5 ms·

Out of curiosity, why are such high fps numbers desirable? Maybe I don't understand how displays work, but how does having fps > refresh rate work? Aren't many

Out of curiosity, why are such high fps numbers desirable? Maybe I don't understand how displays work, but how does having fps > refresh rate work? Aren't many of those frames just wasted?

shric 1y ago
I think it was just to show that the performance is comparable to Windows, implying that it also will be fine for games/settings where fps is in the range that does matter.
TACIXAT 1y ago
I run a 500hz monitor. Generally, you want your FPS to match your refresh rate.
- try_the_bass 1y ago
  Huh, I didn't know those existed now. I think the last time I was shopping for a monitor, 144Hz was the new hotness. Things have come a long way since then!
rkoten 1y ago
Not OP but got quite a bit of experience with this playing competitive FPS for a decade. You're right that refresh rate sets the physical truth of it, e.g. 180 FPS on a 160 Hz monitor won't give you much advantage over 160 FPS if at all. However reaching full multiples of your refresh rate in FPS – 320 in this instance, 480, and so on – will, and not only in theory but you'll feel it subjectively too. I get ~500-600 FPS in counter-strike and I have my FPS capped to 480 to get the most of my current hardware (160 Hz). Getting a 240 Hz monitor would make it smoother. Upgrading the PC to get more multiples would also.
hamdingers 1y ago
If you have a 60Hz display and the game is locked to 60fps, when you take an action it may take up to 16.67 milliseconds for that action to register. If the game is running at 500fps, it registers within 2 milliseconds, even though you won't see the action for up to 16.67 milliseconds later. At extremely high levels of competition, this matters. Also, there are 540Hz displays.
- gf000 1y ago
  A game doesn't necessarily have to process input at the same rate as it displays frames, does it?
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    It doesn't and well programmed games won't be tied to fps that way. I'm not sure anything past 300 fps plausibly matters for overwatch even with the best monitor available.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - hamdingers 1y ago
    That's correct, and the most competitive multiplayer games tend to have fixed tick rates on the server, but the higher FPS is still beneficial (again, theoretically for all but the highest level of competition) because your client side inputs are sampled more frequently and your rendered frames are at most a couple ms old.
    - adastra22 1y ago
      I think you're missing the point. The game could be processing input and doing a state update at 1000Hz, while still rendering a mere 60fps. There doesn't have to be any correlation whatsoever between frame rate and input processing. Furthermore, this would actually have less latency because there won't be a pipeline of frame buffers being worked on. Tying the input loop to the render loop is a totally arbitrary decision that the game industry is needlessly perpetuating.
      - hamdingers 1y ago
        No, I'm explaining how most games work in practice. You're right a game could be made that works that way. I'm not aware of one, but I don't have exhaustive knowledge and it wouldn't surprise me if examples exist, but that was not the question.
omnimus 1y ago
To certain extent for online games it can be advantage (atleast it feels like it to me). AFAIK The server updates state between players at some (tick) rate when you have FPS above tick rate then the game interpolates between the states. The issue is that frames and networking might not be constantly synced so you are juggling between fps, screen refresh rate, ping and tick rate. In other words more frames you have higher the chance you will "get lucky" with latency of the game.
Jhsto 1y ago
You want your minimum FPS to be your refresh rate. You won't notice when you're over it, but you likely will if you go below it. In Counter-Strike, smoke grenades used to (and still do, to an extent) dip your FPS into a slideshow. You want to ensure your opponent can't exploit these things.
cwillu 1y ago
osu (music beat-clicking game) has a built-in screen frequency a/b test, and despite running on a 60hz screen I can reliably pass that test up to 240hz. It's not just having 60 frames ready per second, it's what's in those frames.
- try_the_bass 1y ago
  I don't understand how this works, I guess? If your screen is 60Hz, you're drawing four frames for every one that ends up getting displayed. You won't even see the other three, right? If you can't see the frames, what difference does what's in them make? [E] Answered my own question elsewhere: the difference is the "freshness" of the frame. Higher frame rates mean the frame you do end up seeing was produced more recently than the last frame you actually saw
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - layer8 1y ago
    Also, your input gets registered faster (happens earlier) in the game world.
    - try_the_bass 1y ago
      I don't think I understand this part. Why does the rate at which frames are rendered (by the GPU?) relate to the speed at which input is registered? [E] Ah, I think another comment [1] up in a different branch of this thread answered this for me [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45794453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45794453
marcosdumay 1y ago
Tying the input and simulation rates to the screen refresh rate is an old "best practice" that is still used in some games. In fact, a long time ago it was even an actual good practice.
aleph_minus_one 1y ago
> Out of curiosity, why are such high fps numbers desirable? Maybe I don't understand how displays work, but how does having fps > refresh rate work? Aren't many of those frames just wasted? The reason is triple buffering: > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multiple_buffering&oldid=1316788542#Triple_buffering https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multiple_bufferin... I just quote the central relevant sentences of this section: "For frames that are completed much faster than interval between refreshes, it is possible to replace a back buffers' frames with newer iterations multiple times before copying. This means frames may be written to the back buffer that are never used at all before being overwritten by successive frames."
sznio 1y ago
If you're not using V-sync, if a new frame is rendered while the previous one wasn't fully displayed yet, it gets swapped to the fresher one half-way through. This causes ugly screen tearing, but makes the game more responsive. You won't see the whole screen update at once, but like 1/5th of it will react instantly. I used to do that until I switched to Wayland which forces vsync. It felt so unresponsive that I bought a 165hz display as a solution to that.

