60fps cap for 2.0?

[Laraul]

Here is a question posted from a player who did not know the difference between capping at 30 fps vs 60 fps. He stated an interesting observation.

So I'm actually not a new player, but I feels weird to post "Config" question in General Discussion so I'm gonna ask here.

I'm playing FFXIV in an average Config, but I'm playing on Limit FPS 30.

...

I have no problems, no lags, all smooth with these config, but once I change Cap to 60 FPS the game Lags when there's a lot of objects to load, and especially on Raining, Sandstorm, CS, etc.

This is the same effect people experience when they enter a crowded area like Ul'dah. The brain exaggerates a drop of 60 fps to 25 fps as a decrease of responsiveness than one of 30 fps to 25 fps. The reason of course is that you subconsciously adjust your response to the rate at which you interpret changes in visual information. In other words, a consistent FPS appears more fluid than a constantly fluctuating one.

From a developer perspective, your goal is to keep the frame rate about 20% within the target fps. If you exceed that 20%, you either need to tweak the environment so to get the frame rate up, or lower the target fps. And since the game developers of this game want higher detail by sacrificing frame rate, the cap should be set at 30. As time passes and hardware improves, environments within the game will become more complex, but the frame rate need not change.

60 FPS or above would require keeping the game frame rate above the mid 40s. And few players can achieve that. Maybe a small few will be able to, but you are in the minority and the majority comes first.

[TheRac25]

unthrottled render loop is nice,



for burning out pc components

120 isn't for frame rate, its for 3d

[Valmonte]

unthrottled render loop is nice,



for burning out pc components

Furmark anyone?

[Syris]

unthrottled render loop is nice,



for burning out pc components

120 isn't for frame rate, its for 3d

Eh, I didn't buy a true 120hz monitor for 3D.

If FFXIV burns up a PC that's SE fault. Bad optimization. Yes, the 60 fps cap and 30 fps cap were placed to prevent this from happening since beta, but that was because the original engine and overall server design stunk. The developers have already admitted to this. It's no secret.

I mean, FFXIV graphics are nice and all... but they aren't that nice. It's terrible optimization bringing your computer to its knees. Like you said, rendering objects far above and below what you even see on your screen hogging up resources pointlessly. I turn on ambient occlusion and I run FFXIV at 2 fps. I run BF3 on ultra with no problems. 50-90 fps and temps no higher than 55 degrees Celsius. Even on my gtx 460 768mb I could run far more demanding games than FFXIV well into 60+ fps (medium-high settings) under 60 degrees Celsius. It's not like we need an fps limit for other games on the market that are way more demanding than FFXIV (DX11 games). Why aren't those games frying machines?

The new engine that they are working on is supposed to alleviate these issues. If they need to cap your fps at 60 in order to prevent your computer from melting then they are simply putting a bandaid on a horrible mess of an engine to begin with. This is why they are building a new engine from the ground up for 2.0. We are playing on PC, not consoles. I expect to see fps cap on consoles simply because there is no work around for those systems. You are playing with what you have on a PS3. No upgrades and everyones machine is the same. But when it comes to PC, there are going to be a wide variety of set up's which means there should be a wide variety of graphical options for both lower end and higher end machines. Lower end machines can crank the graphics down to maintain playable frames, while higher end machines can crank up the graphics to make use of the hardware.

[Dragon]

At the end of the day, there's no reason to enforce an FPS cap. PERIOD!

Just wondering (im in no way knowledgeable in this), but would we even SEE the difference?
I heard somewhere that its the 30 FPS (I think) that is the mark where we no longer can tell the difference.

But if they can, hell why not...

The average person can see up to the equivalent of 60FPS, and even someone with as bad eyesight as me can often notice the difference between the equivalent of 60FPS and 90FPS. The ONLY reason why people have not noticed the differences until recently is because SDTV (esp. analog) sets never worked beyond maybe an equivalent of 35~40FPS. Period. (Not to mention, everything American film - until Avatar I think it was - was filmed with a 24.9~29.9 FPS rate.)

[Valmonte]

Eh, I didn't buy a true 120hz monitor for 3D.

If FFXIV burns up a PC that's SE fault. Bad optimization. Yes, the 60 fps cap and 30 fps cap were placed to prevent this from happening since beta, but that was because the original engine and overall server design stunk. The developers have already admitted to this. It's no secret.

