77Hz vs 87Hz - Much visual difference?

[Mingon]

TheSnowman - whilst your points are slightly valid dont forget the role of relativity - i.e the link between your space and time and the monitor's mean you would be 'insync' and as such travelling in the same space and time at that given moment.
The point with motion blur in computer games is that it would be difficult to assess a true 'hit' by the computer but instead you would be hittin a motion trail. By allowing more fps than is displayed you are a effectively giving yourself more generated frames to aim at, this is important over a quick panning movement e.g. over a sideways movement of 10 metre at 60 fps you have 1 frame every 16 cm's to register a hit where as twice the frame rate effectively gives you twice the targets/frames.

 

[BFG10K]

I still dont folow you, please tell me how you can see your mouse pointer being any more sensitivity and/or responsive than the image beeing refreshed on the screen wich in part is the mouse pointer to begin with?

I'm not talking about the mouse pointer, I'm talking about the camera view, specifically with first person shooters.

Remember that since monitors draw the image line by line rather than frame by frame it's quite possible to start drawing one frame on the top half of the screen and then draw the next frame on the bottom half because as the scan line reaches that area, the next frame has arrived from the video card's framebuffer. In that case the framerate is exactly double the refresh rate.

Since you see the effects of partially drawn frames fast jumps, turns and spins will be smoother and more responsive because quick flicks of the mouse and high movement will be tracked better and you'll see the results of your actions in more segments. Of course it is still better to have your refresh rate matching your FPS (or higher) but you certainly will see the effects of any extra FPS. 120 FPS @ 60 Hz is far better than 60 FPS @ 60 Hz although of course 120 FPS @ 120 Hz is the best from the lot.

Well, the human eye see 30 fps as a smooth motion.

No it doesn't. 30 FPS is choppy as hell.

 

[BFG10K]

Also even normal movement is smoother when your framerate exceeds your refresh rate than it would be if your FPS score is simply matching your refresh rate. The bouncing ball demo for example looks smoother because you can still see partially updated positions as it's moving, even though you're exceeding your monitor's refresh rate. Of course sometimes the side effect of this is tearing but in actual 3D games the effect is minimal at worst. With such high degrees of quick movement it's extremely rare to see tearing ay all.

The only time I can see it consistently is if I'm standing still in a room in a game that has a randomly flickering light in it. But such a scenario is purely artificial and was pretty much invented by me just to test out the effects of vsync. In actual gameplay I rarely see it at all and when I do it doesn't concern me at all. Of course I never forget the importance of a high refresh rate and hence insist on a 85 Hz minimum at all times.

 

[Boethius]

I have a little tip. To check if the refresh rate is too low you have to stand up so that the monitor is about a meter away from you face and look straight forward so you can barely see the monitor at the bottom of your eye. If you don't see any flickering try moving your head a bit, and you will notice it. If you can barely notice any flickering, then you have a good refresh rate. I would recommend minimum 85Hz, since this causes the least strain on your eyes.

Hope this helped.

 

[kylebisme]

Mingon, actualy gtr and sr are some of my favorate subjects and what you are discribling is parallel movement between two subjects wich is very different than one maintiaing a fixed position. to claimed something is one way and to claim something apears that way are two differnet things, he did the former and only the later holds true. as for the motion blur, i agree that it is a bad idea to implement such things in a game and agree with the logic both you and he presented there. my complaint as with both of this statments is not the logic they are ment to back but the validity of the claims themselfs. the two prior arguments i mentioned are the ones wich i feel dilute the worth of the article in general. also i think i get your point about more updates and all but best i hit detection is a server side thing and is limmited to the number of updates a second you share with the server, hence haveing a higher fps than that would not make it any more or less likely that you hit your target.

BFG10K, fair enough. actualy i realised that after i wrote what i did and stumbled upon the "fps fact & fiction" thread. however, i must say i do find it very odd that one would be so sensitive to the ticking away of the fps without being able to note those horid waves that rush though the screen while vertical sync is off. as i have said before, 40fps is just fine for me but screen tearing looks awful. granted i supose anything is possable.

 

[Thraxen]

No it doesn't. 30 FPS is choppy as hell.

That is not entirely true. I've seen plenty of console games that look fine and play very well at 30 FPS. Sure, it becomes noticable when making a fast turn, but "choppy as hell" is misleading. You are forgetting one important factor. The FPS in PC games are usually constantly fluctuating where console games are generally locked at 30 or 60 FPS. Also, since console games are locked at 30 or 60 FPS, they are in sync with NTSC displays and therefore appear smoother than their PC counterparts at the same FPS rates. In reality, it has more to with the fluctuating FPS and not being in sync with the monitor that gives "30" FPS it's choppy look. Just saying "30 FPS is choppy as hell" doesn't quite tell the whole story.

 

[kylebisme]

you are forgeting though that what might be just fine for you may be realy rough on another person. for instance lets say for the sake of argument that while BFG10K can't take too few of frames per second he is quite a weight lifter while Thraxen, are a scrony little geek (not to say either of you are, just for this example). now if BFG wants to pick up a 100lb weight and hand it to someone he will not have trouble doing this. however if he hands it to our imaginary scrony little geek Thrax then the poor guy is gonna hit the floor. just like our strenght our sight is varable and what seems like a lot for one person might not be very much at all for another. granted even BFG the weighlifter isnt going to squat 5000lbs but thats not to say that he cant stand console games running at 30fps dont look chopy to him.

however, the reason i droped back by so quick is im still puzzled by the need to run higher fps than ones refresh rate so i went diging around on google for more information and found this artical.


