Display planes use

[nightshade]

maybe you ignore that there're already games that change resolution/framebuffer on the fly, inconsistent what?

yet you still ignore the fact that they do this to have a consistent framerate....your argument is flawed. Having to jump between 60FPS and 30FPS depending on you looking through a scope or not is just a stupid idea as the transistion will be jarring. The moment you let go of scope it's down to 30FPS and jerky due to the transistion, having had this experience in some PC games in past (due to their unlocked framerate) I know this is very unpleasent. Also what of iron sights ? you still render the surrounding areas when looking through iron sights unlike sniper scopes where it can be a black screen for 50% of the pixels.

 

[Alucardx23]

You're not really answering the question here.
Do you make your cross-hair move around the screen rather than rotating the camera? Do you re-think the rendering of "slow-plane" to render a much larger field-of-view (requiring multiple passes) to accommodate for faster scrolling of the cross-hair plane?
Devil is in the details - decoupling update-FPS of two things is the easiest part of the problem to solve (and some of these solutions wouldn't even work properly with just 2d-plane merging).

Anyway - "accuracy" in online-shooters is all smoke&mirrors - this would just add another layer of illusion - although I agree it's one that can improve player-comfort.

I now understand what Shifty and ERP were saying about camera movement, the gun can be considered static on the screen since the crosshair is centered, the moment you move the crosshair the screen will also move, so the only framerate you will perceive, is the one that the background is running at, you might be able to let the player point to any area of the screen while not moving the camera, like Metroid Prime does, but I think it might be too disorienting for most fast paced FPS. I still think it might apply and be useful under some situations like looking through a sniper scope. Also taking killzone 2 as an example, let’s do this experiment, as stated by Digital foundry the game takes 150ms to register that you pressed the fire button, and start the firing animation, compared to the 112ms that COD takes. How would it help to reduce lag perception if the firing animation is running at 60 frames on a fist plane, while the rest of the game keep still running the way it is? It should be perceived as having less lag, it's all "smoke&mirrors", like you say. :smile:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-killzone-3?page=2

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/digitalfoundry-xbox-360-call-of-duty-controller-latency-tests

This is one moment where I would really like to be a programmer to see how it would look, how would a flight game look if the plane is rendered at 60 frames but the environment is rendered at 30? The fluidity of the plane movements and the controller response would be a lot better, the same for a car racing game or a fighting game. The latest 2D Mortal Kombat for example runs at 60 frames, why not have the background rendered at 30 frames and add more detail.

How is it going to be better if, for example, that person you are aiming at is only being updated at 30 FPS while your crosshairs are being moved and updated at 60 FPS? you still wouldn't be able to accurately line up the shot. It would just introduce even more of a disconnect between the player and the game.

In other words, even if the crosshairs are moving at 60 FPS. You are still reacting and aiming at things based on their 30 FPS positions and movements.

The idea is to have a constant controller response under any situation that might happen in a game. A game running at 30 fps gives enough visual information for you to line up a shot at 60fps. In my opinion a big part of what made games like Call of Duty so famous, was because of the great controller response that it offers when compared to other shooters.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The idea is to have a constant controller response under any situation that might happen in a game. A game running at 30 fps gives enough visual information for you to line up a shot at 60fps. In my opinion a big part of what made games like Call of Duty so famous, was because of the great controller response that it offers when compared to other shooters.

Yes, constant controller response is a big part of it, but also constant and quick visual identification is a part of it. You don't necessarily want one without the other when it comes to FPS games.

The biggest key is keeping it constant. Even 30 FPS feels OK as long as it is always 30 fps. In that case 30 FPS would feel better as a shooter than 60 FPS that randomly dips down to 40 FPS.

Not just on the control side but on the visual side to see where people are going and how they are reacting.

Regards,
SB

 

[Alucardx23]

Yes, constant controller response is a big part of it, but also constant and quick visual identification is a part of it. You don't necessarily want one without the other when it comes to FPS games.

I think good controller response is dependent of quick visual identification, the moment you press the button on the controller, you expect the action to happen on the screen, and the longer it takes, the more disconnection you feel with what is happening on the screen.

The biggest key is keeping it constant. Even 30 FPS feels OK as long as it is always 30 fps. In that case 30 FPS would feel better as a shooter than 60 FPS that randomly dips down to 40 FPS.

Not just on the control side but on the visual side to see where people are going and how they are reacting.

I agree, that's the whole idea, to keep constant experience. 30fps is good, but 60fps controller response is better.

 

[Colourless]

Where it might be useful is something like a virtual cursor in a game thats running slowly (thinking RTS with a controller). With the UI updating at 60Hz you'll also get nice responsive movement. Also making the UI always matching 1:1 with display output would be nice for UI. Really, the use for this is more repsonsive better looking UI. For a console that might end up with mostly 720p games, having UIs at 1080p might do well to fool people that its not actually running at a lower res.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I agree, that's the whole idea, to keep constant experience. 30fps is good, but 60fps controller response is better.

There are several issues affecting controller response; 30 fps graphics draw is the least of them. A lot of games sample input at 60 fps (or at least used to) and update the game accordingly, with just the redraw slowing things down. There's delay from the controller and rendering and display up to (and beyond) 100 ms. Another 17 ms from 1/30th of a second more on screen than 1/60th is hardly going to make the difference between responsive and sluggish controls.

So I think you're both looking in the wrong place to fix the issue you have with games, and even if not, display panes aren't going to solve it anyway.

 

[ramr]

There are several issues affecting controller response; 30 fps graphics draw is the least of them. A lot of games sample input at 60 fps (or at least used to) and update the game accordingly, with just the redraw slowing things down. There's delay from the controller and rendering and display up to (and beyond) 100 ms. Another 17 ms from 1/30th of a second more on screen than 1/60th is hardly going to make the difference between responsive and sluggish controls.

So I think you're both looking in the wrong place to fix the issue you have with games, and even if not, display panes aren't going to solve it anyway.

I hope that the consoles work out wireless controller lag. I love SCHMUPS, the 360 has tons of SCHMUPS. Unfortunately they are all unplayable due to controller lag.