[Goober5000]

Here is what taylor had to say on this:

It's a sanity check to keep everything in sync. Without it the processing input events becomes sketchy, a/v sync goes haywire, anis play as fast as possible, etc. Anis play a frame on each page flip so if you get, say, 300fps on the mainhall then a door ani that played for about 2 seconds will now be less than 1. Same thing for talking heads, they would last a fraction of a second and you'd just get the sound. This also makes mission time be way off and a 2x setting will be closer to an 8x setting. The faster your computer can render frames the worse the problem gets. I'm not really sure why they settled on 120 but I'd guess that it's based on how fast various elements get played (anis, sound timings, etc).

Someone mentioned in that thread that Quake3 has a much higher FPS and that's true, if you use "timedemo 1" on the console. And when you do that it plays a level as quickly as possible to see how many frames it can render in a second but you would never be able to *play* that fast. In normal gameplay the FPS has a limiter to keep it playable.

[Kazan]

I have NEVER seen a screen artificat due to removal of VSync - LS what it CAN do and what it does are two different things

Look back to my mathematical explaination of why you can tell the difference -

think of your framerate as the n in a Reimann Sum - it has the same properties when it comes to accuracy of the game physics as N in a Reimann Sum

[Whitelight]

Wooooohhhooooo
Damn you guys are good, yeah

The last time I tried the shine maps on this 600mhz pc I got 4fps

Now i`m getting 32fps, wipes tear from eye, keep up the great work, yeeehhaaaww
Thanks very much Whitelight

[Bobboau]

when I turn off VSync I constantly see problems, almost every frame, if you know what it looks like it's fairly distracting.

[Taristin]

Originally posted by Lightspeed
WinXP and Win2k limit games to 60 FPS normally, whereas Win98SE, Linux, and any other operating systems do not.

Actually. I just turned up the refresh rate, and my framerates went up to the 75+ that it should be. I'm using windows 2000 by the way.

[Langy]

Lightspeed: That rumor that people can only see 30-40 (usually 32) images per second is just that, a rumor. There have been tests that show people can tell a difference up to something silly like 200 frames per second. I can't remember the specifics, but I know that it was over one hundred.

Also, WindowsXP defaults to only allowing a 60Hz refresh rate, no matter the mode. As far as I know, this is an extremely easy to fix bug in the operating system that Microsoft refuses to fix. Probably because setting it any higher can potentially break the monitor if the monitor isn't made for that.

[Turambar]

My monitor can only hit 85 at 1024x768, kinda annoying.

[ChronoReverse]

Originally posted by Langy
Also, WindowsXP defaults to only allowing a 60Hz refresh rate, no matter the mode. As far as I know, this is an extremely easy to fix bug in the operating system that Microsoft refuses to fix. Probably because setting it any higher can potentially break the monitor if the monitor isn't made for that.

Generally this is really only a problem with 640x480 and 640x400 modes.  Some stupid bug MS never got around to fixing.

Of course, if you've never set your moniter to 800x600 or 1024x768 (assuming you use a large resolution), if a game switches to those modes it'll default at 60Hz as well.


I play FSO at 1024x768.  MY desktop resolution is also 1024x768@85Hz.  Therefore WinXP defaults to 85Hz for 1024x768.

[Kazan]

And you're all still ignoring the mathematics behind WHY 60 fps is different from 200 FPS - it all comes down to physics errors, your brain is incredibly proficient at spotting physics errors

(i don't know the physical refresh rate of the human eye... would be interesting to find out -- but if X was that limit, you would still be able to tell the difference between X FPS and 2X FPS - because of physics accuracy)

[Langy]

Kazan: Though that's not neccessarily the case. A game could still have the accuracy of a higher fps while still being in VSync at 60hz. It depends on the way the program is coded. If it is made so it can take advantage of all of the extra processing power being left behind in order to calculate all of the higher-accuracy physics, then there wouldn't be that difference between 200 and 60 FPS, except the one at 200 FPS can have visual artifacts.

[Kazan]

Langy: no - high-granularity approximations are never as accurate as low-granularity approximations - that's mathematical fact


http://archives.math.utk.edu/visual.calculus/4/riemann_sums.4/

[ryuune75]

Originally posted by Lightspeed
... and the human only seeing 30-40 of them...