the quotes on page two from Tim Sweeney and Paul Bonnette i found to be right on with my understanding of the issue most noteably each of their comments about why the option of disabling vsync is imoprtant only in specific situations. on the other hand Jake Simpson speaking for John Carmacks work seems to have a bit of confusion in his explanation. sepecificly the comment "If you take 1.1 frames to draw a scene, then wait for Vsync before swapping frame buffers that means that .9 of that frame is spent doing nothing on the card." last i knew a scene, with vsync on anyway takes exactly 1 frame to render, no more, no less. furthermore, after the video processor is done renering the frame it doesnt wait for anything, it sends it off to the frame buffer and starts on its next frame. sure, sometimes the image in the frame buffer gets displayed on the monitor more than once, thats were we get choppyness, low fps, and happens both with and without vscync. furthermore with vsync off is where you portions of frames not doing anything on the card come into play as only certian parts of each rendered frame actualy make it from the frame buffer to the screen, the rest are discareded when the frame buffer is flushed.

 

[BFG10K]

I must say i do find it very odd that one would be so sensitive to the ticking away of the fps without being able to note those horid waves that rush though the screen while vertical sync is off.

And I find it odd that you're having so many problems with having vsync off. Is your monitor running at a low refresh rate or something?

I never see tearing on a such a scale that you seem to and I can stand by a wall in Quake3 (for example) and be pulling in excess of 300 FPS at all times and there's no trace of tearing on a 85 Hz configuration. Like I said before tearing is extremely rare and usually only happens in one off occasions or in a very specific set of circumstances. And even when it happens I'm usually moving so fast and turning so much that I simply don't have time to even see it.

last i knew a scene, with vsync on anyway takes exactly 1 frame to render, no more, no less.

Basically what he's saying is that if the current frame is just a little bit late for the current refresh cycle then it has to wait for the next refresh cycle before it can be drawn. The nett effect is having your current framerate reduced to half of your current refresh rate. The "1.1" means "1.1 of a refresh cycle," or 10% longer than the window of opportunity to get it drawn on the current cycle.

furthermore with vsync off is where you portions of frames not doing anything on the card come into play as only certian parts of each rendered frame actualy make it from the frame buffer to the screen, the rest are discareded when the frame buffer is flushed.

Uh, no. The problem you describe is exactly what happens when vsync is on, not off.

With vsync on the frame is not sent to the monitor until the next refresh cycle is ready and in the mean time multiple frames might have been overwritten so the nett effect of this is a lower effective framerate because your rendering subdivisions are much lower.

With vsync off the frames continue to barrel on to the monitor regardless of whether it's ready to display them or not and you still see the effects of partially drawn frames as the scanline includes part of them while it goes down the monitor.

I've seen plenty of console games that look fine and play very well at 30 FPS.

Anything 3D with constantly moving camera angles and motion blows on a console (eg FPSes). You might be able to get away with 30 FPS in side-scrolling action games but that's not really saying much.

The FPS in PC games are usually constantly fluctuating where console games are generally locked at 30 or 60 FPS.

They might be locked at a maximum framerate but that doesn't mean that consoles never slow down or fluctuate. Stressful situations pull down minimum framerates on a console just as much as they do on a PC.

Also, since console games are locked at 30 or 60 FPS,

Being locked at 30 FPS is a totally unplayable slideshow. Being locked at 60 FPS is better but it's far from ideal as a 120 FPS system will easily cane it in terms of smoothness. Also the locking has no effect on minimum framerates, as I said before.

Framerate locking of any kind is moronic because it causes a slew of problems. Let the system run as fast as it can rather than imposing artificial limitations and performance bottlenecks on it.

 

[kylebisme]

And I find it odd that you're having so many problems with having vsync off. Is your monitor running at a low refresh rate or something?

85hz, as mention above. also notice in the artical i posted Paul Bonnette also has a serious distaste for screen tearing.

I never see tearing on a such a scale that you seem to and I can stand by a wall in Quake3 (for example) and be pulling in excess of 300 FPS at all times and there's no trace of tearing on a 85 Hz configuration.

you are not going to get any tearing standing around as the frame being displayed looks the same as the one before that and the one before that too.

Like I said before tearing is extremely rare and usually only happens in one off occasions or in a very specific set of circumstances.

tearing is not extreemly rare, at least not with vscync off it happens every time there is movement between frames and the monitors refresh is not syncornised with that movement.

Basically what he's saying is that if the current frame is just a little bit late for the current refresh cycle then it has to wait for the next refresh cycle before it can be drawn. The nett effect is having your current framerate reduced to half of your current refresh rate. The "1.1" means "1.1 of a refresh cycle," or 10% longer than the window of opportunity to get it drawn on the current cycle.

assuming by "drawn" you mean to the screen and not to the frame buffer i must agree with your explanation and while i also agree that Jake Simpson was trying to say, what he did say was both missleading and wrong on the face. if you like you can reread my comments just under that on what the video proccesor is doing after its done with its "1.1 frame long frame" and and the bit about how we get low fps with or without vsync, if you understand that then you see why i say he is wrong.

Uh, no. The problem you describe is exactly what happens when vsync is on, not off.

you must not be reading my words very closely or you would note that i said "only certian parts of each rendered frame actualy make it from the frame buffer to the screen" that cannot happen with vsync on. with vsync on you get the whole renedered frame, no more and no less. as i stated before, you might get the frame more than once; but, that will only happen if your video processor is not up to the task of keeping up with the monitors refresh in the given aplication and that is both with and without vsync.

With vsync on the frame is not sent to the monitor until the next refresh cycle is ready and in the mean time multiple frames might have been overwritten so the nett effect of this is a lower effective framerate because your rendering subdivisions are much lower.

no, with vsync on the video proccesor only trys to make as many frames as the monitors refresh rate can sustain, so nothing is geting overwritten untell it is dispayed.

