[rhino_g3]

I am new to Mac gaming. Just purchase a 800Mhz PM with the Radeon 7500 and planned on purchasing a game and getting a taste of the gaming world. I have tried a few game demos from the MacAddict disk. Deus Ex is cool and so is Unreal Tournament. Is there an OS X version of these two.

Like I said, I am new to this so what is a good frame rate? I noticed in the Unreal demo it gives the ability to track frame rate. It was giving me an average frame rate of 78. Does that sound right? What does RMS mean?

rhino_g3

[x user]

FPS

Your eyes can only detect 30fps. Now considering that you eyes might not quite sync with the FPS in the game if you running 30fps on that game. I've found however that anytime you can get 60fps your good enough. There is really no benifit to getting more than that. However it doesn't hurt either.

As for games on MacOSX:

Return to castle wolfenstein Multiplayer test 2. Hint: Don't run on OS 10.1.3 use 10.1.2 if possible.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...lfenstein.html
There are all kinds of game downloads over there.

[ 02-24-2002: Message edited by: x user ]

[xyber233]

There is a UT X beta2 out. There are some problems with it but it is playable under X. http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/6369

[rampant]

Originally posted by x user:
<STRONG>FPS

Your eyes can only detect 30fps. Now considering that you eyes might not quite sync with the FPS in the game if you running 30fps on that game. I've found however that anytime you can get 60fps your good enough. There is really no benifit to getting more than that. However it doesn't hurt either.

As for games on MacOSX:

Return to castle wolfenstein Multiplayer test 2. Hint: Don't run on OS 10.1.3 use 10.1.2 if possible.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...lfenstein.html
There are all kinds of game downloads over there.

[ 02-24-2002: Message edited by: x user ]</STRONG>

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I WILL NOT GET INTO THIS DISCUSSION, I WILL NOT GET INTO THIS DISCUSSION, i will not get into this discussion...

*must... leave... thread... now! You... too... seaneypez!*

[a2daj]

Originally posted by rampant:
<STRONG>

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I WILL NOT GET INTO THIS DISCUSSION, I WILL NOT GET INTO THIS DISCUSSION, i will not get into this discussion...

*must... leave... thread... now! You... too... seaneypez!*</STRONG>

Dammit, then. I'll give it a try!

1. Your eyes CAN see more than 30 fps. It's been covered several times in just about every mac/pc gaming forum out there, so I won't bother going into it.

2. There are MANY reasons why people would want fps greater than 60fps. The 60 fps people get when doing time demos is an average. Not a steady framerate. So your highs may be in the 100s and your laws may be in the low 20s, even single digits. So, the higher the average, the higher your lows.
Now why do we want the lows higher? So we can keep up with what's going on. No one wants to visit SlideShowLand in the middle of a heavy fire fight.
And, the faster the framerates, the more responsive your controls will be. If your computer is chugging Q3 along at 10 fps, it's not going to be able to respond to your controls, thus your mousemovement won't be as precise, trying to make accurate jumps will be a pain, trying not to shoot a wall with a rocket can get pretty hard. Now if you were in the same situation running with an average of 60 fps, everything would be a little easier. If you're averaging in the 100s, well, that just allows more CPU time for processing your input.

[rampant]

Originally posted by a2daj:
<STRONG>

Dammit, then. I'll give it a try!

1. Your eyes CAN see more than 30 fps. It's been covered several times in just about every mac/pc gaming forum out there, so I won't bother going into it.

2. There are MANY reasons why people would want fps greater than 60fps. The 60 fps people get when doing time demos is an average. Not a steady framerate. So your highs may be in the 100s and your laws may be in the low 20s, even single digits. So, the higher the average, the higher your lows.
Now why do we want the lows higher? So we can keep up with what's going on. No one wants to visit SlideShowLand in the middle of a heavy fire fight.
And, the faster the framerates, the more responsive your controls will be. If your computer is chugging Q3 along at 10 fps, it's not going to be able to respond to your controls, thus your mousemovement won't be as precise, trying to make accurate jumps will be a pain, trying not to shoot a wall with a rocket can get pretty hard. Now if you were in the same situation running with an average of 60 fps, everything would be a little easier. If you're averaging in the 100s, well, that just allows more CPU time for processing your input.</STRONG>

Thank you sir!

