Unlimit the HL Framerate

I often see people playing HL with framerates at a steady 100 FPS.  Mine caps at 60.  What gives?  Is their version lying, is it the mod they are playing, or is there maybe a command line switch to increase the maximum framerate?

fps_max 100

thats the highest for origional hl, Though that doesnt mean its actually running at that. with steam it goes to 250 afaik.

Edit yours and change it to an answer so I can give you credit, quick!

EDIT: Is that the highest it goes?  100?

KoRnFlakes said:
fps_max 100

this limit is also dependant on your opsys..

winXP users have problems sometimes exceeding the 60 barrier..

i have XP, i had mine set to 100, and found i was more comfortable at the 60.. don't ask me why, but my eyes hurt less.. i think because, if your PC can only handle 60 and you force it to do 100 ( or 85 if your monitor is 85Hz) then it begins to flash in the opposite direction, in effect, making look less optimal..

i cannot explain it better, but i found that my 85Hz monitor ran 60fps better than 100fps.. the fact that i could be 100% wrong doesn't detour me a bit.. mine has been reset to 60 :smile:

my cs clan leader spent hours apon hours getting his CS autoexec perfect, he gets around 160+ fps, and my other clanmates get 200+ fps.

wacokid said:
my cs clan leader spent hours apon hours getting his CS autoexec perfect, he gets around 160+ fps, and my other clanmates get 200+ fps.

unless you have seen it with your own eyes, take it witha grain of salt.. i don't doubt its possibly with some of the newer games, but i don't think its possible with the HL engine..

true or not, i bet they scroll backwards while standing still frame rates that high, would be worse at flickering than frame rates of 10 or 15 

 

The max fps_max is 100 on origional HL. There is no way to change that or make it higher than 100 without acess to HL's source code. As has already been said, the default is 60.

i had the same thing going on with winxp and my framrate as Orph. still do actually. i was told it is something to do with xp and how it sets your framerate to 60 when it encounters opengl. i cant remember how i got around this(something to do with vsync), but when i did, and my fps read 100, it looked like s**t, and felt really laggy.

wacokid said:
my cs clan leader spent hours apon hours getting his CS autoexec perfect, he gets around 160+ fps, and my other clanmates get 200+ fps.

hehe, hlds only outputs the game at 100fps

screenshots of over 100 fps

another . . .

i always attempt to be open minded, but a 900k image....

 

sighs will someone please take over this war.. cause i seem to have lost the battle entirely..

Screenshots don't prove anything.  Now I don't know much about this, but I suspect MazeMaster knows his facts.

It's very possible that the FPS readout is spurious - if there is a hard limitation to FPS in HL, then it wouldn't surprise me if the FPS calculations failed to account for this.

Analogously, if your monitor has a refresh rate of 120Hz, it can't actually display more than 120 FPS.

 

What exactly is the point of haveing a framerate higher than, say, 35? I was under the impresion a human was unable to percive a difference above 30-35 fps... after all, thats why movies are set at ~30.

It's more than 30, I can tell you that. Try running HL at 30 and 60 respectively. Scientificly, I think it is ~30 fps. But 60 FPS really looks alot smoother.

Tracer Bullet said:
What exactly is the point of having a framerate higher than, say, 35? I was under the impression a human was unable to perceive a difference above 30-35 fps... after all, thats why movies are set at ~30.

movies do not fluctuate , from netlag, or r_speeds or what have you.. if a PC could maintain a constant 30 to 35 i bet no one would say a whole lot about it.. but at 60, you have a lot more room to spare if it drops 20 points for whatever reason..

if it dropped from 30 to 10, because it lost 20 points due to a bad design ,and/or poor r_speeds , you would definitely notice.. but a drop from 60 to 40, would prolly be less of an issue..

i hope that answers your question.. if it doesn't, i apologize, but thats my take on the importance of it..

Tracer Bullet said:
What exactly is the point of haveing a framerate higher than, say, 35? I was under the impresion a human was unable to percive a difference above 30-35 fps... after all, thats why movies are set at ~30.

I think we had a huge debate over this months ago...but in the end we found that you can tell up to at least 200fps or more. I honestly see a HUGE difference between 30, 60, 100. And so far as I know 100 is the HL max. To take off the 60hz/60fps cap you have to turn vsync off.

Hmm, I'll have to experiment with it...

From what I've heard, 24-30 fps is the least framerate you can have to give the illusion of motion. It was originally researched for the movies, and they came to the conclusion that 24 frames is the best. That's why movies run at around that speed from old style projectors. (They had to find the lowest speed to avoid ripping the film. The speed used to be even lower in the days of Charlie Chaplin...) This does not mean the increase is Imperceptible.

It might be that the way games treat FPS, and the way movies show it, is different. Maybe that's why the difference is perceptible here, but not so much in the motion pictures. (heh, live sports are recorded at higher FPS to allow for the faster movements)

Movies have motion blur - each frame is not a still image but shows the motion that occurs during the time span. A video game does not show motion blur, every moving part is shown exactly in the position it is in when the screen refreshes.

when u go over 100.0 fps its b/c f HLTV's slow-motion, there is NO WAY to go over 100.0 fps from anything else.

HL caps at 100.0fps.