With vsync off the frames continue to barrel on to the monitor regardless of whether it's ready to display them or not and you still see the effects of partially drawn frames as the scanline includes part of them while it goes down the monitor."

im sorry but video processors do not draw partial frames. in this situation discribed the frames are compleatly drawn but at least some are only partaly displayed, specifly those drawn out of sync with the monitors refresh rate. thus is what i was refering with the comment " with vsync off is where you portions of frames not doing anything on the card come into play." that is not to say that they dont do anything, they do exist and can be used internaly by computer for calculations such as is done with jumping in quake3, however you never get to see those portions of the frame on your screen. that may have sounded like the catch to some of you there but please understand it is not. giveing the computer more frames to sample from does not mean the computer is going to use them all; it will only use as many as the program its running alows it to. furthmore, its not a "more is beter thing" in this stiuation either, as can be seen in the fact that locking your fps at lower than you are capable of will often give you a higher jump in q3. if you are not familiar with the q3 stuff i have been talking about and want to know more, i recomend you read up on it here.


as for the last few comments not quoted above, i must agree with what has been said expecpt for the bit about 30fps. very slightly choppy is my take on 30fps, granted that may well simply be the diffrence between my eyes and BFG10K's wich brings me to a question. sence 30fps is unbarable to you BFG, i assume you cannot stand to watch cartoon animation as contains no motion blur and is rendered at less than 30fps? either that is true or you are missleading yourself as well as anyone that belives you are truly that sensitive to fps. please dont be ashamed to admit it if that is the case, we all get taken by the placebo effect at times but it is when we try to pass such misconseptions off as truth that it becomes a problem. if we were to let such things happen then no one would want to take suger pills for fear of the headache, nausea, and fatigue they are often give blame for by partisipents in clinical studies.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Respect to both you guys, I don't think you'll ever agree on Vsync. If you hate tearing and have a decent refresh rate (75Hz+?) then Vsync is a good thing, if you want maximum response and FPS and don't mind tearing then Vsync is best disabled. It's purely down to personal setups and tastes. However, to answer the original question, "77Hz vs 87Hz - Much visual difference?" ... IMHO there's little so checkup on other things which differentiate the monitors in question before deciding based solely on this. 77Hz should look flicker free to most people, 87Hz certainly should for almost everybody. So what do you guys think?

 

[BFG10K]

tearing is not extreemly rare

Yes it - either that or it's extremely rare to notice it. Take your pick.

I do take your point about a still image but I assure you that quick mouse flicks show no hint of tearing either, especially the ones done during hective moments as is all too common during gaming.

no, with vsync on the video proccesor only trys to make as many frames as the monitors refresh rate can sustain, so nothing is geting overwritten untell it is dispayed.

That is incorrect. Regardless of vsync or not the CPU is still sending information as fast as possible to the video card and the video card can't simply just ignore it until it detects a beginning refresh cycle and only then starts rendering it. The logistics of such a scenario would be nightmarish, as would the timing issues involved. Also there's no way in hell that the CPU can stop sending data until it figures out that a refresh cycle is available because that would wreak havoc in the tracking of the state of the game world.

If both buffers are full then one of of them will get overwritten (alternating as normal) whether or not it's sent to the screen or not. Triple buffering can help in this case because as the third frame is being rendered it gives the two other frames a longer chance to get sent to the screen.

im sorry but video processors do not draw partial frames.

I was talking about the monitor, not the video card. The monitor operates on scanlines whle the GPU only operates on whole frames.

in this situation discribed the frames are compleatly drawn but at least some are only partaly displayed,

That's exactly what I said.

its not a "more is beter thing" in this stiuation either,

Yes it is. More is always better and if you had some experience in 3D games like I do instead of relying on second-hand information then you'd know this.

as can be seen in the fact that locking your fps at lower than you are capable of will often give you a higher jump in q3.

Going over that lock will be equal to or better than what you achieve by performing that lock in the first place. Besides, jumps aren't the only thing to be taken account into here.

i assume you cannot stand to watch cartoon animation as contains no motion blur and is rendered at less than 30fps?

The fact that you even mentioned TV in this discussion proves to me that you're completely clueless about what's really going on here.

we all get taken by the placebo effect at times but it is when we try to pass such misconseptions off as truth that it becomes a problem.

if we were to let such things happen then no one would want to take suger pills for fear of the headache, nausea, and fatigue they are often give blame for by partisipents in clinical studies.

If you've run out of technical facts and logic by all means please feel to leave this discussion. Again the fact that you produce magical numbers and then try to ridicule what actually happens in reality leads me to suspect that you haven't played or tested very many 3D games, if any at all.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: AnAndAustin
Respect to both you guys, I don't think you'll ever agree on Vsync. If you hate tearing and have a decent refresh rate (75Hz+?) then Vsync is a good thing, if you want maximum response and FPS and don't mind tearing then Vsync is best disabled. It's purely down to personal setups and tastes. However, to answer the original question, "77Hz vs 87Hz - Much visual difference?" ... IMHO there's little so checkup on other things which differentiate the monitors in question before deciding based solely on this. 77Hz should look flicker free to most people, 87Hz certainly should for almost everybody. So what do you guys think?

with respect to you, i understand what you mean but when it comes down to it there is a very simple way for us to agree on vsync, when the myths and miconseptions are dispelled and all we have left is the truth then there will be nothing to dissagree about. as for the 77hz vs 87hz i gave my opeion above, but to put it plainly, only you can say if that extra 10hz maters or not.

