I know there is no limit to what fps we can see but would you notice the same difference between 60 fps and 120 fps compared to 60 fps and 30 fps?
Would you notice the difference between 30 and 60 fps compared to 60 and 120 fps?
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From what I understand, either by what my friends tell me, and my own personal experience, once you are used to seeing 60 FPS, it's hard to go back to 30 FPS. I always seem to notice anything below 50 FPS or so, and 30 FPS gives me a headache at times. However, anything above 60 is just being ridiculous. I've been playing with 60 FPS for years now, and notice no difference between it, and anything higher. Many people would agree with that. I've actually tried, with purpose, to see a difference, and I just can't. Games don't even control smoother, 60 FPS seems to be that perfect area of frame rate.
EDIT: Hm, so I plugged my 75Hz monitor back in, and tried a couple games with a controller to see if I can spot a difference, and between that and 60, not really. However, I lugged up a 120Hz monitor, and tried that. There is a difference, but I can't say it was immediately beneficial. It actually gave me a headache after a few minutes. I suppose once you got used to it, it'd be great, but personally it is in no way something I bother myself with. 120Hz monitors are freaking expensive (it's a miracle I was allowed to temporarily move such an expensive monitor to my room to try it out.) So I retract my statement that there is no difference, but I'd supplement that the difference is only if you have the money to buy a monitor that supports such a high refresh rate, and you play with it for a good bit of time. Otherwise, I wouldn't even bother.
EDIT: Hm, so I plugged my 75Hz monitor back in, and tried a couple games with a controller to see if I can spot a difference, and between that and 60, not really. However, I lugged up a 120Hz monitor, and tried that. There is a difference, but I can't say it was immediately beneficial. It actually gave me a headache after a few minutes. I suppose once you got used to it, it'd be great, but personally it is in no way something I bother myself with. 120Hz monitors are freaking expensive (it's a miracle I was allowed to temporarily move such an expensive monitor to my room to try it out.) So I retract my statement that there is no difference, but I'd supplement that the difference is only if you have the money to buy a monitor that supports such a high refresh rate, and you play with it for a good bit of time. Otherwise, I wouldn't even bother.
Pretty much, when I play a game on my computer I can easily notice once the FPS start dropping below 50, but once they get over about 75 fps I can't tell. I've a friend though who can easily tell when a game drops below 60 fps and it really bothers him.Hoplon said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "the same difference", but you can check this out for yourself at http://frames-per-second.appspot.com/ if you want. If you only have a 60Hz monitor, then set one off at 60, one at 30 and one at 15, and you should be able to decide for yourself if the difference between 15 and 30 is the same as the one between 30 and 60, then extrapolate up to 120.
Anything over the refresh rate of your monitor is pointless. Most LCD monitors are locked at 60Hz so 60 FPS is the highest they'll be able to keep up with. A drop from 60 down to 30 is kind of jarring but even if an FPS counter is showing 80 or 90 FPS, your monitor (assuming it's 60Hz) is only refreshing the image 60 times per second so it's effectively 60 FPS at all times (provided you can achieve 60 FPS in whatever you're running at the time.)
The advantage to having greater than 60 FPS surfaces when you experience frame-rate drops from say, 90 down to 70, or 60. In these cases there's no actual difference in what your monitor is showing you so the FPS drop doesn't ultimately do anything. (Unless you're using a CRT Monitor: those can have higher refresh rates)
Edit: It's come to my attention that there are indeed 120Hz monitors available. Nom nom foot.
The advantage to having greater than 60 FPS surfaces when you experience frame-rate drops from say, 90 down to 70, or 60. In these cases there's no actual difference in what your monitor is showing you so the FPS drop doesn't ultimately do anything. (Unless you're using a CRT Monitor: those can have higher refresh rates)
Edit: It's come to my attention that there are indeed 120Hz monitors available. Nom nom foot.
Some of them even do 3D in video games or films. It's pretty crazy how far technology has come.AdrianCeltigar said:
OT: Yes.
