Does FPS even matter?

[VortexA1]

The problem is that many do not have the comparison of seeing a movie at 50/60 fps & just take it as is because that all they have ever been given & don't know any better.

I used to be happy with 24-30fps & that's because i had never seen 60fps before hand

Seeing is believing.

I'll have a look at a clip off here and I might be a changed man.

________________________________________________

Well in theory the eye can be even quicker in detection.

A very fast laser flash the eye can see faster than the figher pilot scenario - however that would be quicker cos it picks up the light cells that are sensitive on the eye.

Don't forget we're talking about movement here - which is slightly different . The links that peeps have given are a good point to read if you want.

Smoothness of movement also depends on the distance between each frame.

If you're playing something slow and the movements are close together it won't be so obvious.

A fast game - eg car games - you would need faster frames to have the frame difference closer together.

I think the problem is - is that even though most of us can live with 24fps for movies - with the blurring ; with a computer game even though it can have blur ' crysis ; grid' because you are directly interacting with the scenery you would want an instant response to your actions and that is where 24fps wouldn't be good enough - and certainly with grid you would get even more lag etc. I did notice a bit of lag even with slower crysis once I was moving around quick - however once I moved slower on crysis it was ok.

Myself personally I can tell a difference on the game bioshock . at 60fps it's smoother than lower frames because of no transition 'blur' between the frames but as above if it did have motion blur if it was too low once I moved quick I would notice lag I'm sure.

And I'm sure Grid would need a healthy framerate as it moves so fast - interaction etc. as been mentioned before regarding this fps discussion.

Well that's my 2p worth.

I'd like to have a taste for those 60 and 120fps clips but computer says I don't have the required codec

 

[Final8y]

I'll have a look at a clip off here and I might be a changed man.

________________________________________________

Well in theory the eye can be even quicker in detection.

A very fast laser flash the eye can see faster than the figher pilot scenario - however that would be quicker cos it picks up the light cells that are sensitive on the eye.

Don't forget we're talking about movement here - which is slightly different . The links that peeps have given are a good point to read if you want.

Smoothness of movement also depends on the distance between each frame.

If you're playing something slow and the movements are close together it won't be so obvious.

A fast game - eg car games - you would need faster frames to have the frame difference closer together.

I think the problem is - is that even though most of us can live with 24fps for movies - with the blurring ; with a computer game even though it can have blur ' crysis ; grid' because you are directly interacting with the scenery you would want an instant response to your actions and that is where 24fps wouldn't be good enough - and certainly with grid you would get even more lag etc. I did notice a bit of lag even with slower crysis once I was moving around quick - however once I moved slower on crysis it was ok.

Myself personally I can tell a difference on the game bioshock . at 60fps it's smoother than lower frames because of no transition 'blur' between the frames but as above if it did have motion blur if it was too low once I moved quick I would notice lag I'm sure.

And I'm sure Grid would need a healthy framerate as it moves so fast - interaction etc. as been mentioned before regarding this fps discussion.

Well that's my 2p worth.

I'd like to have a taste for those 60 and 120fps clips but computer says I don't have the required codec

And that's what i have been saying all long & even tho im not interacting with movies & the GRID reply it all looks jerky to me below 60fps with any rapid movement.

The fireFly sequence in 3DM6 looks smooth even at 30 fps because everything is moving so slow but what if i could interact with it & do a fast pan then the 30fps would not hold its illusion.

 

[VortexA1]

Never said that Grid would be ok at low frames...just mentioned crysis.

Just making it clearer what I've been saying all along too.

I personally don't think I'll see any diff at over 24fps on that movie link..but i'll see if it works.

When they make movies for cinema they make the shutter speed slow so that you get the blur effect to give the illusion.

If the comparison link is using a faster shutter speed then 60fps would look smoother . Still can't get the link working atm.

The point I'm making is that the blur to me gives you that 'cinematic' effect.

Sorry to disagree.

There's me saying all this and they'll probably bring out 60fps cinema movies soon lol.

 

[thegoonden]

Worth pointing out 2 things............


