Don't understand 30 vs 60 fps? Look no further!

[Starlitalpha]

Before I start, let me preface this by saying I won't feed trolls. If you want to start crap, go do it elsewhere.

However, if you want to see why people are upset with poorly optimized pc ports and the ever mystical 60 fps, keep reading.

Before I go into details, first let me ruin the first myth once and for all.

The average person can EASILY tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps. There is, in fact, a great resource for this.

http://30vs60.com

This website shows two videos side by side from several games to showcase the difference in 30 and 60.


Now that you have a way to see the difference yourself, I have to explain something else.

People don't see in Frames Per Second, so measuring that in itself is difficult. Our eyes more or less "stream" visuals to our visual cortex. There have been tests done though, by none other than the USAF... because if anyone needs to see and react fast, it's fighter pilots.


"The USAF, in testing their pilots for visual response time, used a simple test to see if the pilots could distinguish small changes in light. In their experiment a picture of an aircraft was flashed on a screen in a dark room at 1/220th of a second. Pilots were consistently able to "see" the afterimage as well as identify the aircraft. This simple and specific situation not only proves the ability to percieve 1 image within 1/220 of a second, but the ability to interpret higher FPS."

In other words, some, if not all people are capable of seeing more than 200 FPS.

(source article: http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html )


So, that's the "can't see more than 30 fps) myth dead and buried. Now let's move onto other benefits.

Input lag!

Yes, 30 fps affects the perceived smoothness between your actions and the game. If you are playing a game at 30 fps and you start to move your mouse to aim, there will be an inherent 33.3 millisecond delay before you see the cursor move.

Compare that to 60 fps where the delay becomes 16.65 milliseconds. Your brain can easily understand the difference between the two delays. However, it should be noted that some monitors can alter that lag and make the delay even more pronounced, so 60 fps may not give you that gold 16 ms delay if your monitor is not up to snuff.

Now to another fun thing thrown out by people who don't understand media.

BUT MOVEIS ARE 24 FPS AND THEY LOOK GREAT!

Oh boy. This person. Films look fine in 24 fps because of motion blur. Motion blur is... well, think of it like plaster in a crack in a sheet of drywall. It helps fill in the gaps and tricks us into thinking it's smooth. Now I know what you're thinking...

BUT GAMES HAVE MOTION BLUR TOO!

They do, but it's not the same. Motion blur is a natural side effect of a camera filming a scene. Motion blur in video games is an artifical effect which require more calculations on your gpu. Even worse, because your gpu has to do these calculations, it also adds latency, which makes that delay even worse.

Now on to

BUT I LIKE PLAYING AT 30 FPS!

I don't even like going here, because this is usually like asking the fox why he thinks the grapes he can't reach are sour.


The problem with thios argument is that it presupposes that there is some sort of benefit to playing at 30 fps rather than 60.

Now, let me make this abundantly clear:

apart from lower graphical requirements (IE less stress on gpu or cpu)

THERE IS NO BENEFIT OF PLAYING AT 30 FPS.

There simply is no benefit. Even worse, by saying stupid stuff like that, developers and companies feel less obligated to deliver a game with 60 fps, as we saw with Batman, and countless other pc ports.

There are a lot of other great resources explaining the difference between 30 and 60 fps if you feel the need to research more.


A final appeal.

Now, we can't all afford great hardware. I know this. As someone whose first computer had 16 mb of ram and a 1.2 gig HD, I know what it's like to be left out when it comes to playing games at their best.

But what we SHOULDN'T do, what we CAN'T do, is let developers and companies think that crapping out a poorly optimized console game on a machine that's FAR superior to them. We gain nothing by doing that, and in fact, have a lot to lose. Of course idiots at Ubisoft are going to tell you these things don't matter. They're selling you horribly unoptimized ports like asscreed unity.

Remember, there's a difference about screaming and whining because a game doesn't offer 16 CSAA or some crap, and asking for what should be the bare minimum for pc players.

Thank you for all of those who read through this wall of text, and I hope you have a great day.


(article source: http://www.technologyx.com/featured/understanding-frame-rate-look-truth-behind-30v60-fps/ )

[Stormspark]

I'll just leave this here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXJh9ut2hrc

[RedLion7420]

Dammit. I love it. You deserve a f***ing big cookie sir for that. You should make a blog article about, if you have the possibility.

[Buck]

Great post overall, mostly accurate, but I can't agree that constantly rasing the framerate is necessary or beneficial. It gets to the point long before you think where your eyes and brain are simply receiving too much information and cannot process it fast enough. This will lead to eyestrain (probably perceived as a dull pain or throb in the back of the eye) and headaches.

We just don't NEED that much information delivered to our brains.

THERE IS NO BENEFIT OF PLAYING AT 30 FPS.

Actually, there is. We're kind of in that odd spot right now technology wise where GPU's can render some pretty amazing looking graphics and effects, but may not be able to quite do it all fast enough to keep the framerate up.