BFG10K, it seems clear to me at this point that you have no intrest in the truth of the mater, my guess is that your only intests here are in appering to be correct and justifying buying the fastest video card you can get your hands on. i say this after seeing you insist that tearing is "either [rare] or it's extremely rare to notice it" after i just explained exactly were tearing comes from. sence, at that point, you still state that you are unsure of why you fail to notice the tearing makes it is obvious that you dont even understand what it is in the fist place and have no intrest in doing so. the rest of your argments are even more revealing, most notably the point in wich you make the false acusation that i brought up television and then went on to claim that by doing so it is obvious that i do not know what i am talking about, that was obviously a sign that you have no intest in the truth. also i find it intertaining that you would make unfounded and untrue accusations about my gameing habbits and how that paralells what i have been coming to find about your statments on vsync and fps. again, it is obvious that you have no intention of working to expose the truth of topic at hand so i see little point in contenuing the dissussion. however if you would like to have a go at me in game i would be pleased to work with you to arange such a meeting. although i must warn you as it seems you are one that that trys to talk without being able to walk the walk, if that is the case in game as well as in this dissussion then you should just refuse my offer and save yourself the humilation.

 

[BFG10K]

BFG10K, it seems clear to me at this point that you have no intrest in the truth of the mater,

Funny, I thought the same about you.

i say this after seeing you insist that tearing is "either [rare] or it's extremely rare to notice it" after i just explained exactly were tearing comes from. sence, at that point, you still state that you are unsure of why you fail to notice the tearing makes it is obvious that you dont even understand what it is in the fist place and have no intrest in doing so.

I'm not unsure of anything and I also know exactly what tearing is. I also know that the visible effects of tearing are extremely rare on my setup.

false acusation that i brought up television and then went on to claim that by doing so it is obvious that i do not know what i am talking about,

Uh huh, so what do you watch cartoons on, if not television?

Even without the applicability of motion blur your comments about cartoons with respect to 3D games are wrong on multiple levels.

however if you would like to have a go at me in game

Anyone who claims that 30 FPS being a slideshow after seeing something higher is a placebo or misconception really needs to get back to the basics, not send out gaming challenges.

 

[kylebisme]

i didnt claim that at all, i mearly stated that it was a possablity and was interested investigating it. as for cartoon animation, i see it on my comptuer all the time, as well as tv, movies, even flip books, and almost always renderd at less than 30fps and generaly without motion blur to smooth the transition between frames, im sure you see it too. the question is does it look chopy?. as for the bit about gameing chalanges, if your not up for it thats fine, but your exuse is rather week considering im just over 30minutes away from defending the #2 spot on an ogl ladder. you see just becuase im not some punk kid who has some need to brag my framerate because his daddy buys him the latest hardware all the time to make up for always being to busy engageing in imoral acts with his scretary does not make me any less of a gamer. not saying thats your story by any means BFG10K, just that i know that at least discribes a lot of the people that will back you up.

 

[BFG10K]

I didnt claim that at all, i mearly stated that it was a possablity and was interested investigating it.

Do you mean to tell me that you've never seen anything higher than 30 FPS and you need to go and research it?

as for cartoon animation, i see it on my comptuer all the time, as well as tv, movies, even flip books, and almost always renderd at less than 30fps and generaly without motion blur to smooth the transition between frames, im sure you see it too.

I thought all airwave broadcasting had motion blur in it?

Regardless, those broadcasts are not interactive in any way, unlike 3D games which involve fast turns, jumps and spins along with precision long range shooting (railguns, sniper rifles etc). They are nothing like 3D games and hence should not be compared to them.

but your exuse is rather week considering im just over 30minutes away from defending the #2 spot on an ogl ladder.

I hope for sake you aren't planning to defend anything on a 30 FPS rig. Otherwise you can expect to get mauled (unless your challengers are crap of course, have equally bad systems, or both).

you see just becuase im not some punk kid who has some need to brag my framerate because his daddy buys him the latest hardware all the time to make up for always being to busy engageing in imoral acts with his scretary does not make me any less of a gamer.

not saying thats your story by any means BFG10K, just that i know that at least discribes a lot of the people that will back you up.

I 'm not in the least interested who backs me up. I stick to facts and logic garnered from both research and personal experience. If those other people have discovered the same things that I have then all the more power to them I say.

And in my experience I've found that most people who question the validity of high framerates and seek to impose both artificial caps and magical "you only need X FPS and anything more is wasted" comments still have a few things to learn.

 

[Mingon]

In my opinion Frame rates do not make a good player, BUT get 2 average players with the same ability the person with the higher FPS would get my money everyday. Perhaps snowman you have some amazing reflexes and can use you inbuilt sixth sense but me personally find it easier to play online games when the average FPS I am getting never dips below 60. It allows you extra reaction time when movement direction is changed.

Reposted again - please try if you think 30 fps is smooth and 60 is not visible

 

[kylebisme]

Do you mean to tell me that you've never seen anything higher than 30 FPS and you need to go and research it?

if you would keep your responces to my quote in context it would add a lot to your crediblity. if you reread above you will notice that i sugested the posiblity that your claims on fps might be dirivitive of the placebo effect, i myself had already stated that 40fps is were the illusion of true smoothness kicks in for me. your claim that there are visable benifits to 120fps over 60fps is what actualy made me think you might be suffering from the placebo effect.

I thought all airwave broadcasting had motion blur in it?

why would you think that and were do you think such motion blur come from in the case of cartoon animation? if such things are true i would be interested in understanding the phyics behind it and happy to say i was wrong; however i realy doubt there is any truth to your belief in the first place. lasst i knew motion blur in recorded media comes solely from the time it takes to create an exposure of individual frame and the movement that happens during that time. hence, cartoon animation does not contain any motion blur.

