Nothing if you find it acceptable. But for most games 60 FPS is essentially the threshold where things become fully fluid. Many people once they switch to 120Hz displays and play at 120 FPS can't even go back to 60 FPS, let alone 30 FPS. Obviously this applies more to twitch based shooters like Counter-Strike, but generally when it comes to FPS, more is better. If you Google "30 FPS cap" or "30 FPS vs 60 FPS games" or "120 FPS vs 60 FPS games" or anything similar you will find lots of heated debates about it, what the eye can/can't see, TV and movie framerates, how games are different since they are responding to your input and aren't canned sequences, etc....

Even with an i5-2500K overclocked to 4.0GHz, SLI GTX 460 1GB (roughly equivalent to a single GTX 580), and 8 GB DDR3 1600, I had to reduce a couple options to get a consistent 60 FPS at a resolution of 1920x1200. Unlike most games (and more like prior MS flight sims), the CPU is definitely where Flight bottlenecks (once any initial GPU bottlenecks have been taken care of, obviously).

 

Hello there Zinfinion,

 

I have the same CPU and memory, i have a Asus p8z68v motherboard and gtx570. Till few days ago, i ran my i5 2500k@4,5GHz and it was incredible to see a huge leap in performance when compared to stock 3,3Ghz. But then, i began getting blue screen few times a day and decided to drop down to 4.0Ghz. Now, my question to you is: what voltage do you use for 4.0Ghz. I have it set to 1.350V (the same voltage that i have used for a 4.5Ghz overclock). Since i am not too experienced in overclocking, would you mind sharing your opinion on this particular category, please. Also, i have a great cooler (Noctua NH-D14) so that is not an issue. Weird thing is i am getting noticeably higher temperatures at 4.0 then i used to at 4.5 so i'm guessing it might be related to voltage.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

P.S. I apologize for going off topic.

 

 

Cheers

Nothing if you find it acceptable. But for most games 60 FPS is essentially the threshold where things become fully fluid. Many people once they switch to 120Hz displays and play at 120 FPS can't even go back to 60 FPS, let alone 30 FPS. Obviously this applies more to twitch based shooters like Counter-Strike, but generally when it comes to FPS, more is better. If you Google "30 FPS cap" or "30 FPS vs 60 FPS games" or "120 FPS vs 60 FPS games" or anything similar you will find lots of heated debates about it, what the eye can/can't see, TV and movie framerates, how games are different since they are responding to your input and aren't canned sequences, etc....

 

My understanding of people trying to achieve ever more average fps (mostly for first person shooters) is to have enough margin for complex scenes so frame rates do not drop below the threshold where stutters become noticable.

 

The human eye cannot see more than 24fps. Due to the refresh rates of current screens, 30fps is more desirable. The reason why movements in computer games at that rate may still look choppy is the lack of motion blur. I believe some games utilize artificial motion blur effects to overcome that.

 

But please: We are talking about flight sims here, not first person shooters.

I'm using the stock voltage. I did briefly try 4.5GHz, but that BSOD'd quickly since I'm still using the stock cooler. Once I upgrade my cooler (probably a Noctua or a Corsair Hydro series, haven't decided) I'll look into further overclocking and adjusting the voltage. I know of a couple of P67 OC guides, they should be somewhat similar to how it is done on the Z68, and at least serve as a starting point for you:

 

http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/39184-p67-sandy-bridge-overclocking-guide-beginners.html

 

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1578110

Unfortunately the ATI Radeon HD5450 has some known hardware bugs. ATI was supposed to put a workaround into their driver but hasn't done so yet...

My understanding of people trying to achieve ever more average fps (mostly for first person shooters) is to have enough margin for complex scenes so frame rates do not drop below the threshold where stutters become noticable.

 

The human eye cannot see more than 24fps. Due to the refresh rates of current screens, 30fps is more desirable. The reason why movements in computer games at that rate may still look choppy is the lack of motion blur. I believe some games utilize artificial motion blur effects to overcome that.

