le_stick

Guys/Gals

I have a question regarding the FPS during game play. I know that the more FPS the better, but is it really make any difference since we can only detect around 30 fps or less or am I wrong. Please help me. TIA

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Whatever you say Boss....

Nija

It only matters when you want to tell people how big your e-penis is.

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BigJon

Nija...so helpful.

Stick...I found this on google. Not sure how accurate:

http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html

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Leon

Your eyes can definitely detect more than 30 computer graphic FPS. I can totally tell the difference between 30 and 60 FPS. However, most people miss another point in the whole FPS debate. People wonder why you need 100-200 FPS, but they fail to realize that framerates aren't constant in a game. They rise and fall according to how many objects and details are on the screen.

Having a nice video card that can run 100 FPS is great because it means during intense action, it would dip to 30-50 FPS instead of a choppy 15 FPS.

le_stick

Thanks for all of yours response. The reason I asked this because when I play
AAO I constantly get 15FPS. So I want to upgrade/build new system to improve the FPS. But I don't want to build the new system to get 50-100 fps if i cannot tell the different between 30FPS and 50FPS. Anyway, I end up just upgrade the video card from 5700Ultra to vanilla 6800 and increase the RAM from 0.5G to 1G. I hope this will increase the FPS. Again thanks for yours response.....

zero2dash

You can tell the difference between 30fps and 60fps very easily even if you're not used to it. For instance, I can play Halo/Halo 2 on the Xbox (which is 30fps) and then play TimeSplitters 2 (which is 60fps) and Halo seems like it moves slow/sluggishly compared to how fast TimeSplitters 2 moves.

Anything above 60fps is moot unless (like Leon said), you're taking into consideration that a framerate drop at 100fps may drop you down to 60fps instead of going from 60fps -> 30fps and really noticing a huge difference.

I prefer playing games that are 60fps but if the game is an excellent game (ie Halo series), I will deal with 30fps and enjoy the game instead of skipping the game altogether and being anal about it. The only time I'm really anal about framerates is nowadays when a company doesn't create games at 60fps because of laziness; this only really applies to consoles (since with a PC there is not really a cap placed on framerate/resolution) but nonetheless, it's aggravating when a powerful system like an Xbox or an Xbox 360 has games running at 30fps at the resolution they do, considering the power that they (developers) have to work with.

Upgrading your graphics card will help some; the ram may...the only problem you may run into is your cpu or mobo bottlenecking your graphics card and giving you lower-than-listed performance numbers.

DarkFury

Personally, I always say.... "its time to buy a new videocard, when the games you most like to play become "powerpoint slide screenshows" during the intense action segments.

If your card never stutters or hesitates during your gaming, then you are probably ok... however, if you are like me and want to see a little bit of the "eye candy" and still get a smooth visual play experience, then you'll upgrade to whatever point your wallet can handle to maintain that level.

If all you play are much older games... then I wouldn't even bother... but these newer games put a major stress on video cards that were "top of the line" just 2 to 3 years...to the point of them being virtually unplayable. (/me looks at my old GeForce 4800 which can barely handle City of Heroes now but was the SHIZNIT with Unreal Tournament back in the day.)

As far as 30 FPS versus 60 FPS, Id say yes there is a difference... however as others have already said, framerates aren't constant and it also depends on what resolution you are playing at. Most cards can do much larger framerates at lower resolutions than they can at the upper resolutions, therefore it just depends on what you are trying to see (unless you got a laptop that only really looks good at the native resolution... which can be quite high at times like 1600 x 1200). At a MINIMUM (during the hardest visual scenes the card has to render... like having 32 players on the screen at one time on an outdoor map) I want my card to at least be able to maintain above 30 FPS at my chosen resolution.... that at least ensures a smooth gameplay experience. That same card with 4 players visible on the same map might yield 100+ FPS with less graphical rendering strain.... still, you just can't go and buy a card that says it renders your favorite resolution (mine is 1280 x 1024 with my current card) at 60 FPS cause in the end, that card might get crushed when the action gets hot.

