Thread: 60fps cap for 2.0?

Originally Posted by ispano

Correct, both can DISPLAY 120Hz. However TVs only accept 60Hz input, where the monitors can accept 120Hz input. The TVs just create fake frames.

Then how does 3D television work?

Originally Posted by Laraul

Then how does 3D television work?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refresh_rate

When LCD shutter glasses are used for stereo 3D displays, the effective refresh rate is halved, because each eye needs a separate picture. For this reason, it is usually recommended to use a display capable of at least 120 Hz, because divided in half this rate is again 60 Hz.

The whole "Eye can't see more than X frames" is complete rubbish. The eye's sight is not measured in frames. You can clearly test this yourself by using a test which plays two graphics. The adjustable sliders can be increased to upward of 120fps, while keeping the other on 60fps. The difference between the two is clearly obvious.

Sadly I can't remember the website which had this test.

Originally Posted by Drazzan

The whole "Eye can't see more than X frames" is complete rubbish. The eye's sight is not measured in frames. You can clearly test this yourself by using a test which plays two graphics. The adjustable sliders can be increased to upward of 120fps, while keeping the other on 60fps. The difference between the two is clearly obvious.

Sadly I can't remember the website which had this test.

QTF. I knew from start some people would come with the usual "but the eye can't see over 30 fps" argument.

If one is unable to notice the difference between 30 and 60 fps, one should go see his doctor.

Anyone who chooses a television or monitor because it has a higher refresh rate rather than considering picture quality is probably doing themselves a serious disservice. A monitor's posted refresh rate is like a car's speedometer. The top speed shown has little relevance to actual performance.

For anyone who thinks this refresh rate stuff matters... Please head to your local electronic store. Find the television section. And then try to determine which TVs are running at what refresh rates by looking ONLY AT THE PICTURE on the various big screen televisions on display. They're all right next to each other. So you can do an easy comparison.

Sounds like a false dilemma , and looking at them in the stores won't give you the whole picture. You can probably find several TVs with great picture quality, and among those find TVs with different refresh rates. In that case, a TV with great picture quality as well as the capability to do 600Hz will be able to display inputs of different framerates better than one that's "just" 100Hz. However, if the input in question is 25fps or 50 fps, there will be no discernable difference from the refresh alone, as both perfectly add up to both 100 and 600.

At the same time, you won't be able to reliably compare them at the store, considering they'll be sending one single video source to all TVs. If you ask a clerk there "hey can you switch to a 30fps source instead of 24fps source so i can look for panning jitter", you'll probably not get anywhere.

And really though, it *is* easy to notice 24fps video jitter on a 60fps display, like most PC monitors are.
You're right though, I won't be able to say "this display is exactly 60hz", but I will be able to say "this display is giving me a lot of jittering, i'd rather have one where I didn't get that".

Personally, I have a Panasonic plasma TV with fantastic response time, contrast, and picture quality in general. It is however only 100Hz and I do actually get jittering when watching 24fps movies. There is some motion smoothening technology in place, but it would have been better if my TV used 120Hz instead of 100, cause that would give me a constant rate of 5 refresh cycles per video frame.

For console gaming, however, I'm not getting any of that. It'll run at 60Hz while receiving a 60Hz signal from my PS3, making every frame my console output align nicely with the refresh cycles of my TV. As long as it's staying close to either 60 or 30 fps. Many games do.

Most fighting games always run at exactly 60 fps, and other games often limit the framerate to 30 fps even if the console could output anywhere from 30 to 45, because this leads to less screen tearing and also more stable input lag. The only thing worse than high input lag is highly variable input lag. 30 fps is two update cycles per frame on a display that's in 60hz mode, giving you the same amount of time for each frame, most of the time.

Originally Posted by tymora

Yoshi-P already said he is optimizing the game for 30fps => as much screen detail as your system can support to give 30 fps.
60 fps is a waste on MMOs even if you can tell the difference. Network latency is much much much higher. More likely to get lag from that than FPS.

I'd like to understand how network latency is related to framerate. This forum will never cease to amaze me.

30fps is NOT smooth, period. Even with 500ms latency it doesn't matter, it is not smooth. 60fps is not a waste for MMO when you are playing in a low populated area or during cut-scene. Off course in town or during massive events, I don't expect any graphic engine to be able to render tons of players while maintaining a solid 60fps framerate even with high-end hardware.

