FPS Capping (external thread)

[twipley]

i have started a thread on the skulltag forum on the subject of fps-capping preferences, and would like you to register there (i know this is much to ask) so we can all have a discussion, where would be gathered a significant number of point of views (which is what we are looking for).

so it doesn't matter if you don't like skulltag, don't like the people there, or whatever. i needed to start the thread somewhere, and i could well have started it here. thing is, opengl is discussed too, so, especially if you are an experimented player, your opinion matters much.

please post there instead of here. thanks in advance.
http://skulltag.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17958

[Rachael]

Hate to break your bubble, but this forum would be a much better place for such a discussion; on Skulltag forums admins must approve registrations and that can take up to a day. On this forum (last I checked) you can activate your own registrations.

Not that I am knocking the Skulltag forum one bit, I am just saying, asking people to register there is a bit inconvenient with such a rule.

I'm sure a lot of folks here are already registered on the Skulltag forums anyway so it probably doesn't matter.

[Xaser]

I have an account there, but I'm posting here for the simple sake that the thread exists here (which is the road most everyone's going to take).

I've been using uncapped ever since the very, very first version that had it (2.0.47i, the "secret" semi-member-exclusive version that Biff was kind enough to share with me back in the 2003 days). I like smoothness. It's nice.

[twipley]

are you sure you're not confusing zdaemon and skulltag? i believe skulltag activation to be not much of an hassle. ;)

concerning the forum choice. i had to decide between two choices: here, or there. i hope the idea of a discussion reuniting doom players from multiple forums make sense. as i've said yesterday to a mod in the skulltag forum (to which i have just registered), it's the first time that i really get to play on a port offering opengl/uncapping capabilities. and, it was disappointing for me to learn that no consensus had been reached in all these years.

[Xaser]

I suppose it's all a matter of preference. Us crazy Doomers are no likely to reach a single consensus on software vs. openGL (of which I use both) or capped vs. uncapped as the human population is on white vs. wheat bread.

In the end, variety wins, so everyone wins. ;P

[Enjay]

Brown openGL uncapped bread for me please.

Sorry, I can't see this thread having much success. People are unlikely to register at the ST forums just to discuss frame capping.

[Coon]

I play ZDoom with uncapped FPS + vsync to get a smooth (100fps, thanks to my monitor being able to sync to 100hz at 1024x640), tearing-free image. Capping the FPS to that of vanilla Doom is something that has no apparent technical justification whatsoever when using this port, but I know of a person who will experience some sort of motion sickness with anything moving faster than 40fps, so whatever does it for you.

[twipley]

xaser, you may be right. though i often have the impulse of going with dialectics! :)

something i like about zdoom is the vanilla-feeling. when i play multiplayer (skulltag), i like using opengl, but when i get back to single-player (that is, shareware doom), i somehow like to use software (zdoom). but the thing that feels weird to me about zdoom is, starting with the premise "if someones goes to zdoom instead of to gzdoom, that's because he likes the "lore," vanilla feeling," is that it uncaps the framerate by default. thus, when i send zdoom to friends (doom1.wad added), i also include my zdoom.ini file, containing the "[GlobalSettings]" and "cl_capfps=true" lines. what i am looking for, is someone who has played doom for a decade, and knows what he is talking about.

[Rachael]

(Yeah, I was referring to Skulltag activation, ZDaemon is far far worse... anyway, not relevant at the moment for this post, I am going to contribute to the topic)

Anyway, back to square one, I usually play uncapped just because it "feels" smoother to me, even though I know in the back of my mind that the game really is not running at more than 35 tics per second. However, I can still play the game capped or uncapped. Sometimes I play it capped just because it feels a little more old-skool, what I've played with for a very long time before I ever really got into ZDoom.

[twipley]

People are unlikely to register at the ST forums just to discuss frame capping.

not so much have been said there except in the first few posts. better to continue the thread here, instead.

[Enjay]

In that case... uncapped for me. I don't like how jerky the view feels when going back to 35fps after having got used to faster frame rates. To me, uncapped is a significant improvement over capped. It's instantly noticeable, much better to play with and unpleasant when it is taken away.

[CaptainToenail]

I've never heard of 'uncapping framerates' before until now, but from what I can gather it's somehow setting an option so that your game is all jerky and laggy on purpose, why would you want to do that?

[Enjay]

Kind of, but the other way around. The original Doom game runs at a maximum of 35fps. Zdoom removes this limit (uncaps the frame rate) and can go as fast as your hardware will allow. However, an option remains to cap the frame rate back to the original 35 fps for those who either like it or have problems running uncapped.

[twipley]

I've been using uncapped ever since the very, very first version that had it (2.0.47i, the "secret" semi-member-exclusive version that Biff was kind enough to share with me back in the 2003 days). I like smoothness. It's nice.

oh, i didn't know zdoom was capped at some point. maybe the decision to uncap by default was judicious?

edit: would be interesting to know what people thought of it, back then.

[hnsolo77]

i myself use the vid_vsync to cap it at 60 FPS to save on cpu use, this also causes my computer to run cooler, and it matters quite a bit when your computer is a laptop that can be prone to overheating