Regardless, those broadcasts are not interactive in any way, unlike 3D games which involve fast turns, jumps and spins along with precision long range shooting (railguns, sniper rifles etc). They are nothing like 3D games and hence should not be compared to them.

ahh the egocentric argument, i was wondering when this one would come up. i have heard this one many times now and while i bought it for a little bit the more i thought about it the less sence it makes. best i can figure it doesnt mater if you are controling the action or not. after all the only sencery responce you gather from the fps in a game is visual, hence you get the same information wether you are controling the game or watching it from the side. so while cartoon animation is not interactive, it may well involve fast turns, jumps and spins along with precision long range shooting and does so at a descret number of frames per second, without motion blur, and therfore can be validly compared to video games.

And in my experience I've found that most people who question the validity of high framerates and seek to impose both artificial caps and magical "you only need X FPS and anything more is wasted" comments still have a few things to learn.

ahh but you see i dont seek to impose either. i beleve that as humans we all have stumpeld though esentaly the same evolutionary ladder and i also belive that as individuals we all have different strengths and weekness. i also belive that as humans we have the ablity to convence our selfs of things wich simply not true and i try to do my best to help aviod such situations. to help illiustrate my views please folow with me as i change the topic from visual autitory for a moment. it is commonly understood that the human ear is generaly capable or recognising freqencies between the range of 20hz and 20khz. note the qualifiyer "generaly" there, that is to say that everyones ears have their own limmits and the numbers mentioned above are simply aproximations. i am personaly aware of people who have been shown though testing to be cappable to reconginising freqencies upwards of 28khz. however, if someone claimed to be able to hear a whistle at 100khz i would be extreamly sceptical, want to test the valitity of his claims and if it came to be true i would assume that somewhere not far down his genitic line one of his human ancestors somehow managed cross bread with a k9. so aplying same logic to visual, surely none of us are going to be able to tell the diffrence between say 300fps and 400fps, how low those numbers can go before anyone will be able to take note is exactly what i am looking to find out here.


as for comments about me playing haveing a "30fps rig," that is simply not true. i use a geforce3 with a palamino core@1533mhz on a via kt266a chipset and 512mb of pc266 as my main gameing computer. it cerntantly isnt the fastest computer in the world but it is capable of pulling well more than 30fps with respectable grapics settings in most games. i do my best configure the grapics settings in each game to were i never see drops below 25fps (my presonal lower limmit) and get as much anisotropy, highist resolution and best other grapics settings as possable. that is with the exception of q3 engine games where i insist on a prety much locked 80fps in order to both assure maximum jump height as well as avoid drops below 25fps.


Mingon, sweet little progie you posted there, i had never seen such a thing before. i had seen the bounceing ball thing from 3dfx but geting to adjust the target fps is a great added bonus. however it only told me what i already stated above; for me under 25 fps is god awful, 30 fps is respectable and over 40fps the difference is not noticeable. sure i can look at one side compared to the other and say there are diferences between them, but without the fps counter i would be hard pressed to say wich one is going faster if they are both running at 40fps or more. as for my reaction times, im actualy rather average however i do my best to compensate for that with my intetlect by antisipating my oponents moves. you must realise that there is much more to video gameing than simple reaction times. it is not like we are simply standing still at ten paces away and yelling draw at eachother. furthermore i hope you might acknowledge my points above that more fps is only a benifit up to the person in questions ablity to reconginise. by doing so you might change your openion and in such a situation as you mentioned instead of beting based on higist fps, assumeing the fps are both at a respectable level for each oponent individualy, put your money on a more practical factor such as who had a more balaced breakfast.

also i would like to propose another test for everyone interested in finding their own limmits when it comes to the ablity to precive fps and to see haveing fps turned up beond a monitors refresh rate is of any benift at all. assumeing you have quake3 game in notpad copy and past the folowing:

set cg_drawFPS 0
set r_swapinterval 0
bind f5 com_maxfps 30
bind f6 com_maxfps 50
bind f7 com_maxfps 70
bind f8 com_maxfps 0


then save the document as autoexe.cfg in your baseq3 folder. now get someone to, while you are not looking, randomly change the order at the values at the end of each line so that you are totaly unaware of what button will lock set your maxfps at. granted you must make sure your video settigns will alo your uncaped fps to remain consitantly above your refresh rate but assuming that you will be in a good spot to find out if you can see the diffrence between 30fps, 50fps 70fps and more by makeing not of wich button you belive is responceable for seting you at each fps. so fire up the game and play around with the buttons in question untell you feel you are makeing the best judgements you are capable of. then ask that someone to, at their disscresion, either set r_swapinterval 1 or leave it the same and run through test again. finaly have them chance r_swapinterval to the value it was not at (either 1 or 0) and run though the test one last time. now ask the person who did the setings for you to check your findings against the values they set and then you will have a beter idea if you realy can see the diffrence between those fps and vscync settings. repeating the tests multiple times would be a good idea to help aviod errors that will come from guessing. furthermore you can change the max fps values or add more and repeat the tests to find exactly were more fps stop makeing a diffrence for you. i think you might find that without the fps counter on you are not nearly as sensitive to lower fps as you might have otherwise though.


btw i should apoplogise for my horable spelling and possable gramatical errors here. i know it makes what i write harder to read than a well corrected esay. unfortnaly, being dysletic, i genrealy have to; reread it, run though a spelling/gramer check, send it off to a freind with an engilsh degree, and then repeate that whole process two more times before i finaly reread it one last time and consider it worthy of publication. in the intrest of time i avoid such mesures for forums post and hope that you all have found it in your hearts to overlook such issues and do your best to see the truth in what i write, not the errors in how it was writen.