Originally Posted by Antipika

I'd like to understand how network latency is related to framerate. This forum will never cease to amaze me.

30fps is NOT smooth, period. Even with 500ms latency it doesn't matter, it is not smooth. 60fps is not a waste for MMO when you are playing in a low populated area or during cut-scene. Off course in town or during massive events, I don't expect any graphic engine to be able to render tons of players while maintaining a solid 60fps framerate even with high-end hardware.

*rolls eyes*

you do realize 'real time' cameras record at 25-30 FPS right? an IMAX camera records at 24 FPS.

saying 60FPS is not smooth is ridiculous. if it appears as not smooth, then it's not displaying at 60FPS. the upper limit of the human eye is around 35FPS. there is no reason to go over 30 for most people.

--------

The main reason you want higher frame rates is for micro-instances where your system is lagging and FPS drops. if you're capped at 30FPS, anytime your system lags you will notice. because your eye can detect it.

at 60FPS you can lag and lose up to 50% of your cap and still not notice. this is the only reason this is better. it adds a buffer to what you can and cannot notice as far as rendering lag.

The engine in FFXIV is terrible. I've got a pretty decent rig and can run the game at 60FPS fine. but i leave it at 30FPS. know why? because i can increase the texture quality. when i set it at 60FPS cap my system will continue to pull resources in an attempt to hit 60FPS. this bottle necks my system when set to the highest textures and causes my system to drop below 30FPS, because it's trying to render at 60 and bottle-necking.

when I cap my system at 30FPS it stops pulling resources when it hits 30FPS. it can then put additional resources towards other things: like rendering textures.

the only time you're going to want to pay attention to this is when you're on the borderline spec for the game you're trying to render. When I play League of Legends I set it to 'unlimited' FPS cap. simply because my system is powerful enough that i do not see a performance difference between 30, 60, 120, and unlimited FPS.

but for FFXIV, there is a big difference in peformance between 30 and 60, just because my system can't rendor 60FPS on high settings. (it can on lower settings, but i'd rather have pretty textures than higher than needed FPS)

EDIT:

I should mention the problem gets worse if you're crossfire/SLI. I personally run two GTX580s and due to inconsistencies/variability the two just wont' cooperate with certain games (FFXIV for instance) even though i'm WAY over the minimum spec line. my problem is compounded because i purchased a refurbed system, and the HDD is crap. It came with two low tier HDDs in raid. this has caused me nothing but problems. I should spend the time to fix it, get a decent HDD for running my OS/most played games and use the other two crap-disks as storage. but it would take about a week to get everything back up and running and everything re-installed.

it comes down to optimization and what you're willing to deal with.

Originally Posted by Onisake

*rolls eyes*

you do realize 'real time' cameras record at 25-30 FPS right? an IMAX camera records at 24 FPS.

saying 60FPS is not smooth is ridiculous. if it appears as not smooth, then it's not displaying at 60FPS. the upper limit of the human eye is around 35FPS. there is no reason to go over 30 for most people.

--------

All right so first I get to reply to someone involving network latency with Framerate, and now a video game gets compared to a movie. What's next?

"upper limit of human eyes" + "fps" = complete non sense. You can't measure that up in "fps".

As Mirage I was saying 30fps isn't smooth, 60fps is ok.

either way you dont' really notice a difference between 30FPS and 60FPS.

Sorry, go see a doctor. You are a lost cause if you are unable to notice the difference between 30fps and 60fps. And I am actually serious when saying that. Record a gameplay footage (could it be XIV or most of games) at 30fps, then at 60fps. Do an ABX test. If you fail to identify which is which, you have issues.

Edit:
Below are two links to two videos (sorry it's not XIV, couldn't be bothered to launch XIV now, fraps and encode twice, so I just re-used something I already had).

Both videos are coming from the very same source. The same video codec, bitrate, resolution etc. are used. (x264) Filesize are roughly the same (62MB) One video is @30fps. Another is @60fps. Try to guess which is which. Off course you can easily "cheat" and check the file details within Windows or with your media player and you will see which file 30fps and which is 60fps.

Go and tell me you can't notice a difference now. While on MMORPG, it's less of an issue to have 30fps instead of 60fps, you can still notice the difference. In certain type of games, 30fps is just... horrible. (shmup...)

Video 1
Video 2