Hardware Analysis - Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Max Normal — 2005-11-07T20:25:08-05:00

The difference in FPS to achieve 'persistence of vision' between movie film and TV or video games has nothing to do with motion blur. In fact you may remember that video cards capable of creating motion blur effects were being manufactured three or four years ago, and this did not automatically double the speed of all of our gaming experiences.

The human brain percieves smooth animation of images at around 25 FPS, and this is the approximate speed that most movie cameras need to work at as one whole frame is being displayed at a time (The portions between the frames are strobed out).

TVs and computer monitors however are interlaced. This means that only every other scanline of information is displayed per frame, so it takes two frames to compose a whole image.

The upshot of this is that to achieve persistence of vision, a minimum framerate of 50fps is required.
Of course the framerate will fluctuate greatly depending on the complexity of the information being displayed by a graphics card at any one time, so for this reason you'd probably want an average of 75fps depending on resolution and variation in complexity within the game to ensure that your fps never dropped below 50, and to guarantee a completely smooth gameplay experience.

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Jason F — 2004-07-27T14:19:59-05:00

acually.. Nvidia's can O/C great.. the ones that can't is not because of the Nvidia VPU, but instead because of the board manufacturer... get Gainward.. they make thier cards to O/C in fact the goldensample cards come O/C stock. One thing I don't like about alot of the ATI cards.. is that the RAM does not have Heatsinks...

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

m olotov — 2004-05-04T18:48:02-05:00

I think that's right. Expanding the idea, the reason film and games look different at the same frame rates is that in a film the speed that the world actually changes at is normal physics speed. By contrast, in a game, the maximum speed that the game-world can change at is the speed that the computer can render the pictures of it.

So in a film, the brain's normal processes just fill in the gaps between the frames making its perception of motion appear smooth. In a game, the game-world actually slows down when the frame rate (the rate that the pictures of it can be shown) drops: the brain can try to fill in the gaps but it appears unreal as the actual events in the game have been slowed down by the hardware - which is the point of over-clocking it ...

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Brian Stewart — 2004-05-04T16:40:49-05:00

I don't know if this has been said, but...
FILM AND GAMES ARE DIFFERENT.

The reason you do NOT notice the low framerate of a film (23.976 fps, or 29.97 fps, NTSC)
is because the film recorded the motion.
Each frame ina filmstrip has motion on it. Becuase the frame is exposed for a certain amount of time (a SMALL amount of time) it captures the first image, then a small moment later, then a little later.

Basically, you have a motion-blur effect going on on each frame automatically.

With a game, you do not expose chemicals to light to create the image.
You see only each frame.
There is no motion blurring on each frame. This is what makes it easier to notice the framerate drops in games. A action-packed game at 24 fps would look horrible, but an action packed movie at 23.976 looks great.

The reason is that when film is exposed, you get a motion-blur effect on each frame.
You don't get this in games. (Some games try to program such effects in, but it's not a physical blurring do to the motion)

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

m olotov — 2004-05-04T13:53:51-05:00

Shouldn't we be aiming for cards that will give 75FPS, or other rate equal to maximum refresh rate of the monitor? We can all see the difference between a 60 and 75 Hz refresh rate - isn't the FPS question essentially the same?

On this basis the difference between 100FPS and 200FPS should be invisible (and the question is academic) as these are additional frames that by definition cannot be seen.

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Shadow_Ops_Airman1 — 2004-04-30T03:03:27-05:00

I Dunno its funny that i see that peeps are having probs with the 56.** driver series from Nvidia, i HAVE BEEN TELLING PEOPLE TO SWITCH BACK TO 53.03, WITH THESE WORDS, IF IT AINT BROKE, DONT FIX IT.

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Shadow_Ops_Airman1 — 2004-04-30T02:58:10-05:00

BIG REASON FOR THE 9800 XT, is cause usually Find them in 256MB DDR, with the Pros its harder to find them with the 256MB DDR.

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Carter Sudeith — 2004-04-30T01:58:38-05:00

Unreal 3.0 can't play on the X800XT, its a fact. There's a reason they let more people see it on the 6800U than the x800XT.

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Simon Tremblay — 2004-04-30T01:50:55-05:00

About bump mapping... It's been in use for years, but not in a lot of games, Expendable is the first game I remember that used bump mapping for the water and ground effects ( also wood ), and it's a long ways off, I had a voodoo 3 back then, and bump mapping was rendered, albeit at a lower quality than today in games like Halo, Farcry and Morrowind ( water effects ).

