30 fps vs 60 fps

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Yotzer

Guest
can someone please explain the difference?
I see tutorials where they change it to 60 fps and they say it is smoother ,but I can't see the difference beside just a faster gameplay which is a designer preference .
if it affects the game after exportation ,why is it not the default?
please explain for foreigners and dummies .
 
I also couldn't visually see the difference for a long time. I still don't notice issues with key input on 30 fps games, but I rarely play or make games that need quick reflexes.

What I did find is that when you have fast moving objects like lasers, 60 fps makes it a lot easier to see those things smoothly because there's an extra frame in-between. This also makes it more reliable with collision checking. (Sometimes you have an issue where something moving would completely pass through another object it's supposed to collide with because it's moving so fast it completely skips that spot).
 
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Pyxus

Guest
can someone please explain the difference?
I see tutorials where they change it to 60 fps and they say it is smoother ,but I can't see the difference beside just a faster gameplay which is a designer preference .
if it affects the game after exportation ,why is it not the default?
please explain for foreigners and dummies .
Hey there, im going to explain fps as far as I understand it anyone else reading feel free to correct/inform me if I get something wrong.

So fps as you likely know stands for frames per second and a frame is a single "snapshot" of a game. In a game, or any video for that matter, nothing "really" moves instead a series of a images are shown to you fast enough for your brain to interpret it as movement. As a general rule, the lower the frame rate the more choppy the game will appear; say for instance you have a frame rate of 1 fps. This would mean the frame would update once every second, if this was the fps of a video featuring a ball rolling across the screen the ball would appear to teleport i.e look choppy.

So thats the basic concept of fps, you said you wanted a "for dummies" explanation so I wasn't sure how in depth to go, let me know if you want more detail... anyway as for the difference between 30 and 60fps. Simply put 60 fps will be the smoother of the 2 because of how often the frame update, which you find superior is purely preference. 60fps is objectively "smoother" than 30fps, but some people genuinely either cant see the difference or its just too small for them to care. However, your game does not need to run at 60fps per say, for faster games like shooter higher frame rate is ideal, but for slower platformers or puzzles 30fps is great.

Lastly you say you can't see the difference between 30 and 60fps which is perfectly understandable, but most people can see the difference between 1fps and 30fps so it should help you understand the "smoothness" a bit more.

1v7v15v30fps

-Side note your ability to see frame rate is capped off by your monitors refresh rate. 60hz is pretty standard so Ill assume you have one. This would mean your monitor cant update any faster than 60fps so you literally could not see a higher frame rate.
 

cidwel

Member
Check out this video

You will see the difference with your eyes (and that's what only matters). Remember to see the video in 60fps

Also... If you have configured your game to be in 30fps, you will notice that if you change it to 60 fps probably the game is going to be faster (and unpleasant for you). This is because you have set all the movement variables to a number that feels visually correct to you when you did your testing at 30fps. If you halve the movement speed of all your elements then you will notice that your 30fps game will be at the same speed as your new 60fps game. But the 60fps game will be smoother

If you ask me I've never understood why gamemaker sets the room speed to 30 fps by default. This could be OK for a 3d game since you get a different perception of movement in a 3d environment, but looks weird for a 2D game where you really see how all the pixels are moving through your eyes
 
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11clock

Member
I still don’t get why 30 is the default, all games should strive for 60 if they can. Twice as smooth gameplay, twice as quick input reaction. It is hard for me to play games at 30 these days, they look so choppy.

 
Y

Yotzer

Guest

so I am not sure if I really understand.
yes ,sure that in most cases more will be better but...you really don't need a chess game running at 60 fps unless it's full of hi-resolution animated pieces(what's the name for the things you move in chess?).
and a comparison between AAA tittles and 2d indies is not totally fair .
if I understand correctly higher frame rate will ask for better and more expensive/newer/advanced tech from the player and I don't entirely see why we as developers want to put the player/buyer in such situation as well as decrease our own market volume with higher minimum specs.
I am starting to lean forward the ideal of trying to make my game as low rate as possible as long as the graphics aesthetics let me and make them higher only as a personal preference in case the gameplay really demands it.
do you agree? also I was wondering : do higher framerates make my final game size bigger?
 
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JackTurbo

Member
60fps always, as a minimum. Game play benefits aside gamers are so obsessed with benchmarks that doing anything less in a commercial project is ill advised at best imho.

The extra demand on hardware really shouldn't be a concern, I would wager you're worrying about this prematurely. Fps is actually a pretty weird way to measure performance because each frame lost actually equates to exponentially more step time. For example:

Say you have a prototype running at 1000fps, your total step time is 1ms. Now imagine you had a feature that takes 0.5 ms to execute. Your fps just dropped to 666fps, that cost you over 300 fps right! - thats huge!

But what happens if you add another feature that takes 0.5ms to run? Now your total step time is 2ms, which equals 500fps, this time it only cost 166fps. So not such a huge hit now.

What if we do it again? 2.5ms = 400fps so now we only lost 100 frames. Then 3ms = 333fps, we only lost 67 fps.... and so on.
 