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Jeffbx

Me too... I don't think I've ever measured framerate on any of my machines. If the action is too slow on the screen at the resolution I like, it's time for an upgrade.

zero2dash

That is a good way to base an upgrade, DF.
I've been playing through Call of Duty 2 lately on my PC and my problem is my video card is (obviously) older than most nowadays (Radeon 9500) but it plays CoD2 beautifully at a resolution I can handle. Now, I might not be kickin' 1024x768 or 1280x1024 but that's ok with me; I have it running under the "Optimal Settings" with a few changes...which gives me 800x600 w 4x FSAA and the game doesn't drop below 60fps even with bullets flying, grenades exploding, dirt flying everywhere, particles (fire, smoke, etc) and that works great enough for me.

I'll upgrade it someday...when I can't play games on it anymore. (Hell it handles Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 well also, so - no complaints from me.)

Dunno how much the cpu/ram factors in but I have a P4 3.0c and a gig of DDR400 Corsair ram and everything runs great; I know that in my old machine (Athlon 1.4, 768mb PC133 ram) the 9500 did bottleneck because of the slower processor + ram speeds and games didn't run as well. Eventually I'll probably get a Pentium D cpu with a PCI-e mobo but that's going to be a few years before that happens because (again) my current setup works great.

DarkFury

Honestly, you got plenty of CPU horsepower there for most games (at least the ones you mentioned...) The Video card becomes the bottleneck with the more "shading/water/light effects" being added to the games now.

Back in the day, the CPU was the bottleneck when most of the video tasks were dependent on the CPU caching and the processing throughput... however now, video cards have their own onboard memory for caching and enough raw horsepower so that the CPU doesn't have anywhere near as much strain on it to render the images. Honestly, you probably could benefit from an upgrade from a Radeon 9500... you'd be amazed how much better something like a GeForce 6600GT would be over that card in your games for around a $130 - $150 investment.

Granted, that 6600GT isn't gonna run with the big dogs (the 6800GT or 7800GT** (** denotes the extra letters for the different flavors) but it will allow you to play even more games with some of the special effects turned on at resolutions 1280 x 1024 and lower.

I have a Radeon 9500 on my HTPC... and granted, it's an "ok" card... but it's time has truly passed... But I guess it also depends on how much you use your PC to game with. Mine... I use it alot, so I can justify the upgrades somewhat (at least in my mind. )

zero2dash

(This is gonna show my age but oh well)
Man I remember when a dual Voodoo 2 setup was all you needed for Half-Life, and a few years later, a RivaTNT or Voodoo3 card ran Quake 3 Arena quite well. Ah how I miss the days of the Voodoo cards...

(edit) suddenly I'm thinking about the Dana Carvey "Grumpy Old Man" skits on SNL when it used to be good.
"In my day, we didn't have these fancy graphics cards. If we wanted to play a game, we'd pull out a checkers board or Monopoly, or we'd just play tic-tac-toe using good ol fashioned paper AND WE LIKED IT! WE LOVED IT!" heh heh


Thanks for the heads up...I'm sorta in a "meh" state with my graphics card right now. I'd like to upgrade it, but I'm on the cusp of whether or not I should just upgrade that and then later on buy a new card + PCIe mobo, or just buy a PCIe mobo + card (+ cpu if I can't find a Intel 865 board with PCIe, which I probably can). But since I don't PC game that much these days, I wonder if the money would be better off spent on console stuff.

DarkFury

I'm in that same boat... however consider this.

Upgrade to PCI-E video card = cost of the card (from $120 - $700.. yeah right) + cost of a new mobo (from $120 - $250 ... so many to choose from plus with the new SLi boards... well) + cost of a new CPU (from $150 - $1000... yeah right whoo hoo 1 grand for a CPU!!!!)

versus

Keep what you have and just buy a video card for now to satisfy you for the next 12 - 18 months... $130 - $200.


Personally, I'm gonna just buy a card now and later.... well prices on that good stuff will have gone down enough to make it more "justifiable".

No point tossin' out good hardware just to get the bleeding edge...

tupacboy

don't forget to check the refurb section at newegg.com.... picked up my x850 there almost 6 months ago for $275... still think i got a steal on it...

_=DeltaForce=_

Darkfury, If you are going to buy a video card, PM ME.... I can get some really good deals on ATI video card.. Built and powered by ATI cards...

DarkFury

Too late...

I just bought a BFG 6800GT OC AGP online... for about $320. The market is quickly drying up on 6800GT cards in the AGP flavor (it appears that several of the manufacturers have discontinued the 6800GT in the AGP format)... so I decided to go ahead and make the move.

At least that will stave off the "upgrade" bug for about another year...