Out of curiosity, why are such high fps numbers desirable? Maybe I don't understand how displays work, but how does having fps > refresh rate work? Aren't many of those frames just wasted?

shric 1y ago

I think it was just to show that the performance is comparable to Windows, implying that it also will be fine for games/settings where fps is in the range that does matter.

TACIXAT 1y ago

I run a 500hz monitor. Generally, you want your FPS to match your refresh rate.

try_the_bass 1y ago
Huh, I didn't know those existed now. I think the last time I was shopping for a monitor, 144Hz was the new hotness. Things have come a long way since then!

rkoten 1y ago

Not OP but got quite a bit of experience with this playing competitive FPS for a decade. You're right that refresh rate sets the physical truth of it, e.g. 180 FPS on a 160 Hz monitor won't give you much advantage over 160 FPS if at all. However reaching full multiples of your refresh rate in FPS – 320 in this instance, 480, and so on – will, and not only in theory but you'll feel it subjectively too. I get ~500-600 FPS in counter-strike and I have my FPS capped to 480 to get the most of my current hardware (160 Hz). Getting a 240 Hz monitor would make it smoother. Upgrading the PC to get more multiples would also.

hamdingers 1y ago

If you have a 60Hz display and the game is locked to 60fps, when you take an action it may take up to 16.67 milliseconds for that action to register. If the game is running at 500fps, it registers within 2 milliseconds, even though you won't see the action for up to 16.67 milliseconds later. At extremely high levels of competition, this matters. Also, there are 540Hz displays.

gf000 1y ago
A game doesn't necessarily have to process input at the same rate as it displays frames, does it?
- nemomarx 1y ago
  It doesn't and well programmed games won't be tied to fps that way. I'm not sure anything past 300 fps plausibly matters for overwatch even with the best monitor available.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- hamdingers 1y ago
  That's correct, and the most competitive multiplayer games tend to have fixed tick rates on the server, but the higher FPS is still beneficial (again, theoretically for all but the highest level of competition) because your client side inputs are sampled more frequently and your rendered frames are at most a couple ms old.
  - adastra22 1y ago
    I think you're missing the point. The game could be processing input and doing a state update at 1000Hz, while still rendering a mere 60fps. There doesn't have to be any correlation whatsoever between frame rate and input processing. Furthermore, this would actually have less latency because there won't be a pipeline of frame buffers being worked on. Tying the input loop to the render loop is a totally arbitrary decision that the game industry is needlessly perpetuating.
    - hamdingers 1y ago
      No, I'm explaining how most games work in practice. You're right a game could be made that works that way. I'm not aware of one, but I don't have exhaustive knowledge and it wouldn't surprise me if examples exist, but that was not the question.

omnimus 1y ago

To certain extent for online games it can be advantage (atleast it feels like it to me). AFAIK The server updates state between players at some (tick) rate when you have FPS above tick rate then the game interpolates between the states. The issue is that frames and networking might not be constantly synced so you are juggling between fps, screen refresh rate, ping and tick rate. In other words more frames you have higher the chance you will "get lucky" with latency of the game.

Jhsto 1y ago

You want your minimum FPS to be your refresh rate. You won't notice when you're over it, but you likely will if you go below it. In Counter-Strike, smoke grenades used to (and still do, to an extent) dip your FPS into a slideshow. You want to ensure your opponent can't exploit these things.

cwillu 1y ago

osu (music beat-clicking game) has a built-in screen frequency a/b test, and despite running on a 60hz screen I can reliably pass that test up to 240hz. It's not just having 60 frames ready per second, it's what's in those frames.

try_the_bass 1y ago
I don't understand how this works, I guess? If your screen is 60Hz, you're drawing four frames for every one that ends up getting displayed. You won't even see the other three, right? If you can't see the frames, what difference does what's in them make? [E] Answered my own question elsewhere: the difference is the "freshness" of the frame. Higher frame rates mean the frame you do end up seeing was produced more recently than the last frame you actually saw
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- layer8 1y ago
  Also, your input gets registered faster (happens earlier) in the game world.
  - try_the_bass 1y ago
    I don't think I understand this part. Why does the rate at which frames are rendered (by the GPU?) relate to the speed at which input is registered? [E] Ah, I think another comment [1] up in a different branch of this thread answered this for me [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45794453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45794453

marcosdumay 1y ago

Tying the input and simulation rates to the screen refresh rate is an old "best practice" that is still used in some games. In fact, a long time ago it was even an actual good practice.

aleph_minus_one 1y ago

> Out of curiosity, why are such high fps numbers desirable? Maybe I don't understand how displays work, but how does having fps > refresh rate work? Aren't many of those frames just wasted? The reason is triple buffering: > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multiple_buffering&oldid=1316788542#Triple_buffering https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multiple_bufferin... I just quote the central relevant sentences of this section: "For frames that are completed much faster than interval between refreshes, it is possible to replace a back buffers' frames with newer iterations multiple times before copying. This means frames may be written to the back buffer that are never used at all before being overwritten by successive frames."

sznio 1y ago

If you're not using V-sync, if a new frame is rendered while the previous one wasn't fully displayed yet, it gets swapped to the fresher one half-way through. This causes ugly screen tearing, but makes the game more responsive. You won't see the whole screen update at once, but like 1/5th of it will react instantly. I used to do that until I switched to Wayland which forces vsync. It felt so unresponsive that I bought a 165hz display as a solution to that.