CPU's/GPU's only have so many cycles available. Dev's have a choice to make. They can put those cycles towards more graphical fidelity, or towards higher framerates. It's always been a balancing job, and will continue to be so until the technology improves to the point where it simply isn't anymore (that's when GPU's are rendering photorealistic graphics at >60fps with consistent frame rendering tiemes).

for now, some dev's are choosing framerate, while other's are choosing more effects. Last of Us Remastered is a pretty good example here. You can select 30 or 60 fps in that game. For them, the goal was 60fps, but to do that, they had to sacrifice shadow and other quality to do it. When running 30 fps, they had some cycles to spare, so they put that towards rendering better shadows (How much better is subjective, but it IS better).

EDIT - This is an absolutely FANTASTIC video which explains many of the concepts OP puts forth (and may well be one of his info sources too )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buSaywCF6E8

[SyraW]

This info is somewhat correct but only counts for like 20% of the total picture, the other 80% is your own eyes/brain and how you trained them.

[Djosh444]

Originally posted by Starlitalpha:

Before I start, let me preface this by saying I won't feed trolls. If you want to start crap, go do it elsewhere.

However, if you want to see why people are upset with poorly optimized pc ports and the ever mystical 60 fps, keep reading.

Before I go into details, first let me ruin the first myth once and for all.

The average person can EASILY tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps. There is, in fact, a great resource for this.

http://30vs60.com

This website shows two videos side by side from several games to showcase the difference in 30 and 60.


Now that you have a way to see the difference yourself, I have to explain something else.

People don't see in Frames Per Second, so measuring that in itself is difficult. Our eyes more or less "stream" visuals to our visual cortex. There have been tests done though, by none other than the USAF... because if anyone needs to see and react fast, it's fighter pilots.


"The USAF, in testing their pilots for visual response time, used a simple test to see if the pilots could distinguish small changes in light. In their experiment a picture of an aircraft was flashed on a screen in a dark room at 1/220th of a second. Pilots were consistently able to "see" the afterimage as well as identify the aircraft. This simple and specific situation not only proves the ability to percieve 1 image within 1/220 of a second, but the ability to interpret higher FPS."

In other words, some, if not all people are capable of seeing more than 200 FPS.

(source article: http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html )


So, that's the "can't see more than 30 fps) myth dead and buried. Now let's move onto other benefits.

Input lag!

Yes, 30 fps affects the perceived smoothness between your actions and the game. If you are playing a game at 30 fps and you start to move your mouse to aim, there will be an inherent 33.3 millisecond delay before you see the cursor move.

Compare that to 60 fps where the delay becomes 16.65 milliseconds. Your brain can easily understand the difference between the two delays. However, it should be noted that some monitors can alter that lag and make the delay even more pronounced, so 60 fps may not give you that gold 16 ms delay if your monitor is not up to snuff.

Now to another fun thing thrown out by people who don't understand media.

BUT MOVEIS ARE 24 FPS AND THEY LOOK GREAT!

Oh boy. This person. Films look fine in 24 fps because of motion blur. Motion blur is... well, think of it like plaster in a crack in a sheet of drywall. It helps fill in the gaps and tricks us into thinking it's smooth. Now I know what you're thinking...

BUT GAMES HAVE MOTION BLUR TOO!

They do, but it's not the same. Motion blur is a natural side effect of a camera filming a scene. Motion blur in video games is an artifical effect which require more calculations on your gpu. Even worse, because your gpu has to do these calculations, it also adds latency, which makes that delay even worse.

Now on to

BUT I LIKE PLAYING AT 30 FPS!

I don't even like going here, because this is usually like asking the fox why he thinks the grapes he can't reach are sour.


The problem with thios argument is that it presupposes that there is some sort of benefit to playing at 30 fps rather than 60.

Now, let me make this abundantly clear:

apart from lower graphical requirements (IE less stress on gpu or cpu)

THERE IS NO BENEFIT OF PLAYING AT 30 FPS.

There simply is no benefit. Even worse, by saying stupid stuff like that, developers and companies feel less obligated to deliver a game with 60 fps, as we saw with Batman, and countless other pc ports.

There are a lot of other great resources explaining the difference between 30 and 60 fps if you feel the need to research more.


A final appeal.

Now, we can't all afford great hardware. I know this. As someone whose first computer had 16 mb of ram and a 1.2 gig HD, I know what it's like to be left out when it comes to playing games at their best.

But what we SHOULDN'T do, what we CAN'T do, is let developers and companies think that crapping out a poorly optimized console game on a machine that's FAR superior to them. We gain nothing by doing that, and in fact, have a lot to lose. Of course idiots at Ubisoft are going to tell you these things don't matter. They're selling you horribly unoptimized ports like asscreed unity.

Remember, there's a difference about screaming and whining because a game doesn't offer 16 CSAA or some crap, and asking for what should be the bare minimum for pc players.

Thank you for all of those who read through this wall of text, and I hope you have a great day.


(article source: http://www.technologyx.com/featured/understanding-frame-rate-look-truth-behind-30v60-fps/ )

Great post, far too many people don't understand the difference between a still image being refreshed and what our eyes perceive. Remember when The Hobbit came to cinemas a few years ago at 48 fps, many people went crazy, but it was because people are so used to the 'cinematic' feel of increased motion blur

[Gaxkang]

Well sure more FPS is better....the game for me at 30 FPS is playable, but more FPS is always welcome/preferred.

