Lower frame rates then MA2??

[xrayspex]

I am experiencing much lower frame rates then i do with MA2 and Sim aquarium.
With 4 goldfish i am getting around 25frp and with 3 only in the 30s.
With MA2 i limit it to 62 and thats what i get with 7 fish.
Sim i get 62 frp with 7 fish.
Anyone else getting low frp with goldfish?

All my aquariums are set the same..1024x768 16 bit.

[xrayspex]

Hmmm, nobody else notice this? I presume that its becouse the fish are larger? Hmmm....................................anyone?

[cjmaddy]

xrayspex,

That sounds about right. The fps are lower. (The following are from the weekend pre-beta)

1 fish, no plants, - ~24 fps (1024x768x16) Direct3D HAL, VSynch: Ignored,

1 fish, all plants, - ~21 fps ......... 5 fish:- ~10 fps

MA2 comparison ...... 40+ fps, 7 fish, bubbles, - N312,2,0,4738


Removing the 'Limit Frame Rate' check mark increases the fps by ~25% - to ....

~25 fps - 1 fish.
~15 fps - 3 fish.

My modest system .......

CPU ........ AMD K6-2 500MHz 448RAM
Windows .... 98SE
Motherboard. TMC AI5VG+ 100Mz (VIA MVP3)
Video card . GeForce4 MX440 64mb AGP (Driver 4.13.01.3140)
Sound card . Sound Blaster AWE-32 (Driver 4.38.16)
DirectX .... Version 8.1b

[xrayspex]

Thanks cjm. I thought i was going nuts. I also found that unchecking "limit framerate" increased it a lil bit but not by much. Hopefully this will be worked out in future revisions.

[ewald]

Originally posted by xrayspex
Hmmm, nobody else notice this? I presume that its becouse the fish are larger? Hmmm....................................anyone?

it's because the fish are more complex in terms of the 3d model (look at the wireframe version)

decreasing the amount of plants will give you some additional frames...

or decrease your screen resolution...

or get a better graphics card

[xrayspex]

Yup..i figured it was becouse of the complexity but i certainly dont consider Geforce4 MX440 128 agp to be low end either. Somewhat mid range for vid cards and i think most people dont have the new 300 buck cards and most have mid range cards. I also think that 1024x768 is low enough..i certainly dont want to run it at 800x600.
Just concerned whats going to happen when they start adding toys an bubbles if they cant figure out how to up the frp a little
Right now they are fine at 4 goldfish and in the 30s(movement,ect looks nice) but with toys,ect i dont know.

[Reichart]

Yup, we are pushing the boundaries of the 3D again. The good news is (in my opinion) the product looks better at lower resolution, thus runs MUCH FASTER.

The reason is that high res out performs our current ability and technologically (meaning all tech) to perform. roughly, you want a ratio that is about 30 pixels per poly. The higher the resolution, the higher this number goes, which is bad. 1:1: is great if you could get it, where every polygon is for all intent a single pixel.

Assuming our display is 1600x1200, and we have about 2500 polys, we are talking about roughly 10K pixels per poly. That sucks.

Now consider a 3D movie effect made for TV. Same polys, but NTSC (which is calculated as 720x 480 roughly) 138 pixels per Poly. Amazing different no?!?

I think of this stuff in terms of math, frequency response, etc. It is all a game of numbers.

[cjmaddy]

I find that reducing the resolution below 1024x768 makes little difference to the fps.
Reducing the number of plants only makes a small difference (see my above figures)
Removing the 'Limit Frame Rate' check mark increases the fps by ~25%

More worrying is .......
This 0.9 beta is behaving like the N417,0,9,14 ........... ie.

Restart after a setting change, frequently locks up my computer, requiring a reboot.
This seemed to be cured with GA Version N419,0,9,156 ...... but now it's back again!

[ROBinLA]

My computer freezes sometimes when I go into wireframe mode. Also the plants do not disappear on my machine when I press the [ or ] keys. My specs are:

P4 1.6ghz 512mb
ATI Radeon 7500 64mb
LCD running at 16 or 32 bit 1400 x 1050

My fps when it is running seems to be around 40fps with 5 fish and all plants

Rob

[Jav400]

As Reichart explained, there is ALOT more going on in GA and it does reflect on your fps. I run @ 1600x1200 and in MA2 I get ~95fps with everything on, conversly in GA at the same res and settings I get ~45fps with everything on. I'm using a GF2 Ultra video card with 41.09 drivers.

