big handicap against those getting 70fps in that same fight.

[Cheezwiz]

BlakeN (Jul 09, 2001 12:33 p.m.):
I dont have any scientific proof but I have have vsync on I only get about 40-50 fps and if its off I get arround 120 (this is in counter-strike). Whenever I reinstall drivers I always forget to turn vysinc back off and I can always tell.

As far as maximum refresh rates for monitors go youll just have to look at the specs. My viewsonic will go up to about 180Mhz but I dont know at what resolution.

Half Life has a max framerate of 100fps :)

You have to set this in the console, the default fps cap is 72.

fps_max is the command

So fps_max 100 would set the cap to... you guessed it! 100!

[Cheezwiz]

Valid (Jul 10, 2001 12:40 a.m.):
I feel kind of proud of myself for getting a decent string going. I also feel kind of weird because besides the initial post, I didn't say anything. So basically, I just want to ask this question to cement things in my mind. Frames-per-second pushed out by the graphics card that are in excess of the monitor's refresh rating are wasted, are they not?


Do you really need to ask us this?

[Valid]

Depends. Marketing warps scientific words a lot nowadays. I basically wanted to make sure hertz in ol' monitor land still meant "per-seconds." Physics/Comp Sci major seeing a lot of word "raping" going on lately.

[Kingslayer]

While you guys are sitting here jibber and jabbering about FPS, and movies, and games, and eyesight, and refresh rates, and resolutions, I am sitting here wondering what I can throw in here to futher confuse everyone.

And here it is.

dot pitch!

Take that!

[JigPu]

Kingslayer (Jul 13, 2001 03:09 p.m.):
And here it is.

dot pitch!

Take that!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! ^_^^_^^_^^_^^_^

JigPu