Visually in the video comparison link I don't see a big difference, but there's differences I know I don't perceive by looking at the videos.

And it's been said the last 2 Bat games from Rocksteady were 60 FPS, so they obviously have done it before.

[Stupendous Man]

I have never thought of the difference as I cannot see it but rather that 30FPS is enough for me to be able to enjoy the game without issue.

Of course we are all entitled to our opinions and there ar epeople whoo will laugh at your 60FPS and claim 120FPS is better.

In the end it depends on the person. If I can get 60FPS, I am great. If not I am more than happy with between 30 and 60FPS.

[deviate_sic]

Well put, can't argue with facts and sources, though plenty will try.

[Starlitalpha]

Originally posted by Buck:

Great post overall, mostly accurate, but I can't agree that constantly rasing the framerate is necessary or beneficial. It gets to the point before long where your eyes and brain are simply receiving too much information and cannot process it fast enough. This will lead to eyestrain (probably perceived as a dull pain or throb in the back of the eye) and headaches.

That which you are describing is not a result of 60 fps. tha eyestrain you receive from that is caused by your monitor not syncing correctly with your game. That is what upcoming technologies like G-SYNC and newer revisions of displayport are hoping to alleviate. Essentially, your monitor's refresh rate is not syncing correctly with the game's. Another cause of this problem could also be motion blur which is forced in some games and enabled by default in many others.

Also, some people just need glassed and don't realize it. I had the same issue last year and after getting a pair, that problem has disappeared.

[Djosh444]

Another site for comparison, you can compare refresh rate as well as motion blur settings
https://frames-per-second.appspot.com/
Even makes the difference between 60 and 120 fps clearer (If your monitor supports 120fps)

[Rhu]

http://i.imgur.com/vO0pIci.gif

or

http://i.imgur.com/BxoaLtN.gif

[Starlitalpha]

Originally posted by Stupendous Man:

I have never thought of the difference as I cannot see it but rather that 30FPS is enough for me to be able to enjoy the game without issue.

Of course we are all entitled to our opinions and there ar epeople whoo will laugh at your 60FPS and claim 120FPS is better.

In the end it depends on the person. If I can get 60FPS, I am great. If not I am more than happy with between 30 and 60FPS.

Hey, and that's fine too. I'm not going to tell people not to play in 30 fps if they so choose, because some people might want other graphical options on. But, we shouldn't go around saying that 30 fps is superior to 60 and claim that people who say 60 is superior are simply trolls or entitled.

[SyraW]

Originally posted by Starlitalpha:

Originally posted by Stupendous Man:

I have never thought of the difference as I cannot see it but rather that 30FPS is enough for me to be able to enjoy the game without issue.

Of course we are all entitled to our opinions and there ar epeople whoo will laugh at your 60FPS and claim 120FPS is better.

In the end it depends on the person. If I can get 60FPS, I am great. If not I am more than happy with between 30 and 60FPS.

Hey, and that's fine too. I'm not going to tell people not to play in 30 fps if they so choose, because some people might want other graphical options on. But, we shouldn't go around saying that 30 fps is superior to 60 and claim that people who say 60 is superior are simply trolls or entitled.

Neither is superior and each has it's own benefits and negatives, it also still depends on how well trained your eyes are and so forth, which is the biggest factor in the difference.

For example someone having a job were noticing things, even the slightest change, will percieve more of a difference between it then someone who just sits behind a desk typing away for a job.

[Starlitalpha]

Originally posted by Syrellaris:

This info is somewhat correct but only counts for like 20% of the total picture, the other 80% is your own eyes/brain and how you trained them.

This is very true. Some people can't see 120 fps, but your average person with decent eyesight can easily see 60 fps, especially if you drop a mouse in front of them and tell them to move around.

[Stupendous Man]

Originally posted by deviate_sic:

Well put, can't argue with facts and sources, though plenty will try.

The only viable argument is that this is a per person view, you cannot claim that everyone is the same as people all have different eyes and see things differently.

Originally posted by Starlitalpha:

Originally posted by Stupendous Man:

I have never thought of the difference as I cannot see it but rather that 30FPS is enough for me to be able to enjoy the game without issue.

Of course we are all entitled to our opinions and there ar epeople whoo will laugh at your 60FPS and claim 120FPS is better.

In the end it depends on the person. If I can get 60FPS, I am great. If not I am more than happy with between 30 and 60FPS.

Hey, and that's fine too. I'm not going to tell people not to play in 30 fps if they so choose, because some people might want other graphical options on. But, we shouldn't go around saying that 30 fps is superior to 60 and claim that people who say 60 is superior are simply trolls or entitled.

I never have claimed 30FPS to be superior nor that people who claim 60FPS is superior are trolls.

I will however say that it is opinion based.

Again, there are people who will do nothing less than 120FPS in a game.

My only issue is that people who claim 60FPS is superior also tend to try and tell people that they cannot play at 30FPS.