[bob49]

I have a Pentium3 733mhz with a Radeon 7200 64ddr
512mg ram mem.
Asus motherboard CUV-4X
I can run the goldfish aquarium at 1152x864 32bit with 5 Fish
and it run very well at 37FPS.


I thank it's normal to have lower frame rate than the marine aquarium because the goldfish are bigger and more complex
in movement than the marine fish...

[Jim Sachs]

If you think the framerate is low now, you should have seen it when the program was 5 megs. Prolific has done a lot to streamline and speed up the program, and I'm sure they will continue to do so.

When I designed the Marine Aquarium, I wrote it for the low-end cards that were common 3 years ago. So naturally those of you with more modern cards are getting framerates in the hundreds. The 3D background and other improvements will slow things down somewhat, but time marches on.

The ideal situation would be to increase the complexity of the program until the average state-of-the-art card runs at the same rate as the monitor refreshes, let's say 100 fps. That's what I will be shooting for with the Freshwater Tank.

[Reichart]

Completely agreed.

TV is 30 FPS, Pal is 50 fps, so no matter how fast you make something, a TV can only show it as fast as it can draw a new frame (or field).

Impossible. Impulses from the receptors in human eyes usually last for
about 1/25th second. So it cannot resolve shorter time periods than
that. So a sequence of frames with a rate higher than 30fps gets blurred
by the human eye.


Video monitors have a magical effect that happens at around 60 fps. When images are shown at this rate (coin op games do this) they seem more “physical”

So 30 FPS or above is my personal minimum for the illusion of movement.
60 FPS is where things become “solid”
Over 100 FPS is simply cool. If you have the hardware for it, great.

[Jim Sachs]

The reason I chose 100 fps is that it's necessary for 3D glasses.

[Jav400]

If I could get some 3D drivers to work properly with 2k I would be just thrilled. But I haven't given up hope yet.

[ROBinLA]

Actually, a detailed experiment was performed by the special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull (2001 a space odyssey among others). He did detailed experiments to ascertain that the human eye actually perceives images at a rate of approximately 60 fps, (actually it was like 60.15 or 61.15 or something like that.)

Anyway, he created a motion picture camera technology called SHOWSCAN which sole purpose was to create films that could be displayed at the same rate as the human eye could perceive them...and hence create a "film experience" where when you looked at the screen it would look as if you could walk into the screen with an incredible illusion of depth.

He pioneered this work about 15 years ago or so and has since used it in special cameras to create theme park attractions similar to the "Star Tours" motion simulator film etc.(at the Disney parks), except he uses high definition film shot with 70mm film stock and projected at the exact fps (60-61fps) that his experiments showed the eye worked at.

He has since gone on to be one of the heads of IMAX and they use his SHOWSCAN technology there. I believe Reichert if you call up the company...they're located in Los Angeles, they actually give tours of some of their facilities and explain the technology behind it. You might be able to find it on the web also.

The point being that according to Douglas Trumbull the human eye can perceive differences in moving images up to around the 60fps point. Now that is not to say you can't have a convincing moving image with less. We all know you can...hence the 24fps of motion pictures and the approx 30fps of video.

I actually spent some time at Showscan during my time as a student at the USC Film school and saw a few films shot with the SHOWSCAN. It was really impressive...actually one of the scenes shot was an underwater scene where it looked like you could dive "into" the screen and be underwater. The illusion is stunning and you have absolutely no "flat" or 2d appearance like with traditional 35mm 24fps film projection. In a nutshell you don't feel like you're looking at something being projected at a screen. Instead the screen looks as if you can walk right into it.

To show how impressive it is...when I went for my first demonstration of the technology we sat in this room and Mr. Trumbull walked out on stage and spoke to us for a few minutes and demonstrated some of the technology and then we were all shocked when the "real" Mr. Trumbull walked up behind us...the one in front of us was PROJECTED and we were totally fooled...that's how good it is.

Rob

[Reichart]

Yes, I know Doug’s work, I met him years ago.

One of my other products is a real-time industry digital film video assist system that records 4 cams in real time (www.RightmerDigital.com) . My system has been used on pretty much every major special effects movie since MIB II, and Panic Room, The Tuxido, etc.

We ain't just pretty fish...

But talking about human eye frame rate is like talking about NTSC horizontal resolution.