[Ciggy]

Hi, I'm fairly new to epsxe and emulators in general. I've read that if games run too fast, it is appropriate to limit the framerate to 60fps.

My question is: if some games were designed to run at 30fps (or any amount less than 60fps), doesn't this mean that they will run at an inappropriate rate at 60fps (too fast)? I've tried out a few games, but it seems difficult to judge whether they are running too fast. Am I confused about framerate?

 

[culubalo]

in my experience games about 60 fps don't run any different by humans perception to 24fps. However on emulation it would be wise to limit fps otherwise the game runs faster than it should.

 

[hushypushy]

well the emulator shows 60 fps, but some games actually run lower than that even though the emulator says 60 fps. it's kind of strange actually. your TV goes at 29.97 fps (so, basically 30...) and that's what is shown. turn on PC FPS calculation for a more "perfect" FPS calculation. but yeah, 60 fps is what's going on, technically (it's rendering 60 frames per second). but play a game like Driver2 or Gran Turismo, and you'll see slowdown even though the game is going at 60 fps

 

[culubalo]

so what hushy is saying is that the screen is rendering at 60fps but the game is running effectively at 30fps, so a frame is being rendered 2times more than it shhould.
would that be correct?

 

[Mr. Killjoy]

>> in my experience games about 60 fps don't run any different by humans perception to 24fps.

Of course they do, humans see lot above 24fps, movies just use this framerate cause they have somthing computers don't: frames moothing, or motion blur, it eliminates the choppiness effect.

Back to the problem, 60 FPS is for NTSC games, PAL use 50... though if you can run them at 60, it's better, since the gameplay is synchronised to the framerate.
I tried RE2 US in shop long ago, it ran 20% faster than the PAL ones did.
But since few games do things a different way, such as MGS, just use the "Automatic frame limitation" option

 

[fireblaster_lyz]

Well, Pete's newest plugin compensates this by allowing a floating point value to experiment with.

 

[hushypushy]

so what hushy is saying is that the screen is rendering at 60fps but the game is running effectively at 30fps, so a frame is being rendered 2times more than it shhould.
would that be correct?

no it's still being rendered the same, put on PC FPS calculation and it will be exactly the same and say 30 fps

think of it this way. your monitor is, say, 75hz, meaning it refreshes 75 times a second. but your game is going at, say, 50 fps. does that mean the game is rendering at 75fps? no. same with PSX emulation, it's refreshing 60 fps but it's really going 30...im not sure that's quite a perfect explanation but just deal with it

 

[ChankastRules]

The reason many people gets confused with FPS in emulation is that in PC gaming having a fast FPS for example 180 is great, and nowadays every single PC game is limited by CPU timing functions instead of FPS. ( Note that we won't see more than the monitor refresh rate anyhow ) but running at a faster FPS could create smother gameplay, as the game reacts faster to our actions. ( fast ping and fast FPS has won me quite a few UT games, not because I'm good but because I get and advantage )

>However some old DOS games was infact limited by the fact that they couldn't run faster than a certain amount ( the developers didn't bother to create a timing function to control it because they didn't think PC's would get fast enough to need it during it's life-span ) Well, that's why a lot old DOS games runs too fast on modern PC's these days.<

Since a console have certain specs, and the TV will always run at a certain refresh rate console games is designed to run at a certain FPS, and trying to set it higher will make the game run too fast because they don't have the same timing as in PC games to limit at what speed they run ( it's not needed, because unlike PC's one machine is not faster than the other )

I hope this clears some confusion

 

[Ciggy]

Thank you for the responses, guys. I sort of understand better - especially the difference between games that have CPU timing that keeps the gameplay running at the same rate at different fps versus games designed without CPU timing.

I guess the confusing thing to me is that if I set the fps limiter to 300, the game would run to fast, which would seem to suggest it doesn't have proper CPU timing built in. But if I set the limiter to 60, it knows to limit it to 30fps?
It is my understanding that most Playstation games were designed to run at 30fps, with the exception of a few (such as Tobal#1) at the full 60fps. Does this mean epsxe still "knows" to limit those 30fps games?

Furthermore, if I am rendering more frames than needed (and those frames are "thrown out"), am I taking an unnecessary performance hit? Or is my computer rendering more than 60fps anyway and throwing out frames anyway?

BTW, is 60 fps a good limiter for most console emulators, not just epsxe?

 

[hushypushy]

try limiting your PSX games to 30 fps and see what happens

i really dont know how to re-explain it...i think the topic has been covered pretty well already.

and your computer isnt rendering more frames than needed. if you limit it to 60, that's how many it will render.