Will horrible video standards ever change?

kthulhu · Post by **kthulhu** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 12:02 am

RadicalEd0 wrote:all video game systems I know of playback at true 60fps, although since TV is still interlaced, it dosent look any better than 60

That depends on how well programmed the game is, and how fast the hardware is, of course.

RadicalEd0 · Post by **RadicalEd0** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 12:06 am

yeah but they all output at 60fps, whether the game is banjo kazooie and is slowing down immensley for no reason or not.
But banjo kazooie owned anyway so.. :/

Mechaman · Post by **Mechaman** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 2:24 pm

"FPS" in games is not the same thing as how fast the screen is refreshing. It's generally an ongoing average of the time marks within each pair of render calls--it's up to the programmer to meter it, and as such it's only a rough estimate of how well the rendering system is performing(and if the programmers were boozing it up on the job, like the PC port of GTA3).

Think of it more as a latency counter; a higher number means that the action will be more smooth, but it's still restricted by the ~60Hz refresh rate of your TV or CRT. Console programmers have an easier time since they already know what hardware the game will be running on, but they are not guaranteed to be locked at 60 fps internally. In fact, some of the older PSX games offered the ability to drop special effects in the background to improve frame rate; Toshinden 2 anyone?

Anybody claiming that "You don't need to go over 30fps because the human eye cant see it!!!1" will be shot.

RadicalEd0 · Post by **RadicalEd0** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 2:29 pm

well actually.. most anime is animated at around 8 - 12 fps average (frames are doubled and tripled to get 24fps) and we still percieve it as motion. Probably wouldnt work with live action footage though.

Mechaman · Post by **Mechaman** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 2:32 pm

The "30 fps" comment refers to Slashdot/Kuro5hin/insert-your-favorite-geek-chic-site-here, where the peanut gallery pops up those questions every time a new video card comes out.

RadicalEd0 · Post by **RadicalEd0** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 2:47 pm

oh, my bad 8)

klinky · Post by **klinky** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 9:10 pm

RadicalEd0 wrote:well actually.. most anime is animated at around 8 - 12 fps average (frames are doubled and tripled to get 24fps) and we still percieve it as motion. Probably wouldnt work with live action footage though.

Well I perceive it as choppy motion :p

Also I believe the less realistic something is the easier it is for our brains to estimate motion or be "tricked".

~klinky