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Low FPS, great gaming? Asynchronous Reprojection!
Zeolonix
Member
Hello beautiful community!
Recently I have watched a video of Linus Tech Tips about Asynchronous Reprojection and how it influences game perception with low FPS. I will briefly explain the principle in this post.
Then I will explain how this can be very usefull for Ashes of Creation (AoC) to implement this technology into the game on the client side.
The graphics card renders images (frames) which are send to the monitor. The monitor will display said image. The monitor can display a number of frames per second (refresh rate in Hertz). The more frames are rendered and send every second (FPS), the smoother the game will display on the monitor. When the FPS is higher than the refresh rate of the monitor, the game will "feel" smooth. However, when the FPS will be below the refresh rate of the monitor, the game will start to become a bit choppy: not all frames are created in the same time, thus the time interval between frames is irregular. This gap between FPS and refresh rate of the monitor can be overcome in multiple ways, one of which I would like AoC to investigate to implement in their game: Asynchronous Reprojection.
When a single frame is generated, with some code, you can still look around with the mouse. All you will see is black void around the original image. By breaking the on-screen objects into strips and sorting them by their distance from the player, a guess can be made where they are going to end up relative to the players input without rendering a new frame. At 0 fps things will get messy fast, but when reaching 10 pfs, things improve alot. The black void will be still there, but less. Then the objects at the edge of the last rendered frame can be stretched out until a new frame is received. The perceived image quality jumps dramatically, even with low FPS. This will result in a dramatically smoother and responsive experience of the game with low FPS.
During large sieges or in large populated areas, fps typically drop alot, since there is a lot of rendering to be done. But if a bit of coding can make the game feel more responsive, even when fps are low, it seems like a giant win. Obviously I don't know how any hardware handles AoC. But this increased smoothness can make AoC accessible for more systems and will be even smoother for higher end systems on the client side of things. This will enable a larger possible audience for AoC, thus a possible increase in profits.
I am not a sofware engineer, nor a native English speaker, so please forgive any possible errors made in this post. I also do not know how Asynchronous reprojection will work with Unreal Engine 5. If you find my explination lacking, please watch the video linked at the bottom of this post, where more depth and visual representation is given to asynchronous reprojection.
I hope this post will get seen by a software engineer working on the client side of AoC, so that that person can discuss this topic with his team.
With kind regards,
A hopefull future player.
Link to video of LTT about Asynchronous Reprojection: https://youtube.com/watch?v=IvqrlgKuowE
Introduction
Recently I have watched a video of Linus Tech Tips about Asynchronous Reprojection and how it influences game perception with low FPS. I will briefly explain the principle in this post.
Then I will explain how this can be very usefull for Ashes of Creation (AoC) to implement this technology into the game on the client side.
Brief relationship between FPS and refresh rate
The graphics card renders images (frames) which are send to the monitor. The monitor will display said image. The monitor can display a number of frames per second (refresh rate in Hertz). The more frames are rendered and send every second (FPS), the smoother the game will display on the monitor. When the FPS is higher than the refresh rate of the monitor, the game will "feel" smooth. However, when the FPS will be below the refresh rate of the monitor, the game will start to become a bit choppy: not all frames are created in the same time, thus the time interval between frames is irregular. This gap between FPS and refresh rate of the monitor can be overcome in multiple ways, one of which I would like AoC to investigate to implement in their game: Asynchronous Reprojection.
Brief explanation of Asynchronous Reprojection
When a single frame is generated, with some code, you can still look around with the mouse. All you will see is black void around the original image. By breaking the on-screen objects into strips and sorting them by their distance from the player, a guess can be made where they are going to end up relative to the players input without rendering a new frame. At 0 fps things will get messy fast, but when reaching 10 pfs, things improve alot. The black void will be still there, but less. Then the objects at the edge of the last rendered frame can be stretched out until a new frame is received. The perceived image quality jumps dramatically, even with low FPS. This will result in a dramatically smoother and responsive experience of the game with low FPS.
How usefull is asynchronous reprojection for AoC?
During large sieges or in large populated areas, fps typically drop alot, since there is a lot of rendering to be done. But if a bit of coding can make the game feel more responsive, even when fps are low, it seems like a giant win. Obviously I don't know how any hardware handles AoC. But this increased smoothness can make AoC accessible for more systems and will be even smoother for higher end systems on the client side of things. This will enable a larger possible audience for AoC, thus a possible increase in profits.
Disclosure
I am not a sofware engineer, nor a native English speaker, so please forgive any possible errors made in this post. I also do not know how Asynchronous reprojection will work with Unreal Engine 5. If you find my explination lacking, please watch the video linked at the bottom of this post, where more depth and visual representation is given to asynchronous reprojection.
I hope this post will get seen by a software engineer working on the client side of AoC, so that that person can discuss this topic with his team.
With kind regards,
A hopefull future player.
Link to video of LTT about Asynchronous Reprojection: https://youtube.com/watch?v=IvqrlgKuowE
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(Yes I’m and engineer, and can spot BS products, and nothing has ever been optimized by adding more bloat).
W xD