My friend keeps upgrading his hardware for more fps, but does it really matter? (sorry for rehashing this!!)

[krays]

this must be a totally beaten up topic here, but yet again, my friend wants to upgrade and I'm trying to advise him against it. he's already getting 120+ on his rig now on cs and quake, and I believe I've read that this "more fps = better" has a limit.

so bottom line is...can you please either help me correct my friend that more fps does not mean better gameplay...or I guess you can also correct me if I'm wrong. sorry if this is not directly a hardware quesiton, but I think it pertains to it. thank you!!

 

[wfbberzerker]

if he wants better fps in cs or quake, theres something wrong with him. once you hit above 100 fps in a game, with details maxed out, theres no reason AT ALL to upgrade. Maybe if he was only getting 30-50 fps he should upgrade.

HOWEVER, if he's planning on buying some new games, he might want to upgrade if his system doesn't meet the "recommended" requirements for some of the new games.
Can you give his system specs and why he wants to upgrade (i.e. what games he wants to play, or why he wants better fps in cs or quake)?

 

[krays]

ill have to ask him about his rig actually, he's upgarded so many times, it's impossible to keep up!!

i was reading an article in which the author stated that the brain can handle only 30 fps at a time and any extra fps are, in a way, merged to create a sort of limited motion blur..here, let me just quote it:


"
So is more than 30 fps useless?

Well no... the important words in the conclusion is : ...see the difference between... The human eye can not see the difference, this means that if you display 60 different frames per second you can only see the difference between half of them. You can understand it like this : the first image is written to the monitor. Now our eyes and brain start to study that image... But the new image appears way to fast for our brain... the result is that this second image is combined with the first one. You could say that the first two frames are blended together by our brain. The third and fourth image are also blended together and so on. Now the effect of this is similar to what we know as motion blur : when you quickly move your hand in front of your eyes it looks like several copies of your hand are chasing each other. The effect is the same : your hand moves so fast that our brain can not follow it : so while interpreting one frame (position of the hand) a new one is physically created... so what does the brain do : it mixes the various positions and the results is several positions of your hand blurred together. Important to know is that the eye and brain are not scan line based, so our brain doesn't start at the top left and moves zigzag to the bottom like a television or monitor (motion of the electron beam)... if the brain would work like that we would suffer from tearing ( Tearing is when only part of the image is updated ) How eyes and brain actually work together... well bit of a mystery.. lets say : it just works ...

So when your game is running at 60 fps or more you will get some kind of limited motion blur effect through several frames that are blended together by our brain. This effect is very similar to what happens in nature and that is why so many people claim that a game running at 60 fps looks/feels better than that same game running at just 30 fps. "

my question is...it would seem that this guy is saying that a game running at 30+ fps actually does LOOk and FEEL better. but does that mean it will assist gameplay at all? this is at the core of my argument with my friend. I'm always saying that it merely "feels" smoother, but that it wouldn't assist gameplay at all, since the brain really can only process 30 fps at a time.

 

[Gunbuster]

Do you get the cast off parts when he upgrades? if so spur him on baby

 

[krays]

hehe, good thinking, 300 fps all the way!!!

 

[Dreadogg]

Well I played quake 3 Arena yesterday on this system that I just built for a good friend and I put a ATI all in one wonder in there, personally I could tell the difference between 60-70 FPS and 100-200 FPS that I get on my Gforce 2 PRO, just my movement and smoothness were not the same, I could never play Quake comfortaly with less than 100 FPS. I beleave it helps with your accuracy too !!

 

[AllDressedUp]

(Not being a gamer) does the game automatically adjust your display adapter's frequency to match it's frame rate?

If not (which I suspect), then you'd probably get the best results choosing a frame rate that matches your display's frequency. For example, if your display is running at 60 Hz, you should get the smoothest motion at 60 fps, and anything greater than that would be overkill. A rate of 100 fps, for example, would have to be interpolated into the display's lower 60 Hz frequency, degrading the quality of the motion.

If you want to run at 100 fps, then try to crank your display up to that frequency as well (if it will allow).

The 24/30 fps is simply an approximate minimum needed for the perception of continuous movement. Anything less than that will start to strobe. Higher rates can increase the clarity of motion though. Motion pictures, for example, are actually projected at 48 fps (each frame is displayed twice) to eliminate the impression of flicker.

 

[MallowJr]

they play with vsync off, which gives mad tearing in the monitor - being graphic whores i think people would notice it, I sure do - so I play with VSYNC ON, and the higher resolutions you begin to lose your HZ as you may very well know, though most 'good' monitors can still sustain 85HZ+ at 1280 resolution, though nto all. This just means that you may get MAX 85FPS at 1280 resolution if you have 85HZ and VSYNC ON!!! Which I do, since a lot of times Q3 at 85 FPS locked at VSYNC looks much better than Q3 at 120+FPS with no VSYNC...FRIENDS!