Re: [Algorithms] FPS Questions

[jason w. <jas...@po...>]

the sort answer:

yes, anothing above 24fps will, due to persistance of vision, have the
appearence of being continous, not flashing frames.

this does _not_ mean the human eye is unable to tell the difference between
30 and 60 fps.

longer answer:

the vast majority of games will set their systems and settings such that
they get around 60fps.. whatever resolution this requires.. another
interesting bit.. people with Geforce2 GTS's could run at 1600x1200 and get
~60fps in many games.. but they don't... they almost always like 1280x1024
and the ~100fps better.

personally, I even perfer getting above 85 hz, which is what my monitor
refresh typically runs at.

there's also the isssue of aliasing if you're syncing to vsync. When you're
running say 72hz refresh.. if you don't have every frame ready in time, then
that frame has to wait an entire refresh. suddenly you've dropped a frame..
if you're in the middle of an intense fire fight, it's concievable that you
may even go past 2 72hz periods, drop 2 frames, and end up with 18hz for a
frame or 2.

let me tell you, consistance is a wonderful thing.. I would *definately*
like it better if q3a degraded some of the effects as nessisary to keep from
dropping frames.

another thing I've noticed in counterstrike.. in counterstrike, there's lag
compensation.. effectively this means that if you have your crosshair on the
image of the enemy on your screen, and click fire, then you'll hit. This is
unlike other games, where you have to lead some small or large amount to
compensate for network lag. So, usually my goal in each frame is to get my
crosshair on target by the next frame or 2.. when my display is rendering at
80fps, this is easy.. the motions are so smooth... at 30fps, it's much
harder.. I'm quite sure that at 80fps, my brain is getting more information.

there is really no framerate to the human eye.. everything is fuzzy.. so
don't count on arbitrary rules like "24 fps".. instead, test it, see how if
feels, see what people say. give gamer the choice.

this reminds me a lot of the audio world.. people commonly believe human
hearing extends between 20hz and 20khz.. while this is roughly true when
using a spectrum analysys model of the human ear, it's not true when using
an impulse or other model.