Lies, Damned Lies, and Benchmarks

[Catsby]

Castby has always been a fan of hardware sites, and empathises with the fact they have a tough job with regards to gfx cards.

As such, he applauds HardOCP for their recent decision to be rid of the false benchmarking prophet http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjE2

Catsby now hopes he, and others, will be spared the disappointment of buying a new gfx card that promises 300fps in his favourite game, only to find that it only does this when staring at a wall.
Catsby is sick of having a single smoke nade, or explosion crippling the game down to 3 or 4 fps....

Catsby suggests the future may be bright, but not so for Futuremark (cheats).

 

[Tom]

Tom reminds Catsby that the human eye is incapable of distinguishing motion above a certain limit, and this is why the UK PAL television field frequency is 50Hz.

 

[throdgrain]

Throddy reminds Tom what a utter load of bollocks that statement is, when in regards to gaming .

 

[sibanac]

Tom reminds Catsby that the human eye is incapable of distinguishing motion above a certain limit, and this is why the UK PAL television field frequency is 50Hz.

put your monitor 50Hz, see the flicker,
then 70Hz there alot of people will still see a flicker, much harder to see but still noticable especialy if the screen is in the corner of your eye (eg when you look at samething behind your screen
Then if your screen can take it put it to 80+HZ no flicker anymore (atleast for me)
So the human eye can see the diffrence between up untill about 80Hz.

 

[Catsby]

Catsby appreciates the reminder, but admits that he was and is aware of this (however debatable the actual threshold of vision is, as it is a widely disputed figure, skewed by the fact that most of the testing was performed on older phosoporous displays that have the effect of blending the motion).

However, Catsby assures you that everyone would notice a fall of FPS to 3.

Out of interest, Catsby recommends that you try switching your monitor from 50Hz to 100Hz. He advises you to bring asprin to this experiment, as you will have a blinding headache on 50Hz after 20 mins of playing a game.

 

[Panda On Smack]

so are you guys like making a story up?

 

[Danya]

You can see CRT flicker at 50 fps, but you'll be pushed to see the difference in motion at 60 and 50 fps. Besides films are smooth and they're 24 fps.

Personally, I don't really care what hardocp say as they have proven in the past they like to talk about stuff they have no idea about.

 

[wyrd_fish]

yeah, but films are interlaced ie. it misses alternat rows out and then fills them in on the next frame

 

[Tom]

Films are not interlaced.

Tom is thankfull for being shown what a bunch of bullshit his original statement was (with regard to computer displays), although he feels that the fact regarding films does somewhat make up for this. He does however feel that above 60Hz, there is little/no difference to be detected, other than a slight ego boost in the minds of pre-pubescent children.

Actually though, it is usually only in peripheral vision that any flicker is detected.

 

[wyrd_fish]

by films i mean TV... sorry

films would be hard to interlace with out the use of a scalple, a ruler and a lot of spare time

 

[smurkin]

I'm not sure. The thing about fps and gaming is different...stand still in quake, then spin your mouse quickly....set com_maxfps to 50 & do it, then say 120...you should easily notice the difference. When things move fast...its about the frames your brain picks up & does its own neurological client_predict...more frames is better.

Alternatively, stand still (in the real world)....move your head from left to right and back rapidly..now...relax your face, open your mouth and let your tongue lol out...do the head thing...your saliva will splatter the walls...its the same principle ;]

Also, remember some of that flicker you see, particularly with tvs is due to interference with lighting and in particular, strip lighting (the bloke trying to sell you a 100 Hz TV in the shop...hes showing you flicker on a 50 Hz TV, your seeing the strip light effect..so you buy the 100Hz telly)

 

[old.user4556]

100 Hz TVs are the win.

 

[Catsby]

Catsby believes that the technical forums are not for point scoring, but for those genuinely interested in finding out about stuff....

Catsby has seen enough "This makes my e-penis bigger" so called discussions in the general forum, to make Catsby want to not go there too often.

However, it is the firm belief of Catsby that smurkin is correct, and that the essence of his statement is true: It's not your maximum FPS that counts, but your minimum.

And this is what Catsby believes HardOCP is trying to say. And Catsby stands behind this, as he has come to believe that Futuremark really are the definition of sell outs.

 

[old.user4556]

I see your point Catsby, it's a good one.

However, talking in the third person really has got to stop . It makes reading your posts difficult which doesn't really help on the technical forum.

G

 

[Catsby]

Without wishing to seem deliberately obtuse, Catsby himselfs feels that a challenge is good for the soul, and prevents us from going stale.

 

[Krazeh]

Interesting points, it's good that reviewers are tryin to start to get away from the max fps a card can do and instead focusing on what sort of minimum fps it will actually give u while really playin games.

 

[Ch3tan]

Makes it easier to understand what buying a card actually give you.

I love you Catsby. Although I now find myself wanting to talk in the third person.