Rayek

Member

so I am not sure if I really understand.
yes ,sure that in most cases more will be better but...you really don't need a chess game running at 60 fps unless it's full of hi-resolution animated pieces(what's the name for the things you move in chess?).
and a comparison between AAA tittles and 2d indies is not totally fair .
if I understand correctly higher frame rate will ask for better and more expensive/newer/advanced tech from the player and I don't entirely see why we as developers want to put the player/buyer in such situation as well as decrease our own market volume with higher minimum specs.
I am starting to lean forward the ideal of trying to make my game as low rate as possible as long as the graphics aesthetics let me and make them higher only as a personal preference in case the gameplay really demands it.
do you agree?
Movement, effects, any motion will be smoother looking at 60fps. And most 2d games (unless there's a lot of game logic running in the background) should have no issues running at 60fps in general, even on lower hardware.

Also I was wondering: do higher framerates make my final game size bigger?
That depends. Regular translations (position, rotation, scaling): no. But in the above animation more frames must be drawn to create the smooth 60fps animation. It's four times as much work compared to 15fps, and four times as much memory/file size.

That is why hand-drawn animations are often done at a far lower frame rate, but the translations are done at the highest frame rate possible. But this may result in a visual clash, so you have to be careful.
 
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ethian

Guest
Ahhh, i like 60 fps because movements are too amazing for this world this i feel...

and...

That is why hand-drawn animations are often done at a far lower frame rate, but the translations are done at the highest frame rate possible. But this may result in a visual clash, so you have to be careful.
Nowadays? Old cartoons used lower frame rate, but... hmmm... i ask for myself when talking about it... How the cartoons (Animated movies) started? because of a discoverment within movie tapes?
 

Rayek

Member
Nowadays? Old cartoons used lower frame rate, but... hmmm... i ask for myself when talking about it... How the cartoons (Animated movies) started? because of a discoverment within movie tapes?
Sure: look at your average Japanese Anime show: the overall fps is 24 frames per second, but the average frame rate of character being animated is around 8 to 12 - with 12 being the higher quality standard. Animated background elements may be animated at even lower frame rates.

Classic shows in the 40s/50s were animated at 24fps throughout. The old Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Disney, etc. cartoons were very smoothly animated, but later due to costs and time constrictions, animation studios cut down the framerate a lot. With the advent of Filmation (He-man, She-Ra, etc) only the essentials were animated, and a lot of assets were recycled in production.

With computer-based 2d animation various tricks and shortcuts are used to create smoother animation: for example, 2d cut-out characters, albeit at the expense of the overall quality of the animation. It depends on the show.

Anyway, you are quite incorrect: the older cartoons generally used a far HIGHER framerate and quality compared to the 2d animation done nowadays. Only feature-length 2d animation may still be animated at a full-blown 24fps or higher. But even that is not always the case anymore. It's all down to cutting costs and time versus the 2d animation quality and the available budget.

Of course, 3d animation generally plays at a healthy 24fps or higher frame-rate, because the software calculates the inbetweens automatically. However, TV 3d animation shows cut time allowed to the animators in how far they are able to polish the actual animations. Which results in broadcast 3d animation that often looks clunky and robotic.
 

Micah_DS

Member
There are logic frames and drawn frames to consider. FPS is not all about the visual.

I know others have addressed this, but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents as well.
One of the biggest mistakes I've seen people make is to look at FPS, only acknowledging the drawn FPS, not thinking of the logical frames per second as well.
By default, these are linked in GameMaker to occur together, so 30 FPS means 30 logical frames per second and 30 drawn frames per second.


- LOGIC -

I personally like to have 60+ logical frames in most cases, just for tighter input response. I once created a 'blind FPS input response test' project which allowed me to test movement to see if there truly was a difference or if it was all in my head. When viewing the results, I was actually able to feel and discern a tighter response on 60 FPS. It's definitely on the subtle side, but it's amazing how much it impacts the game feel - it just feels better.

If your game is action-based, you'll likely want 60+ logical FPS, but with a board game or something, it'd probably be a waste, well, depending on your animation needs (i.e. since drawn FPS cannot exceed the game speed, you may need to set the logic speed higher, purely for the purpose of making your visuals smooth).


- DRAWN -

Virtually every monitor on the market today will draw at least 60 FPS. The human eye is incredible though. It can see way more than 60 FPS. Those facts seem like plenty of reason to favor at least going with 60 FPS, if not more.
But now, while it is a correct statement in the overall intended meaning when saying the human eye can see much faster than 60 FPS, it's also a faulty statement, as eyes don't work in terms of FPS. Rather than explain it myself, I'll use the work of those before me:

Another key factor in the drawing aspect is 'animation'. Based on your animation style and needs, you may or may not need to draw at 60 FPS. If you put blur in your movements, you may be able to get away with far lower FPS. If you're making a program which has almost no animated aspects, you probably don't need anywhere near 60 FPS.

One other important factor to consider is varying monitor refresh rates - it's not like we all have 60 Hz refresh rates. It can suck when you have your game run at 60 FPS which looks so nice and smooth on a 60 Hz monitor, but then someone has a 75 Hz refresh rate or something and the game just isn't smooth for them.
This is a reason why it's good to consider letting the user set the game's refresh rate, but depending on your code for movements and animation, it may require some serious reworking and perhaps the annoying implementation of delta time usage.


- THE POINT -

> Never forget to consider both logical and drawn aspects of FPS.
> Your game and what it will be played on is what ultimately determines what FPS you need. 60 FPS is not a one-size-fits-all.

