Is that 24fps or 60fps?

[Quasimodo 505]

I've always been a bit of a tinkerer with Vsync, refresh rates and frame rates to get the optimal fluidity/image quality possible in FSX/P3D. I suppose we all have to one extent or another. Sometimes a new piece of info makes the rounds that purportedly makes a hardly discernible difference and often its placebo. I suppose the mainstay is what is akin too what we called the half refresh rate method with FSX. Frames set to unlimited, Vsync on and display set to 30hz. I have always been able to tell the difference between a smooth 30fps and a smooth 60fps. I would definitely prefer 60fps.

I am not sure if this is known or if it will work for everyone but I've serendipitously (as usual) come across a combination of setting that makes 24fps look like 60fps or even 120fps. Big claim I know.

I recently got a 4K TV and gave up VR in favour of going back to TrackIR5. I was recently sitting in the waiting room at the mechanic watching an old black and white episode of Perry Mason on the mechanics big UHD TV and I couldn't believe how real it looked or the illusion of depth.

Well today I had the same experience with a combination of setting for P3D and I managed to somewhat capture it in a video. Excuse the terrible flying I was busy looking at the FPS counter and the road traffic and everything and astonished that I was witnessing P3D running more fluidly, and smoothly than I had ever seen it. And the image clarity was beyond anything I'd seen before too. I've occasionally flown scenarios in P3D at 60fps when the conditions would allow and this experience at 24fps was at least as good but I'd be willing to say a lot better because 24fps allows for much more detail.

Hears what I did. I set the display refresh rate to 24hz and I set the P3D Frame rate to 24fps with Vsync on and triple buffer off.

Hear is the difficulty. Shadowplay cannot record at 24fps so I recorded it at 3840x2160 60fps. So showing off what I am seeing on my screen is tricky.

Before you watch the video set your display refresh rate to 24hz. That's step 1. Play the video. Even if by luck the frames in the video sync up with your 24hz it won't stay that way. It does in the game play itself because of the vsync. If you see stutters, rapidly pause and play the video. Do this until it smooths out. Odds are within a couple of pause/play cycles that it will sync ands stay that way  for a good 20 seconds at a time before its starts Stuttering again (that's because it was recorded at 60fps) and it is during those 20 seconds that you will see what I'm seeing in game consistently.

Fluidity that looks better than or at least as good as synced 60fps. And even better image clarity with the 3D illusion I alluded to above.

Try it and see it it works for you. Note the FRAPS FPS counter in the top right corner

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by Quasimodo

[Quasimodo 505]

I figured out how to use FRAPS to capture a video at 24fps without killing performance so I made another short video that should sync with a display set to 24hz.

I interested in getting some feedback as to what anyone see's when they watch this video with their Display set to 24hz. The video is 3840x2160 at 24hz.

Note the FPS counter in the top left corner. After watching the video was anyone surprised by what they saw?

 

Edited March 23, 2020 by Quasimodo

[AnkH 2,233]

Not at all surprised, this is what you aim for in P3D since quiet some time: as constant FPS as possible. 24FPS is just about the edge where (at least for myself) you have a nice trade off between FPS and settings. Lower FPS are hardly acceptable, higher FPS only come at a cost of reduced settings...

[C2615 319]

Game FPS will not be the same as video FPS

Over simplified say:

video FPS is mostly steady, 24FPS means 1 frame every 42ms,

But game FPS is not, at 24FPS, it could be 100ms between 1st and 2nd frame, 200ms between 2nd and 3rd, and 32ms for the rest, that won't looks as smooth as a video.

[Quasimodo 505]

I think you guys are missing the point. I know its very difficult to capture in a video loaded up to youtube what is actually seen in game play re fluidity or absence of stutters? What do you currently do to achieve stutter free, fluid game play in Prepar3D. 30hz, Vsync, Frame Rate = unlimited? Or Gsync? Or 60hz and Frame Rate = 30? Or some other method.

My poison with FSX was half refresh rate. With Prepar3D, 30hz, Frame Rate = Unlimited, Vsync and TB. As everyone knows so long as your setting allow the sim to deliver over 30 fps you'll have a smooth and relatively stutter free experience. However, in panning you'll see more ghosting than you would at 60fps.

