Framerates, eyeballs, playability and you!

Something that has bugged me since the dawn of 3d games is the same tired argument regarding frame rates and what’s "acceptable" or "unnoticeable".

 

Contrary to how I may sound on the forums, I am NOT a FPS junkie that is trying to squeeze every last frame out of a rig, I do like to push a system to see how fast I can get it, but in the end I just want CONSISTANT playability. I would assume this is the general desire for most gamers.

 

OK... here we go:

 

"Anything over 30 fps isn't noticeable; the human eye can't detect it"

 

Whenever I see that written/said/tattooed on someone’s forehead I wonder in every single case what the heck they are playing (Myst maybe? *). I am by no means an optometrist, but after playing 3d games since the dawn of OpenGL and the like, in countless games, there is a big difference!

 

First off, 30 FPS is the absolute MINIMUM it needs to be in order to deliver seamless uninterrupted gameplay, not the average. The game itself is dynamic where there are going to be some points that will tax your computer more than others... If you get an average of 30 fps in say Crysis, you are going to be extremely disappointed because it’s virtually unplayable. When stuff starts a-flyin, and there are more than a few enemies onscreen at a time... things start to chug and slowdown. Some folks muddle through this type of gameplay and usually get frustrated because it just sucks the fun right out of it. As a general rule of thumb... experience with games has shown me that to avoid slowing down, you need to be able to run the game around 50-70 fps. That number varies from game to game and I am just being broad here.

 

Secondly, SPEED of gameplay is affected. This one is easily shown by just sitting down and playing a game at different frame rates. COD2 is a good candidate for this because you can easily cap your own frame rate and see the difference yourself. Cap it at 30 and play... Most puters can handle this task easily. Then cap it at 90 (the games "stock" FPS cap) and you will see that the actual speed of the game is faster. Now I am not saying it will turn into Unreal Tourney, but it is definitely noticeable. Bump that cap up to 300 and you will see it moving slightly faster. The further you go the less it increases... I don't see any difference in "game speed" past 300 and at 1000 fps COD2 is rendered unplayable again due to netcode/program problems. Before you call bs, I run a WAWA COD2 server in which 2 players are in simple textured "room" with crates placed around it for 1 vs. 1 tournament style play...in that room if I totally uncap the FPS it pegs at 1000... (Challenges are always welcome btw!)  

 

You may also notice you perform better as well "reaction wise".  Now frame rates won't improve your skill but they will translate to faster movement/shot registering, and even though it may be miniscule, it can be just enough to get the drop on someone in a close call.

 

"Anything over your monitors refresh is wasted and not noticeable"

 

It is most certainly noticeable. It comes back to the whole "speed" of gameplay thing. Say your LCD is stuck at 60 Hz, but you are getting 150 FPS... Play it like that for a while and then enable Vertical Sync... You see any difference? I sure do. The 150 FPS session runs noticeably faster and (depending on how good your vid card is) you may or may not see some horizontal shearing happening particularly when changing your field of view quickly, whereas the synched session will run slower but will appear extremely smooth. This may be a matter of preference but I will always go for the speed... If I can see you first, move into firing position and get my sights on you quicker, that advantage is worth it. With my current setup I don’t get any shearing and even when I had the 7900GTX it was barely noticeable and didn’t interrupt playability. 

 

Anyway… I just wanted to throw this out there from my own “gamers” perspective and not from a “benchmarkers perspective” or ”research something on Google opinion”… this is all straight outta my head so I can’t show you flow charts, pie charts, measurements or periodic tables. I am just going off what I have experienced… hell I may be 100% wrong but maybe there is someone out there who thinks as I do!

 With my new rig, I see frame rates up to 450 reported while playing Eve (for those familiar with the game, that would be in dock), with the norm at around 120-150 or so. I would not be able to tell you the difference between 60fps and 150 fps. I notice *barely* an overall sense things have slowed down when I'm in a graphically more intense situation and things "bog down" to 50 fps. Even then, it's more of an overall impression than anything I could point out. There's no way for me to tell when going from 120 to 60fps if the fps monitor is not enabled. My refresh is 85Hz, so in theory, I should get tangible benefit at the least from frame rates up to 85.

 

I've always at least liked to think that matches don't simply go to the guy that spends more on his hardware when it comes to PvP, regardless of the genre. Repeatedly, I see people saying you cannot be competitive in FPS unless you're getting 300fps. I hope that isn't correct. It would cheapen any wins had by someone with a top end machine if it were. I'd prefer to think those names on a leader board are there purely because they belong to the most skilled players at a particular game.

 

Like I mentioned, faster framerates will not make you a better player. Skill is skill regardless of what machine you are running on. A player that is getting less than 300 fps will still be a skilled player. The situations where it mostly applies to are those like when you and another player both are about to shoot, and it litterally comes down to tenths of a second in regards to reaction time to who gets the kill.

 

What most folks will do is try to remove any variables that may disadvantage them, IE; instead of running the game at max res/graphics they will tone it down in order to run the game at the fastest speed without sacrificing visual quality to the point where it hinders them. Of course PING plays an even larger factor during internet play even moreso than FPS, but you do what you can to put yourself in the best position possible.

 

Bill: Yeah I agree with you on that one too! Theoretically it SHOULDNT be faster but it is what it is. I did mention that the difference is small (or I should have) but it is noticable. Most games have framerate "caps" that standardize gameplay in order to level the playing field and during some tournys, stock settings are used for that reason.

 

Hopefully I am not rambling too much...lol