 

[Mingon]

The snowman - As you say its down to the individual ability to see flicker / refresh which is perhaps the biggest argument point. To me personally I can see the difference between 60fps and 120hz - mostly due to the time spent with lcd's and previously time spent doing work for 12hrs at a computer (I always have 1024 x 768 @ 100hz) my eyes have become more acustomed to the higher refresh. I am at the point now that 85hz is uncomfortable and tv / cinema seem very flickery. I will probably invest in a 100hz tv soon as the difference night / day. As for reaction time, mine is very good hence my need for higher refresh rates this allows me to be pretty good at most fps games but in counterstrike I suck due to a lack of practice / map knowledge.

best i can figure it doesnt mater if you are controling the action or not

I would have to disagree with this comment - the major difference is that when you are watching a film you are mostly looking at a fixed point and using more of you whole vision viewing area, when you are involved in the action you are usually following the action and tracking the objects path (with the mouse) which as I mentioned before is when you would notice the difference the most. An example is when you see a car go past, if you dont follow its path (i.e. look at a fixed point) it is a blur but when you track its position with your eyes you see much more detail. An example of this is in racing drivers (i.e formula 1) although they are travelling really fast they dont as such focus on the scenery as its a blur but instead the brain filters the required information and just looks at the track.

 

[BFG10K]

if you reread above you will notice that i sugested the posiblity that your claims on fps might be dirivitive of the placebo effect,

It is not placebo effect I can tell you that.

i myself had already stated that 40fps is were the illusion of true smoothness kicks in for me. your claim that there are visable benifits to 120fps over 60fps is what actualy made me think you might be suffering from the placebo effect.

For someone who claims to be a hardcore gamer I find your comments puzzling and bizarre. What kinds of games do you play? Specifically, do you play games like Quake3 or UT?

There is a massive difference between 120 FPS and 60 FPS, especially if it's only an average score in one timedemo. 40 FPS whether average, minimum or maximum is not even close to being smooth. It might be tolerable but that's as good as it gets.

In fact with an average of 120 FPS vs 175 FPS in demo four I can easily tell the difference in the larger maps (eg the Dredwerkz) because it means the difference between framerates in the high 30s or in the low 50s in the heavy areas with seven players all creating smoke, explosions and exploding gore.

why would you think that and were do you think such motion blur come from in the case of cartoon animation?

I suppose it doesn't. I was merely asking as I wasn't sure.

best i can figure it doesnt mater if you are controling the action or not.

You are flat out wrong and again I really wonder how much gaming you've actually done. If you do a 360 degree turn at 30 FPS you can only move at 12 degree increments. If someone is in between those increments (more likely to be the case as the distance increases) you can't hit them unless you sidestep or move, by which time they've moved as well and you're probably dead. At 120 FPS you've got 3 degree increments to work with and at 1200 FPS you've got 0.3 degree increments, assuming your mouse sensitivity is good enough to track such changes.

You try railing someone who is moving at high speeds and moving erratically on the other side of the wide open areas in Quake3 at 30 FPS and you'll never do it. You'll be stuttering all over the place, constantly trying to adjust so that the target fits inside your limited senstivity. At 120 FPS or higher I can do it easily with one flick followed by a quick killing shot. Precision weapons like the railgun demand high framerates more than spam weapons because you'll never hit anything with them otherwise, except with blind luck on occasion.

after all the only sencery responce you gather from the fps in a game is visual, hence you get the same information wether you are controling the game or watching it from the side.

Uh, no. You still don't seem to understand that you are directly controlling the 3D game while you have no control of the cartoon at all. How can you even claim that they're the same thing? You're not even touching the system when watching a cartoon for heaven's sake.

Honestly your comments and logic are simply mind boggling.

it may well involve fast turns, jumps and spins along with precision long range shooting and does so at a descret number of frames per second, without motion blur, and therfore can be validly compared to video games.

Excuse me? When was the last time you picked up a mouse and keyboard and started controlling a cartoon? Oh that's right, when it wasn't a cartoon but it was actually a game.

humans we have the ablity to convence our selfs of things wich simply not true and i try to do my best to help aviod such situations.

Look man, I'm really getting tired of all this twaddle you keep posting. Please stick to the subject at hand.

however, if someone claimed to be able to hear a whistle at 100khz i would be extreamly sceptical, want to test the valitity of his claims

Among other things you are completely missing the big picture here: what does an average of 120 FPS really mean?

It has to be broken down onto multiple levels before you can understand what that number really means. Picking a magic number and then proclaiming that genetics can't possibly allow anyone to see anything higher is completely and utterly avoiding the actual issues at hand. Your comment is so superficial that it doesn't even touch the subject, much less scratch the surface.

that is with the exception of q3 engine games where i insist on a prety much locked 80fps in order to both assure maximum jump height as well as avoid drops below 25fps.

Gee, I though it was genetically impossible to see anything better than 40 FPS?
You must be suffering from a placebo effect caused by evolution.

@_@

Mingon, sweet little progie you posted there, i had never seen such a thing before.

That doesn't surprise me at all. Now fire the program up with one side on 40 FPS and the other on 120 FPS and tell me you can't see a difference. I dare you.

Even with that ball demo I can easily see the difference between 120 FPS and 60 FPS on a 85 Hz monitor, and this is exactly the same situation as cartoons where there is no interaction at all. Imagine how much more of a difference such a score makes in a fully interactive 3D game like Quake3.

30 fps is respectable and over 40fps the difference is not noticeable.

Please tell me you're joking.

sure i can look at one side compared to the other and say there are diferences between them, but without the fps counter i would be hard pressed to say wich one is going faster if they are both running at 40fps or more.

I don't need the FPS counter to tell me that 120 FPS is smoother than 60 FPS whether in that ball demo or in a real game, nor do I need a FPS counter to tell me when the framerate has dipped below 60 FPS by more than just a few FPS in a game.

