WAS: Open Source 3D Games

[Justin Dugger]

A couple of notes here reguarding FPS. A higher average FPS usually
means a higher minimum fps.  But most people would far rather control
for themselves the options that trade quality for render speed.  As an
example, in Battlefield 2 (BF2), one can set a draw distance. Lowering
it will cut down the number of polys the engine needs to handle, but
it also cuts visibility.  The difference between 60 and 100 FPS is
generally the difference between waiting for vblank or not.  The extra
oomph increases slack time, so you miss fewer deadlines to draw on the
screen.  Otherwise, you get "tearing", where the upper half-ish region
of the screen is drawn from one point in time, and the rest of the
screen is drawn from the newer time frame. This is easily noticable
when you look left or right, or up or down.

I shouldn't need to mention that the difference between 30 and 60 is
great. I get BF2 to run at about 43 fps average and its noticable,
especially during dust particle intensive artillery strikes.  But some
do cap the performance at 60. I think the original halflife did so
with a variable called maxfps.

Developers have attempted a few scaling mechanisms, but it generally
doesn't work out well for them.  I can't remember the game they were
considering this for, but one of the iD or former iD members was
considering a dynamic poly culling system that would reduce the number
of polys in a model based on performance and size on screen.  I don't
think it went well for them.

Justin Dugger

On 8/14/05, Jon Pruente <jdpruente at gmail.com> wrote:
> Does having a frame rate faster than you can see really help the
> gameplay?  I'd be inclined to think that by freeing up some CPU time
> the system would be more responsive to input and thus feel faster.
> How different is 100fps vs. 60fps?  I've read the fps speed claims
> before, but not having personal experience, I dunno if it is really
> any better if your brain can't comprehend all those extra frames.
> I've been thinking lately that gamers are approaching the drag race
> effect:  They get going so fast that they go by muscle memory and luck
> more than critical evaluation.  I know there is some strategy to the
> actual game, but how many times do I watch people play and it's point
> the gun and spray a dozen shots instead of squeeze off one or two.