I know this for a fact, actually, because my best friend got a laptop with a 120Hz monitor while I've only ever used 60Hz before. When he was playing the first Bioshock on it, it ran noticeably smoother than the 60 FPS on mine. Not so significantly that I was thinking "I can't live with 60 FPS anymore!", but easy enough to see the difference anyway.
To that effect though, the difference wasn't quite so stark as 30-60 FPS, and I doubt I'd be able to differentiate say, 90 FPS from 120 FPS.
I'm speaking entirely for myself here.
I notice a massive difference between 30 and 60. It affects my enjoyment of the game to the point where I'll be fine with low graphical settings in order to guarantee 60fps smoothness. I've tried 120, and I don't really notice a massive improvement (at least one not of the magnitude between 30 and 60) from 60. I think 60 is the "sweet spot" between the smoothness your eyes see the succession of images on the screen, the cost of manufacturing the monitor, and the refresh rate your GPU will have to deal with (many can't handle 120 FPS, unless you're really at the top end).
Again, that's just me.
I notice a massive difference between 30 and 60. It affects my enjoyment of the game to the point where I'll be fine with low graphical settings in order to guarantee 60fps smoothness. I've tried 120, and I don't really notice a massive improvement (at least one not of the magnitude between 30 and 60) from 60. I think 60 is the "sweet spot" between the smoothness your eyes see the succession of images on the screen, the cost of manufacturing the monitor, and the refresh rate your GPU will have to deal with (many can't handle 120 FPS, unless you're really at the top end).
Again, that's just me.
The difference between 30 and 60 fps is pretty noticeable, but 60 to 120... I think I'd only notice it over a long time or if I play something that makes it more obvious, like a twitch first person shooter.
I can play stuff at 30 fps, but only if there isn't an option to make it better. It's a lot less comfortable.
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I can play stuff at 30 fps, but only if there isn't an option to make it better. It's a lot less comfortable.
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It's not being picky, some people notice thing like this more than others and are affected as such. The same way some people actually feel nauseous if playing first person games on sub-90 FOV on a pc monitor. And why is 30 the "required" FPS for you? Pretty much any argument you can make for that is one that can be made for 60.RicoADF said:
Unless you specifically have a 120Hz monitor, anything on your PC is actually only showing you 60 frames anyway.
FPS? Damn I can't unsee aliasing now that I know what it is. There's really no hope.
Only bothers me a little bit, but...can't unsee!
Only bothers me a little bit, but...can't unsee!
I have been exclusively PC gaming for about 8 years and when my games run at 30fps I notice it and it bothers me. I had one lock to 30 fps and even though it was consistent it really bothered me.
My monitor only refreshes at 60 so I cannot speak about 120fps but something tells me that 120 is too fast to notice so if its above 60 you will probably not notice the difference between 60 and 120.
I just don't understand why consoles run at 30 when my N64 runs lots of games at 60, why is better technology running lower framerates?
My monitor only refreshes at 60 so I cannot speak about 120fps but something tells me that 120 is too fast to notice so if its above 60 you will probably not notice the difference between 60 and 120.
I just don't understand why consoles run at 30 when my N64 runs lots of games at 60, why is better technology running lower framerates?
It depends on the game. In my experience anything less than 66fps playing CS:S was a more difficult experience, and you needed 100fps on some servers. Whereas playing tf2 on more or less the same engine could live with 50fps because it was a less precise game in general.
Here is, apparently, a little secret: FPS doesn't really matter that much. Oh, it makes a difference. Most people can tell 30 from 60. But that isn't the issue. The real problem is fluctuations. Having a steady stream at 30 will provide a better experience than numbers in the 40-50 range. The reason you want higher numbers is so that the fluctuations don't matter as much. Think of it like a car's gas mileage, going from 20 to 18 mpg will cost you more that going from 33 to 31.
This will probably change with NVIDIA G-Sync for PC's with compatible monitors and cards, but that's still a little ways out. Until then 60 hz is fine as long as you're pushing the pixels fast enough to max out the monitor.
This will probably change with NVIDIA G-Sync for PC's with compatible monitors and cards, but that's still a little ways out. Until then 60 hz is fine as long as you're pushing the pixels fast enough to max out the monitor.
