Playable Framerates

I recently setup my latest system - X2 4200 based with 2GB RAM and a 256MB 7600GT graphics card. The first thing I ran that really pushed the system was Half-Life 2.

Now I read on another hardware review site that a "playable" framerate was 30+ fps, while "very playable" was 70+ fps. I realise that these are arbitary definitions, but it provides some standards to go by.

When I first ran HL2 the default settings chosen by the game were (as you might expect with a 7600) mostly "mid-range". After playing for a little while I ramped the resolution and all the effects up to max to see what would happen.

And the result was that there was no noticable difference in terms of framerate. At least not that I could see. According to benchmarks on other sites, changing the settings should've halved the framerate on a 7600 from approx 100fps to 50fps.

So what's going on here? Am I just getting too old to spot the difference in playability? Has the HL2 engine simply failed to spot the potential power of my system? Or, as I suspect, is power to run games at anything more than about 40fps simply wasted effort?

Hi,

I think it is a personal prefertance thing, and it appears to depend on the game aswell. I have a similar system to you MattDP but i have a 7800gtx. I have had games running at 45 fps (like hl2) and they look fine, i've also had games like fear running at about 45fps, but there appears to be screen tear quite alot, and i hate it... busy trying to force triple buffering onto it.......
Also my friend who can play pretty much any 1st preson shooter fine,, cant play hl2 as he gets motion sickness after about 10minutes! he even spent about 1500 british pounds on a new system to get it to run at over 70fps but still gets motion sickness!?!?! wierd.

Good thing Oblivion doesn't need 60 fps huh. I'd have to put it away for a couple years. 8O