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[Peer Review]: "Milliseconds vs. FPS"

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:24 am
by Halifax
Well it appears to be in vogue. :lol: Specifically I'd like some input on an article I wrote: Milliseconds vs. FPS

The best method, so as to receive credit, would be to comment the post. But posting on here is fine as well, I'll try to credit you too. At any rate, I'd like any comments regarding more images, better explanations, etc. (Anything.)

We all know "My game went from 1000 FPS to 500 FPS, what's wrong?" comes up more than a little bit across all forums. :)

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:37 am
by Lil Margin
I like it, its small and easy to understand :)
Plus i totally agree with you especially on the "100 fps to 150 " fps part.

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 11:13 am
by BlindSide
This is most definitely inspired by this post. 8)

Nice article. Oh and nice blog, is it new? You look quite "gangster" in the photo. :P

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 11:41 am
by Mel
You got a point there. It is clear, 1 pixel = X time, n pixels = nX time, Simple. I like it :)

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:07 pm
by cheshirekow
So in your post you say "1/2 FPS = 0.5 s, 1/10 FPS = 0.01 s". I think you mean "2 FPS = 0.5 s, 10 FPS = 0.01 s". The rest of your post is consistent with the actual relationship though.

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 4:48 pm
by DeM0nFiRe
Did you perhaps write this article several months ago? I've definitely seen that graph before XD In fact, I have read these exact words before, but when I read them before it also included an explanation of optimizing rendering vs optimizing the game logic :o

Anyway, it's a good article, but I think it assumes that things are going to be an O(n) algorithm. Sometimes there really is a problem and you really might be doing something wrong because sometimes you might be trying to do something very pricey on too many things.

Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:16 am
by Halifax
Lil Margin wrote:I like it, its small and easy to understand :)
Plus i totally agree with you especially on the "100 fps to 150 " fps part.
Thanks for the compliment Lil Margin.
BlindSide wrote:This is most definitely inspired by this post. 8)

Nice article. Oh and nice blog, is it new? You look quite "gangster" in the photo. :P
Yeah, it was inspired by that. :lol: That was basically the last straw though, I had to explain it before, so I figured you mine as well not waste your breat and help people more at the same time. And yeah, it's pretty new. And I got basically the same comment from wildrj about my picture. :lol: (It's the hat.)
Mel wrote:You got a point there. It is clear, 1 pixel = X time, n pixels = nX time, Simple. I like it :)
Thanks for the review and support Mel.
cheshirekow wrote:So in your post you say "1/2 FPS = 0.5 s, 1/10 FPS = 0.01 s". I think you mean "2 FPS = 0.5 s, 10 FPS = 0.01 s". The rest of your post is consistent with the actual relationship though.
You're most certainly correct. I actually explained that point on IRC with rooly, good find. I'll include both of you in the credits.
DeM0nFiRe wrote:Did you perhaps write this article several months ago? [... shortened]

Anyway, it's a good article, but I think it assumes that things are going to be an O(n) algorithm. [... shortened]
Nope I wrote it exactly a month ago independently. And that graph is custom-edited from Inkscape :P But yeah, you'd probably see some consistency considering the topic. At any rate, you're correct about my assumption with regard to O(n) algorithms. Any suggestions on how to include information about other types of operations?

By the way, just curious, aren't most graphics algorithms (used in games) O(n) or a variant such as O(k*n). Recently, the only O(n**2) operation I've seen is in the DX10 SDK. I'm just wondering if anyone knows of any other ones, so they could be used as examples.

Also, thanks for all the input so far guys. I really appreciate it.

Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:33 pm
by BlindSide
10 FPS = 0.01s
10 FPS = 0.1s

Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 1:45 am
by DeM0nFiRe
Ahh, perhaps I did not read it correctly, I did not know it was supposed to be only for graphics functions. I guess I assumed it was like whatever other article I read before that included game logic XD.


I guess what I was more referring to is that if you do want to include game logic, you might want to give a hint as to if the user is seeing a framerate drop that is more than a linear proportion, that they should look for that algorithm that is not O(n) and try to replace it with one that is. Again, your article does a good job of explaining what to expect with O(n) algorithms, but I think it would be cool if you added an explanation of what to do when that drop is not linear.

Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 1:15 pm
by Halifax
DeM0nFiRe wrote:Ahh, perhaps I did not read it correctly, [...shortened]
I guess what I was more referring to is that if you do want to include game logic, [...shortened]
Ah, okay, that makes sense. And yes, I include information with regards to other operations. Thanks for your help DeM0nFiRe.
BlindSide wrote:10 FPS = 0.1s
Maybe that was to me? I don't know, but that's going to be taken out all in all for the explanation that myself and rooly devised. Not to mention some new percentage difference graphs will be added to clarify.

EDIT: D*** my post count is 1337...mine as well not post for a while. :lol:

Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 1:17 pm
by Skomakarn
I have written some classes to help me with this kind of problem.
With help from the ITimer value, as it ticks on, I have made timer classes of my own.

The most important one in this case, is my TimeScroller, which increases or decreases a value over time. Maybe I want to move an object from position -10.0 to 4.5 in 8000 milliseconds. This class makes sure this always takes 8000 milliseconds, no matter what the FPS is.

I guess this is what your blog post is about?