Factorio Forums

Tertius wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 12:00 pm

redstonerti wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 11:45 am [...] and to reduce motion sickness.

Is motion sickness with Factorio really an issue for you? Just curious and asking if this is a real thing for you with Factorio. I know motion sickness is very subjective and every case is different, however although I am very sensitive to motion sickness myself and cannot play quite some 3D games, I never felt the slightest issue with Factorio. The isometric view is commonly perceived the most convenient and painless mode possible for motion sickness-troubled people.

Also there is no difference (for me) above 60 fps: if I feel motion sickness with 60 fps, I still feel it with 144 fps (my current monitor). My motion sickness increases with fps rates below 50 fps, but the main trigger is screen tearing, and the change of the perspective, which is never happening with isometric views.

No it's not, i never had problems with motion sickness in any game, i just thought that some people could. The real issue for me is the fact that my screen becomes a blur when i move at medium to fast speeds and i can't identify items easily. Each individual frame is not blurry but when you are only at 60hz it gets pretty bad while moving with a lot of exoskeletons, riding a train and especially while flying in a jetpack. And it *does* make a difference when you're moving from 60hz to 240hz or possibly even higher in the future.

@Tertius: Ok, when it’s only going about scrolling, then this is the wrong subject.

Be free to create a new subject. Because this one is for increasing the updates per second. Yours where to improve game experience without increasing UPS.


From the technical perspective I see two points, where the GPU can very simply improve game experience (simple compared to this suggestion):

A) scrolling (as you said)
The game needs just to render a bit more into the direction of movement. The GPU displays the map and fine-scrolls it for each “micro-frame”.

B) movement of big sprites (vehicles, players)
In between the game-updates a vehicle or player doesn’t change speed, so the GPU can also render the micro-frames with the moving vehicles/players.

I can imagine, that those two things can indeed make a big difference on big screens with high update rates. For me it wouldn’t make currently any difference, so be free to copy these two arguments into a new suggestion.

Add more frames to animations

Add at least double the number of frames in animations because my 144Hz monitor is not a 60Hz monitor so I want to use all of its Hz, so I want to multiply the number of frames in every Factorio animation so the game can run up to 120 (or more) FPS.

What?

Factorio has an FPS limit blocked at 60. But my monitor have 144Hz (144Hz=144FPS). Because of that limit, nobody with a higher Hz monitor than 60, can use the potential of 144Hz+ because Factorio has an FPS limit. So I'm asking developers, to at least double the number of frames in every animation in Factorio because nowadays a huge amount of people use 144Hz, 244Hz, or even 360Hz monitors so 60Hz is old and it needs an upgrade. Imagine Factorio in 144+FPS!!! Wow so cool! So please Factorio developers, add at least double the number of current frames in every Factorio animation so everyone with a monitor that supports more than 60Hz/60FPS can use their monitor's potential. Thank you.

I know my suggestion is hard and time-taking to complete, but it will affect Factorio a lot (at least for gamers with better monitors). It will affect the game way more than just new items etc. As always, this suggestion will be probably ignored (which means it will not happen in close future). But I can give it a try. I also suggest that you can create a poll "How much Hz monitor do you use for playing Factorio?" so developers can ask the community if it's worth it or not.

I have no idea what image you want to have here, the template wants some images but I have none. So I used some Google one lol.

Why?

[*]It will affect Factorio a lot
[*]It will affect Factorio a way more than just a newly added item.
[*]Every gamer with a high Hz monitor (144Hz and more) is going to appreciate this
[*]You are not going to regret this
[*]A lot better experience from Factorio and that's the goal of Factorio
[*]You will not have to do every time "/c game.speed=x" and also it's not going to affect game speed so it will not be cheating so you can still earn achievements
[*]..and more...

While I wouldn't be against this, I don't know as if it's worth it? Sure, many people do have higher fps, but many people are also going with higher resolution, which can't show at the higher fps's as well (I have a 35" ultra wide, 3440x1440, connected to an hdmi cable. My hdmi cable is rated for 120 Hz max at 4k, but that's moot because my monitor can only display at 50 Hz max on hdmi. If I used DP, I could get 120 Hz, but only if I have G-Sync available, and, well, my laptop doesn't have a DP connector, so that doesn't matter, either). Your fps also depends on what your GPU is capable of doing at your resolution. Higher resolutions require more powerful GPUs to support the higher fps, otherwise they'll run at lower. While I suppose this game isn't really that graphically intensive utilizing sprites, I do know there are still a lot of people out there that don't even run this game at high enough graphic qualities to even get the HR sprites. Would 144 Hz even be worth it with the lower quality sprites?

I just don't know if the time and effort is worth it? I guess it would depend on their actual user base and what they have for hardware, but without the devs conducting some kind of hardware survey (or maybe they can get one from Steam?) and then sharing the results with us, it'd be rather difficult to debate.

(Edit: Added size of the monitor, as I don't know how much that affects the specs I posted vs smaller monitors)

Koub wrote: Wed Jun 15, 2022 9:10 pm [Koub] Merged into older thread with same suggestion.
Also won't happen (viewtopic.php?p=553269#p553269).

