GML Looking for a smooth framerate

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Jhamil92

Guest
Hi, I am looking for a fresh framerate for my game, when I started the project I recall things looking good, now that I put in some enemies in and added a sweet camera, everything is a bit choppy when I move my character who has an hsp clamp of 7 and the game runs at 60fps, any ideas? Thank you very much.....also my resolution is clean.
-Joel
 
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AnotherHero

Member
60fps should be pretty smooth. Where did you set the game's framerate? In what way is it choppy, are you able to upload a gif or video?
 
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Jhamil92

Guest
I did it in the game options window, tried to upload video but the files are unsupported :(. It just seems like the objects I am walking by do not keep up with the view to look like 60 fps.
 

AnotherHero

Member
I did it in the game options window, tried to upload video but the files are unsupported :(
streamable.com is a great, lightweight alternative to youtube for this kind of stuff :)

In the meantime, at the very beginning of your game, try adding
GML:
game_set_speed(60, gamespeed_fps);
Edit: also, I don't know if it would make a difference, but make sure your room_speed is set to 60 as well. Note that room_speed =/= framerate, but the number of steps per second the games runs at.
 
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Jhamil92

Guest
I doubt it's a frame rate issue or else the game would just be running more slowly, rather then choppily. What do you mean by objects not keeping up with the view as you walk by?
well the objects are stationary but once I get up to speed they become blurry for my eyes to keep up with, I just know it’s not as good as it could be and I’m not running anything ridiculous, I’m only going 7 hsp
thank you guys btw
 
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Jhamil92

Guest
hmm well that would be uncool, is there a way to know for sure that is the monitor?
 
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Jhamil92

Guest
ok, It is a tiny bit blurry. Thank you guys all for your help honestly, okay. Now does anybody have any good monitor recommendations?
 
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Jhamil92

Guest
Its just weird bc I watch 60fps videos all the time on here and they look so good, maybe I'm just a noob really lmao and Idk much about all this stuff Kind off haha
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
I've dealt with a similar case in the past where the core issue turned out to be something entirely different, so while the UFO test looking blurry to you does indicate that the monitor isn't exactly top of the line, there may very well be another underlying issue.

To make sure, take a screenshot of your game when it looks blurry to you. Does the screenshot look blurry? Feel free to upload the screenshot here so we can take a look at it, too, as the root cause may be something entirely different that's not even "blur" to begin with.
 
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Jhamil92

Guest
this was taken during the "blur" but is pixel perfect? Monitor for sure? :( dang I'm broke rn too haha!!
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
I wouldn't call this pixel perfect:


This isn't your monitor's fault, that's an issue with your game's setup. Take a look at the topic I linked before, as it contains the solution for this issue.
There's no blur to be found far and wide in there, though, so that part is unfortunately on your monitor (and eyes) for sure.


While I'm not experienced with eye replacements, I can provide a general guideline for what to look out for when buying monitors.

The main difference is the panel type. The current common types are IPS, TN and VA.

IPS panels excel at color accuracy (looks "better", or more specifically, more like how it's supposed to look, which can vaguely be described as "better").
TN panels have the best response times (less blurry).
VA panels are somewhat of a mix of the above two.

For the least amount of blur, you'd want to get a TN panel monitor.

Next up are refresh rates. 60 FPS is somewhat of a standard here, although higher refresh rate monitors are getting more and more available. Without getting too much into detail: While what's running on your PC won't necessarily achieve more than a set amount of FPS, a higher refresh rate monitor will, on average, look smoother - or in other words, not as blurry. High refresh rate monitors tend to be a fair bit more expensive than lower refresh rate ones, though.


I suggest looking up your monitor's model and to check what kind of panel it has... if you have an IPS panel, that's great for creative work or watching movies (everything there is already blurred due to compression and the cameras' motion blur anyway!), but probably not the best for gaming as they tend to have worse response times and therefore are more prone to blurring. Fortunately, TN panels, which tend to be best suited for gaming, happen to be the cheapest out of all three types I mentioned (they are the cheapest to produce).
 
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Jhamil92

Guest
Wow lots of very useful and interesting information, I’m gonna look into it when I get home, thank you so much, I am very grateful for these responses. Lmao I have a lot to learn!!!
 

Japster

Member
Hi @Jhamil92 - I'm not sure if this is an actual issue either, but I've found in the past, that choosing the wrong 'step' (normal, beginning or end) to move/sync stuff on screen made really bad shuffling or lagging effects appear - the veterans will probably explain it better, but I'm guessing stuff draws, I move other stuff, and that then draws too early/late (given it's DRAW choice), but ultimately out of synch as a result? - and if I'm scrolling at the same time, stuff could be between true X axis pixel values?

Also,if you're scrolling or moving your camera at sub-pixel values (1.3, 2.5, etc) this can make scrolling seem jerky...

My current WIP game (Icarus) is a fast sideways shoot-em-up, and when I dropped the scroll speed to 1/2 pixel / frame, it was REALLY bad... juddering along - even flooring up the pixel increments and moving say, every other frame as a result, looked bad!- I have to pick 1 pixel per frame as my minimum speed in the end - I think the only way for me to do 1/2 of that is to double all gfx / camera scale etc, and then move 1 pixel as before, with that 1 pixel now being effectively 1/2 of the new pixel space....

@Pixelated_Pope gave me some great guidance recently too, as bright colours next to really dark colours tend to look blurred when scrolling on lower refresh monitors - I noticed this myself on my game, and once my bright purple placeholder gfx were swapped out, it looked 10x better! :)

Anyway, it may not help your issue, but figured it was worth throwing into the mix!

PS - The downside of the single screen shot taken above is that potentially (other than the none-linear vertical stretching artefacts that @TsukaYuriko mentions), you may catch a frame that ISN'T blurred, or is rendered consistently (i.e as opposed to say, an object moving 1.x pixels against the background's/level's 2 pixels, in which case it will 'hop' along / catch-up, comparatively, etc) - I'd maybe take 3 or 4 shots, so you can confirm for definite that it's not literally blurring output... :) (By all accounts, it won't be, but this will show it isn't (or is) beyond a doubt!)


Japster
 

MastasTech

Member
That sounds more like your monitor than GameMaker, especially if you say that it's less of an issue the slower you move.
I use a tv for my monitor and everything runs fine at home, but when I took my pc over to a family members house an connected it to their tv I've notice all of my blinking cursors or anything that flash or move very quickly leaves a blur behind, I know it wasn't the game I'm working on because it runs fine at home. the problem is the tv or monitor you're using has a low fresh rate or hertz . try changing your game speed to 30fps if that doesn't fix the problem then you will have to get an more updated monitor or tv with a fresh rate of 60 or 120Hz🤔
 
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