Author Topic: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?  (Read 1230 times)

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Rman

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Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« on: May 09, 2008, 01:21:54 PM »
I've been hearing about 120 fps with recent PC games coming out soon.  Is this even possible with modern display technologies?  Or is this another graphical benchmark that will only be taken advantage by future technologies?  *Waves at Crysis*
« Last Edit: May 09, 2008, 01:24:10 PM by Rman »

CajoleJuice

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Re: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2008, 01:56:16 PM »
Can you imagine the specs needed to run Crysis at full rez + highest settings at 120fps? Holy shit.
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Rman

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Re: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2008, 02:12:26 PM »
I could only imagine.

Don Flamenco

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Re: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2008, 02:49:38 PM »
don't you need a 120hz display to see 120fps?    I have no idea about this stuff though.

CurseoftheGods

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Re: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2008, 05:04:58 PM »
Anything higher than 60 fps is very hard to notice.

That's exactly what I feel.

Re: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2008, 06:51:24 PM »
don't you need a 120hz display to see 120fps?    I have no idea about this stuff though.

Yes.

Quote
Try running any old game with V-Sync off on a PC with FRAPS.

You'll see framerates of up to 400 fps (my personal record in Quake 2).

Is it impressive? Yes.

Does it fucking matter? No.

Is it even possible to notice? No.

Anything higher than 60 fps is very hard to notice.

That number is just telling you how many frames per second the game in question is rendering and outputting to the frame buffer.  Any number higher than the refresh rate of the monitor literally does nothing but cause vertical tearing as the buffer is being overwritten multiple times before being displayed.

That said, displays exist that update more than 60 times per second, but generally not in consumer models at HDTV resolutions.  So it's mostly a moot point.  No one would ever bother to actually code something that ran at 120fps these days - any team worth it's salt getting frame rates like that would go back and use the excess horsepower to process something else... anything from particle effects to physics calculations. 

BlueTsunami

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Re: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« Reply #6 on: May 09, 2008, 08:16:39 PM »
I believe the only reason for 120Hz anything is for Stereoscopic imaging
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Smooth Groove

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Re: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« Reply #7 on: May 09, 2008, 08:59:53 PM »
120 FPS is good because it ensures that the game will always run at a minimum of 60fps when VSYNC is enabled.

Drops from 60 to 40 fps are quite noticeable even though 40fps is still a fairly high framerate. 

CajoleJuice

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Re: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2008, 09:28:53 PM »
I believe the only reason for 120Hz anything is for Stereoscopic imaging

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BlueTsunami

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Re: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« Reply #9 on: May 09, 2008, 09:30:54 PM »
:9

Re: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« Reply #10 on: May 12, 2008, 04:07:40 AM »
I believe the only reason for 120Hz anything is for Stereoscopic imaging

Very good point, didn't even occur to me in my earlier post.  It's so underused... would be nice if that changes.  I do love 'real' 3D.

Another thing that really is a bit tangential from what the OP was asking is how fps relates to the main game loop.  120 'frames' per second could actually have real gameplay consequences if your main game loop updates the game world and reads player input once per loop, even if those new inputs/computations are only displayed at the refresh rate of the display.  I.E. a Street Fighter game that 'displays' 60fps but actually samples player input 120 times a second could have serious reprocussions if it wasn't programmed to take that into account.  Of course, any game engine programmer who doesn't take these things into account isn't worth his weight in shit.

120 FPS is good because it ensures that the game will always run at a minimum of 60fps when VSYNC is enabled.
That's a kind of weird argument, and doesn't really make much sense.  There's no reason a game that regularly runs at 120fps couldn't dip down below 60 updates in a second, provided something is truely clobbering the CPU or GPU.  It's not like there's some arbitrary rule that says that any given rendering code can't drop below half of it's target frame rate.  If you're trying to say that it would have more 'overhead' to prevent dropping below 60fps... that's kind of true.  It really all depends on how things are coded.  It's just as easy to have extra CPU/VPU cycles without ever updating the buffer (thus having an 'overhead' while still 'running' at 60fps).  Ultimately 60fps is pretty arbitrary.


GilloD

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Re: Does modern display tech. even support 120 fps?
« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2008, 08:29:29 AM »
Doesn't the eye only have the capacity for +/- 60 fps? Above that I think the difference is actually not observable
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