Question about fps

[wereireland]

I have never played any games on pc so i don't know anything about this. Lets say a game runs at 60fps but your computer can run at 100fps. Can you see the difference between a computer that can get 100 fps or a computer that can get 60-70 fps?

 

[Rakk]

Can you see the difference between a computer that can get 100 fps or a computer that can get 60-70 fps?

Pretty much no you won't see the difference as far as I know.

 

[MeveM]

I do believe that the human eye can't tell the difference between 60 fps and for example 200 fps, so somewhere between 60-70 constant fps in a game is what you want, but that said, if you have 150fps in a game now, your PC could likely still run above 60 fps with better games in the next 1-4 years I'd say.

 

[Wozza63]

it has never been proven but i believe the max that the human eye can take in is around 80

 

[Matt]

In fps games i find being locked to 60fps by vsync produces mouse lag, even with triple buffering enabled.

 

[Tracker]

motion begins to become apparent at around 12 frames per second, and becomes more fluid up to about 30 frames per second, beyond that any inconsistencies you notice isn't necessarily the individual images, but the difference between the timings of the images (particularly in computing where framerate is always fluctuating, with one set of frames being longer to make than others).

for example, you may see 30 frames per second perfectly fluidly ( such as when you watch tv or a film) and as the frame rate is perfectly steady, fluid motion is attained, however if you were to play a game at 50 frames per second, because of the nature of video games and framerates, that frame rate will fluctuate between say 45 and 60, 45 may still be faster than 30 and it may be perfectly in synch with your monitor, but because time timing of the frames isn't perfect, you'll subconsciously notice individual frames being "out of time" with the image you're seeing, it's hard to describe without visual references.

this is of course dependant on lots of variables, each person's eye sight is different and they be able to identify acute changes more easily than other people, factors such as lighting should also be considered, cinema screens run at 24 frames per second for example.

higher frame rates are only necessarily useful when you're buffering a game to iron out these stutters (e.g, 60 frames per second), meaning when the action gets heavy and you drop a few frames, it's still relatively smooth, or when you go up to 120 frames per second in order to utilise a 3-d screen / picture (in which case you're giving 60 frames per second to each eye). Having a nice high framerate helps eliminate choppy sections when you lose frames, or alternatively turn settings down for a solid, steady framerate all through (some games, such as Halo Reach for example, will run perfectly smoothly at 30 frames as the framerate is extremely constant, as opposed to having a fluctuating higher frame rate).

for games, between 30 and 60 is playable, 60 being a "sweet spot". ultimately for best performance you want your pc to be going as fast as your monitor refreshes, vsynch still isn't perfect as whilst it removes screen tearing it pulls your card back to time in with the monitor, and this will drop speed, Triple buffering ( queuing up frames in order) will induce display lag.

most games support a framerate cap via way of system commands or playing with settings and i find thats the most ideal solution, you may get a tiny bit of screen tear, but your system wont run away with your framerates (particularly with older games and more powerful cards), you don't get the lag of triple buffering, screen tear isn't as pronounced as it normally is without vsynch and you don't get the performance drop-off that comes with enabling vsynch without enabling triple buffering.

(e.g, if you have a 60 hz monitor, you may find limiting framerates to 30 in game will produce a perfectly smooth experience, your gpu and cpu will have headroom for when the action heats up without dropping frames and because the framerate is more solid, the experience will be alot more smooth)

ultimately though, it's down to personal preferance, 60's a sweet spot, beyond that you'll barely notice (if at all), and games are more than playable at 30 frames and up.