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October 28, 2005
PS3 Games To Be So Fast That You Cannot See Them
UPDATE: Or are they? See the comments.
I chide Sony a lot, but when the Sony Computer Entertainment president, Ken Kutaragi, boasts that the PlayStation 3 will be able to run games at 120 frames per second, how can I not say something? This is just the latest in a long history of similar claims about the PS3's general amazingness, but even this is over the top. For comparison, today's modern video games run somewhere between 30 and 60 frames per second. There's a reason why console games tend to top out at 60 fps, mainly because standard televisions cannot produce an image above 30 fps and even if they could crank out anything above that, the human eye simply cannot keep up with anything beyond 60 fps. Sony can boost the frames per second as much as they want, but we simply will not be able to see all of those frames of animation. That is, unless Sony's next peripheral is some kind of optical replacement unit.
I understand why Kutaragi boasts like this. Most consumers will never check up on the limitations of human sight or television output. Tell most people that a game runs at 120 frames per second and they'll look right at the screen for a moment and declare it true because they can "see" the difference. Sony (and most other companies, for that matter) don't care what they have to say in order to sell units. If this latest claim sells another batch of PS3s, then Kutaragi has done his job.
Posted by MattG on October 28, 2005 at 09:00 PM in Sony | Permalink
Comments
Be careful when declaring what's true and what isn't, Matt.
The generic 24hz is considered to be the absolute minimum threshold of "smooth" animation. 60hz is the refresh rate of a standard NTSC television, not 30hz like you said. PAL TVs (in Europe) refresh at 50hz.
The research preformed on human perception of higher frequencies is a person's ability to detect changes in frequencies when they get up in those numbers. That is: A person may not be able to look at an animation and say "Oh, there's probably 75 frames per second there. The delay is slower than my monitor's 85hz, but faster than my TV's 60hz"... That's almost impossible.
I'm not certain, but I think that the HDTV protocol operates at more than 60hz.
A musical note that's 1hz off-tune can't be easily noticed, but when that one off-tune note is used amongst other correctly-tuned notes, it may very well sound out of place (depending on the note). Likewise, playing video games at higher frequencies will result in what comes across as smoother animation, despite the fact that the refreshing threshold isn't easily detectable.
Running games at 120hz WILL make a very noticable difference in the smoothness of animation. Playing video games at that frequency, in my opinion, will be quite a refreshing change of pace.
Posted by: BGNG | Oct 28, 2005 11:07:35 PM
Couldn't agree more, BGNG. I was about to say something myself, but you saved me the hassle :D
Posted by: Jon | Oct 29, 2005 4:27:06 AM
HDTV does operate at higher than 60 hz and that's one of the reasons Kutaragi cited for pushing for the PS3's speed, but I still can't get beyond the human sight limit. Can you please explain how if I can't detect the high rate of frame refresh I'll be in for a better game experience? I just don't understand how it's possible and if I'm wrong on this I'd like to know more.
Posted by: MattG | Oct 29, 2005 5:21:22 AM
I play games at 100 FPS on a computer monitor running 85HZ.
And no my games's frames do not disappear, my eyes can keep up just fine. Be more careful when declaring false truths, mister.
Posted by: [MaSQuE] | Oct 29, 2005 9:23:45 AM
It's a bit of a non-sensical claim. You could get a Game Boy color to refresh at 120Hz, it's just that nothing important could change in between frames is all. If the PS3 is wasting time cacluating frames no one can detect, it's going to have to lower the quality on other visuals to compensate.
Posted by: Carl | Oct 29, 2005 11:09:14 AM
Hey there--This discussion has been going on at Joystiq too, so I'll just repost my comments there, taken from these two posts:
http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000780065607/#c556093
http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000780065607/#c556913
--------
To Chris, and others who talk about the limits of human visual perception:
Humans are not computers. They do not see 'digitally' as a whole. Even individual neurons, which fire and thus appear binary, actually direct information based on the *rate* of firing, and the varying rate of every neuron in the visual cortex perceiving light *combined* doesn't simplify so easily into that "humans can only see at 23/24/30 frames per second" soundbite.
