Maybe I’m weird because anything over 20 FPS looks smooth to me (and I know it doesn’t to other people) but what’s the point of going over 60 FPS? Can anyone actually see the difference or is this just a matter of “bigger numbers must be better”?
Theres a huge difference once you use it for long enough. I have a 144hz monitor and love getting to play games that high, they’re so smooth! If you play long enough the difference becomes night/day.
It basically just takes your eyes a second to adjust, the same is true for 30 fps to 60. If you only play at 30 then you might not notice the leap when going to 60, but once you start playing 60 regularly your eyes will adjust, and 30 will start to look choppy. Once that happens the difference will become easy to point out, and you’ll be able to appreciate the frame increase.
Eventually it’ll become night and day, taking zero effort to notice the difference between frame rates, and the difference being a massive deal. I still only play at 1080p, for example, so I can play at 120-144 fps consistently, as that smoothness is infinitely more important to me than a sharper image.
Edit: I have a theory but there’s not a lot of info regarding video games frame rates and why some people are better and noticing the difference than others. There have been studies that show that some people are better at it than others, but not why.
But basically the human brain tends to fill in the gaps between frames in media, like movies, tv shows, etc. The same, one would assume, would apply to video games. So my theory is that if you only play games at 30 fps, your brain fills in those gaps and you don’t notice the choppiness, similar to how you don’t notice choppiness during movies despite them only being at 24 fps.
However, once you start playing games at higher frame rates, your brain obviously has less to fill in. And it adapts to that, getting used to filling in less due to the higher quantity of frames every second. However, once you go back down to 30 you notice choppiness, as your brain isn’t filling in the gaps as seamlessly as it did before, because it’s not used to having to. So suddenly 30 looks choppy and awful, whereas 60 looks buttery smooth. And this process repeats with each jump in framerate.
This would also explain why people tend to adjust back down to 30 fps after playing it for a while - because the brain readjusts to filling in all those gaps. But this is just my dumb theory, who knows.
It’s hard to say exactly what it is, but if my monitor ends up getting set to 60hz because some game has weird defaults, I’ll notice that something is off until I change the setting and get it back to 144hz. Maybe it’s the monitor itself being tuned for 144hz so the pixels fade a bit before they get refreshed? Or maybe my eyes/brain can tell the difference after getting used to the higher refresh rate.
I think it is different for games that are fps locked to 60fps while the monitor is set to 144hz, which suggests that it might be the fading thing (or something similar).
Though I did notice a big difference in overwatch when I upgraded my GPU from one that would get fps in the range of 60-90 to one that could consistently get over 120.
It’s really hard to quantify your own senses, so all I can say for sure is that I definitely notice it when my monitor is set to 60hz instead of 144hz.
Lucky you. Seriously. I wish I didn’t care because it means displays are more expensive for me.
I definitely thought it was all hype but once I saw games 120+ fps, even 60fps looks choppy to me. I also very much notice the difference between 30fps and 60fps video but 120fps (at full speed) didn’t do much for me
For what it’s worth, I was a professional video editor for years so I’m a bit more inclined to notice than the average person
I’m kind of in that boat - digital art, and so on more. I never understood buying a computer monitor of over about 22" that was 1080p resolution. I want decent colour reproduction - I get it, it won’t be perfect unless you spend a fortune but it should be at least decent.
120hz w/ good HDR support is fantastic for content that supports it, and 240hz is just buttery smooth. Variable refresh is pretty much a must for modern gaming.
It’s very easy to tell the difference when you see them in person. I have a 60Hz monitor and a 144Hz monitor on the same PC and you can drag a window across the desktop from one to the other and the lack of animation frames in the movement going from 144 to 60 makes the movement look choppy on the slower one. In games, the animation becomes smooth to the point of being lifelike and visually vibrant when your framerate is able to go up to 90 to 100 or more FPS
It really depends on what and how you play. If reaction time is important then you’ll feel more than see the difference in refresh rates. If none of your games require sub second reaction time accuracy, then it’s much more of a nice to have luxury than a game changer.
Also, frametime pacing matters a lot. If your system very consistently puts out 30 fps, you’ll have more accurate keypresses than if you normally get 50 and it gets hung on a few frames and it dips to 30fps. Your nervous system adapts pretty well to consistent delay, but it’s much more difficult to compensate for delay that varies a lot.
I don’t really play first person shooters so resolution matters more to me than framerate.
For 3d games where the whole screen is moving and changing as the camera moves, I’ve noticed a big difference between 60 and 144. It just makes the game feel absurdly smooth.
For smaller games with more static views it doesn’t really make much difference.
Occasionally my fps gets set to 60. As soon as I start playing rocket league I can tell it is off. I went to a friends house and asked why everything is so choppy, checked his monitor settings and it was set to 60 instead of 144. There are people that can see the difference
I don’t play competitive games so I don’t need the extra shooting accuracy. What I have found is that the higher refresh rate has made panning maps in RTS or looking around quickly in FPS much smoother. Its an overall nicer experience, but not really any better gaming than at 60hz.
Maybe I’m weird because anything over 20 FPS looks smooth to me (and I know it doesn’t to other people) but what’s the point of going over 60 FPS? Can anyone actually see the difference or is this just a matter of “bigger numbers must be better”?
