> On 28 Nov, 2016, at 19:07, Dave Taht <dave.t...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> (as well as VR ones)

VR gaming *is* pretty hot right now.  Even the consoles are trying to get in on 
it, though I’m skeptical if even the just-upgraded consoles have the horsepower 
to really keep up.

The big thing about VR is that latency and framerate matter about 100x more 
than they do with a normal, 2D-projected game, because the realism factor is 
stepped up by using “natural” movements to control viewpoint and aimpoint 
instead of interpolating a mouse and keyboard.  Most of the (reputable) VR 
headset guys recommend a solid 90fps and absolutely minimal input-to-display 
lag to avoid motion sickness.

To put that into perspective, most monitors on peoples’ desks right now top out 
at  60Hz, and the equivalent responsiveness of a “fairly good” Internet 
connection is 20-30Hz.  Fortunately, the latter mostly impacts the movements of 
other objects in the game world, not the player himself - but there are 
counterexamples, especially in competitive multiplayer games.

I’m still keen on representing network latency as its reciprocal, 
“responsiveness”, which carries the same unit as framerate and is thereby made 
intuitively intelligible to gaming enthusiasts.  Admittedly most multiplayer 
gamers are by now familiar with “ping” in milliseconds, but they probably 
haven’t done the arithmetic to relate it to framerate and thus understand its 
relative importance.

 - Jonathan Morton

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