*drops a quarter in his mug*

Seaneypez and I explained this to death.

[x user]

1. Sure your eyes can see more than 30 FPS. However your brain can't computer more. I believe the exact number is 29.9xxxxfps. And it's a fact, you can't see more than this. There is no getting around it, you can't compute more than 30fps. Try to prove that we can.

2. Your point is made. However, I can play games very well with less then 30 fps. 60fps would be a wonderful on my iBook. Also I've never seen a 60fps game go down to less then 30 unless server lag was involved, which would make it drop more anyway. 200Fps is just crazy. Admittedly, there's nothing wrong with having that much.

[Macfreak7]

i never quite believed it before, but now i do(from some experience): the higher your frame rate and/or resolution, the better your gaming performance.

if you say theres no difference between getting 75fps and getting 100 fps, you're wrong.
same goes for saying that there is no difference between playing at 800x600 and playing at a higher resolution(with the same frame rate)

...mainly due to a2daj's second point.

[a2daj]

1. Show me some sources that it can't compute more than 30 fps. Here are some sources that say the human visual system can compute more than 30 fps:
http://www.penstarsys.com/editor/30v60/30v60p1.htm
http://amo.net/NT/05-24-01FPS.html


2. You can play games very well at 30 fps, but others may not enjoy the experience so much. And setups that average 60 fps can drop down to the low teens based on a number of factors; bad drivers, major fire fight (16 person Q3 fire fights can get pretty hectic), complex level, underpowered video card...
RtCW is a game where I've seen framerates plummet from the high nineties (capped framerates) to single digits in a matter of seconds (that beach is a framerate killer!)
OpenGL Unreal Tournament w/ a Radeon in OS 9 is another situation where framerates drop dramatically. Most of the cityintro timedemo sticks around 60+ fps with my setup, however, in one room near the end of the demo, framerates drop down to single digits due to an issue with the ATI drivers.

[ 02-25-2002: Message edited by: a2daj ]

[rampant]

Originally posted by x user:
<STRONG>1. Sure your eyes can see more than 30 FPS. However your brain can't computer more. I believe the exact number is 29.9xxxxfps. And it's a fact, you can't see more than this. There is no getting around it, you can't compute more than 30fps. Try to prove that we can.

2. Your point is made. However, I can play games very well with less then 30 fps. 60fps would be a wonderful on my iBook. Also I've never seen a 60fps game go down to less then 30 unless server lag was involved, which would make it drop more anyway. 200Fps is just crazy. Admittedly, there's nothing wrong with having that much.</STRONG>

Have you ever looked at 2 compters running the same demo, one at 30, one at 60fps? VooDoo had one of those for it's VooDoo 2 to show the importance of higher framerate.

[G4ME]

FPS

Your eyes can only detect 30fps. Now considering that you eyes might not quite sync with the FPS in the game if you running 30fps on that game. I've found however that anytime you can get 60fps your good enough. There is really no benifit to getting more than that. However it doesn't hurt either.

Then Why are films only shot at 24 this is only in optics not video games I would rather have a 120 FPS sytem then a 100, I under stand that the game slows down as the strain on the CPU, GPU increases. But film is rather fluid not to jerky, you might notice a differance between 24 and 30 but the eye only needs 24 FPS in order to trick the brain that the objet is moving fluidly.

[a2daj]

Originally posted by G4ME:
<STRONG>FPS

Then Why are films only shot at 24 this is only in optics not video games I would rather have a 120 FPS sytem then a 100, I under stand that the game slows down as the strain on the CPU, GPU increases. But film is rather fluid not to jerky, you might notice a differance between 24 and 30 but the eye only needs 24 FPS in order to trick the brain that the objet is moving fluidly.</STRONG>

The reason 24 fps looks fluid on movies in the movie theater is because 1) it's dark 2) there's motion blur in most frames. Now the darkness isn't as much of a factor, but the motion blur is key.

[mac freak]

Once the framerate is above 60, the graphics no longer appear any smoother, as human eye can take in onyl60 images per second (not 30 as mentioned before). Plus, your monitor most likely has a refresh rate between 70 and 120 Hz (meaning it can update that many times per second). HOWEVER, there are benefits to framerates above 60, mainly improved response time.

