Favourite Game System

[Geneaux486]

I play Xbox. Never did have a PC that could do games any kind of justice. Half-Life 2 clogged my old laptop's arteries. That said, my cousin built himself a gaming PC, and my jaw drops everytime I see how much better games like Fallout 3 actually look on it compared to consoles.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I play Xbox. Never did have a PC that could do games any kind of justice. Half-Life 2 clogged my old laptop's arteries. That said, my cousin built himself a gaming PC, and my jaw drops everytime I see how much better games like Fallout 3 actually look on it compared to consoles.

My brother said the same thing about my PC (built it last year) and he owns a PS3.

[Geneaux486]

I play Xbox. Never did have a PC that could do games any kind of justice. Half-Life 2 clogged my old laptop's arteries. That said, my cousin built himself a gaming PC, and my jaw drops everytime I see how much better games like Fallout 3 actually look on it compared to consoles.

My brother said the same thing about my PC (built it last year) and he owns a PS3.

 

No doubt, when they're done right they make for amazing gaming devices. They achieve frame rates I never thought possible.

[Eedo Baba]

No doubt, when they're done right they make for amazing gaming devices. They achieve frame rates I never thought possible.

 

I've always considered frame rates above 60 or so to be really a placebo effect. I think I read somewhere that in research, not even gamers could reliably see the difference between 60fps and 120fps.

[Alyxx Thorne]

As long as it doesn't lag considerably, I'm fine.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I usually play at 25 and thats fine for me at most games, but it depends highly on the game. You need a lot more frames per secnod in a First Person Shooter and in a Racer than in games like The Sims or RTS, or some kinds of RPGs (not action RPGs though, you probably gonna want a good framerate for that).

Yeah, I agree. Though I can run NFS HP at 1920x1080 and with all the graphics settings to the max without any lag at all. So I'm good.

[Geneaux486]

No doubt, when they're done right they make for amazing gaming devices. They achieve frame rates I never thought possible.

 

I've always considered frame rates above 60 or so to be really a placebo effect. I think I read somewhere that in research, not even gamers could reliably see the difference between 60fps and 120fps.

 

I don't know about that. The framerate for Fallout 3 on my cousin's PC was noticeably better than it is on the 360. But then I don't know the exact number of either.

[Alyxx Thorne]

No doubt, when they're done right they make for amazing gaming devices. They achieve frame rates I never thought possible.

 

I've always considered frame rates above 60 or so to be really a placebo effect. I think I read somewhere that in research, not even gamers could reliably see the difference between 60fps and 120fps.

 

I don't know about that. The framerate for Fallout 3 on my cousin's PC was noticeably better than it is on the 360. But then I don't know the exact number of either.

Numbers are just numbers. It's what you noticed that counts.

[Bjossi]

Framerate above the refresh rate of your monitor is irrelevant. Any excess frames will never be put on the screen because the screen can refresh only so many times per second. It may have an effect in older games due to the way their engines are programmed. Like in Quake it was a known bug that the framerate slightly affected how high you jump.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Framerate above the refresh rate of your monitor is irrelevant. Any excess frames will never be put on the screen because the screen can refresh only so many times per second. It may have an effect in older games due to the way their engines are programmed. Like in Quake it was a known bug that the framerate slightly affected how high you jump.

Then it's most likely the PC refresh rate can get higher than that of an Xbox since I've heard XBox can only go up to 60 but on my PC I have it up to 85.

[Bjossi]

Refresh rate is a feature of the monitor, the computer connected to it has nothing to do with the refresh rate. Most LCDs today are 60 Hz, but there are some 120 Hz ones. It gets even more complex and confusing when you consider that refresh rate works differently for CRTs.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Refresh rate is a feature of the monitor, the computer connected to it has nothing to do with the refresh rate. Most LCDs today are 60 Hz, but there are some 120 Hz ones. It gets even more complex and confusing when you consider that refresh rate works differently for CRTs.

But in your previous post you clearly stated that any actual framerate above the refresh rate of the monitor was irrelevant. Doesn't that technically mean the game can have a better framerate if the actual monitor refresh rate is higher than 60, or rather that you experience it that way?

 

Either way, the Xbox 360 port of Fo3 can easily just be a case of bad programming if it has some framerate issues. It doesn't have to do with the video capabilites of the system.

