what is so good about high framerates or pc games?

[dt]

i always wanted to know why people like highframerates when the human eye can't see over 30 frames per second.

im not sure if i placed this topic in the right forum but oh well.

 

[Ananan]

I've heard that about not being able to tell higher than 30 fps, but I feel like I can tell all the way up to 60 fps. Maybe I have supereyes.

Besides - 30 fps wouldn't be so bad if it was an uninterrupted, constant flow that never dropped below 30. That doesn't happen in the real world and your fps look more like an EKG than a straight line. That stuttering really affects image smoothness.

The better your hardware and the higher the fps it can muster the better and smoother your gaming experience will be.

 

[dt]

hmm... so basically something that contantly stays at 31 or above fps would be good?

 

[Trialsking]

Where do people get this "fact" that human eye cannot distinguish above 30fps?????? There must be some difference between video(film/movies) fps and game fps, because when I am playing I can notice a huge difference in how a game looks from 30 fps and 60 fps and so can just about everyone who has normal vision.

Not to mention, you have to have braggin rights when you can watch your fps skyrocket with your $10000 DX10 video card!

 

[dt]

you only notice a difference by seeing motion blur.


im guessing when you wave your hand really fast in front of your face its going over 30fps ( lol ) . when you wave your hand slower its moving like at 30fps ?


i am also guessing that when you have more fps your games seem more real? even when you know it isn't lol.

 

[BigMac]

i always wanted to know why people like highframerates when the human eye can't see over 30 frames per second.

im not sure if i placed this topic in the right forum but oh well.

This is a common misconception.

What you are talking about is, a fluid sense of motion. Indeed only 30 fps (in fact its even closer to 24 fps) is enough to provide the effect of fluid motion.

However, playing a game is not just about having the sense of fluid motion, it is also about the sensitivity of your eyes, and about how fast you can respond to what you see (mouse interaction, etc).

I read somewhere that when the army tested the eye sensitivity of fighter jet pilots, some of them could detect a target with the speed equivalent of over 250 fps, meaning if you really had a sensory system working at a processing speed of 30 fps, then this pilot would have spotted an enemy target over 8 times as fast as you, and even with equal reaction speed (physically responding to the detection) would be ahead of you all the time.

That is why most people prefer their games on higher framerates. I don't "feel" a lot of difference when framerates go over a 100 and I can decently play a game at 60.

Executive summary: a constant 30 is enough to get the impression of fluid motion but your eyes can process much higher framerates. Framerates that are higher than what you can actually process (detection but also responding) are useless to you in terms of gaming. Processing power of the brain varies (substantially) between individuals.

 

[GeoMan]

Ok, i have nothing to back this up buy my own impressions. 30 FPS is what you watch movies at, and quite frankly fast action seems are pretty choppy, i don't get a sense of fluid moment at all in very fast fight scenes.

Same for when i'm playing FPS style games. At 30 FPS if i'm moving around fast the scenery go's buy like a slide show, but at 60 FPS it looks much more smooth to me. anything over 60 FPS is waisted, since that's my monitor refresh rate and even if my graphics card is cranking out 999 FPS, i'll still only get 60 FPS coming out my monitor, so for all those guys with graphics cards worth 4X as much as mine, if i can crank out over 60 FPS, i'm still getting exactly the same game quality you are

 

[Tyrrell]

I got no clue if this is true, but I've always been lead to believe that with higher FPS on games the higher your advantage. As in if you both see each other at the same time your fps difference comes into account as well as your ping..

Then again I might be talking total bull, if I am feel free to point that out!

 

[picture_perfect]

when I am playing I can notice a huge difference in how a game looks from 30 fps and 60 fps and so can just about everyone who has normal vision.

Yeah movies use a trick to deal with low framerate judder. Frames are shot with a slow shudder speed so that each frame shows an interval of time rather than a split second. The frame transitions (which are far apart in time) are smoother, although each frame is now blurry. In games, each frame represents a split second in time, there is no blur. This is why games need higher framerates to look as smooth as movies. As to the original question - everything BigMac said to a 'T'.

 

[Ananan]

I haven't done any actual research or test, but I truly believe that a game that stays at 30 fps constantly (no drops or spikes) will appear smoother than a game who's fps vary between 30 and 60 fps (never dropping below 30).

 

[cafuddled]

What happens when you pause a movie on a DVD, does the image look like a perfectly crisp and clear image of what you see moving, especially on fast moving scenes? The answer is no, for anyone that wants to check, the image always looks blurred. And this is not because the technology is not good enough to pause moving images, this is because that in movies they blur the image slightly to make the image look more fluid. Just like bigmac said, an image is able to look fluid at 24fps but an image is not truly fluid till you reach 250fps although it is hard to decipher change at over 100fps.

I read an article once about the human eye and its awareness to light changes. It differs from colour to colour and from shade to shade but the test proved that the human eye could tell differentials in light better than they can in dark. And in light the human eye was able to detect change at up to about the 1300fps.

Try running counter strike at 24fps and then see how it looks.