Wishlist for Marine Aquarium 3 and Future

[Jim Sachs]

My explanation of how the timing works in MA3 illustrates the reason the feature is called "Limit Frame Rate", and not "Set Frame Rate". The number is the maximum frame rate that can be expected, no two frames are going to be exactly the same, and some could be substatially less.

The ONLY reason for this feature is to slow down systems that are putting out 200 or more frames per second, so they don't overheat. If the monitor is running at 60 hz, then the majority of those calculations would be wasted, and 2 out of 3 frames never shown. So technically, I should probably only allow a lower limit of 60, and I am becoming tempted to do so. (Maybe 50 for PAL systems.)

[jleslie]

I think the sole point here is that the frame rate of the display has no direct relationship to the rate MA3 updates the 3D scene, which is what the slider is setting.

If I have (which I do) a 60Hz monitor I need a screen mode that runs at 60Hz or the monitor won't show the picture properly (actually it will eat other frequencies, but not much less than 60).

If I set MA3 to 30Hz it will update the 3D picture less often than my screen updates, but it will still look fairly reasonable movement-wise. It's actually updating it in the graphics card's memory, it doesn't write directly to the screen. When the graphics card wants a frame to show it will use the most recent one it has so about half of them will be duplicates.

If I set it to 120Hz then about half the frames MA3 draws will never make it to the screen, they will exist in the graphics card's memory though. If I had a 24Hz screen mode then nearly 100 frames would never be seen, but the graphics card would still put 24 frames a second to the screen, it doesn't care if MA3 is making 120 a second, it just won't display most of them.

All the monitor cares about is getting 60 frames a second, it isn't fussed about how often the content updates.

So what you need is to make sure the MA3 screen mode is 24Hz (I'd do this via the display control panel rather than MA3), not the 3D update rate. You don't care about whether MA3 is making 30 or 120 a sec, as you won't see the extra 6-96 frames. (Well, the card will get hotter if you make 120 a sec - that's why the limit is there, to keep the heat down.)

As a bonus if you set "wait for vsync" then it won't make a new frame until the last one is shown, so you will only get 24 MA3 screens drawn a second regardless of the 3D update rate you choose.

John

[Jim Sachs]

Thanks for explaining it better than I've been able to, John.

[jleslie]

P.S. sorry for the last bit Jim.

P.P.S. if you send 24 frames a sec to a TV it may then make up extra frames to go between them by interpolating how stuff is moving, so motion will look smoother. Oh, even more sorry Jim.

It's gone half midnight, I'm off to bed...

[xitrum]

I'm not sure how I can explain this any better...

Originally posted by jleslie:

You don't care about whether MA3 is making 30 or 120 a sec.
John  

No!

We're talking about nVidia 3DTV Play (and HDMI 1.4a) compatibility here.

You DO care that MA3 is sending 24 fps (1920x1080) if you want nVidia 3DTV Play to recognize your content as 3D.

As said before, I can force the display resolution to 1920x1080/24. But since my normal resolution is 720p, that means that I need to switch resolution/frame rate every time I want to run MA3. I thought computers are supposed to make it more convenient for us humans.

Sorry, but I don't see why this is such a big deal.

[Jim Sachs]

Your use of the word "sending" confirms that you still don't understand what MA3 does.

Suffice it to say that the frame limit will not be lowered to less than 30. There is enough ugliness in the world, and I will not knowingly add to it.

[jleslie]

As Jim said MA3 doesn't send frames anywhere, it makes them and the graphics card sends a fixed number each second to the display. All you need to do is tell the graphics card to send 24 a second.

Think of a postman (the graphics card) who comes 24 times a day at exact intervals and collects one letter each time. The receiver (the TV) gets 24 letters a day. It doesn't matter if you (MA3) write 30 or 60 letters a day or whether some are written slightly faster or slower than others, the TV will only get 24 as the Postman will throw away all but the most recent each time he comes. (I have a friend in Argentina, that sounds a bit like their post service, from what she says - I'm sending her 2 cards today, so wish me luck.)

Extending this "Wait for Vsync" says you are not to write another letter until the Postman collects one, so you will write 24 a day if the Postman comes 24 times a day (remembering the Postman's arrival rate is controlled by the graphics driver, not MA3).

Hope that helps,
John

[Yellow Tang]

He should get it now, I think...
Thank you John for your contuniously efforts to make this topic crystal clear to us!

[JohnWho]

Originally posted by xitrum:

We're talking about nVidia 3DTV Play (and HDMI 1.4a) compatibility here.  

I'm wondering if we have any other nVidia 3DTV Play users on the board, and how they've solved this issue, if they can.

As more folks make the switch to 3D HD, will this always be a problem for some?

Just wondering.

xitrum -

Are you saying you can get MA3 in 3D on your TV in 720 but not in 1080?