My point is that I have found something that works way better for me on my system with my display. Way better. And I discovered it by accident. In fact when I say it first I though I must have my display setting really low and the display set to 60hz because what I was looking at looked like 60fps. The same kind of fluid motion and the absence of ghosting that is typical of 60fps or more. However it wasn't 60fps. It was 24fps!

Anyone using using the same method as me to smooth game play i.e. 30hz, Frame Rate = Unlimited, Vsync and TB in P3D, I would urge to try this:

1. Set your Display refresh rate 24hz.

2. using the same setting you use to achieve over 30fps move your Frame Rate slider to 24 and turn Triple buffer to off.

3. Go Fly and see if it makes a difference.

It did on my system. A huge difference.

EDIT:

I've just checked this with 30hz, Frame Rate = 30, Vsync and I can confirms that it doesn't work. Looks the same as with Unlimited.

It works with 24hz/24fps, 23hz/23fps or 25hz/25fps. I think it might be something to do with My display being a UHD TV. A Samsung NU6900.

Perhaps it's optimized for 24hz. Anyway, I hope it's of use to others.

On my system its brilliant! I've never seen anything like it. I'll never harp on about the need for 60fps again. 😁

Edited March 23, 2020 by Quasimodo

[AnkH 2,233]

16 hours ago, Quasimodo said:

I think you guys are missing the point.

We do not, you just chase a miracle where there is none ;-) If you use the same settings for your 24FPS cap as you did for your 30FPS cap, my explanation is spot on: you now have such a big overhead (6 FPS or 25%), that you are simply maintaining the 24FPS 100% of the time. Consequently, matching your display refresh rate to those 24FPS you now have in 100% of the time, you get the most smooth experience possible. Really nothing miracoulous here... you even proof it with your EDIT: as soon as you set 30FPS, your rig can not maintain the 30FPS in 100% of the scenarios and your sim is not as smooth anymore.

BTW: I would get an headache running my screen with 24Hz only. Gosh no, those days are over for more than a decade now. Personally, as mentioned, I have very good experience with straight multipliers, so my suggestion to you: keep everything the same but put your screen on 48Hz instead (or 96Hz if possible). I wonder if you would not get the same smoothness...

Or, to really test that it is simply due to your overhead, you would need a more "scientifical" approach: put the FPS limit inside P3D on 60FPS and check, how many FPS you get with your settings. Now lower the settings until you have 60FPS most of the time. Now cap the FPS inside P3D at 30 and put your refresh rate to 30Hz. I bet you get the same smoothness again...

 

[IanHarrison 521]

What wizardry is this?

Screens that run at variable rates?

Headaches at 24 fps (you said 24hz?)

Something is over for more than a decade?

I upgraded my monitor  to 1080p just 3 years ago. 

 

Signed Rip van Winkel.

[AnkH 2,233]

2 hours ago, IanHarrison said:

I upgraded my monitor  to 1080p just 3 years ago. 

And what exactly is the correlation of the monitor resolution with the refresh rate and the frames per second?

[IanHarrison 521]

2 hours ago, AnkH said:

And what exactly is the correlation of the monitor resolution with the refresh rate and the frames per second?

Haven't the foggiest.

[Quasimodo 505]

8 hours ago, AnkH said:

you even proof it with your EDIT: as soon as you set 30FPS, your rig can not maintain the 30FPS in 100% of the scenarios and your sim is not as smooth anymore.

This line proves that you are completely misreading my post. As did your initial post. If your not interested in trying what I have suggested and you have tried it and it hasn't worked for you, to bad, move along.

So for anyone who is interested in seeing if this helps I'll post system specs. including TV make and model and detailed setting. In the meantime here is a downloadable video captured at 24fps. If you play it back (I used VLC) with your display set to 24hz and it looks more like 60fps then this could work for you. If its all stutters and/or ghosting then its not the sweet spot for your system. Or probably not. I suspect that this is likely to work only on 4K TV's. Mine is a Samsung 55" NU6900. Anyone with the same or similar TV please try the video and post what they saw. I can either just play back the stream or playback the download and I see perfectly fluid playback as it it where 60fps.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ENEICLoB1d8NEwSk4JngVsqWhdLL3_RU/view?usp=sharing

Edited March 24, 2020 by Quasimodo

[AnkH 2,233]

Obviously you have a big gap in knowledge about how displays work, what FPS means, how it is related to the refresh rate of a monitor/TV (in Hz) and what it needs for a smooth perception of whatever you display on your monitor/TV. Giving a downloadable video for others to check if they see the same phenomenon if they watch the video with 24Hz is just so obviously showing you have not a clue about what you write, it almost hurts...