Lol, that's plain wrong, the human eye is not a digital camera, it doesn't divide what you see in "frames", thinking that is just silly.
And beside, you can CLEARLY see the difference between a game running at 40fps and one runnign at 60fps, like you can again clearly see the diference between a monitor refresh of 60 and 85 (no that i'm used to 85, putting it at 60 just hurt my eyes in a few minutes, i can easily tell when the monitor is set at 60 without looking in the options)

[Arc]

WinXP and Win2k limit games to 60 FPS normally

It's 60 Hz for OpenGL fullscreen, 75 Hz for Direct3D fullscreen, and it's because 2k/XP don't have the "Optimal" setting for the monitor refresh rate that 9x/ME does. Normally it doesn't matter what resolution you use either. Dxdiag.exe can override the D3D side, you need a 3rd-party program to override for OpenGL. (most of which do D3D as well)

[Lightspeed]

Originally posted by ryuune75


Lol, that's plain wrong, the human eye is not a digital camera, it doesn't divide what you see in "frames", thinking that is just silly.
And beside, you can CLEARLY see the difference between a game running at 40fps and one runnign at 60fps, like you can again clearly see the diference between a monitor refresh of 60 and 85 (no that i'm used to 85, putting it at 60 just hurt my eyes in a few minutes, i can easily tell when the monitor is set at 60 without looking in the options)

I know it isnt. But still the human eye can only distinguish a certain number of frames per second. However, this varies for different parts of your field of view, as well as on the type of perception. While your ability to see sharp coloured pictures (cone cells) is indeed limited to around 30 a second (being aware of them, subconciously you can see more - but you will not 'see' them as a visual image) your rod cells can percieve a lot more images a second - more than 60 images

That's the reason why you can see monitors with lower refresh rates flicker horribly from the edge of your field of view, but see a steady image when directly looking at them.

In an actual game however, you're normally not able to see any difference between 40 and 60 FPS, what you normally get to see is if the FPS drop or rise greatly. If the FPS stay steady you will NOT see any difference.

As for monitor refresh rates, thats a whole thing altogether. It is drastic image changes (namely the image being drawn from upper left to bottom right) whereas in real life or your 3D game the framerate also has VERY subtle changes to the image to create a fluid movement. Also, you do not really see much difference in the image above ~70 Hz, except for your eyes getting tired and getting a headache (you do not see it, but feel it). As you can still see the individual screen blanks with your rod cells on 60 Hz you *can* see the monitor flicker (especially when not looking at it directly) - because of the high contrast changes.

[Unknown Target]

The limit for the human eye is 15 FPS. Anything above, and it looks smooth, anything below, it looks like it's skipping some movements.

[Gregster2k]

The human eye has NO limits as far as I have seen. But it does get "used" to whatever higher refresh rates you are using (and FPS of them). And that's, in my opinion, very bad. Using really high refresh rates will force you to always be discontent with your framerate. Whenever your framerate isn't at least that of your refresh rate its GOING to look bad.

I won't notice the difference between 85 and 100Hz/FPS until I go to 100 and then switch back later. However, I do notice a distinct difference when switching UP to 140Hz/FPS, in which case everything seems smoother...the problem is that after using 140Hz/FPS, absolutely all the frequencies/framerates below that look choppy to me. Basically, I think the brain reconfigures its "normal" idea of what a "comfortable" refresh rate is if you increase your refresh rate. Reason being, I run 640x480 at 140Hz and 1152x864 at 85Hz, and after exiting the 640x480 game I get headaches from looking at the 85Hz thing.

Also...
60FPS + 140Hz = "Choppy"
85FPS + 140Hz = "a bit choppy"
100FPS + 140Hz = "barely noticeable"
140FPS + 140Hz = "smooth"

Then if i switch back to 60Hz suddenly from 140, I get a migraine. I personally recommend 85-100Hz for all gamers for the simple reason that if you need to use someone else's computer and their refreshrate sucks you won't get a huge headache from it. Also, to avoid perceived "choppiness" in your FPS, always keep your monitor refresh rate as high as most of your games' FPS are stable at, and no higher...too high, and you risk suffering from this "raised bar" of framerate that your brain creates.

Your mileage may vary.

[Langy]

Unknown Target: That is completely and utterly false.

Look here for why

Kazan: Of course. I wasn't suggesting otherwise. What I was saying was that if the program made the physics calculations more often than it did the other visual effects calculations, like shadows and lighting, then the program could potentially be just as accurate at lower FPS as higher FPS. As I said, it depends on the way the program was programmed.

[Unknown Target]

It's the general rule I use. Haven't you ever tracked your FPS on a comp, and found that when it dips below 15 FPS, the game begins to look choppy?

[Langy]

Below 15 it almost always looks choppy. But above 15, it also looks choppy. It looks choppy to me from about 25 and below. But I know that the human eyes can definitely see more than just 15 frames per second.

[Arc]

According to what I was taught: What happens is that anything below 16 fps is interpreted by your brain as a sequence of still images. 16 and above, your brains treats it as a moving image. It'll still look choppy until you get to just under 24 fps,  the rate that most cinemas show films. I'd expect it's the higher resolution on our monitors that makes the effect more pronounced.