Why do pc games look terrible at lower framerates (~30) compared to console games?

[Blitzvogel]

Bad framerate is bad framerate regardless. Motion blur can and does help, but once you're below 20, regardless of platform, it's hard to stand.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I always figured it was because on a TV we are used to 24fps movies and 30fps doesn't look much different as a result of that. I never tried to dig into the details as to why.

 

[BrightCandle]

Strangely we all seem to be agreeing that consoles are smoother. Perhaps maybe many of us just run settings a little higher than we should for our kit. How many of us for example go into the settings and look at automatically chosen values and increase them. The devs might have been wrong, or maybe they knew that when things for heavy that was actually the right setting.

 

[BFG10K]

Same television used, same resolution, same framerate. But the Wii 'feels' smoother.

Have you tried using the Wii controller with the PC emulator?

 

[SMOGZINN]

I'm willing to bet it has to do with perception and average vs fixed frame rate.
That 'magic filter' that reallyscrued spoke of is really in our head. Because we are geared to catch fast movement, we perceptually calibrate to the highest speed of the video we are watching. So, if on a computer we are playing a game that is capped at 60fps our brain gets used to putting together the images at that rate. But if suddenly the frame rate drops to 40 fps because of a lot of particles (or what have you) but our brain is still putting it together at 40 fps, so it feels like it is really slow.

Consoles get around this problem by being optimized to rarely drop the frame rate down. But when they do it can be just as annoying. Take Skyrim for example, on consoles you can really feel when it the frame rate drops.

 

[reallyscrued]

On the one hand, my answer was partly not correct; I understand that some computer graphics 'look better' at higher than 30FPS for whatever reason.

But, tv and movies look smooth to the human eye; despite being (under) 30fps, try to actually notice one frame compared to another.

No. You are not partly correct.

You said "the human eye can't detect past 30 fps".

Nothing correct in that.

Go take a screencap of a DVD or Bluray motion pricture (~24 frames per second). Just pause it to look at a still frame, see the blurryness? That's the physics of optics and film, it introduces motion blurring and as a result, causes a natural smoothness which makes 24/25 fps seem smooth.

Go take a screencap of a video game running at 30 fps. Pretty crisp huh? That's why it seems jagged when you play it in realtime, and less laggy when playing at frames above 30.

So yes, you can detect higher than 30 fps, without a doubt.


You took away nothing from the Gif I posted.


BFG10K - I was using a Gamecube controller with both. Don't have the hardware to link up a Wiimote.

I wish I could give you guys the hardware to test this phenomenon for yourself, or accurately capture it on video. It's somehow absurd, 30 fps does not feel the same outputted from my Wii as it does outputted from my 4890, even with the same game code (albeit, emulated).

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Probably cause you're sitting closer to the monitor so you can see more detail.

 

[PowerYoga]

I thought the movies were 30 fps and interlaced with extra frames or something so that it's displayed at the equivalent of 60 fps, which is most normal people's limit.

 

[motsm]

But, tv and movies look smooth to the human eye; despite being (under) 30fps, try to actually notice one frame compared to another.

Do they? We are all just used to it and think it looks natural because we haven't become accustomed to the alternatives. When you actually do some comparisons, the 24FPS stuff looks jerky as hell. Of course I know a lot of people don't like high frame rate video, but like it or not, it really makes the 24FPS apparent.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Watching movies at 24fps sucks when they pan and shit gets all blurry

 

[digiram]

Vsync, maybe. I know I don't like playing games on pc at all with out v'sync on. Tearing is annoying as hell. I don't care what the frame rate is locked to.. it's just a much better viewing experience when all things move at a steady rate.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

It's consistent. Games are locked into the 30 FPS range and rarely deviate from that because its optimized for it.

PC on the other hand at 30 FPS will probably rise and drop depending on whats happening, probably drastically.

The eye is good at looking for differences. Consistent 30 FPS "looks" better than inconsistent 20-40 fps.