Atomic Systems

NeutronIC wrote:....and it drops through the floor for me too - but then it starts out at about 150fps for me anyway so it's not too unusable

Matt.

What spec are you running Matt. I cant get better than 40 fps with KRS. I get faster rates with MSTS1.

Core2Duo 2.6ghz
Geforce 8800 GTX Pro * 2 (SLI)
2gb RAM
2 * 250gb SATA-2 disks in Raid-0 stripe config
Nvidia nforce 6th gen motherboard

It's a purpose built gaming machine from Alienware, the people who build gaming machines that scream

I can even run Flight Sim X with all the sliders to the right and still get 15-20fps

Matt.

I asked this on another thread, but no-one could think of an answer - what is the point of 150fps? - or anything over 30 come to that.

Just wondering

Pete W

It just makes you feel fuzzy if you have that many FPS.

On a game called Counterstrike I get 200FPS with full settings. Love it.

Actually this question comes up repeatedly, and while in theory over 30fps you can't tell the difference, in practice you certainly can. I used to run an old first person shooter many moons ago at 30fps on average, when upgrading to a newer machine it could run at about 65fps and the difference was very clear, though by no means as much as the difference between 25 and 30fps for example so very much a case of reducing returns.

I should point out that I get 150fps in positive conditions, it can drop down to 50-60fps in pretty heavy conditions on the screen.

I bought it at that spec for the next generation of sims - and because I didn't want to buy another machine for five years, by which time no doubt it'll be crawling at 5fps on then-current software

Matt.

But if you didn't have Shift-Z, would you really know the difference?

PW

Yes as I say it was quite clearly different in feel, difficult to describe - but it was very much more 'free' and real time, not that 30fps isn't, but things were definitely very nice.

The myth (or indeed waste of time) is not so much in exceeding 30fps - but exceeding the refresh rate of your monitor at the resolution you're playing the game in. if your monitor is only updating at 60hz, then anything more than 60fps is just wasted effort, your eye won't even have the chance to see it - at 120fps you're simply not seeing half the frames shown, whether your eye can see it or not

Matt.

peteworsley wrote:But if you didn't have Shift-Z, would you really know the difference?

PW

Yes you will , up to about 90 fps for the average human. Basically its more about smoothness and motion blur above this level . If you're thinking about the 25-30 FPS myth , this is only to describe the fact that the eye can distinguish individual frames below these numbers . Plenty of reference material available, particularly from the Film industry ( Motion Pictue Academy and Cinematography Schools ) white papers are helpfull in understanding this phenomenon.

~A~

Matt what did you pay for a that machine? and when did you buy it?

It was about £2k i think perhaps a bit under, or thereabouts, bought i'd say three or four months back now direct from Alienware.

Service from them was excellent, I have to say, they continually keep you up dated via the web site throughout all stages of building and testing the machine and beat their estimated timescales by a considerable amount.

I would certainly recommend them for anyone wanting a gaming platform, they specialise in gaming and know what components to choose to make a good gaming system.

Matt.

It was about £2k

Bit more than mine then £386 from Dell

I'm still impressed at how well RS runs on my sons machine, a little Acer Aspire T180 bottom of the range Sempron machine, £190 inc vat / delivery etc, and with all settings set to low, it still manages between 20-25fps in just about all cases (and still looks and runs better than MSTS or Trainz on the same hardware).

Matt

That is a great find, unless you need the high detail settings then why bother with an expensive machine? As you say 20-25fps on a machine that cost £190 is amazing!

Indeed, but even with my lowly Dell at £386 I can get 60fps out of the box without altering any settings Its runs really smoothly with not a trace of a stutter. Even in really high detail areas it doesnt go below 40fps. So there isnt any need to pay huge amounts of dosh for a state of the art machine.

NeutronIC wrote:if your monitor is only updating at 60hz, then anything more than 60fps is just wasted effort, your eye won't even have the chance to see it - at 120fps you're simply not seeing half the frames shown, whether your eye can see it or not

Matt.

Silly question, but does a monitor with a refresh rate of 60Hz actually display 60 distinct frames per second (sufficient framerate frm gfx card assumed), or does it work like TV whereby the framerate is interlaced down to half the scanrate?