Refresh Rates & Frames Per Second...

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noobtech

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okay,

I put together a system for my friend that wanted to do some gaming on a dell laptop... it's a core 2 duo with 7900gs go & Vista as the OS.... it's 17" and the best kind in that category... 60hz is the max refresh rate.

I tried to explain to him that the 60hz is not the same as in LCD's and it really doesn't matter since it doesn't work the same way... but he's telling me that 60hz means that the monitor only shows 60fps.... so when he's trying to play counter-strike at 100fps it looks like crap to him. I keep trying to tell him that he's seriously mistaken.... who's right?
 
I'm not an expert with displays, as I just made the transition from CRTs a few months ago, But I will try my best. If I am wrong, some one straighten me out too.

Your friend is right. at 60hz, you will not see more than 60 fps. Will it look like crap? No. Your eyes can't see much faster than that. What really counts is a steady frame rate.
 
Depending on who you are, that might be true....or you might be able to see a lot more faster than that (and real life still looks a lot more smoother than any display I've seen!)....But it's hard to make these comparisons with LCDs. First, you don't know really just how fast the LCD actually is, and most of them have enough latency issues and misrepresented testing standards that they cannot really keep up at 60Hz as it is. The ones that can maintain 60 fps across all color changes (a display I have yet to see) will not be much faster than that, and it wouldn't be worth it anyway. There's no flicker or phosphors to refresh on LCDs, 60 fps is going to look pretty damn smooth.
 
At its worst, if you're used to a 100hz display and fast games, nothing looks worse than an LCD. You probably see it best when you look at two screens side-by-side.

Always when I see people playing with LCD's I get surprised over and over again how bad it looks. I've tried to tell myself today's LCD's are just as good for gaming, but always when I see one my eyes say otherwise. You could think it like this: CRT's refresh each frame completely, meaning it draws the entire picture over and over again according to the refresh rate. LCD is a bit different, it does not draw the picture again, but rather updates the old one with new information according to the refresh rate. Some colors take longer to update than others and so on. So even at 60hz, despite of terrible flickering (not so bad in games IMO), LCD will be less accurate than CRT.

Take a very simple example: A full 180 degree turn in any game. If someone shoots you in the back and you turn, how long does it take? Probably 0.1s to turn and aim. It means six frames with terrible ghosting resulting in several pictures on top of each other.

So your friend is right, it may look crap, at least for me it does. But today most players play with an LCD, so it can't be that bad, at least you know most of them have the same issue as you. And there's no such thing as gaming laptop?
 
Synful Serenity said:
Depending on who you are, that might be true....or you might be able to see a lot more faster than that (and real life still looks a lot more smoother than any display I've seen!)....
Click to expand...

That's not really a problem of the refresh rate or the frame rate. Once motion blur becomes a mature feature in games, you'll start to see that they suddenly look much smoother, even at lower framerates. If you watch a motion picture, it looks smooth despite only being 24fps. The human eye performs its own interpolation.
 
novemberrain said:
At its worst, if you're used to a 100hz display and fast games, nothing looks worse than an LCD. You probably see it best when you look at two screens side-by-side.

Always when I see people playing with LCD's I get surprised over and over again how bad it looks. I've tried to tell myself today's LCD's are just as good for gaming, but always when I see one my eyes say otherwise. You could think it like this: CRT's refresh each frame completely, meaning it draws the entire picture over and over again according to the refresh rate. LCD is a bit different, it does not draw the picture again, but rather updates the old one with new information according to the refresh rate. Some colors take longer to update than others and so on. So even at 60hz, despite of terrible flickering (not so bad in games IMO), LCD will be less accurate than CRT.

Take a very simple example: A full 180 degree turn in any game. If someone shoots you in the back and you turn, how long does it take? Probably 0.1s to turn and aim. It means six frames with terrible ghosting resulting in several pictures on top of each other.

So your friend is right, it may look crap, at least for me it does. But today most players play with an LCD, so it can't be that bad, at least you know most of them have the same issue as you. And there's no such thing as gaming laptop?
Click to expand...

OMG, finally someone else agrees with me! I tried to make the switch to LCD, just could not do it. All I keep hearing is, "your crazy" "theres no ghosting", "I cant tell the difference between CRT and LCD!".
 
Okay cool, so we were both right... I knew the games don't look that great on LCD compared to CRT's... I just knew the refresh rate to be the flickering on CRT's and you don't really see any of that on LCD's. Now when it comes to playing FPS's or Guild Wars... I really can't stand the blurrrrrrr when moving fast. Still... after playing on a FW900? I forget what that sony 24" was and an LCD... I just decided to stick with LCD because even the txt looks sharp. (all around usage for me).... if it was strictly for gaming, I would have kept the sony. ^_^
 
tony-kun said:
If you watch a motion picture, it looks smooth despite only being 24fps. The human eye performs its own interpolation.
Click to expand...

It does look smooth, but not nearly as smooth as say, running Oblivion at 60fps. It's much more fluid and lively looking. Same with 720p....In fact, if there was a movie recorded and played back at 200fps, it would look even closer to the real thing (there are people that can distinguish motion higher than that even).

I have to say though that in terms of smoothness, a screen with persistent frames that remained on the screen for 1/30 or 1/60 of a second, but changed at the speed of a CRT, would look more than smooth enough for anybody.
 
Also see what I hoped to be the Final Thread on this issue: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1198249

I’ve purchased a Dell 2007WFP (which arrives on Monday) after using CRT’s all my life, mainly because I want a widescreen display and I’m sure it will look better than my highend CRT at its native rez – I might do a comparison review once it arrives if anyone’s interested.

I’m currently running a Phillips 202P40 which I run at 1280x960 at 120 hertz and I can clearly see the difference between 60 FPS and 100 and even between 80 and 120 FPS. I’m sure though that 60FPS on a LCD will not look as bad as 60 on a CRT, but I'll know for sure next week :D
 
I have found that as long as you have a good dedicated videocard that produces high and steady fps that you wont see much of a difference BUT you can feel it in the char movement. The eyes should not be bothered by it though.
 
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