I am starting to lean forward the ideal of trying to make my game as low rate as possible as long as the graphics aesthetics let me and make them higher only as a personal preference in case the gameplay really demands it.
do you agree?
I do agree. That'd be an optimized experience. Low enough to not diminish the product's intended experience, and not too high as to be wasteful, demanding higher specs for no reason.
also I was wondering : do higher framerates make my final game size bigger?
As @Rayek said, It'll only be bigger if you need to add more content to achieve the desired experience. Simply changing the framerate of a project alone won't change the size.
 

RangerX

Member
60 fps is ALWAYS better than 30 fps, in the mean that "the smoother the better". Real life moves infinitely smooth, 60 fps feels more "natural" in all contexts.
However, it might not be NEEDED for all types of games. Any side-scroller or 3D game should be 60 fps though.
 

11clock

Member
If your computer cannot handle games at 60 FPS, you need a better computer I am afraid, no way you are using one made for gaming.

Hardware these days is fully capable of handling 60 FPS. In fact the SNES could handle 60 perfectly fine. This should not be a reason to drop your game to 30 FPS. Instead, learn how to optimize your code.
 
Y

Yotzer

Guest
If your computer cannot handle games at 60 FPS, you need a better computer I am afraid, no way you are using one made for gaming.

Hardware these days is fully capable of handling 60 FPS. In fact the SNES could handle 60 perfectly fine. This should not be a reason to drop your game to 30 FPS. Instead, learn how to optimize your code.
mmm...
making games only for gamers ? that narrows the community to stay small. don't you think?
sure,now it's bigger than ever but it's only the beginning in fact of what can be much more bigger community.
just the other day gms2 got spanished and let me tell you that this region/culture is not near to what we know as tech nowadays.
not only that most of them don't have internet YET,they (many of them) can't dream of some hardware that we just throw because we buy a better one .
and this market is big,or at least is going to be. i wan't to make game for them too. am i wrong?
 
A

Agreeable

Guest
I'd go further than this and say vSync at room_speed = 9999.

People who fork out for 144hz monitors will get 144 FPS with no tearing. 60hz will get 60 FPS, 75hz will get 75 FPS. Everyone is a winner. :)
 
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Wraithious

Guest
I use 30 fps on almost all my games, I really find no need to use 60 fps except for my Android versions, mainly because they run in slow motrion on Android compared to how the same 30fps setting works on windows, but also I noticed this change in the more recent (1 year ago) updates to gamemaker. but the thing is, the human eye can see up to 20fps max, and anyone who can press a button 30 times a second is pretty manly if you ask me, but more than that up to 60 times per second? I don't believe that sorry. make a little project that counts button presses per second and let me know if you can really exceed 30 clicks/second. I can only see going with 60 fps if your character has over 30 frames per 1 animation cycle, I'm talking about, lets take a character walking for example, left foot down to right foot down and back to the frame before left foot down again. The video @cidwel posted does show a slight gain using 60 fps, but if you stare at the character's right leg you can see 4 or 5 of the character's feet coming down due to how the human eye 'shutters' the image, in the 30fps you can see 3, and interestingly the 15fps you only see 1. And in that video he states that there's 4 times as much processing being done to render at that rate, totally needless considering the first 2 things I mentioned at the beginning of my reply, but I'll state them again to avoid 'confusion' : "The human eye can see up to 20fps max, and anyone who can press a button 30 times a second is pretty manly"
 

RangerX

Member
Wraithious, at least don't go spreading false information. Our eyes don't see in "frames". Our retina sends a constant streaming of data to the brain, not frames. We perceive lighting changes, nothing else. In very high contrast situations, you can even see stuff like ONE black frame in a 1000 fps entirely white video. In general and normal circumstances though, people generally start to see something as smooth with 24 fps + blur. Which corresponds to movies. Then most people definetely think 30fps is smooth. Now most people won't even have the needed focus or vision quality to feel a difference over 60 fps. Its seems to be the same the natural sweetspot between the way our eyes function and frame displays for like 99.9% of people on this Earth. This renders anything over 60 fps quite futile and useless. But reaching 60 fps is good. Its always better than not to. However, it would be a lie to say its always needed. Games that aren't 3D and without any scrolling of the whole screen sure don't need it. (candy crush).

And for the controls, you also get it wrong. Nobody can press a button 30 times a second and that's not what FPS is for. Its all about the game responding as fast as possible to the player's commands. When you decide to move your body, the reaction is instant. That's what your brain and perception is used to. When a videogame takes some milliseconds to react, you can feel it. You might not CARE to notice it though. This is why 30fps will probably be fine for most people in most types of games. Although, for high speed games where the player is reactive, for racing, for precise platforming, for fighting games, etc. your game will respond/feel better at 60fps. And believe or not, many players will actually notice it.

EDIT:
The studies up there even suggest the sweet spot is up to 250 fps!! LOL
 
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Agreeable

Guest
Racing games are much more responsive at a higher frame rate also.

Take a car travelling at 300 Km/h.

At 20 FPS you get sluggish input travelling at 4 Metres per frame, before the computer knows what it is you want to do.

At 60 FPS this comes down to a poll of 1.4 Metres per frame.

Crank this up on a gamers rig and input gets polled at ever half metre travelled (assuming 144hz).
 

Micah_DS

Member
I'd go further than this and say vSync at room_speed = 9999.