Theres a huge difference once you use it for long enough. I have a 144hz monitor and love getting to play games that high, they’re so smooth! If you play long enough the difference becomes night/day.
sus. If you can’t notice a big difference right away then what difference IS there?
It basically just takes your eyes a second to adjust, the same is true for 30 fps to 60. If you only play at 30 then you might not notice the leap when going to 60, but once you start playing 60 regularly your eyes will adjust, and 30 will start to look choppy. Once that happens the difference will become easy to point out, and you’ll be able to appreciate the frame increase.
Eventually it’ll become night and day, taking zero effort to notice the difference between frame rates, and the difference being a massive deal. I still only play at 1080p, for example, so I can play at 120-144 fps consistently, as that smoothness is infinitely more important to me than a sharper image.
Edit: I have a theory but there’s not a lot of info regarding video games frame rates and why some people are better and noticing the difference than others. There have been studies that show that some people are better at it than others, but not why.
But basically the human brain tends to fill in the gaps between frames in media, like movies, tv shows, etc. The same, one would assume, would apply to video games. So my theory is that if you only play games at 30 fps, your brain fills in those gaps and you don’t notice the choppiness, similar to how you don’t notice choppiness during movies despite them only being at 24 fps.
However, once you start playing games at higher frame rates, your brain obviously has less to fill in. And it adapts to that, getting used to filling in less due to the higher quantity of frames every second. However, once you go back down to 30 you notice choppiness, as your brain isn’t filling in the gaps as seamlessly as it did before, because it’s not used to having to. So suddenly 30 looks choppy and awful, whereas 60 looks buttery smooth. And this process repeats with each jump in framerate.
This would also explain why people tend to adjust back down to 30 fps after playing it for a while - because the brain readjusts to filling in all those gaps. But this is just my dumb theory, who knows.
It’s hard to say exactly what it is, but if my monitor ends up getting set to 60hz because some game has weird defaults, I’ll notice that something is off until I change the setting and get it back to 144hz. Maybe it’s the monitor itself being tuned for 144hz so the pixels fade a bit before they get refreshed? Or maybe my eyes/brain can tell the difference after getting used to the higher refresh rate.
I think it is different for games that are fps locked to 60fps while the monitor is set to 144hz, which suggests that it might be the fading thing (or something similar).
Though I did notice a big difference in overwatch when I upgraded my GPU from one that would get fps in the range of 60-90 to one that could consistently get over 120.
It’s really hard to quantify your own senses, so all I can say for sure is that I definitely notice it when my monitor is set to 60hz instead of 144hz.
Lucky you. Seriously. I wish I didn’t care because it means displays are more expensive for me.
I definitely thought it was all hype but once I saw games 120+ fps, even 60fps looks choppy to me. I also very much notice the difference between 30fps and 60fps video but 120fps (at full speed) didn’t do much for me
For what it’s worth, I was a professional video editor for years so I’m a bit more inclined to notice than the average person
I’m kind of in that boat - digital art, and so on more. I never understood buying a computer monitor of over about 22" that was 1080p resolution. I want decent colour reproduction - I get it, it won’t be perfect unless you spend a fortune but it should be at least decent.
120hz w/ good HDR support is fantastic for content that supports it, and 240hz is just buttery smooth. Variable refresh is pretty much a must for modern gaming.
There are diminishing returns but I can absolutely tell the difference between my 165Hz display and my wife’s 240Hz.
It’s very easy to tell the difference when you see them in person. I have a 60Hz monitor and a 144Hz monitor on the same PC and you can drag a window across the desktop from one to the other and the lack of animation frames in the movement going from 144 to 60 makes the movement look choppy on the slower one. In games, the animation becomes smooth to the point of being lifelike and visually vibrant when your framerate is able to go up to 90 to 100 or more FPS
It really depends on what and how you play. If reaction time is important then you’ll feel more than see the difference in refresh rates. If none of your games require sub second reaction time accuracy, then it’s much more of a nice to have luxury than a game changer.
Also, frametime pacing matters a lot. If your system very consistently puts out 30 fps, you’ll have more accurate keypresses than if you normally get 50 and it gets hung on a few frames and it dips to 30fps. Your nervous system adapts pretty well to consistent delay, but it’s much more difficult to compensate for delay that varies a lot.
I don’t really play first person shooters so resolution matters more to me than framerate.
For 3d games where the whole screen is moving and changing as the camera moves, I’ve noticed a big difference between 60 and 144. It just makes the game feel absurdly smooth.
For smaller games with more static views it doesn’t really make much difference.
It mostly depends on the speed of the game.
Here’s a site which nicely demonstrates the effect: https://www.testufo.com/
Occasionally my fps gets set to 60. As soon as I start playing rocket league I can tell it is off. I went to a friends house and asked why everything is so choppy, checked his monitor settings and it was set to 60 instead of 144. There are people that can see the difference
I don’t play competitive games so I don’t need the extra shooting accuracy. What I have found is that the higher refresh rate has made panning maps in RTS or looking around quickly in FPS much smoother. Its an overall nicer experience, but not really any better gaming than at 60hz.
I can tell you I notice no difference between 240 and 60
Stability is all that really matters