 

But please: We are talking about flight sims here, not first person shooters.

 

Hello Tom,

 

That is a common misconception :) Human eye can see much more than that. It can see around 200 frames per second. There are many tests that prove that.

Here's the link to an article that explains it pretty well.

 

http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html

 

The main thing is which frame rate makes it look smooth and it is directly related to refresh rate of the monitor, amount of detail in the picture and few other things.

 

Cheers

The human eye cannot see more than 24fps. But please: We are talking about flight sims here, not first person shooters.

 

The human eye can see well over 100 FPS as many sources will easily confirm. And this does apply to flight sims. I locked my framerate to 30 FPS just to see the difference, and it was essentially a slideshow. And I'll just leave it at that as I have better things to do with my day than debunking the misconceptions of someone who doesn't even do a quick search to get their facts straight.

I'm using the stock voltage. I did briefly try 4.5GHz, but that BSOD'd quickly since I'm still using the stock cooler. Once I upgrade my cooler (probably a Noctua or a Corsair Hydro series, haven't decided) I'll look into further overclocking and adjusting the voltage. I know of a couple of P67 OC guides, they should be somewhat similar to how it is done on the Z68, and at least serve as a starting point for you:

 

http://www.clunk.org...-beginners.html

 

http://hardforum.com...d.php?t=1578110

 

Thanks for the links.

However, be careful when you overclock with stock cooler. I will look into the voltage thing now.

 

Cheers

 

My understanding of people trying to achieve ever more average fps (mostly for first person shooters) is to have enough margin for complex scenes so frame rates do not drop below the threshold where stutters become noticable.

 

The human eye cannot see more than 24fps. Due to the refresh rates of current screens, 30fps is more desirable. The reason why movements in computer games at that rate may still look choppy is the lack of motion blur. I believe some games utilize artificial motion blur effects to overcome that.

 

But please: We are talking about flight sims here, not first person shooters.

 

Take a look at this simple http://boallen.com/fps-compare.html

 

 

Cheers

OK, I acknowledge that some people's vision is more sensitive to these effects than other's. But calling 30fps a "slide show" is a little exaggerated.

 

30fps works very well in a flight sim for most people, including me. Especially for a slow and slow simulator like Flight. If it's different for you, then I'm very sorry for that as you will spend more time tweaking your sim than actually flying it.

 

Flight runs perfectly smooth for me. FSX does too (with some exceptions). I personally wish to never see that fsx.cfg again.

OK, I acknowledge that some people's vision is more sensitive to these effects than other's. But calling 30fps a "slide show" is a little exaggerated.

 

30fps works very well in a flight sim for most people, including me. Especially for a slow and slow simulator like Flight. If it's different for you, then I'm very sorry for that as you will spend more time tweaking your sim than actually flying it.

 

Flight runs perfectly smooth for me. FSX does too (with some exceptions). I personally wish to never see that fsx.cfg again.

 

I think once you're used to playing games at 60+ fps, anything below say 50 fps seems like a slideshow (at least to me). I can definitely tell when BF3 dips down into the 40's during heavy action and certain areas of certain maps, not unplayable, but a little annoying. Motion blur does help to smooth things out but it is still noticeable. As for Flight, anything around 50 fps or higher seems the most "realistic" to me in terms of fluidity of movement.

OK, I acknowledge that some people's vision is more sensitive to these effects than other's. But calling 30fps a "slide show" is a little exaggerated.

 

30fps works very well in a flight sim for most people, including me. Especially for a slow and slow simulator like Flight. If it's different for you, then I'm very sorry for that as you will spend more time tweaking your sim than actually flying it.

 

Flight runs perfectly smooth for me. FSX does too (with some exceptions). I personally wish to never see that fsx.cfg again.