People who fork out for 144hz monitors will get 144 FPS with no tearing. 60hz will get 60 FPS, 75hz will get 75 FPS. Everyone is a winner. :)
That should work, but only if all movement and animation work via the formula "speed / refresh rate", or via the use of delta time, for more consistent accuracy (unless it's used wrong, then you get all kinds of weird inaccuracies and broken logic).
If you go straight up something like "x += 1" on an object each step, the game will move that object faster, the higher the refresh rate is set, because the steps per second will match the refresh rate.
(Just to be double sure, I just tested this on GMS2)
 
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Wraithious

Guest
Rubbish.

Human eyes can detect changes all the way up to 1/250 of a second (i.e. 250 FPS).

https://www.pcgamer.com/how-many-frames-per-second-can-the-human-eye-really-see/
Wraithious, at least don't go spreading false information. Our eyes don't see in "frames". Our retina sends a constant streaming of data to the brain, not frames. We perceive lighting changes, nothing else. In very high contrast situations, you can even see stuff like ONE black frame in a 1000 fps entirely white video. In general and normal circumstances though, people generally start to see something as smooth with 24 fps + blur. Which corresponds to movies. Then most people definetely think 30fps is smooth. Now most people won't even have to needed focus or vision quality to feel a difference over 60 fps. Its seems to be the same the natural sweetspot between the way our eyes function and frame displays for like 99.9% of people on this Earth. This renders anything over 60 fps quite futile and useless. But reaching 60 fps is good. Its always better than not to. However, it would be a lie to say its always needed. Games that aren't 3D and without any scrolling of the whole screen sure don't need it. (candy crush).

And for the controls, you also get it wrong. Nobody can press a button 30 times a second and that's not what FPS is for. Its all about the game responding as fast as possible to the player's commands. When you decide to move your body, the reaction is instant. That's what your brain and perception is used to. When a videogame takes some milliseconds to react, you can feel like. You might not CARE to notice it though. This is why 30fps will probably be fine for most people in most types of games. Although, for high speed games where the player is reactive, for racing, for precise platforming, for fighting games, etc. your game will respond/feel better at 60fps. And believe or not, many players will actually notice it.

EDIT:
The studies up there even suggest the sweet spot is up to 250 fps!! LOL
Nope inncorrect, most movies you see in theater or tv are shot at 24fps, and video games using over 30 fps are allmost indistinguishable from 60 fps subconciously yes, your brain gets signals to a high rate of about 250, BUT conciously no, you DO NOT see like that, also as stated in my link anything above 120 can cause problems such as headaches
 
A

Agreeable

Guest
They were shot at 24fps out of necessity. In the old days cost and technology were prohibitive. They didn't shoot at 24 frames because the human was incapable of seeing any higher.



Not seeing any difference here?
 
A

Agreeable

Guest
also as stated in my link anything above 120 can cause problems such as headaches
The article didn't say that at all.

It stated this;

It is possible, however, that such signals reach the brain through various other means (blindsight or miscellaneous projections to non-visual areas). Indeed, the 120 Hz flicker of older fluorescent lights has been found to cause cognitive deficits and headaches (Veitch and McColl 1995).
Ever seen a flickering light before? Annoying as hell. This article is stating that headaches can be induced even up to 120 Hz. Not that headaches start to occur at 120 hz.

How do we see a flickering light if it's duty cycle is 60 Hz? (i.e. On and off 30 times a second) The eye can't perceive this right?
 
W

Wraithious

Guest
The article didn't say that at all.

It stated this;



Ever seen a flickering light before? Annoying as hell. This article is stating that headaches can be induced even up to 120 Hz. Not that headaches start to occur at 120 hz.

How do we see a flickering light if it's duty cycle is 60 Hz? (i.e. On and off 30 times a second) The eye can't perceive this right?
You either read that wrong, or they improperly worded what they said, the only time you can see a florescent light flicker is when it, or it's ballast are worn out and it cycles less than 20 times per second, here is a better link on that phenomena. and here's a quote from it:
Code:
Can you actually see lights flicker?
It depends on the frequency of the flicker. People can see lights flashing on and off up to about 50 flashes per second (50 Hz) - they are most sensitive to time-varying illumination in the 10-25 Hz range. The actual critical flicker frequency increases as the light intensity increases up to a maximum value, after which it starts to decrease. When a light is flickering at a frequency greater than 50 or so Hertz, most people can no longer distinguish between the individual flickers. At this frequency - the critical flicker frequency or flicker fusion threshold - the flashes appear to fuse into a steady, continuous source of light. This happens because the response to the light stimulus lasts longer than the flash itself.

Most people cannot notice the flicker in fluorescent lights that have a flicker rate of 120 cycles per second (or 120 Hz).

The light flicker may be detected by its stroboscopic effect. When objects move or rotate rapidly, they may be lit at or about the same position during each cycle or rotation. This makes objects look as if they are moving more slowly than their actual speeds - they may even appear stationary if the object is moving at the same rate as the flicker frequency (or a multiple of it). This fact is the principle behind a strobe light but it is not the desired effect in general lighting. In fact, it could be a safety hazard if someone mistakenly thought that some equipment was stationary or was moving slowly.