1. Vsync is an important factor in terms of smoothness, if your game/system is only capable of producing 55 FPS, and you've got vsync on, things look awful. Because 55 is not a factor of 60, and since you can't do 2 frames per vertical refresh, the only conceivale way the 55 FPS can be rendeder is if, every 11 frames or so, one is held for 2 refreshes[1]. This doesn't seem to really make itself noticable until you're dealing with VERY linear motion. While you'll probably not notice it in the middle of a rockettastic slaughterathon in UT3, with your camera swinging this way and that, and the FPS changing rapidly with the view, play something like MS Train Sim, where motion is perfectly linear and often at a near constant speed.....and 55 FPS looks like 5! I've studied this a lot, because on my machine, the performance of MSTS degrades with nearly each time it's run (LOOOOONG story, not for now). There is a particular view, that uses almost no graphics horsepower at all. Boot up, run it, look in this view, you get 60FPS. A few runs later, or after some other 3d work, it will be 59, and it can literally drop a frame at a time over successive runs. As such, one can have VERY predictable framerates which are close to the Vsync frequency. 60 FPS is like glass, 59 seems fine (not sure why), but 58, 57, 55, whatever, each "twitch" the appropriate number of times a second, which can, ultimately make it actually look really bad, and not unlike 5 FPS in some ways. Oddly.....in hefty areas which drag the FPS down from it's max, 30fps looks just fine and much much nicer than for example 55. I suppose this phenomenon can be best expressed in terms of the intermodulation distortion of 2 square waves of 60 and 55Hz.


2. If they'd had the eminent good sense to ask ME to design a standard for the next generation of TV (ie HD).....my very first move would have been to say "50FPS". While 24/25/29.97 etc are "good enough" to fool the eye, particularly on CRT's and cinema screens both of which have a tendancy of afterglow, which sort of amplifies our own persistance of vision....they are not beyond improvement and look cack compared with video shot at 50 or 60 fps.
How can you see video at 50/60 fps??? dead easy.....hunt through your fave shows and find a sequence that runs in something looking like halfspeed slo-mo, then play it back at 2x speed (I assume windows media player can do this if my freeware linux thingy can).
In more modern shows slo-mo is often a digital effect, for the purposes of this experiemt, these are to be avoided. You're after something older, and preferably shot on film. With filn, the only practical way to get slow-mo is to use a higher camera speed, which will then look slow when played back at 25fps.....by playing it back at the original speed, you therefor see true speed motion shot at a higher (50fps if it's a 1/2 speed sequence) framerate.
You'll see that it does indeed add an element of solidity to the picture. It's best to use a sequnce which is a natural and normal as possible to truly gauge this.

I believe the only reason they did not go for a higher (double would be easiest) framerate for HD is that while digital devices could ignore the extra frames, or accelerate to use them, there are still a few analogue machines out there which still derrive their timing from the mains....hence a 50Hz scan in the UK and 60 in the US (though it's worth noting that the vast majority of modern equiment does not derrive timing this way, instead using an electronic timer. Older stuff actually did though).
I think we will see 50/60fps becoming part of the TV standard as analogue gear fades out of use (but not, I hope, existence), perhaps in the next refresh.....VHD? UHD? UD?


[1]obviously, this in itself slews the actual FPS in reality, but for now we'll ignore that.

 

[PCZ]

As long as the frame rate remains constant the eye/brain is quite happy with 30fps and it will appear smooth enough.
However if the frame rate changes then that is very noticeable.

With Video Gaming ideally you are aiming for a constant frame rate equivalent to the refresh rate of your monitor.
Sync on refresh.

To acheive this however you need a very powerful video card with a lot of grunt in reserve.
In complex scenes if the frame rate drops you will notice and it will spoil the gaming experience.

Look at the benches of Crysis for example and pay attention to the min FPS.
Even the most powerful cards capable of 75 FPS+ averages at high res still struggle in some of the scenes and the min frame rate drops into the 30's.

 

[wolvers]

If they'd had the eminent good sense to ask ME to design a standard for the next generation of TV (ie HD).....my very first move would have been to say "50FPS".

Fortunately, they have the good sense to be doing that anyway.

I believe the only reason they did not go for a higher (double would be easiest) framerate for HD is that while digital devices could ignore the extra frames, or accelerate to use them, there are still a few analogue machines out there which still derrive their timing from the mains

That's interesting. 1080p at 50fps has double the data rate of 24fps so also has much further reaching implications in terms of studio equipment and broadcast capacity.

 

[wolvers]

As long as the frame rate remains constant the eye/brain is quite happy with 30fps and it will appear smooth enough.
However if the frame rate changes then that is very noticeable.

With Video Gaming ideally you are aiming for a constant frame rate equivalent to the refresh rate of your monitor.
Sync on refresh.

