Of course the human eye doesn't work with frames, the whole frames thing is used to 'trick' the eye into seeing a moving picture. The brain can detect incredibly minor changes in fast moving images, but generally 50+ FPS is what's required to create a smooth moving image.

Famously movies run at 24fps, but they flash the projector bulb twice for each frame, meaning it's actually closer to 50 fps. This is an easy method, but not fool proof as it causes some inconsistencies, such as when the camera pans in a cinema theatre it makes the movie look very jumpy. I'm sure most everyone has noticed this, and when you do it's because you're looking at the true 24 fps.

Really 60fps is just the minimum it takes to trick a human brain into thinking that it's looking at a perfectly smooth moving picture. Anything less than 50 just breaks the illusion.

IIRC the world runs at 34fps, or 40 if you switch to 16bit colours.

Quote from BlueFlame :

So when your playing with 30 fps you don't know the difference between that and 60?

Quote from Looney :

I can't really notice a HUGE difference untill it goes below 30 or 25FPS.

I said a huge difference. I can notice a difference obviously, but not a huge difference.

Quote from The General Lee :

I said a huge difference. I can notice a difference obviously, but not a huge difference.

Prove yourself wrong with a little nice program called FPS Compare:

http://www.tweakguides.com/files/FPSCompare_v05_beta.zip

(copy & paste and remove the http:// if the hotlink ain't working...)

It shows split screen with either a simple 3d model rotating or landscape model (more noticiable in this) and you can set the fps limit for both split screens. After 60 fps it definately gets harder to see the difference. But if you can't see a critical difference 30 vs. 60 fps then you have weird eyes.

I can notice a difference, but only because I know what I'm looking for. Its not like 30fps is un-playable but 60 is.

Only at >25fps it starts to get gerky, with my eyes anyway.

It appears "fluid motion" at 25 FPS, but it gets even smoother higher up.

It's a common mis-conception that the anything about 24fps is a waste because thats all the eye needs to see a smooth picture.
This has come around because movies are 24fps, but each movie frame has "smoothing"/blurring between each frame, and computers don't do that.
60fps seems to be a good "sweet spot", but the higher the better really.

what happens when you google " what fps dos my eyes work at ???"

http://www.google.ie/search?hl ... +at+%3F%3F%3F&spell=1

There's no definite answer, but limiting it to 60FPS is underestimating the human eyes capabilities severely.

In the end it's mostly about what you are used to. I've been gaming for many years - intensively. Plus I work with (motion) graphics. My eyes (or brain) have adapted and trained them selfs to be able to notice the difference.

60FPS looks smooth, but I can "see" 150FPS according to my own test method. I don't know if it's any good or real at all though since I'm no scientist.

But funny enough, dropping to 40 FPS will cause me motion sickness - I haven't played with 40+ FPS during all that time. I still remember the days when I had 30 FPS, and did all sorts of tweaks to get a tad more FPS :P

Game FPS are mostly not the same as TV FPS. Films are typically shot with longer exposure = you get motion blur, which reduces the contrast = motion looks more fluid.

However, allot TV studios prefer interlaced motion, because that allows them to limit the motion blur and instead get a crispier image without suffering from the stutter.

I rarely go to the cinema anymore, because I can see the blur and 24 FPS stutter too clearly, so it ruins the whole "cinema experience" for me :|

It's the same thing with hearing - blind ppl have more sensitive hearing, but it's not because they were born with super ears. They learn to use them more than the rest of us do - only difference is that they are forced to.

Also the same with colors (CRT vs. LCD). I'm still on CRT because I'm sensitive enough to tell the difference (beside the obvious differences). I once though I was just imagining this... until I got a job where I had to work on LCD screen.. :P

Also bare in mind that the bigger the screen gets (or the closer you are to it), the more FPS u need to get same effect.

Oh, btw - regarding telly FPS. I'm not sure if it's true (somehow I woulnd't be surprised if it was), but I read once that the reason TV (in europe at least) is @ 25 FPS, is because the general perception was that human eye can't register more than 25FPS.

Quote from r4ptor :

Game FPS are mostly not the same as TV FPS. Films are typically shot with longer exposure = you get motion blur, which reduces the contrast = motion looks more fluid.