Are there any health effects associated with light flicker?
Although humans cannot see fluorescent lights flicker, the sensory system in some individuals can somehow detect the flicker. Ever since fluorescent lighting was introduced in workplaces, there have been complaints about headaches, eye strain and general eye discomfort. These complaints have been associated with the light flicker from fluorescent lights. When compared to regular fluorescent lights with magnetic ballasts, the use of high frequency electronic ballasts (20,000 Hz or higher) in fluorescent lights resulted in more than a 50% drop in complaints of eye strain and headaches. There tended to be fewer complaints of headaches among workers on higher floors compared to those closer to ground level; that is, workers exposed to more natural light experienced fewer health effects. [ Fluorescent lighting, headaches and eye-strain. A. J. Wilkins, I. Nimmo-Smith, I., A. Slater & L. Bedocs. Lighting Research and Technology, 1989. Vol. 21, 11-18]
And as far as the picture you posted, that's misleading because they are all moving up and down at the same speed, not relative to their fps, the one on the left should be moving 1/4 of the speed as it is, the one in the middle should be moving at 1/2 the speed, if they are to be compared to the one on the right, there is no animation there, just boxes moving up and down and made to move at the same speed with different fps'
 

cidwel

Member
also as stated in my link anything above 120 can cause problems such as headaches
This feels really weird for me. I mean. You go to a river and see the water flowing. How many FPS will that be? :p I really doubt we can get headaches for getting more information than the brain can detect, but for the contrast of the information the brain has to differenciate. It is not the same to see a light become red and green
alternatively at 120 fps than seeing a bunch of color data being changed in cohesion at high speed (gradient, light intensity...)
 
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Yotzer

Guest
They were shot at 24fps out of necessity. In the old days cost and technology were prohibitive. They didn't shoot at 24 frames because the human was incapable of seeing any higher.



Not seeing any difference here?
good example.thanks.
:)
 
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11clock

Member
mmm...
making games only for gamers ? that narrows the community to stay small. don't you think?
sure,now it's bigger than ever but it's only the beginning in fact of what can be much more bigger community.
just the other day gms2 got spanished and let me tell you that this region/culture is not near to what we know as tech nowadays.
not only that most of them don't have internet YET,they (many of them) can't dream of some hardware that we just throw because we buy a better one .
and this market is big,or at least is going to be. i wan't to make game for them too. am i wrong?
You seem to be misunderstanding what I was saying. I was not saying to make games only for gamers at all. Also I pointed out that the SNES, which is weak as f* by today’s standards, had plenty of games at 60 FPS.

You either read that wrong, or they improperly worded what they said, the only time you can see a florescent light flicker is when it, or it's ballast are worn out and it cycles less than 20 times per second, here is a better link on that phenomena. and here's a quote from it:
Code:
Can you actually see lights flicker?
It depends on the frequency of the flicker. People can see lights flashing on and off up to about 50 flashes per second (50 Hz) - they are most sensitive to time-varying illumination in the 10-25 Hz range. The actual critical flicker frequency increases as the light intensity increases up to a maximum value, after which it starts to decrease. When a light is flickering at a frequency greater than 50 or so Hertz, most people can no longer distinguish between the individual flickers. At this frequency - the critical flicker frequency or flicker fusion threshold - the flashes appear to fuse into a steady, continuous source of light. This happens because the response to the light stimulus lasts longer than the flash itself.

Most people cannot notice the flicker in fluorescent lights that have a flicker rate of 120 cycles per second (or 120 Hz).

The light flicker may be detected by its stroboscopic effect. When objects move or rotate rapidly, they may be lit at or about the same position during each cycle or rotation. This makes objects look as if they are moving more slowly than their actual speeds - they may even appear stationary if the object is moving at the same rate as the flicker frequency (or a multiple of it). This fact is the principle behind a strobe light but it is not the desired effect in general lighting. In fact, it could be a safety hazard if someone mistakenly thought that some equipment was stationary or was moving slowly.


Are there any health effects associated with light flicker?
Although humans cannot see fluorescent lights flicker, the sensory system in some individuals can somehow detect the flicker. Ever since fluorescent lighting was introduced in workplaces, there have been complaints about headaches, eye strain and general eye discomfort. These complaints have been associated with the light flicker from fluorescent lights. When compared to regular fluorescent lights with magnetic ballasts, the use of high frequency electronic ballasts (20,000 Hz or higher) in fluorescent lights resulted in more than a 50% drop in complaints of eye strain and headaches. There tended to be fewer complaints of headaches among workers on higher floors compared to those closer to ground level; that is, workers exposed to more natural light experienced fewer health effects. [ Fluorescent lighting, headaches and eye-strain. A. J. Wilkins, I. Nimmo-Smith, I., A. Slater & L. Bedocs. Lighting Research and Technology, 1989. Vol. 21, 11-18]
And as far as the picture you posted, that's misleading because they are all moving up and down at the same speed, not relative to their fps, the one on the left should be moving 1/4 of the speed as it is, the one in the middle should be moving at 1/2 the speed, if they are to be compared to the one on the right, there is no animation there, just boxes moving up and down and made to move at the same speed with different fps'
How the is that misleading? Having them move the same speed regardless of FPS is all the more proof that 60 is better than 30. You can very clearly see that the rightmost block is extremely smooth. Are you suggesting that if we see at a lower FPS in reality, that everything would just halve in speed? Not how it works. Not only this but it improves gameplay because it nearly halves input latency.
 
Y

Yotzer

Guest
You seem to be misunderstanding what I was saying. I was not saying to make games only for gamers at all. Also I pointed out that the SNES, which is weak as f* by today’s standards, had plenty of games at 60 FPS.