For my purposes, I consider 30 and anything above it to be 100% fully acceptable. I can deal with being a hundredth of a second slower to respond than my fellow players! No, I'm not a psychopathic Quake addict, I play "slower" games in general... D2, BG2, StarCraft, AOE2, Black and White... I guess I play a little UT . But IMHO shooters in general are highly overrated.

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by x user:
<STRONG>1. Sure your eyes can see more than 30 FPS. However your brain can't computer more.</STRONG>

This makes no sense at all. If you can see more than 30 fps, you can certainly "computer" more, whatever that means. The actual top frequency is somewhere between 70 and 80 Hz for most people - the point at which your eye stops detecting flicker in peripheral vision.

Brad

[rhino_g3]

Thank you sir!

*drops a quarter in his mug*

Seaneypez and I explained this to death.

This is my first post in the Mac Games section here at MacNN. Mabey I should of done a search for the info before posting. I was mainly curious if the 78fps was good or not since I wasn't familiar with were those numbers should be. Now that I see 60fps is a good average rate it along with all the added info in these posts it helps me to understand more.

rhino_g3

[rampant]

Originally posted by G4ME:
<STRONG>FPS

Then Why are films only shot at 24 this is only in optics not video games I would rather have a 120 FPS sytem then a 100, I under stand that the game slows down as the strain on the CPU, GPU increases. But film is rather fluid not to jerky, you might notice a differance between 24 and 30 but the eye only needs 24 FPS in order to trick the brain that the objet is moving fluidly.</STRONG>

Have you ever seen a film pan a scene? It is choppy.

[rampant]

Here: http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ulti...0&amp;t=001535


All you ever wanted to know about frame rates, by seaneypez and I.

There are 5 more threads about 2 times longer than that, but that's the first one I found.

[G4ME]

This is my first post in the Mac Games section here at MacNN. Mabey I should of done a search for the info before posting. I was mainly curious if the 78fps was good or not since I wasn't familiar with were those numbers should be. Now that I see 60fps is a good average rate it along with all the added info in these posts it helps me to understand more.

You got a good FPS on your system, but if you want more go for the Geforce 3 of even 4 if you got the cash then you will see some improvements in high end games that utilize the cards.

But if you are a casual Quake 3 of RTCW then you are golden IMO

[MindFad]

My brain can "computer" more frames per second than yours can! So there!

So you can't tell the difference between 60 frames and 30? I sure can, but I don't have to worry much, because my GeForce 3 is happy at 80 frames at 1600x1200 (shameless brag). Happy gaming, folks, and see if your eyes can "computer" more frames than mine!

[rampant]

Originally posted by MindFad:
<STRONG>My brain can "computer" more frames per second than yours can! So there!

So you can't tell the difference between 60 frames and 30? I sure can, but I don't have to worry much, because my GeForce 3 is happy at 80 frames at 1600x1200 (shameless brag). Happy gaming, folks, and see if your eyes can "computer" more frames than mine!</STRONG>

No, I believe you entirely missed the whole point of this topic and that one.

60=limit, as a general rule. (there are a VERY few people who can tell in a game if it's higher than 60) and anything higher is better because you always get slowdown.

[MindFad]

Originally posted by rampant:
<STRONG>

No, I believe you entirely missed the whole point of this topic and that one.

60=limit, as a general rule. (there are a VERY few people who can tell in a game if it's higher than 60) and anything higher is better because you always get slowdown.</STRONG>

No, I understand just fine. I was just poking fun and joking around. Nothing wrong with that in internet land.

[ 02-26-2002: Message edited by: MindFad ]

phew.

[rhino_g3]

Here: http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/ulti...0&amp;t=001535


All you ever wanted to know about frame rates, by seaneypez and I.

There are 5 more threads about 2 times longer than that, but that's the first one I found.

Thanks for the link rampant! Very informative.

You got a good FPS on your system, but if you want more go for the Geforce 3 of even 4 if you got the cash then you will see some improvements in high end games that utilize the cards.

But if you are a casual Quake 3 of RTCW then you are golden IMO

Thanks G4ME, that is really the kind of response I was looking for. I am happy with the way the UT demo looked with my Radeon 7500. I won't be upgrading for quite sometime.