Video game frame rates???

[Jehanne]

A lot of people in the (Western) World seem preoccupied with this, but consider this from the widely used textbook 21st Century Astronomy (4th edition), page 163, emphasis mine:

Integration time is the limited time interval over which the eye can add up photons. The brain “reads out” the information gathered by the eye about every 100 milliseconds (ms). Anything faster appears to happen all at once. If two images on a computer screen appear 30 ms apart, you will see them as a single image because your eyes will sum (or integrate) whatever they see over an interval of 100 ms or less.  But if the images occur 200 ms apart, you will see them as separate images. This relatively brief integration time is the biggest factor limiting your nighttime vision. Stars too faint to be seen with the unaided eye are those from which you receive too few photons for your eyes to process in 100 ms.

Quantum efficiency is the likelihood that a particular photon landing on the retina will, in fact, produce a response.  For the human eye, 10 photons must strike a cone within 100 ms to activate a single response. So the quantum efficiency of our eyes is about 10 percent: for every 10 events, the eye sends one signal to the brain. Together, integration time and quantum efficiency determine the rate at which photons must arrive at the retina before the brain says, “Aha, I see something.”

And, so, are 60Hz or above monitors/TVs a rip-off?  Ditto for any frame rate about 30 fps?

[Rev. Rye]

[Angrboda]

Contemporary LCD screens are designed to be run at 60 Hz. Older CRTs were much more variable in their refresh rate and sometimes benefited from higher refresh rates. I don't know specifically about the equipment you're talking about, but I would suggest two things. First, equipment almost always performs best at the refresh rate it was designed to be operated at, whether that's 60 Hz or something else. Second, I imagine the conversations surrounding higher refresh rate equipment resemble the conversations among audiophiles, and likely should be taken with an appropriate grain of salt. Ultimately, the only real determinant of whether the difference is hype or not is going to be your own eyes.

[Edwardo Piet]

When I play video games I usually limit my frames to 30 anyways just because that's what I'm used to playing with.

[Sal]

In FPS and other action games there's a noticeable difference.

[Kitan Etos]

Never bothered to pay attention to frames when playing video games.

[pocaracas]

[Jehanne]

In FPS and other action games there's a noticeable difference.

Are the good astronomers wrong in their analysis? 30 fps would be a new frame every 33 ms and 60 fps would be a new frame every 16 ms.

[Jackalope]

Personally, I find anything below about 24-30fps to be unplayable, but I attribute that more to inconsistency in the frame rate due to insufficient processing power to keep a consistent frame rate. (i.e. the hardware is unable to keep up with the game's demands).

I do notice a difference between 30fps and 60fps, but again I attribute most of that to the same as above.

I don't notice a difference between anything above 50-60fps, as long as the frame rate stays above that level at all times.

I expect in competitive gaming, that much like lower network latency, less latency in frame rate would be a very slight edge. The difference between 15ms and 30ms of network latency is definitely a factor, I see no reason why the same difference (i.e. the difference between ~30fps and ~60fps) wouldn't apply. People with shit latency seem to get pwned by those that don't, all else being equal.

I believe the difference is that the player with the lower latency has information available slightly earlier than the other players. It's a small edge, but it matters.