But then blaming others that they misread your post is just plain ridiculous. I am out here, go on with your dreams and your miracoulous "24FPS looks like 60FPS" bull*, just stop spreading basic facts as a miracoulous way to improve smoothness. What you observe is so straight forward and logic and reproducible if you know WHY you observe this, it even hurts that you still think you found something special. But why should I care, I also found a good setup for my sim without reducing the refresh rate down to a number that hurts my eyes...

Edited March 25, 2020 by AnkH

[GSalden 4,655]

24 hertz + vsync on with settings capable of running at 24+ FPS all the time will always look smoother than 60 hertz + vsync on with settings that cannot maintain 60 FPS...

Therrfore on my WidevieW setup with 4K displays only I use 25 hertz + vsync on. The higher the refreshrate the more load on the GPU... Twice the refreshrate is twice the load..

 

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by GSalden

[Rogen 1,087]

1 hour ago, GSalden said:

24 hertz + vsync on with settings capable of running at 24+ FPS all the time will always look smoother than 60 hertz + vsync on with settings that cannot maintain 60 FPS..

Very true and 60 Hz is way smoother than 30 Hz.

But here's the thing...

Modern TV's typically have a function and processor ability to take 24 Hz and output it at 60 Hz where movies filmed at 24 fps are given a very much smoother look, the same can apply for NTSC and PAL outputs of 29.97 Hz and 25 Hz respectively.

I wonder if this is the effect being described?

Usually you'll see the supersmooth motion effect in daytime soaps where the movement looks extremely fluid, almost too fluid like...

On 3/22/2020 at 11:07 AM, Quasimodo said:

I was recently sitting in the waiting room at the mechanic watching an old black and white episode of Perry Mason on the mechanics big UHD TV and I couldn't believe how real it looked or the illusion of depth.

I generally notice it in widescreen scenery pans within movies @ 24 fps, such as the Hateful 8, or Clint Eastwood spagetti westerns, where if you disable the effect the pans become noticably stuttery.

I've not plugged in my computer to my TV (which is a 65" Samsung UHD), must give it a try and tune the picture to see what happens, 65" may just become my new 24" replacement :-)

Cheers

Edited March 25, 2020 by Rogen

[Quasimodo 505]

6 hours ago, GSalden said:

24 hertz + vsync on with settings capable of running at 24+ FPS all the time will always look smoother than 60 hertz + vsync on with settings that cannot maintain 60 FPS...

Correct! and I said nothing to the contrary.😁

I have since determined that it is the TV that is delivering the smoothing effect at 24hz in conjunction with smoothing provided by TrackIR and EZCA 3. In fact it only works when the gaming mode is off. If I turn the gaming mode on and watch my own videos I can discerned the jump from one frame to the next which is indicative of a low refresh rate. I.e. the smoothness I am seeing is not captured in the videos. Its the TV producing the smoothness in the game play and the videos. So don't tell me you watched the videos and you can't see what I am taking about. I already know that. It's the end result that counts and the end result that shows what's possible. And what's possible is the appearance of 60fps synced in P3D when in fact it is running at 24fps. Unpack that! The TV is a Samsung 55" NU6900. Less than $500 at Costco. Your experience may vary!😁

Edited March 25, 2020 by Quasimodo

[Virtpilot 151]

Hmm.... I have followed this thread an altough my monitor is not capable of running with 24Hz, I did try the 48Hz. And somehow I like what I´m seeing. The scenery looks somehow more naturally than it was with 60Hz. Interesting. There is less shimmering. I have Scanline sync x/2 set in my RTSS and the frames stays at 30. 

Just my two cents in the discussion.