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Jesse Bufton — 2004-04-30T01:43:03-05:00

My biggest beef is not with artifacts in image quality or whose card has better multi monitor support, my beef is with the video card companies and the game companies not bringing us the technologies that they jam down our throats.
Every new video card there is a new technology that they're trying to market to us. I remember when Bump mapping was being jammed down everyone's throats. We don't even SEE bump mapping in ANY game! Sure, Doom III is going to use it, if Doom III in fact exists, which after a year of the release dates being pushed back I'm being to doubt. Next thing we know John Carmack will be saying, 'What, Doom III? No, look at Quake 4. Isn't it pretty? Look at Quake 4!'
Seriously. This guy started endorsing the freaking GeForce 2 when it came out. Telling us all that it was the official card of Doom III. To this day we just don't see all the technologies these cards are packed with actually being used in games. They just turn our attention to the next version of DX and what it supports, and hardly ever actually uses.

I want my Bump Mapping. I want freaking Doom III.

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

SurrealBeingX <> — 2004-04-29T23:29:34-05:00

yea my 5900se EVGA didnt OC that well at all, my scores even went down in 3dmark03 after OCing, i guess bc the card was more unstable...still dosent seem right though. But yea, this card OCs OK, not great.

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Zach Beck — 2004-04-29T21:28:34-05:00

And speaking of bundle......Has anybody ever seen a DVI - VGA adapter with an nVidia card? I've gotten one each time I've bought an ATI card, whether from ATI or Sapphire or Connect3D. And as for clock speed, I don't know how well the newer NV cards o/c, but my first one sucked at it. I'd take the core and mem up maybe 5, and i'd have artifacts to hell. That may not entirely be the card's fault - but my Radeon 9000 Pro o/c'd very well. It's stock was 275/275. I got it stabley to 308/308. And my newer Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro o/c's even better than that. I can't even remember what it went to. All i know is it was running like a 9700. I stopped because i was afraid of the heat. Who here o/c's the NV cards with the stock heat sink? On overclocking my Radeon, my 3DMark 2001SE scores went from 8200 to 9915. Now, tell me that's not a big difference, i dare you. :-D

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Simon Tremblay — 2004-04-29T20:35:17-05:00

If you think there is bickering here, don't be mistaken, up to before burninggrave showed up we were discussing objectively with facts and proofs not hear says and consumer satisfaction.

Now for more facts:

Nview is certainly sweet and was better than hydravision for a while, upto radeon 9700 then Hydravision ( quoting a famous reviewer ) : finally came up to par if not a little ahead while dealing with multiple monitors and flexibility. I haven't seen that big of a change myself, both schemes handle multiple monitors like a charm.

I'd kill for a color vibrance slider on my Ati card like the one I used to have with Nvidia.

Why no video in as standard yet? 3 out but no in?

Ati beats nvidia clock2clock.

Both companies seems to have reached a "stalemate" with their latest offerings ( notwithstanding the 6800 and r420 parts ).

The only difference from which to choose one card over the other seems to be price, bundle, driver features and image quality.

The only direct relevance to games in the above mentioned points are image quality and to much less extent driver features. ( digital color vibrance, give it to me Ati ). So on one side we have someone with great image quality but no tuning for color, and on the other we have some sacrifices made to image quality for a bit of speed but a godsent slider that could make Quake 1 actually look lively ( at max digital vibrance that is ).

And one last fact, the artifacts were there a year ago, they still are and getting worse... I know nvidia is gonna fix it, since there's been so much fuss about it, I just wish they would'nt had done it at all, I know it sounds a lot like the "no t&l, no 32 bit " back when 3dfx died. But one thing can't be more certain, Nvidia unlike 3dfx is kikin, hard and I'm looking forward to the next 3 years with anticipation.

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Matt Walker — 2004-04-29T19:06:29-05:00

All I have to say is that we have finally gotten to a point where the video cards are keeping up with the processros, FINALLY. Video cards were developing too slowly and as of this point the cpu's are actually the bottlenecks for the new nvidia 6800 and it will probably be the same for the ati card when it comes out. one thing that sort of aggravates me though is every single ati fanboy out there saying the ati card will be better. No duh its going to be better, nvidia just launched their card whil ati's isn't out yet. ATI is able to scope out the competition. I'm glad that Nvidia has th courage to be the first card out, it keeps the development moving along. I myself am an ATI fanboy but I despise the amount of competition between ati and nvidia fans, who cares, we don't make the cards and this sort of bickering scares away a lot of people from trying to learn about computers.

Re: Of Screenshots and Microscopes

Chris M — 2004-04-29T17:52:36-05:00

The belief that the eye can see full motion at 30fps is a half truth. Most movies only run at about 18-24 fps yet you see in full motion. It is because of motion blurs. Games don't have motion blurs thus requiring more frames to make the motion fluid. It is not just a simple fact of "The eye can see anything past 30fps as full motion."