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]

Honestly, unless you're specifically going for a sort of "shot on an old video" aesthetic, 24 fps is plenty. I don't really do video games, but I am a huge cinephile, so I have this to say:

I once saw a copy of Oklahoma, mastered from an old 70mm master. Normally, this is a good thing, since it was designed to be high-definition before high-definition was even a thing. However, since Oklahoma was the first film in its process (not counting a few obscure films in the 1930s that toyed with it during the brief span of time when talkies were becoming popular, but before the Great Depression, only two of which survive), there were some bugs to be worked out. The most glaring was that the original frame rate for the process was 30 fps. Due to the need to show this film of an exceptionally popular musical in venues that aren't specially made, there were two versions: a 35mm anamorphic version shot at the standard frame rate and a 70mm version at 30 fps.

I can't find any scenes of the 70mm version on Youtube (certainly none marked as such), but the way everyone moves is just uncanny. It's kind of strange to watch, and Oklahoma shouldn't be this odd to watch. I mean, maybe if they acted out that fanfic I wrote where Jud and Curly get stuck in a time vortex with a bunch of musical characters, get into melee fights and fuck bears while Laurie, Ado Annie, and that one girl in the chorus who may or may not be a lesbian engage in a bizarre love triangle, yeah, but they're not doing that.

The 70mm version is on Disc 2 of the DVD  version, and Disc 1 of the Blu-Ray. Apparently, the 70mm version looks better on the Blu-Ray (at least in terms of actual image quality, if the Blu-Ray.com review is any indication.) I haven't seen the BR version, but I suspect the problems I had with it on the DVD were more related to stuff in the frame rate than print degradation.

While I didn't find a video of an HFR version of Oklahoma side-by-side with the 24fps, I did find something similar with, of all things, Snakes on a Plane. See for yourself:





I don't know how they got it to 60 fps, but the results jibe with what I've always seen in HFR.

[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.

[Silver]

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

[pocaracas]

Some time ago, I had some winamp visualization thingy that I could tweak for it to become more or less processor intensive... and that was reflected on the FPS.. .and it came with a handy FPS display, so that was great!
I remember noticing a certain jaggedness at 11~12 FPS and it disappearing at 13~14 FPS. Totally smooth sailing at 15FPS.

When playing games, it's nice to have a normal FPS closer to 30, so that those processor spikes that happen once in a while don't bring the enjoyment below the 15FPS mark.
60FPS is overkill.
However, we all know that, when in a Fight or Flight situation, our bodies react in a way that make us see faster, so it's understandable that, for some fast paced games, a higher frame-rate might give you that extra edge in perception.
I doubt that anything beyond 60FPS will do anything in such situations, though...


That said, computer monitors typically have a refresh rate of 60FPS, because that's the US AC power cycle and the old CRT monitors were built to take advantage of that.
In Europe, with 50Hz power, some adaptations would have been required to make them operate at 60FPS. Since European mains provide more power than US ones, that was not a problem.
And that's how 60 (or multiples of it) become a standard..
Which reminds me of another historical coincidence: The Space Shuttle and the Horse's Rear End

[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.