[Bjossi]

Bad wording on my part. If you get 80 frames per second performance in a game displayed on a monitor with 60 Hz refresh rate, 20 of the frames will never be displayed. It is a good idea to use vertical synchronization (vsync) if you get very unstable framerates and "normalize" it at your monitor's refresh rate. But I recommend forcing vsync through the driver, since many games have very odd ideas on what is good vsync. Dead Space's vsync for example forces 30 FPS and adds a plethora of other issues.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Bad wording on my part. If you get 80 frames per second performance in a game displayed on a monitor with 60 Hz refresh rate, 20 of the frames will never be displayed. It is a good idea to use vertical synchronization (vsync) if you get very unstable framerates and "normalize" it at your monitor's refresh rate. But I recommend forcing vsync through the driver, since many games have very odd ideas on what is good vsync. Dead Space's vsync for example forces 30 FPS and adds a plethora of other issues.

Yeah, I force vsync on all my games. I tend to get bad tearing issues if I don't.

[Nueemann]

Console gamer, but only because of budget and convenience.

 

If I had the money, I would play PC games more.

[Cpt Bobbossa]

PS3 for me, occasionally PC though.

[Geneaux486]

Either way, the Xbox 360 port of Fo3 can easily just be a case of bad programming if it has some framerate issues. It doesn't have to do with the video capabilites of the system.

 

That's a good point now that you mention it, looking at games like Halo Reach, it can be impressive what the 360 can render without dropping its frame rate. Perhaps it is simply a programming issue.

[BTGBullseye]

Ok, since you're going off topic about framerates, I think I'll lend my expertise to the discussion...

 

 

Framerate is the number of pictures of a moving scene displayed every second.

 

30 FPS is standard for an NTSC (North American standard) formatted DVD, 25 FPS for PAL. (European Standard)

 

Consoles are clamped to a maximum of 60 FPS, and usually will only do 30 FPS to match the DVD standard.

 

60 FPS is the standard refresh rate for most monitors, though that is being changed to 75+.

 

Anything above about 45 FPS is really hard to notice in actual gameplay, but if you go above 60 it is physically impossible to notice any difference. (due to the refresh rate of your eye and brain processing abilities)

 

Rendered framerate is what you get when you use fraps, or have a FPS counter on in your game. Rendered framerate is entirely independent of what your monitor does. It is the rate at which your system can create the frames. Many systems can render the frames at well over 60 FPS, and unless you enable Vsync, the frame created as close to the monitor refresh time is the only frame that will be sent to the monitor. All other frames are ignored.

 

Some monitors will get what's called "stuttering" when your rendered framerate excedes the refresh rate. That is caused by the monitor displaying part of one frame, and when another is rendered, it continues it's displaying with that frame. Essentially the top part of the monitor displays the top part of one frame, and the bottom half displays the bottom of the next frame.

 

Vsync simply tells the computer to render a frame only once every 1/60th of a second, instead of as fast as it can with whatever timing it can.

 

The ONLY time that a framerate of over 60 is useful is when you are using 3d vision tech. This requires at least a 120Hz refresh rate monitor, and shutter glasses. (usually a total of over $450 for the monitor and glasses, but I have seen them as low as $340)

 

Refresh rates on a monitor are invisible to any human eye if at 85 or higher, and to normal humans if over 75. Unless you use a CRT monitor, you will not be able to notice any refresh rates above 60Hz because LCD/LED monitors will display the image it receives for up to 1/20th of a second essentially removing the blinking procedure required by CRT monitors. (CRT mechanics is a different subject altogether, and you can Google it for yourselves)

 

 

I hope this was helpful to someone. If it was, give me -rep please. Now, can we get back on topic?

[tehFoist]

I like any console but I'm mainly a PC guy, especially since I just built my first gaming rig (more people need to do this; saves money and is quite easy if you do a little research.) Not to mention the graphics will always be superior to consoles if you have the right hardware. Toss Killzone 3 on a $2000 gaming rig and It'll probably blow PS3 out of the water visual and performance wise (my best example so far is Bad Company 2. It just looks and runs so much better on my pc that on my XBox.)

 

That being said, console wars are dumb, I'd own a PS3, Xbox360, PSP, DS, etc if I could afford them all.

[Axeldeath]

i was a console gamer forever but i got a nice computer last summer and bought half-life 1 (i played orange box on the 360) and now i've switch almost entirely to using steam.

 

Exactly the same for me ( except swap 360 for PS3 ). I'm gonna get portal on PS3 though 'cause I get a PC version with the PS3 version FREEEE!!!