If you'd like to see a similar principle in action, play a fast-paced game on your PC (I recommend Quake 3). Turn off Vsync, Limit the FPS to as low as possible, then 60, then 120, then take off the limit (try to get to 300 fps?). You will notice the difference every time.
Better yet, wave your hand in front of your PC screen right now (don't think this works for LCDs--use CRT monitors, or try your tube TV set). You will see your hand broken up into discrete afterimages as you wave it across. I can tell you my monitor is running at 85 hz right now (85 fps, essentially, as a refresh rate), and I can see many silhouettes of my hand quite easily when I do this.
No, I'm not some sort of superhuman, and neither are you--Your eye may only, in total, take in full scene information 24-30 times per second (60 fields, including both eyes), but you do not see in 24-30 *slideshow* frames per second. You aren't a digital robot--your brain is still made up of some 100 billion neurons, each firing at its own rate. A large number of neurons will be firing when a frame changes at much higher rates than 30 fps, which is why you can percieve higher refresh rates as smoother.
---------------
Chris, I'm sorry, but that's wrong.
"85hz does not = 85fps ... a refresh rate is something different."
Hz *is* a measurement of the refresh rate. That's why it's called 'the refresh rate.' The screen is refreshing at 85 times per second. Google "define hz" and you'll see the definition is 'cycles per second,' just so you know I'm not exactly reaching here. I don't really know why you'd want to argue this point, but you are wrong.
"30fps is approximately 60hz ... so 120fps could possibly be by that logic, 240hz ...."
30 frames per second is 30 Hz. If you're talking about interlaced 30 fps, that's reasonable to describe as 60 hz, but I assume we're talking all progressive--it certainly would be an utter waste of time to even think about comparing human vision to 'interlaced,' which needlessly complicates matters with no beneficial effect whatsoever (since human vision is not, as I said, discrete 'frame-slideshow' vision anyways).
Add these up, and read my last post about that little old thing I like to call the nature of neural pathways in the visual cortex (you forgot to respond to that!), and you probably will see that there is just no logical way to talk about human beings seeing '24-30 fps' in the same way a screen displays that.
(But honestly--you don't need a neuroscientist to tell you this. Just ask the nearest PC gamer who's experienced 120 fps gaming on their rig, and they'll tell you that framerates of 60 fps vsynced to 60 hz in the same game will be almost unplayable, or at least, an extremely noticable downgrade. I call Quake 3 once again.)
I've heard the "Humans can only see 24-30 FPS" urban legend, as have many of you here. It's easy to accept something that sounds so authoritative, and almost romantic to believe that technology has 'outpaced' humans and etc etc... but get over it--it's not anywhere near the truth. The truth is not that "HUMANS CAN SEE 235 FPS" or any other number--it's that the very idea of comparing the human visual system to a monitor's display is fundamentally flawed.
Posted by: Pizzaman | Oct 29, 2005 12:00:06 PM
I think you're missing the point. The point is, wether it's 30fps or 60fps it still looks pretty much just as smooth.
You only ever really notice frame rates in games when things start getting slow. So I think I'd be more impressed with the PS3 if they were to say, "it's so powerful even the bestest graphics will suffer zero slowdown". But of course, that wouldn't be true either.
Posted by: Rico Ricardo | Oct 29, 2005 9:15:34 PM
I refer you to this article here:
http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html
Posted by: Steven T | Oct 30, 2005 5:45:52 PM
"The point is, wether it's 30fps or 60fps it still looks pretty much just as smooth."
Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. There's a discernible difference. Unless your eyes aren't working properly.
Posted by: 63.8fps | Nov 1, 2005 11:31:10 AM
oh really. I'm sure there is, when I'm watching my tv on 24 frames per second and my brain easily makes it look just as smooth and lovely as real life. 30fps is just as fast as needs be.
If you think it makes any more of a difference then it's probably more of a placebo affect. If you're told its smoother, well then fuck, it MUST BE!
Posted by: Rico Ricardo | Nov 1, 2005 9:16:03 PM
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