The first thing that goes is your mouse smoothness and sensitivity along with a reduced ability to shoot fast moving targets at long range. Then when the framerate falls even lower general jerkiness kicks in and it's visible even if you're standing still just watching animated textures, flickering flames/fire, rippling water, etc.

however i do my best to compensate for that with my intetlect by antisipating my oponents moves.

As does any other good player, anticipation that works far better when you're not running at a slideshow 30 FPS. Anybody can anticipate better at higher framerates because they have more snapshots into the current state of the gaming world and are thusly better informed of what's happening.

set cg_drawFPS 0
set r_swapinterval 0
bind f5 com_maxfps 30
bind f6 com_maxfps 50
bind f7 com_maxfps 70
bind f8 com_maxfps 0

I've already done similar testing like that a long time ago in addition to thorough vsync testing, in a vast range of games. Without fail any kind of framerate capping (unless it was very high like 120 FPS) introduced a laggy response to the feel of the mouse when I was doing fast turns, spins and jumps along with trying to do precision shots. And the effects of vsync were even worse than just simple capping.

 

[kylebisme]

Mingon, if i am understandng your comments right you seem to think refresh rate and frames-per-second are synonomus. while somewhat related they are in many ways very diffrent things and i recomend understanding that before makeing any claims toward the validtity of my statemnts.


BFG10K, again i must say you have made it clear that you have little intrest in the truth here and that your only intent its to brag about what an "ye-stud" you are. if that were not the case you would have never made the comment:

If you do a 360 degree turn at 30 FPS you can only move at 12 degree increments. If someone is in between those increments (more likely to be the case as the distance increases) you can't hit them unless you sidestep or move, by which time they've moved as well and you're probably dead. At 120 FPS you've got 3 degree increments to work with and at 1200 FPS you've got 0.3 degree increments, assuming your mouse sensitivity is good enough to track such changes.

as i have already argued that point much earler in the thread:

hit detection is a server side thing and is limmited to the number of updates a second you share with the server, hence haveing a higher fps than that would not make it any more or less likely that you hit your target.

furthermore, your ablty to fire your weapon is not limmited to your framerate. while it is true that you only move in 12 degree increments while doing a 360 at 30fps you can fire at anyone of one of the 200 times per second that the usb port samples your mouse (assumeing you use a usb mouse and have fire bound to a mouse button, both prety likey. granted that is also assumeing the rate of updates between you and the server is 200 times a second wich it practice it will be well under).

every other comment was blatently twisted to argue your point or compleatly misinturtipted with the same goal. if you might take the time to reread my comments and your respences with an open mind or perhaps find a third party who is both intelgent and isn't one to pad things to make people feel beter to read the thread for you and than explain to your what i mean im sure you could revise your arguments to at least make a lot more sence and i immagine you would simply dissmiss many of them. as a quick example to prove the necesity for such action please take this into account:

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
it may well involve fast turns, jumps and spins along with precision long range shooting and does so at a descret number of frames per second, without motion blur, and therfore can be validly compared to video games.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Excuse me? When was the last time you picked up a mouse and keyboard and started controlling a cartoon? Oh that's right, when it wasn't a cartoon but it was actually a game.

i never said you were controling anything at that point, i was simply saying that there are cartoons display all the visual elements you listed. by makeing it apper that i said such silly things as you have atempted to do you might make me look stupid to some; but, to anyone who might read my writing for what it is and not what you have tried to make it appear to be it will not be me who looks stupid.

and another one just to point out how weak your agurments are:

Gee, I though it was genetically impossible to see anything better than 40 FPS?
You must be suffering from a placebo effect caused by evolution.

@_@

and the orginal quote with the part you ignored in order to make it apear to suport your argument in boldface:

that is with the exception of q3 engine games where i insist on a prety much locked 80fps in order to both assure maximum jump height as well as avoid drops below 25fps.[q/]

do you see there how your argument is nonsencical? not only did you make the arogent and false claim that i said that it was "genetically impossible" to distinguish a differance of any more my own presonal ablilities alow me to but you also wrongly made the claim that i was doing so for visual reasons when my nonvsisual reason for locking my fps at 80 was clearly stated in the portion of my post that you quoted.

ohh and there was one valid question i got out of your writing i supose i should take the time to respond too. as far as online gameing my favorate game to date is still cs despite its severly outdated grapics i feel it has the most compelling gameplay around. ut never struck my fancy, i just dont care for the feel of the engine or the style of gameplay, a personal thing i supose. q3 is good stuff though i am not realy a fan of deathmatch as im guessing you are by your dreadworks comment, however i have been known to hop onto a deathmatch server for kicks on occasion and do quite enjoy osp tourney as well as the clasic version and a but of ra3 if i find anyone worth playing with on a server. wolfenstein is the game i helped defend the second place possition on the ogl ff ladder in last night and though not one i tend to play on the pubs its a lot of fun in a heated compititon. i also own a copy of sof2 and think it is ok in some respects, although i am extreamly dissapointed in the many flaws i find with in that game keep me from waisteing too much of my time with it. other than that i have still been playing quite a bit of gta3, piddling though that somewhat weak excuse for a game mafia, and playing the thing on my xbox and have quite a stack of other games wich i like to go back to on occsasion the best of wich include tony hawk 3, halo, alice, undying and good old goldeneye on the n64. btw, i never claimed to be a "hardcore gamer" either, if you think i did then i ask you to reread my thread and then understand that it was mearly another one of your dillusions. i mearly implided that from what i gathered you are the type that is all show and no go in wich case i would mop the floor with you in game, one has no need to be "hardcore" to preform such a task. furthermore i will freely admit that i have had my hindquarts handed to me in game on multiplite occassions by vaious gamers; and, it is those people that are capable of doing so to the vast majority of the population with style and grace that i reserve the term "hardcore" for.