Sorry to burst any bubbles, but I must pass on some knowledge. The only reason you have trouble getting over 100 FPS is because that is a set limit. Many people have hardware capable of much more. And as such, HL is capable of much more. I used to believe there was no way around the limit until someone enlightened me.

Notice: This method only works if your CPU supports MMX.

Add these to your userconfig.cfg (or make your own):

developer 1 // puts you in developer mode
r_mmx 1 // forces MMX calculations
fps_max 500 // you can set this to just about anything
cl_showfps 1 // shows approx. fps in top left of screen

Enjoy!

Woah, I wouldn't touch r_mmx if I could help it... it caused some major glitching after one of the old patches (actually, the one that added the TFC map Badlands) and I haven't changed it since... that sounds like you're playing with fire. And fire burns.

I've had no glitches. Maybe your processor doesn't support MMX? I average about 150 FPS with this method. I know people who average around 200 FPS on their systems. It works for some, but not all.

The problem I'm talking about is two years old and on a computer two generations ago. I'm just stubborn. :biggrin:

I find lower screen refresh rate is softer on the eyes, must be the intake of electrons or photons or somat. I get sorer eyes with 80fps than 60, plus some games like diablo 2 and HL look smoother at lower framerates.

Its the reason why console versions of games look better- take Halo for instance, looks 10x smoother and softer 'cus the TV screen has less pixel density and slower fps

Myrk- said:
I find lower screen refresh rate is softer on the eyes, must be the intake of electrons or photons or somat. I get sorer eyes with 80fps than 60, plus some games like diablo 2 and HL look smoother at lower framerates.

Its the reason why console versions of games look better- take Halo for instance, looks 10x smoother and softer 'cus the TV screen has less pixel density and slower fps

If you're actually getting higher framerates it'll always be smoother...My friend gets 24 in D2 and it plays and looks like shyte...I get around 50-60 and it's smooth. The TV is solely because of the blur. All the FPS console games with higher refresh rates run smoother. Lower frame-rates = chop = not smooth. And running a computer monitor at 60 Hz is not exactly advisable when you have flourescent lights I believe it is because the lights and the monitor conflict with refresh rates causing your eyes to get "tired" and can cause headaches. Always run your monitor at the highest possible refresh rate. I ignored this for the longest time but realize how much longer I can go with a better refresh. Use vsync or at least set your fps_max to whatever refresh rate you're using on your computer for the best possible image.

Myrk- said:
I find lower screen refresh rate is softer on the eyes, must be the intake of electrons or photons or somat. I get sorer eyes with 80fps than 60, plus some games like diablo 2 and HL look smoother at lower framerates.

Its the reason why console versions of games look better- take Halo for instance, looks 10x smoother and softer 'cus the TV screen has less pixel density and slower fps

Part a. just silly

part b. If you think fuzzy images look good, than go ahead and stick to console games. I personly think they look like s**t.

and gorb, flourescent lights run at 120hz even though they run on 60hz current. go figure.

Tracer Bullet said:

Myrk- said:
I find lower screen refresh rate is softer on the eyes, must be the intake of electrons or photons or somat. I get sorer eyes with 80fps than 60, plus some games like diablo 2 and HL look smoother at lower framerates.

Its the reason why console versions of games look better- take Halo for instance, looks 10x smoother and softer 'cus the TV screen has less pixel density and slower fps

Part a. just silly

part b. If you think fuzzy images look good, than go ahead and stick to console games. I personly think they look like s**t.

and gorb, flourescent lights run at 120hz even though they run on 60hz current. go figure.

Sounds like somebody needs S-Video or Component video cables.

Assuming you live in a country that uses those, that is.

This is a very good Refreshrate Fixer:

http://www.pagehosting.co.uk/rf

Tracer Bullet said:
flourescent lights run at 120hz even though they run on 60hz current. go figure.

They fire once in the Positive half of the Input cycle, and once in the Negative half... Hence twice the frequency :heee:

It's rather a moot point having the fps over 60, and honestly developers would rather limit at that so they can devote more resources for AI, Physics and other such things. Also having your fps other than 30, 60, or 90, your eyes may start hurting or the game may look choppy since it's greatly out of sync with the monitor refresh rate. Even if the fps and refresh rate are the same, example, both 85Hz/fps, it still could look choppy and your eyes could still hurt. Infact most of the time it's better to have 30fps than 45 or 55.

What we're providing here is overhead. Actual FPS fluctuates a great deal. By setting it high enough, you can help ensure that when the monitor's refresh rate comes into play, you're getting a brand new image each time it refreshes. If you set your FPS the same as your refresh rate, that would be more likely to cause strain then say, double your refresh rate. And FPS settings lower than your refresh rate have the highest possibility of eye strain. Say if you have your monitor refreshing at 60hz and your fps_max set to 60 as well. When you play, it's very likely that your FPS will fluctuate below 45 and even lower (depending on individual systems). Then you will trully be out of sync. You can't run FPS and refresh rates synchronously. By providing overhead, you minimize the risk of dropping below your refresh rate. That's the general idea.

Sorry to resurrect this, but here's a program I wrote to demonstrate that you can, in fact, tell the difference.

http://www.snarkpit.com/pits/hornpipe2/FPS.zip

Enjoy.