Why do we need more than 25fps????

[mickmills]

I am I missing something ? I believe that films run at about 25 FPS. When I watched the latest Star wars film last summer, I thought it was crap for many reasons ( but running at a slow jerky 25 FPS was not one of them).
my point is - why do we need games running at 60 to 80 FPS ?????????

[noackjr]

Once you've seen the difference, you wouldn't want anything less than 60. This will give you smooth play that won't slow to a slideshow in intense gaming situations. The primary reasoning why is that games don't have blurring of the image due to fast motion (not yet at least - see Voodoo4/5), so although film is only at about 25 fps, the blurring of each image retains the illusion of smooth motion. Try it and you will have the same revelation we all have...

Jon

[Muad'Dib]

As long as we're on the subject, when you run a fps test, does the counter count the "off" screens as well or are they "true" fps? I'm very tired now so please don't ask for a more in depth question..... I'll post back when I'm done with midterms and will hopefully be more alive. BTW, I think films run at 24 fps not 25 (yeah, I know, a HUGE difference, eh ).

Dimitri

[Maggi]

The human eye is able to percept a luminosity signal with about 60 frames per second, the color signal is low at ~30 fps.

The reason why movies don't stutter is caused by motion blur which compensates the gap between visual perception and a framerate of only 24 fps in which movies are running.

TV is slighty different, because its techique is based upon fields (half frames) that toggle between the odd and even lines at 50 or 60 Hz (PAL or NTSC) so that your eye will receive new picture information at 50/60 fps (whereas theis fps stands for fields per seccond) resulting in smooth movements.

Now think about a sports event where it has come to flavor using high speed shutter cameras to show sharp stills from any kind of movement (for example whether a ball was behind the goal line or not). When you look at that high speed shuttered material as a regular videosequence (running, not still), you'll notice a stroboscope effect, looking like a row of stills played one after each other rather than a fluid movement.

And here come the connection to your computer ...

Usually your card produces frames, these are furthermore very sharp and detailed withou motion blur (yet). Comparable to high speed shutter takes mentioned above.

As long as you are below 60 fps, you might have the feeling of 'unsmooth' movements etc.

To avoid that you either have to pull more fps, use fields to double the framerates by halfing the resolution (odd and even lines after each other) or you'd need motion blur to get a visual perception of smooth, fluid gameplay for example.

...

It's really a different feeling to play beyond 60fps.

[Gurm]

Interesting thing to note about human vision... we can REGISTER motion at upwards of 100 frames per second. We cannot, however, DISTINGUISH motion at that speed. Now, if a system (TV, movie, etc.) isn't giving enough continuous information (i.e. not hitting 50/60/70 fps) then we can perceive that it is jerky. We CANNOT, however, perceive the individual frames (a common misconception).

Think about it this way... you can see a light blink on that has a duration of 1/100 of a second. However, you CANNOT see the difference if the light is on for 1/100 of a second in one location, then 1/100 of a second in a second location close to the first, then back at the first location for a 3rd 1/100 of a second.

So you can perceive lack of fluidity, but not individual frames.

NOW, the bigger issue is this - most folks would be happy with 30 or 40 fps if you NEVER EVER dropped any lower. However, people are looking for 60+ fps largely because during hyper-intensive scenes they know it will drop to 25fps or lower. If you only get 30fps max, then you can be pretty much certain that you'll drop to unplayable speeds when the going gets tough.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[paulcs]

I'm curious as to why this question is still being grappled with. I get the feeling people run a timedemo, look at the number, and don't take into account that their score is an average.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[AVminor]

This thread is hardly a dead issue for people who are still trying to figure out which board to buy – or even if they should just be saving their money for the next crop of boards that are likely to come out this year. Unfortunately, all of the premium games that seem to be coming out are demanding high frame rates. The ratings on G400 based cards seem to keep showing that the G400, while providing decent 2D image quality, seem to be lagging significantly behind the market in fps scores in just about every major benchmark. This is something that needs to be discussed so people know what they are getting into when they are buying cards and also so that Matrox understands that the issue is of importance to both current and prospective customers. It would be good to hear more
from individual users who are using systems
less than state of the art 500mhz+ Pentiums
and the specific experiences that they are
having playing the most popular games.

[MadCat]

Actually AVminor, matrox cards are still quite highly rated against the current crop of video cards for one reason: 2x128-bit dualbus. Certainly, DDR Geforce cards blow the G400 out of the water. But Matrox cards often post higher minimum framerates than SDR GeForce cards, though the maximum and average framerates might be lower. Hence you see that the G400 is still a contender, because minimum framerate is MOST important, and because it still has the best 2d in the business.

Just remember mickmills, most games and benchmarks give you an average framerate, something I find utterly idiotic. The most important thing is minimum framerate, and most people are forced to make an educated guess on this. Most people are shooting for 30fps minimum, so they figure that the average framerate should be atleast double the minimum, a reasonable assumption.

One person once observed an excellent reason for high framerate in first-person shooters. Most people use the mouse for control, and a highly-sensitive mouse can allow you to turn around in less than a second. Now, if I were to make a full rotation at 30 frames per second in exactly 0.5 seconds, The video card would only render 15 frames...for the ENTIRE ROTATION. Talk about choppy. And the worst part is, when youre in the middle of a firefight, you twist around a lot. This is where you need that high framerate.

If you still wonder why we need more than 25fps, Its simple mickmills, computer monitors are much more precise and detailed than tvs or motion picture projectors. Video cards also render everything exactly, whereas slow phosphor on your TV blurs the image, and frame exposure blurs each and every frame of a movie. An exactly rendered picture without motion blur looks terrible at 30fps.

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This Signature Space FOR SALE / RENT

[Kruzin]

Every time this conversation comes up, I am forced to post these pics.

In many on-line games, like Q2 and HL, FPS must be limited if you are on a modem. More fps=more net packets. With Q2 I use "cl_maxfps 25", and in HL/TFC it's "fps_modem 25". Anyone who plays on-line in these games is (or should be) familiar with these commands. What good does it do to get 1000000 fps, when you have to limit it to 25 or 30 anyway?

Soooo.....these are the type of scores I get, when limited to 25fps (or even 20fps on a bad day). Now try to tell me I NEED more than 25fps. That's bunk. As long as it doesn't drop to 10fps during the action, a steady 25fps is totally playable in any game.

[img]users.forethought.net/~hti/HLSCORES.jpg[/img]

[Kruzin]

hmmm

seems my ISP is having trouble....my pic is there, but not posting.

Well, maybe they'll fix it quickly, and you can see my pic (again )

[Muad'Dib]

Hey Kruzin, from the sound of what you're saying, I think it's probably a good thing I can't see it. I'd probably get jealous or something....

Dimitri

[Greebe]

Kruzin's HL scores

[Kruzin]

Tanks, Mikey!

[Muad'Dib]

As I said, it would probably be better for all of us who suck to not see things like that.... (Hey Kruzin, when do the lessons start? )

Dimitri

[puarobi]

hehe, whoever says that 25 fps in gaming just doesn't know any better. i'll start with a good example of why you need, for me at least, at least 75+ fps in a game.
what refresh rate do you run your monitor at? at least 75 Hz right? meaning the screen is redrawn 75 times per second. how many of you can see flicker at about 60 Hz? Probably a great deal of you, especially if you use a white background on your desktop. Ok, so my question is, would you ever consider running your computer with a 25Hz resolution? If you don't see any difference between 25 fps in a game and 75 fps in a game, you probably won't see the flicker using a 25Hz refresh rate on your monitor.

from my example, you can probably see pretty clearly now what kind of difference that frame boost gives.

puarobi