TL;DR
Implement frame generation to make high-speed zoomed-in movement smoother.What?
This can be implemented one of two ways:- Delay frame B, interpolate a frame between A and B and show that first. This is pretty much how for example FSR works.
- VR uses something often called Motion Warp/Space Warp, a technique where you take the previous frame, move the picture according to the latest motion inputs and then display that as an additional frame between generated frames, this is a computationally cheap solution to reduce latency and improve perceived framerates.
I suggest the Motion Warp method, as this would likely be the best alternative, although possibly tricky unless displaying a frame can be done from a separate thread from simulation and rendering of the next frame.
It would also require rendering each frame slightly bigger than the viewable range to compensate for the needed movement in the next frame. This could be optimized down to just using current motion input for the next frame and thus only rendering additional area that is known to be needed by the next frame, this would not reduce input latency like motion warp does, it'll just keep the same latency but result in a smoother presentation.
I'd make this OPT-IN, and for simplicity only target 120fps.
Why?
Especially when playing with lategame modded games with huge speedups on character movement and moving in a crowded base, 60fps can be really hard on the eyes when moving while being "zoomed in" (at what I perceive as normal build-mode distance, not actually that zoomed in compared to what my friends play at).My eyes quickly get tired and just glaze over from straining to see the image as the jump in movement per frame can become bigger than the size of some structure components, resulting in the eyes being unable to focus on the image as the movement is not perceived as movement but rather more like flickering.
My workaround is to zoom out to map-scale distances while moving far, that helps but not while working on something locally and constantly moving short distances.
For reference, I play on a 32" UHD screen capable of 48-144hz.
I have tested playing on Windows and enabling driver-based framegen "AMD Fluid Motion Frames 2". This does work and it helps a lot, and very rarely results in noticeable display corruption. (Windows does seem to cause the odd actual stutter from time to time).
Unfortunately, this requires rebooting into Windows, as I normally use Linux (Fedora 43). I have tried using Zink and LosslessScaling, but it is honestly not close to being as good as AFMF2 in Factorio, and it has caused some stability issues, so not what I want for multiplayer gaming sessions.
Ryzen R9 5800X3D, 64GB ram
Radeon 7900XTX
Answers to statements I expect will come
S: Your computer is struggling to keep 60UPS, that causes stuttering.A: My computer has no problems keeping a constant 60UPS, I do not suffer from any performance stuttering.
S: I have never had this problem!
A: Good for you! But just because you don't get tired eyes doesn't mean that others don't. Eyes, ears, brains and other nervous system components have individual differences that result in different perceptions, tolerances and triggers. Don't assume that someone is lying or stupid just because you yourself don't see something as a problem.
S: They won't do this, it costs too many hours to implement.
A: Why don't we let the company decide that, this is a suggestion, not a mcdonalds order.