How the is that misleading? Having them move the same speed regardless of FPS is all the more proof that 60 is better than 30. You can very clearly see that the rightmost block is extremely smooth. Are you suggesting that if we see at a lower FPS in reality, that everything would just halve in speed? Not how it works. Not only this but it improves gameplay because it nearly halves input latency.
i did understand you,very well in fact ,but you misunderstood me and it's my fault. "making games only for gamer was only about that :
If your computer cannot handle games at 60 FPS, you need a better computer I am afraid, no way you are using one made for gaming.
And about the 60 fps as an image you are right and even a SNES could handle (do not forget that it was graphic dedicated and with simple programs to run in comparison to nowadays) because the real sub-debate was not if visually the hardware was capable but if it is really necessary and how will the software perform better for giving the best user experience in our games .
 
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tafkatfos

Guest
60fps offers smoother gameplay but some games are fine with 30fps. Plus less frames means you can add more effects.
 
G

Guest User

Guest
eh, i get sick at 60+fps so i generally have to limit the framerate.
a lot of games go about including a slider (from ~'24' to 'unlimited') to limit how many frames are actually drawn to the screen. outside of Gamemaker, i've never noticed framerate to determine how fast the game actually plays tho.

i'm not so sure whether it actually saves on performance much, but i suppose it might be worth looking into if you want to remain flexible.
 
A

Agreeable

Guest
And as far as the picture you posted, that's misleading because they are all moving up and down at the same speed, not relative to their fps, the one on the left should be moving 1/4 of the speed as it is, the one in the middle should be moving at 1/2 the speed, if they are to be compared to the one on the right, there is no animation there, just boxes moving up and down and made to move at the same speed with different fps'
How is this misleading? They should be moving at the same speed. What FPS does a white block have? o_O

FPS and how fast something moves on the screen are not related. If they are, you have a bug.


Another example that I have made myself illustrating the difference on FPS, directly from GameMaker Studio 2.



If you still insist you can't see a difference, I'll have to bow out and assume you are just trolling.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
W

Wraithious

Guest
How is this misleading? They should be moving at the same speed. What FPS does a white block have? o_O


Ok @Wraithious. Instead of using a crappy picture from the internet I baked my own, directly from GameMaker Studio 2.



If you still insist you can't see a difference, I'll have to bow out and assume you are just trolling.
Yes I definatly see the difference there and in the other example you posted, and no I'm definatly not trolling, I have to ask, how did you make that example? In the image itself are there more than 1 total sub images that start the block at the bottom and end the block at the top of the image? Or are you just drawing 1 block that moves up and down and adjust their speed to look the same when they're side by side in your posted image? And in each image, if theres more than 1 sub image, are there the same number of subimages in each block? Id like to recreate it and test it for myself the same way you did it is what Im getting at. Im saying this because Ive never noticed any significant difference like you've shown between 30 and 60 fps in my games, and any choppiness in my sprites is due to only having 4 sub images per direction of a walking animation. If I use 16 per direction there is none, but makes the resource size of the game go up by a factor of 4, and with 100+ monsters it makes a big difference.
 
A

Agreeable

Guest
You won't notice it so much for animations. I often use 15 FPS for animations. But I will always use 60 FPS as a baseline as side to side (or up and down) movement makes it pretty obvious, to me anyway.

Here is the code I used. Not pretty, as it is a quick throw together to illustrate the problem.


Code:
/// Create event
// Window dimensions 300 x 400

x1 = window_get_width() / 4;
y1 = window_get_height() - 32;
x2 = window_get_width() / 2;
y2 = window_get_height() - 32;
x3 = window_get_width() / 4 * 3;
y3 = window_get_height() - 32;

room_speed = 60;
display_reset(0, true);

timer = 0;
num = 0;



/// Draw event
draw_sprite(block, -1, x3, y1);
draw_sprite(block, -1, x2, y2);
draw_sprite(block, -1, x1, y3);

y1 = y1 - 5;
if (timer == 0)
    y3 = y3 - 15;
if (timer == 0 || timer == 1)
    y2 = y2 - 7.5;

timer ++;

if(timer == 3)
    timer = 0;
   
if(y1 <= 96)
{
    timer = 0;
    x1 = window_get_width() / 4 * 1;
    y1 = window_get_height() - 32;

    x2 = window_get_width() / 2;
    y2 = window_get_height() - 32;

    x3 = window_get_width() / 4 * 3;
    y3 = window_get_height() - 32;
}

draw_text(20,window_get_height()-20, "15 vs 30 vs 60 FPS");

//screen_save("Screen_" + string(num++) + ".png");
 

zbox

Member
GMC Elder
Wraithious I'm not exactly sure what your argument is... it started off as "You can't determine the difference between 30 and 60fps" and then was reduced back to "well I don't need it so that's why you can't tell the difference."

I mean... you clearly can see the difference just look at all the animations and gifs people posted. I really can't play most types of games at anything under 60, makes you a bit motion sick because of the jankiness. Animations aren't 1:1 with the game movement, and comparing them is false equivalency. To make your comparison true, you would only be allowed to move your character on ANIMATION frame change, which would look awful but that doesn't happen because you move the character in between game frames, not just animation frames. So you can't make the direct comparison like that.

Movies get away with 24fps because of motionblur.
 
A

Agreeable

Guest
Movies get away with 24fps because of motionblur.
And to add to this. Some people do use motion blur to mask the issue in the first place. And that's all it is - a technique to attempt to mask the stutter.
 