 

[Mingon]

Mingon, if i am understandng your comments right you seem to think refresh rate and frames-per-second are synonomus. while somewhat related they are in many ways very diffrent things and i recomend understanding that before makeing any claims toward the validtity of my statemnts.

Whilst they are different a sensitivity to one is directly linked to the other. If you cant see flicker at 60hz you are unlikely to notice frame rates of 60fps (even if the monitor is at 100hz+). As I said my eyes notice flicker (or rate of change) going from 100hz to 85hz as my eyes are accustomed to the higher speed, in games I only use 1024 x 768 as this gives me the desired frame rates of 60+ and yet when playing Dungeon siege and say the FPS drop to >25 I can easily see the difference and its not smooth again until it hits 45-50 fps and this is a hardly FPS game, yes the background is smooth as the refresh rate is high but the moving foreground is a jerky click and hope mess. Having played Jedi Knight II on both a gef2ultra and a ti4200 by your reckoning I would not notice any difference between the 2 cards with the same settings as 1 would do 45-50fps and the other does 65-85+ and yet I do why is this ? Perhaps you should try running 3dmark99 and using vsync run at 60, 80 and above and see if you can see the difference.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Just agree to disagree guys, you all have your own views and preferences and there's nothing wrong with that, you've all stated your cases. For the majority of people I'd say they lie in between TheSnowman and BFG10K. I think most people would have a preference of an average of 60-80 FPS as most people find this preferable to lowering the details, eye candy or resolution in order to attain a higher FPS. For the refresh rates 75Hz is more than fine for most people but 85Hz+ is wise esp for the res you plan to run Windows in. Vsync is certainly worth tryng both on and off, as has already been stated it does prevent the tearing which is evident to the vast majority of people BUT it does reduce the FPS to below (sometimes far below) the refresh rate and certainly makes things seem less responsive. So each person should really play around with all of these things (refresh rate, FPS, Vsync etc) to find their own preferences and see how they go with their own setups. Some people may find they want (or need) 100Hz+, 100FPS+ or that having Vsync enabled/disabled is either great or unbearable, but could any of you agree for the majority of people the above is near enough accurate?

The prog Mingon gave was very informative but of course synthetic and not indicative of real world perf. It was interesting to see how good 60FPS is compared directly to 30FPS, and then 60FPS to 100FPS making 60FPS look jerky, at least in a direct side-by-side comparison. It is important to rem that this prog was written to purposely show the advantages of high FPS, the synthetic motion involved is very well thought out to demonstrate what will never happen in the actual gaming world. Not to say that the prog was neither interesting nor useful as IMHO it was, but just because 100FPS+ looks silky smooth doesn't mean you need that in a real gaming situation ... although you may want it of course LOL!

 

[merlocka]

ahhhh, one more framerate-thread winding down to closure.

I'll recap.

Dude #1 "30fps = enough"

Dude #2 "I want 60fps average"

Dude #3 "Yer both crazy, I'd want 60fps minimum"

Dude #1,2,3 "blah blah TV PAL, blah vsync, mouse pollling, blah blah fighter pilots can see through their eyelids, blah , placebo effect, blah blah just trying to justify your $300 videocard, blah blah blah."

<Dude #1,2,3 then start quoting each other out of context, going OT, and generally just arguing to see who knows more about computers>

Dude #4 "OK, perhaps people have different requirements?"

Thread dies.

 

[kylebisme]

Mingon, you are confused and grosly oversymplifying the mater. refresh rate, when high enough, is what creates the illusion of solidity. frame rate, when high enough, is what creates the illusion of smooth motion. each are very seprate things wich we each will have our own seprate points for wich the illusions kick in.

AnAndAustin, i would agree to dissagree if the justications for his possion were not comprised of blatently false assumptions like the ones i pointed out above. did you not read though those parts or something?

merlocka, would please show me where you get "then start quoting each other out of context"? unless i missed it BFG10K never stated that i quoted him out of context, and best i can figure that is simply becuase, unlike him, i did not. also as for "perhaps people have different requirements?" i have stated that from the begining. however my goal here is to investigate wich of those requirements are true and wich are founded on layers of b.s. if you can not apreceate that then you are free to ignore this thead and contenue to accpet dillusions for truths.

 

[BLiT45]

Whoa! Slow down for a bit there guys!

Just because you can SELECT 100 HZ or 120 HZ refresh rates in your options (whichever way it can be done, that is many actually), doesn't mean you should! Alot of the options just show what your video card supports...and can be selected regardless of what your monitor can handle.

For example, my monitor at 1024x768 is rated up to 85 HZ, but I can easily select 100 HZ, but that can damage your monitor! I imagine only if you run it that way for a long time it can do some damage, what kind of damage I don't know...but that is what I've heard. I can tell it's not right anyways, since you can see the screen doesn't look quite right, and can see tiny little lines (lot's of them) that run horizontally across the screen, that are not there if you select a compatible refresh rate, such as 85 HZ for my monitor at that resolution.

If the screen doesn't look right to you, make sure you know exactly what your monitor can handle. Mine will go up to 75 HZ at top resolution of 1600x1200.

P.S. I really can't tell the difference between 75 HZ and 85 HZ, but the higher the better IF your monitor can support it...you might not be able to tell, but over time it can strain your eyes, the lower the refresh rate goes. When it gets to 60 HZ then I can tell it's obvious flickering, more annoying than anything. Don't even want to know what kind of a headache I'd get from 60 HZ over hours...!