Probably because TV or movies are not really at 24 fps! The framerate is at least 2 time higher! They just put a dark image between 2 frames!

FPS are of cause FPS - in games everything is sharp/in focus, while in tv/fils motion blue is being used to limid the stutter/make motion look fluid - thats why you notice the difference. TV/fils aren't run in more fps like you are suggesting.

They may be recording at higher rate, but they still convert (drop/blend frames).

Quote from djgizmo68 :

also the same reason why watching TV on NTSC TV's, looks weird compared to watching the same program on PAL TV's

Tell me about it, most of our bloody reno to sell shows are actually people selling homes in the UK, so we not only get the crappy accent, but we also get the weird FPS deal with the PAL signal on an NTSC display, but it's not noticable now that we got a LCD TV.

Off Topic, but makes me wonder what it looks like playing NTSC content on a PAL TV.

Eyes can see over 30 fps for sure. Theres no buffer on LFS im certain, because if there was, surely that demands more from your GFX card, and lowers your FPS further, but if you can't see the difference between 30 and 60 fps, you need new eyes!

Quote from deggis :

Prove yourself wrong with a little nice program called FPS Compare:

http://www.tweakguides.com/files/FPSCompare_v05_beta.zip

(copy & paste and remove the http:// if the hotlink ain't working...)

Can you post a link to the page where you found that? I can't get the link to work? Getting 404 error.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Can you post a link to the page where you found that? I can't get the link to work? Getting 404 error.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_5.html

4th paragraph from the bottom in bold light blue. FPS Compare.

Once upon a time things were filmed with, film! The film consisted of many "frames" and running these frames fast through a projector produced the illusion of one flowing moving picture. If you ran the film at less than 24 frames per second the human eye could see the staggered result and the smoothness was ruined.

Today the term "frames per second" is often used in digital media and computer games. You will often hear people arguing that the eye can only decipher so many frames per second and therefore your PC need not produce any more than that theoretical maximum. This is flawed logic. Don't think of FPS in gaming as what you see, think of it as a series of steps that your computer is taking. If you ask your PC to produce 100FPS and it is capable of achieving that task it will (theoretically) draw each of the 100 frames every second. If however it is not capable of 100fps it will struggle and possibly lag. This lag though is not just a visual thing. Your PC has other tasks to perform apart from just displaying the image on the screen. Other aspects might lag, like steering or keyboard inputs, sound generation etc.
The ability of your PC to produce a high fps rate is important from a total gaming performance point of view. Forget what the eye can or can't see when it comes to fps in gaming. Find your PC's comfort zone for fps, the zone where overall performance isn't effected by a struggling PC which can't draw the number of frames that the software is demanding of it.

If your PC isn't producing at least 24-26fps then indeed you will notice visual lag, but there will be other hardware lag if your PC is struggling to produce this speed. A consistently high fps rate usually means a very smooth gaming experience.
In shooting games poor hardware performance can mean the difference between firing that bullet before your opponent does. It can effect how quickly you turn around, jump or take other actions.
In racing it is even more important to have consistent and smooth performance, especially if using analogue controllers. Control inputs are very important and not an area where you want to compromise.

Being able to maintain a high fps should mean that your inputs and game events or actions are smooth and instant. No matter what your eye can or can't see.

Quote from PaulH :

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_5.html

4th paragraph from the bottom in bold light blue. FPS Compare.

Ta.

FWIW, the framerate at which you start to notice anything annoying is completely dependant on the difference between frames. If you're trying to show fast motion, I don't think there's an upper limit TBH.

Flight sims can usually get away with much lower framerates (good thing:FSX) because the distance objects are usually travelling between frames is very small. FSX can look liquid smooth at 20-25 FPS MOST of the time, until you try and make large changes, or land at ridiculous speeds. LFS would benefit from higher framerates, especially at higher FOVs. Quite simply, an object travelling across the screen should not "skip any pixels" between frames to appear perfectly smooth. That would be a very high frame rate in certain circumstances, and a low one in other circumstances.

Summary: It's totally dependant upon the velocity of objects on your screen.