Are you also saying that the HDMI requirement is 24 fps in 1080 only?

Just curious.

[ESHIREY]

Did he ever say what kind of tv he is using? If his tv is only 720p it will only do 1080i.

[Wizwad]

Surely, if his TV is only 720 then it will only support 720 natively. Any higher and it'll be trying to force a 720 line screen to display a 1080 line image, which probably won't end well.

[xitrum]

Originally posted by Wizwad:

Surely, if his TV is only 720 then it will only support 720 natively. Any higher and it'll be trying to force a 720 line screen to display a 1080 line image, which probably won't end well.  

The TV native resolution is 1920x1080.

[xitrum]

Originally posted by jleslie:

As Jim said MA3 doesn't send frames anywhere, it makes them and the graphics card sends a fixed number each second to the display. All you need to do is tell the graphics card to send 24 a second.

Think of a postman (the graphics card) who comes 24 times a day at exact intervals and collects one letter each time. The receiver (the TV) gets 24 letters a day. It doesn't matter if you (MA3) write 30 or 60 letters a day or whether some are written slightly faster or slower than others, the TV will only get 24 as the Postman will throw away all but the most recent each time he comes. (I have a friend in Argentina, that sounds a bit like their post service, from what she says - I'm sending her 2 cards today, so wish me luck.)

Extending this "Wait for Vsync" says you are not to write another letter until the Postman collects one, so you will write 24 a day if the Postman comes 24 times a day (remembering the Postman's arrival rate is controlled by the graphics driver, not MA3).

Hope that helps,
John  

Thanks for being patient. I understood all that.

What I am asking is to tell the postman to collect 24 times a day and I only write 24 letters a day.

[xitrum]

Originally posted by Jim Sachs:

Your use of the word "sending" confirms that you still don't understand what MA3 does.  

I didn't know that you prefer techno-jargon like "writing to frame buffer", etc. My mistake.

I hope I don't have to understand what MA3 does.

[xitrum]

Originally posted by JohnWho:

I'm wondering if we have any other nVidia 3DTV Play users on the board, and how they've solved this issue, if they can.

As more folks make the switch to 3D HD, will this always be a problem for some?

Just wondering.

xitrum -

Are you saying you can get MA3 in 3D on your TV in 720 but not in 1080?

Are you also saying that the HDMI requirement is 24 fps in 1080 only?

Just curious.  

Thanks for contributing to the discussion. Once more users acquire 3DTV and use nVidia 3DTV Play, more people will appreciate what I'm talking about.

To answer your question, yes, I can get MA3 in 3D in 720p if I leave the "Limit frame rate" setting at 60. If I drop the "Limit frame rate" setting to, say, 50, I'd lose the 3D effect.

HDMI 1.4a standard specifies frame-packing of 1080p/24 for movie content and 720p/60 for video game content. But really, it doesn't care/know whether the content is movie or video game. A video game, while not recommended for fps type games, can use 1080p/24.

[Wizwad]

The answer they were trying to give above, was forget MA3. It's immaterial what MA3 is doing. As far as fps in MA3 is concerned, it's a Red Herring. It's what your graphics card is doing that's important. Just set your graphics card to 24 fps.

[Jim Sachs]

"Sending" would imply some sort of communication between MA3 and the video timing.

Using the postman analogy, you (MA3) have no communication with the postman. You have no idea when the postman picks up the mail. Several times a day, you replace the letter in the mailbox with a new one, and at some point the postman picks up whatever is in there and delivers it. He does not know or care how many times that letter has been replaced in the meantime.

If the recipients of the letters would like a nice, regular delivery of the mail, they will have to take it up with the Post Office (the video card).

(P.S. for analogy sticklers only - The one flaw in that analogy is that the postman actually removes the letter from the mailbox, and thus would know if was not replaced the next time he checked the mailbox. A better analogy would be if he photographed the contents of the mailbox, and delivered a COPY to the recipient, without ever actually looking at the contents.)

[Wizwad]

And, incidentally, this raises the types of fish supported by MA3 to 29 (plus the starfish)!

[Jim Sachs]

Great, now I'll have to add Red Herring to the Fishlist interface

[jleslie]

:-)

BTW I wasn't worried about the Postman taking the letter as the Windows MA3 makes at least 30 in the time the Postmas collects 24, plus it kept it simple (it was also well past midnight - I was staying up late doing this, so I did the best I could).

I would add I have a 720p 26" TV in my bedroom and it makes an excellent job of displaying 1080i content. It doesn't do 1080p, 24fps or 3D.

If you want 1080p24 look in the Display properties when the TV is connected - ATi, Nvidia and Intel all have pretty good options to control the output to a TV. Then make sure MA3 is set to the correct resolution and you should be fine (although MA3 doesn't seem to have the "use the current mode" option it used to, but I'm assuming all will be well if you choose 1920x1080x32).

John