I mean, FFXIV graphics are nice and all... but they aren't that nice. It's terrible optimization bringing your computer to its knees. Like you said, rendering objects far above and below what you even see on your screen hogging up resources pointlessly. I turn on ambient occlusion and I run FFXIV at 2 fps. I run BF3 on ultra with no problems. 50-90 fps and temps no higher than 55 degrees Celsius. Even on my gtx 460 768mb I could run far more demanding games than FFXIV well into 60+ fps (medium-high settings) under 60 degrees Celsius. It's not like we need an fps limit for other games on the market that are way more demanding than FFXIV (DX11 games). Why aren't those games frying machines?

The new engine that they are working on is supposed to alleviate these issues. If they need to cap your fps at 60 in order to prevent your computer from melting then they are simply putting a bandaid on a horrible mess of an engine to begin with. This is why they are building a new engine from the ground up for 2.0. We are playing on PC, not consoles. I expect to see fps cap on consoles simply because there is no work around for those systems. You are playing with what you have on a PS3. No upgrades and everyones machine is the same. But when it comes to PC, there are going to be a wide variety of set up's which means there should be a wide variety of graphical options for both lower end and higher end machines. Lower end machines can crank the graphics down to maintain playable frames, while higher end machines can crank up the graphics to make use of the hardware.

Directx11 is less taxing than both 9 and 10 when using comparable features, as for lowering features i've run this game on an ATI X650 with everything on low granted it looks like wolfenstein 3d but is it playable. here's a screenie if you dont believe me < http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/57...0679616BF27B6/ >

[Mirage]

unthrottled render loop is nice,



for burning out pc components

120 isn't for frame rate, its for 3d

Oh my lord. Please explain to me how 120fps will burn my video card out faster than 60fps, when I capped to 60 would increase the image quality sufficiently for the game to max out my video card anyway.

And if FF14 somehow manages to do this, it's a game that should be pulled from the market, cause 120FPS has been possible for a long time on PCs, and was almost the norm for PC gamers before LCDs became mainstream. Tons of CRTs were capable of outputting 120hz 10 years ago, and competitive gamers would almost always play at 100fps or more.

[Valmonte]

Oh my lord. Please explain to me how 120fps will burn my video card out faster than 60fps, when I capped to 60 would increase the image quality sufficiently for the game to max out my video card anyway.

And if FF14 somehow manages to do this, it's a game that should be pulled from the market, cause 120FPS has been possible for a long time on PCs, and was almost the norm for PC gamers before LCDs became mainstream. Tons of CRTs were capable of outputting 120hz 10 years ago, and competitive gamers would almost always play at 100fps or more.

He's quite right if there are no artificial limits your GPU would literally Fry itself by overload, there will always be a cap.

Current generations Cards Can reproduce upto 400+ frames a Second without reaching Maximum GPU Limit @ around 500 Frames the Cards GPU will be under 100% load, no GPU can last more than a few minutes under a 100% load they will always burn themselves out usually by way of V.Current Leakage or solder balls melting. also keep in mind that 400+ frames a second can only be achieved by Artificial means with no over head (texture's,AA,AF, TESS, etc etc).

[TheRac25]

Oh my lord. Please explain to me how 120fps will burn my video card out faster than 60fps, when I capped to 60 would increase the image quality sufficiently for the game to max out my video card anyway.

And if FF14 somehow manages to do this, it's a game that should be pulled from the market, cause 120FPS has been possible for a long time on PCs, and was almost the norm for PC gamers before LCDs became mainstream. Tons of CRTs were capable of outputting 120hz 10 years ago, and competitive gamers would almost always play at 100fps or more.

wrong, for instance quake 3 was frame capped by default, consistent frame rate is far more important than 60+ framerate in professional play

[Laraul]

A few months ago everytime I would start FFXIV, after a few minutes my system would spontaneously power completely down. Turns out some wood dust was preventing the GPU fan from spinning up. At idle the temperature was 95C. A fail safe* exists to prevent irreversible damage to the hardware components.

How did I fix it? I gave the fan a light tap to get it spinning. It's been working fine since. And this was SEVERAL DAYS with the GPU running at 95C. So I don't believe FFXIV is capable of "frying" your graphics card, nor is any other game.

And somewhat related, just because your GPU gets a little warm does not mean the game is poorly optimized. There is no correlation between how optimized a game engine is and how hot your GPU gets.

* "Fail safe" is a term I coined up, it may not necessarily be the technical term used officially