I agree on your point about 30 fps but only if the display is refreshing at 30hz otherwise each frame is refreshed twice. I guess that's why that 30fps video doesn't look as smooth as the 60fps one on my 60hz monitor and why 1080p 24fps blu-ray looks smooth on my PJ that supports 24hz.

 

[Echo]

I'd like to have a taste for those 60 and 120fps clips but computer says I don't have the required codec

It's XviD mate: http://www.divx-digest.com/software/xvid.html (presuming this site doesn't break any rules...)

I believe the only reason they did not go for a higher (double would be easiest) framerate for HD is that while digital devices could ignore the extra frames, or accelerate to use them, there are still a few analogue machines out there which still derrive their timing from the mains....hence a 50Hz scan in the UK and 60 in the US (though it's worth noting that the vast majority of modern equiment does not derrive timing this way, instead using an electronic timer. Older stuff actually did though).
I think we will see 50/60fps becoming part of the TV standard as analogue gear fades out of use (but not, I hope, existence), perhaps in the next refresh.....VHD? UHD? UD?

There's another hefty downside - double the bitrate required (without sacrificing quality). Even dual-layer Blu-Rays would struggle to hold long films.

Personally I don't think >24fps is needed for video, because as mentioned above they almost always put motion blur in post-processing which eases the eyes on fast scenes.

 

[tdream]

The problem is that many do not have the comparison of seeing a movie at 50/60 fps & just take it as is because that all they have ever been given & don't know any better.

I used to be happy with 24-30fps & that's because i had never seen 60fps before hand

Seeing is believing.

It takes away from the movie feel even though it's smoother. It's like video footage. All the major networks in america have been using HD @ 60fps for in studio programs, like Conan, Letterman, Leno, American Idol

Even when you get groups compressing it down into x264/mkv they hardly ever give you the full 60 fps that it was originally broadcast. That's why I like to get the source copies, ie the ts files.

 

[platinum87]

the human eye can see about 500 FPS, however moniters are limited by this and how responsive you are...

id say that between 0-50FPS you can extremely tell diff, at 50-100 is less noticeable, after 100 you cant really tell.

depends what game your playing if its First person shooter, then FPS is the most important thing, second to sound quality, playing any shooter under 50FPS is rubbish, multiplayer atleast, single it depends..

for example on crysis i had 25-30 fps (lagged sometimes down to 15 - 20), however i never shot a clip until the aliens, i only used cloak and grabbed/ strength throw/ pistol to head of sleeping guy, because thats the way to play that game, because it takes about 15 bullets to kill someone, so thats why crysis is retarded.

either way for BF2, and FEAR you need minimum of 100 FPS, and you cant turn all settings to the max, even if you can run everything maxxed out at 100000000 FPS, because turning down settings reduces blur and effects like smoke or fog or shaking screen... and colour of water and such, ie turning down settings in fear allows you to see through water, that another guy at max settings would see as a solid colour


and i hate movies in cinema, which i think are 24 FPS, because its so slow and almost every frame is a blur when they move the camera

 

[layte]

Vsync and a 100% solid 60fps is all I want. Getting there can be bloody expensive.

 

[mrk]

Vsync and a 100% solid 60fps is all I want. Getting there can be bloody expensive.

A 4870 is expensive?

 

[layte]

Can it give me a constant 60fps on my 30" Dell? Not even my recently purchased x2 can do that.

 

[Final8y]

and i hate movies in cinema, which i think are 24 FPS, because its so slow and almost every frame is a blur when they move the camera

But i bet it was ok before you started 60 fps gaming as gaming is where the user had some control over the fps at which they are viewing things & now your used to seeing images playing much smoother..like me & movies don't seem smooth any more.

 

[platinum87]

But i bet it was ok before you started 60 fps gaming as gaming is where the user had some control over the fps at which they are viewing things & now your used to seeing images playing much smoother..like me & movies don't seem smooth any more.

its not so much the movies, but idiot directors/producers who move the camera all the time, IMO the camera should be stationary and not move in relation to what is being shot, ie smooth... the hell with all these documentary style fools..

the last time anything felt smooth was DFLW with a 16mb onboard graphics and a fat 15 or 17inch CRT...

smooth can be testing in FPS games = jump in the air spin 360 degrees and land... what did you see? before thats all i did and i remember the positions of everyone and their trajectories... gone downhill, mabye its because im getting older? well im only 20 lmao!