Target Frame Rates

[Jakemaster]

What does that really do?  And what do you suggest for setting it?

[Jared]

ok, here is what I know...

Standard movies (in the theater) run between 16-20 FPS, so I set my FPS lock to 20.

Doing so reduces the load on the pc, and allows it to return better looking graphics..

Basically it's up to you, play around with it until you see a nice fluid movement on thescreen, without much or any quality degradation..

[the_autopilot]

Ummm...NO.

Set it at 60. Thats considered the "ideal" by the graphics industry.

BTW here's the fps for common media:
24 fps-film, like in the movie theater (non-digital, most of them). 24 fps is when the brain can not tell the difference between images and can only see motion in the images.
29.99 fps-This is the standard fps for all home entertainment. Almost all VHS, DVD's, etc. playback at this fps.
45 fps-specific formats, certain flavors of DVD run at this fps (very rare though)
60 fps-The absolute highest 'quality' fps. Any fps higher than this is overkill. Game engines among other gfx apps strive to maintain this fps.

[4_Series_Scania]

great if you have the hardware to sustain FS9 @ 60fps, plenty of users don't, especially @ high settings & Anti alaising.

[the_autopilot]

great if you have the hardware to sustain FS9 @ 60fps, plenty of users don't, especially @ high settings & Anti alaising.

I know, and I wasn't questioning that. 60 is what i set it at. thats all.

I was correcting the statement that movie theaters run at 16-20 fps, which is untrue. They run at 24 fps.

[Jakemaster]

so, what should I set it at?  I don't consistantly hit 60.  I have it at 40 now.

[the_autopilot]

To tell you the truth, anywhere between 24-30 is fine as you won't really notice the difference above 30. If you system can constantly handle 40, leave it at that.

[4_Series_Scania]

I was correcting your statement that movie theaters run at 16-20 fps, which is untrue. They run at 24 fps.

Thats fine ,except, I did'nt post that.  :P

[the_autopilot]

Thats fine ,except, I did'nt post that.  :P

LOL. Oops. Well, I'll change it.

[congo]

Actually, I read about some research into what FPS humans can detect, and 60 is around the figure from memory, and some people detect higher FPS.

I always wondered about that because I could still see jitters at 45 fps while flying in CFS2, and everyone said the eye and brain only detect around 28 fps.

More reading explained that the way images are displayed in film are completely different to the way PC graphics are displayed, so the film looks more fluid, and PC fps are much more noticeable.

The setting for FPS limit allows the CPU to dedicate more processing power to functions other than graphics once the limit is reached. In the case of a weak CPU, (by FS9 standards, this is nearly all CPU's), it allows a playable frame rate so that other data can be processed quickly and effectively if the other data is being held up, thus making the game run smoother.

The limit setting is a tradeoff, or more correctly, a balance between graphics processing and other calculations needed to run the game/sim smoothly.

The setting exists because the game will use more CPU power on some (most) systems than the system is capable of.

If you are running the game in window mode, you can check your CPU resource usage with windows task manager. You'll see it's using 100% of available CPU power, (unless you are one of the Autopilot's of this world!).

So, basically, FS9 is overworking the poor old CPU, limiting FPS relieves a bit of the graphics load. Setting it to the minimum FPS

[Moach]

I was correcting the statement that movie theaters run at 16-20 fps, which is untrue. They run at 24 fps.

actually film projectors run at 70hz... the film itself is what runs at 24...

if the projector ran at 24hz, you would see a strong flickering (like in those really old movies) as the shutter would run slowly and stay in front of the light for too long in each cycle.

so the projector exposes each frame 3 times, so the shutter spins way faster now and blocks the ligh for a lot less time... this gets rid of the flickering

so, therefore, there is a difference between refresh rate and FPS...

the refresh rate should be kept as high as possibly supported... this will give you a more stable image and less headaches

the FPS doesn't need to be higher than 30... more than that you won't be able to tell the difference

between 20 and 30 is what i shoot for... you would need a REALLY beefy video card to run FS at an acceptable graphics level and get more frames than this

Moach

[JBaymore]

Just passing this on.... can't say if it it TRUE or not......

A while back Computer Pilot magazine has a piece on "framerates" and in it they said that unlike in fs2002 the practice of setting framerates lower when using fs2004 actually made performance worse.  The said best performance in fs2004 was had with the frames set to unlimited.

I've played with both... and found the differences so subjective with the setup in the trailer below... that I can't say anything definitive one way or the other.

best,

..................john

[Jared]

Ummm...NO.

Set it at 60. Thats considered the "ideal" by the graphics industry.

BTW here's the fps for common media:
24 fps-film, like in the movie theater (non-digital, most of them). 24 fps is when the brain can not tell the difference between images and can only see motion in the images.
29.99 fps-This is the standard fps for all home entertainment. Almost all VHS, DVD's, etc. playback at this fps.
45 fps-specific formats, certain flavors of DVD run at this fps (very rare though)
60 fps-The absolute highest 'quality' fps. Any fps higher than this is overkill. Game engines among other gfx apps strive to maintain this fps.

OK, so I made a mistake..... Never claimed to know it all..

I still think I said it best with this line..

Basically it's up to you, play around with it until you see a nice fluid movement on thescreen, without much or any quality degradation..  

[|| Andy ||]

Your eyes cant pick up anything past 30 from what ive read

[congo]

Just test it for yourself, look at your nose while facing your monitor and move your head from side to side, you'll see the monitor flicker. My refresh rate is set to 85hz, so I guess I'm detecting 85 FPS at least.

Any mains power light can be seen to flicker like this if it's in relevant motion to a fixed gaze. In Australia our power is 60hz, I believe it's lower at 50hz in the USA, but it can easily be seen in either case.


Air Force research shows pilots can detect FPS in excess of 160 from the research I read, so there!