W

Wraithious

Guest
This feels really weird for me. I mean. You go to a river and see the water flowing. How many FPS will that be? :p I really doubt we can get headaches for getting more information than the brain can detect, but for the contrast of the information the brain has to differenciate. It is not the same to see a light become red and green
alternatively at 120 fps than seeing a bunch of color data being changed in cohesion at high speed (gradient, light intensity...)
You have a great point there, I think the difference is the flashing of a bright light, then the absence of that light before the next flash of light, it is most likely an intensity thing, which is most likely why people with epilepsy are intolerant to any of that but can still play a video game as long as there's no intensive flashing going on there.

You won't notice it so much for animations. I often use 15 FPS for animations. But I will always use 60 FPS as a baseline as side to side (or up and down) movement makes it pretty obvious, to me anyway.

Here is the code I used. Not pretty, as it is a quick throw together to illustrate the problem.


Code:
/// Create event
// Window dimensions 300 x 400

x1 = window_get_width() / 4;
y1 = window_get_height() - 32;
x2 = window_get_width() / 2;
y2 = window_get_height() - 32;
x3 = window_get_width() / 4 * 3;
y3 = window_get_height() - 32;

room_speed = 60;
display_reset(0, true);

timer = 0;
num = 0;



/// Draw event
draw_sprite(block, -1, x3, y1);
draw_sprite(block, -1, x2, y2);
draw_sprite(block, -1, x1, y3);

y1 = y1 - 5;
if (timer == 0)
    y3 = y3 - 15;
if (timer == 0 || timer == 1)
    y2 = y2 - 7.5;

timer ++;

if(timer == 3)
    timer = 0;
 
if(y1 <= 96)
{
    timer = 0;
    x1 = window_get_width() / 4 * 1;
    y1 = window_get_height() - 32;

    x2 = window_get_width() / 2;
    y2 = window_get_height() - 32;

    x3 = window_get_width() / 4 * 3;
    y3 = window_get_height() - 32;
}

draw_text(20,window_get_height()-20, "15 vs 30 vs 60 FPS");

//screen_save("Screen_" + string(num++) + ".png");
Thanks I'll check that out, it seems I'm neglecting one of the 2 separate things in this discussion, animation speed and movement speed. but they both are very relevant to this topic, I've been more focused on the animation speed only and you guys have convinced me that movement of an object is definitely noticeable between 30 and 60 fps, as far as animation speed I've allways been taught that humans can't consciously perceive more than 20 fps per second, but I have known there are certain times when you can, if you've ever been in an accident or life or death situation (I have been in both more than once) you know that time seems to slow to an absolute crawl, you see everything down to 83 milliseconds at a time. Someone here posted that hard core gamers are more subcessable to seeing 'faster' than others and that makes sense because I've also read that your brain has over 5 different 'clocks' it uses, and in the lod sentence above that makes perfect sense as to why and how these clocks can be re-routed in our brains when need be.

Wraithious I'm not exactly sure what your argument is... it started off as "You can't determine the difference between 30 and 60fps" and then was reduced back to "well I don't need it so that's why you can't tell the difference."
?? I didn't say that... or if you thought I did I meant I can't see any difference in my games between 30 and 60 fps so I use 30. The only difference I saw in my games between 30 and 60 fps was on the programming side, such as having to half my alarms, animation speed and movement codes so my game wouldn't play and animate at twice the speed as the 30 fps setting.
 

zbox

Member
GMC Elder
Perhaps I misread a combination of things then - Everyone should be just setting their room speed to uncapped and incorporating delta time if you are making anything even marginally more sophisticated than a hobby game.
 
W

Wraithious

Guest
@Agreeable Ok I see what you have done in that example, and I have modified your code to show you the point I'm trying to get accross, in my example I'm actually changing the room speed and nothing else, have a look and you will see virtually no difference above 30 fps, and that 15 fps is definatly choppy.
Code:
/// Create event
// Window dimensions 300 x 400
// Block is size 32x32 with 15 animated frames
///create
x1 = window_get_width() * 0.2;
y1 = window_get_height() - 32;
x2 = window_get_width() * 0.4;
y2 = window_get_height() - 32;
x3 = window_get_width() * 0.6;
y3 = window_get_height() - 32;
x4 = window_get_width() * 0.8;
y4 = window_get_height() - 32;

rmSpeed=0;

room_speed = 15;
display_reset(0, true);


///Step

if rmSpeed=0 y1 = y1 - 5;
if rmSpeed=1 y2 = y2 - 5;
if rmSpeed=2 y3 = y3 - 5;
if rmSpeed=3 y4 = y4 - 5;
  
if(y1 <= 96 || y2 <= 96 || y3 <= 96 || y4 <= 96)
{
    rmSpeed+=1;if rmSpeed>3 rmSpeed=0;
    
    room_speed=15+(15*rmSpeed);

    x1 = window_get_width() * 0.2;
    y1 = window_get_height() - 32;

    x2 = window_get_width() * 0.4;
    y2 = window_get_height() - 32;

    x3 = window_get_width() * 0.6;
    y3 = window_get_height() - 32;
    
    x4 = window_get_width() * 0.8;
    y4 = window_get_height() - 32;
}


/// Draw event
draw_sprite(block, -1, x1, y1);
draw_sprite(block, -1, x2, y2);
draw_sprite(block, -1, x3, y3);
draw_sprite(block, -1, x4, y4);

draw_text(35,20, "15 vs 30 vs 45 vs 60 FPS#      Room speed: "+string(room_speed));
 