 

You are right about that. People's vision does differ to some extent but that's not even that important. I think the main reason for this is that some of us are used to playing everything on steady 60 frames which makes everything perfectly smooth and any transition, even the slightest one (5,6 or 10 frames) makes a big difference. However, that is quite individual. I play Battlefield 3 on regular basis and i would not settle for anything below 60 but not just because of the aesthetic side of things, it has much more to do with hit registry and if your framerate fluctuates, you are at a big disadvantage compared to someone with steady 60 frames. It's just how their engine and net code are designed and are codependent.

But when it comes to flight simulations, i will agree with you again that it presents much less of a problem because you don't need any drastic or extremely fast input since you're flying a plane. So, even on 30 frames, FSX and Flight do look smooth enough to play. However, if there is a chance to get it to run at 60, then it is just perfect (in Flight, i have that luxury most of the time and my frame rate dips only occasionally in highly dense areas but not below 49 with my current settings).

So all in all, it does come to each person's preference; some will be more than happy and satisfied with 20 frames, while others will not fly below 50. We all need to accept each other's right to an opinion. I just think Zinfinion was pointing out that there is a clear difference between 30 and 60 frames and meant nothing bad towards anybody. It is just his right and his choice not to accept anything below a certain frame rate.

 

 

Cheers

They're rough, believe me... and not really mountain waves :-)

 

Try CumulusX! for rather acceptable ridge flying...

 

The propwash records were still there on fs9, although unused by many (including the default) aircraft...

 

;-)

 

Just gentle mountain waves.................not +/- 1000 fpm

 

Where I live, we have good glider flying also, as it's all mountainous. Infact, a world renoun para-gliding airpark is also very close.

Take a look at this simple http://boallen.com/fps-compare.html

 

Sorry, I overlooked that link the last time. Honestly, I cannot see a difference between the 30fps and the 60fps versions. Maybe it's my vision, maybe it's my screen, maybe it's the lack of VSync (at least I believe that the Flash applets don't use it).

 

But hey, this would actually make an interesting experiment with the following setup:

• show people the 30fps and 60fps applets in random order, but remove the labels that tells them which is which. Then ask if any one looks better.
  
• repeat this, but use only the 30fps applet, labeled both as 30fps and 60fps
  
• repeat this, but this time use the 60fps applet labeled both as 30fps and 60fps
  
• finally, use the 30 and 60fps applets with opposite labeling
  

My hypothesis: It will show that most people are not able to recognize the difference and that the improvement with 60fps is more a placebo effect.

Sorry, I overlooked that link the last time. Honestly, I cannot see a difference between the 30fps and the 60fps versions. Maybe it's my vision, maybe it's my screen, maybe it's the lack of VSync (at least I believe that the Flash applets don't use it).

 

But hey, this would actually make an interesting experiment with the following setup:

• show people the 30fps and 60fps applets in random order, but remove the labels that tells them which is which. Then ask if any one looks better.
  
• repeat this, but use only the 30fps applet, labeled both as 30fps and 60fps
  
• repeat this, but this time use the 60fps applet labeled both as 30fps and 60fps
  
• finally, use the 30 and 60fps applets with opposite labeling
  

My hypothesis: It will show that most people are not able to recognize the difference and that the improvement with 60fps is more a placebo effect.

 

I must say that would probably be a fun test to conduct :) However, i don't know how to work with flash so i can't use those animations from the given page :(

Still, i am sure most people would notice a difference between 30 and 60 frames since it looks completely fluid on 60 frames, while on 30 fps version, there is a decent amount of motion blur involved and it doesn't go that smooth :)

But then again, it might be just my assumption. I would love to see that test in practice :)

 

 

Cheers

Maybe it's just because I have an awful computer, but I'm generally happy with anything over 14fps, and over 20 is what I consider fantastic.

 

I am first to admit that I have horrible eyesight and low standards though. :Nerd:

 

I've had to modify the Flight.cfg slightly to stay above 10 frames per second in the vicinity of Honolulu, since only above that can I really keep good control of an aircraft on descent. Most everywhere else it stays above 14 though, so no problem for me.