59 fps?

[futurefields]

Reading about frame limiters and how they can help with microstutter. I notice a lot of people like to cap at 59 fps, i was wondering why 59?

 

[f1sherman]

nah... its BS.

In theory there could be some resonance phenomena that may or may not give raise to stuttering due to refresh rates and fps being equal, but no one has ever demonstrated that.

Capping to 60 will help with possible stuttering just the same.

 

[Rikard]

I prefer Dynamic V-sync at 60 Hz. (I am sure someone will let me know why that is a terrible idea and that I should cap the FPS instead.)

 

[Dankk]

nah... its BS.

In theory there could be some resonance phenomena that may or may not give raise to stuttering due to refresh rates and fps being equal, but no one has ever demonstrated that.

I can demonstrate it very clearly in Hitman Absolution. At 60fps with Vsync on, the game is "butter-smooth"; but as soon as the framerate drops anywhere beneath 60 (even if it's still in the 50's) it suddenly turns into a stuttering mess.

 

[f1sherman]

59 fps cap fixes that, yet 60 does not? Also, triple buffering is working?

59 may help with particular game but is not a silver bullet. This is where it all started from (it used to read 59)

 

[cmdrdredd]

I can demonstrate it very clearly in Hitman Absolution. At 60fps with Vsync on, the game is "butter-smooth"; but as soon as the framerate drops anywhere beneath 60 (even if it's still in the 50's) it suddenly turns into a stuttering mess.

Isn't that due to the way vsync works in the first place? When you drop from 60 it drops to factors of 60 (30,20,15). Reported FPS might not be the same as actual FPS? There was an article on it here.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2794/2

While enabling vsync does fix tearing, it also sets the internal framerate of the game to, at most, the refresh rate of the monitor (typically 60Hz for most LCD panels). This can hurt performance even if the game doesn't run at 60 frames per second as there will still be artificial delays added to effect synchronization. Performance can be cut nearly in half cases where every frame takes just a little longer than 16.67 ms (1/60th of a second). In such a case, frame rate would drop to 30 FPS despite the fact that the game should run at just under 60 FPS.

 

[bystander36]

I think LessThanDan misunderstood what you originally said, as his example seemed to agree with you, by the way I read it.

 

[nightspydk]

Its normal. You can probably find driver that circumvent, but the problem is the screen runs at 59 and like said it quite normal for screens you purchase as 60 hz units

It makes no apparent difference.

 

[Black Octagon]

Framerate limiters can mitigate stutter/choppiness (though 'buttery smooth' is a generalisation that goes too far).

I think that one reason for this is that choppiness can be caused by massive fluctuations in framerate. Going from 59/60 down to 45 will cause choppiness, but not so much as it will to go down to 45 from 90. So the limiter decreases the framerate difference and thereby the subjective choppiness.

As to why people recommend 59 instead of 60 (or 118 instead of 120) fps, I don't know.

 

[nightspydk]

No it's real normal man. Only problem might be for you to run surround.