A

Agreeable

Guest
@Agreeable Ok I see what you have done in that example, and I have modified your code to show you the point I'm trying to get accross, in my example I'm actually changing the room speed and nothing else, have a look and you will see virtually no difference above 30 fps, and that 15 fps is definatly choppy.
Code:
/// Create event
// Window dimensions 300 x 400
// Block is size 32x32 with 15 animated frames
///create
x1 = window_get_width() * 0.2;
y1 = window_get_height() - 32;
x2 = window_get_width() * 0.4;
y2 = window_get_height() - 32;
x3 = window_get_width() * 0.6;
y3 = window_get_height() - 32;
x4 = window_get_width() * 0.8;
y4 = window_get_height() - 32;

rmSpeed=0;

room_speed = 15;
display_reset(0, true);


///Step

if rmSpeed=0 y1 = y1 - 5;
if rmSpeed=1 y2 = y2 - 5;
if rmSpeed=2 y3 = y3 - 5;
if rmSpeed=3 y4 = y4 - 5;
 
if(y1 <= 96 || y2 <= 96 || y3 <= 96 || y4 <= 96)
{
    rmSpeed+=1;if rmSpeed>3 rmSpeed=0;
  
    room_speed=15+(15*rmSpeed);

    x1 = window_get_width() * 0.2;
    y1 = window_get_height() - 32;

    x2 = window_get_width() * 0.4;
    y2 = window_get_height() - 32;

    x3 = window_get_width() * 0.6;
    y3 = window_get_height() - 32;
  
    x4 = window_get_width() * 0.8;
    y4 = window_get_height() - 32;
}


/// Draw event
draw_sprite(block, -1, x1, y1);
draw_sprite(block, -1, x2, y2);
draw_sprite(block, -1, x3, y3);
draw_sprite(block, -1, x4, y4);

draw_text(35,20, "15 vs 30 vs 45 vs 60 FPS#      Room speed: "+string(room_speed));
I can see a huge difference between each block. Each getting progressively smoother. The last, by far the smoothest.

If you think I am joking, change the order of the blocks yourself to something random, upload an executable to dropbox and I'll tell you which one goes from smoothest to choppiest.
 
W

Wraithious

Guest
@Agreeable Ok I have uploaded it to dropbox, when you post your answer I'll post the cheat code so you don't think I'm making anything up, I did make the block image as 1 image tho because it would be super easy to guess by the speed the blocks changed face colors faster/slower due to room speed.

-actually you could still tell by their movement speed :(
But you know what I did notice? 45 fps does look choppier than 30 and 60 fps, maybe because it's a weird fps number??
 
W

Wraithious

Guest
30, 60, 15 45
haha yep you are right, and the cheat code is press U to toggle showing fps.

Idk, I see a very slight difference in fps 45, but not 30 and 60, (definatly a huge choppiness in 15fps) maybe it's just me i really don't know :(
 
A

Agreeable

Guest
Just saw your edit. I thought you added varying move speed to see if you could confuse me, so I actually didn't take that into account.

Nice! I got it :)

Yeah, I can definitely spot a 30 FPS game over a 60 FPS one any day.
 
Here is a nice comparison how Tom & Jerry "devolved" in terms of animation quality:

Using Flash animation? Flash is the program, isn't vector art the actual form of art?

Back on topic. I always do 60 fps because I hear Youtubers complain when something isn't 60 fps. Just make sure the longer processes aren't going off each and every frame or it creates a burden.

Its the drop in fps that people take note of, so I can understand games with lots of effects, explosions and complex CPU cycles to be in 30 fps to keep the frame rate from dropping. Especially on lesser systems.
 

Dr. Wolf

Member
Use whatever is more appropriate for your game. Don't look for a dogmatic, one-size-fits-all answer.

Most people can see the difference between 30 fps and 60 fps, and prefer the appearance of 60 fps. On the other hand, even in genres where smooth motion matters most (i.e. fast-paced action games), there have been tons of games locked to 30 over the years, especially on console, and people survived. Heck, in the old days, you sometimes saw games go even lower. Freeware classic Hell Fighter (1989+) runs at 12.8 fps, for example, and, while it's not going to win any art awards, it's playable. Starcraft map triggers ran at 11.9 cycles per second and, if you knew the tricks to get units facing the right way, you could animate things like turning animations with 'em by swapping between different units for your "frames", as well as camera and unit movement. Having everything done 100% through 11.9 fps triggers like that (bypassing the built-in animations and movement) didn't look good, but it worked well enough that turning actually looked like turning and movement actually looked like movement. In other words, it was serviceable.

So yeah, 60 fps looks and feels noticeably better than 30 fps to most people, but there's actually a surprising amount of leeway below 60, and even below 30, where a wide variety of games can remain playable if your design calls for you to prioritize something else.
 

Distronaut

Member
As people have mentioned above, I would never make an action or other fast-paced type game running anything below 60fps. It's not so much about the visual refresh rate, it's more about the 'feel' of game play changing to become more responsive the higher the fps.

Currently I employ a frame skip option so anyone with performance issues can 'limit' the fps to 30 instead. How this works is by switching off the draw event completely on every other step. I have found this increases performance dramatically on laptops and lesser GPUs.
 
G

Guest User

Guest
Using Flash animation? Flash is the program, isn't vector art the actual form of art?
sometimes "flash animation" refers to just about any 2D digital animation in the same way that "photoshopped" & "photoshopping" is used to describe any image editing, regardless of what program actually used to edit it. might be the case here, idk.
 
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