Ah, that's good to know! I didn't even think of the determinism aspect.

FuryoftheStars wrote: Wed Jun 15, 2022 10:05 pm

Koub wrote: Wed Jun 15, 2022 9:10 pm [Koub] Merged into older thread with same suggestion.
Also won't happen (viewtopic.php?p=553269#p553269).

Ah, that's good to know! I didn't even think of the determinism aspect.

The Global Tick Time Scale mod is an attempt to make the game run at e.g. 120 UPS but have everything move "slower" so you get a higher frame rate but gameplay is the same. There are apparently some glitches but it's worth a try.

robot256 wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 1:24 pm

FuryoftheStars wrote: Wed Jun 15, 2022 10:05 pm

Koub wrote: Wed Jun 15, 2022 9:10 pm [Koub] Merged into older thread with same suggestion.
Also won't happen (viewtopic.php?p=553269#p553269).

Ah, that's good to know! I didn't even think of the determinism aspect.

The Global Tick Time Scale mod is an attempt to make the game run at e.g. 120 UPS but have everything move "slower" so you get a higher frame rate but gameplay is the same. There are apparently some glitches but it's worth a try.

Yeah, I don’t think it would do me any good anyway (for the reasons in my post above Koub’s), but also I’m not sure I’d even notice. I mean, I’m not zoomed in watching everything up close. If I’m just watching things work, I’m usually zoomed out enough that fps of the animations doesn’t matter.

I still think it would improve the game much, if the players movements are implemented with a smoother scroll. Which is possible. It would lead to small eye movements, which is good for the eyes. Off topic. Maybe I’ll explain it in an own suggestion.

What ?

Factorio is hard-limited to 60 Hz. This limits the speed items can be transported via belts to half an item per tick. Even on this hard limit you can't distinguish if the item is moving forward or backward, but at least you can still see if the items are moving or not. If you go faster, they can even appear to move in the wrong direction.

Why ?

Gaming monitors supporting at least 120 Hz are common nowadays. "Super fast" moving belts would look much nicer and other elements could be rendered more often within those sub-frames, if needed.

How ?

By implementing sub-tick divisions, sub-frame renders can take place without breaking up everything else, as the simulation still runs with 60 Hz. The core engine has to be touched in a way that it doesn't break anything, and the option has to be completely optional, so the game runs without problems with normal 60 Hz resolution. Furthermore the speed impact has to remain on a minimum level.

I suppose the current main loop looks like this:
By implementing a layer on top, the new main loop could look like this:
draw_sub_frame() loads a LUT containing entities containing sub_frame_elements. Only entities having sub_frame_elements will be enumerated, so a slow-down is kept to a minimum.

Lets take the belts. Obviously the items there are subject to be moved by half a tick. It is important to know that the simulation does not proceed, so inserters do not have to fetch an item in sub-frames. The effect is purely cosmetic, as with all optional effects which are not supposed to break anything.

Other objects can be added to the LUT as needed. Especially fast-moving projectiles are predestined to be added.

I use a plasma tv, which refreshes literally like a cathode-ray tube. So I get the most realistic video responses anyways. But I think it would be interesting to see 120fps off a plasma tv.

Why is this topic into the "Outdated / Not implemented" category?
It would be a shame to keep Factorio restrained to 60FPS, since we have 240Hz+ monitors now...
On the other hand, everything I read here seems too complicated to be implemented.

Here's my take :
Just render the frames twice (or more).
Yeah, simple as that, affecting only the main rendering thread : submit the same frame multiple times to the GPU.
Here's a modified version of https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-70
Ok, I know, this is not a true solution, but at least high refresh rates monitors will be used correctly,
and, most importantly, mouse cursors won't be restrained to 60Hz.
(When you are accustomed to 144, 240, or 360Hz, it's really a pain to move your cursor @60Hz).

I would be happy with this simple feature "render twice", but of course you could have every multiple of 60FPS :
120, 180, 240, 300, 360, 420, 480, etc... Without affecting other parts of the engine whatsoever :
it's still running at 60UPS, game physics should stay strictly the same across players on the network
(even if some players are @60FPS and others @300FPS).

So what's next? Are we getting a real 120+ FPS game ?
Well if this first approach works well, you can imagine a lot of solutions to improve the "subframes" rendered.
Maybe just the camera position could be updated before re-rendering (submiting the subframe)?
The camera doesn't seems to have a tick-based physic behaviour.
And if it does, you could easily predict the futur camera position, here in the rendering thread,
without touching the physics and tick-based aspect of the game.
Afterwards it depends on the codebase and you'll know better ! But the smooth camera is a must have.
Time-based shaders (like the new Ghost shader !?) would look amazing too !

Of course this is not the optimal way of doing this (it should have been planed way ahead),
but I think this approach is easy enough to be tested at least.
Players creating mods to achieve higher framerates have ideas based on the same kind of principle,
but it's more of a hack than a real solution. We need this feature in the core engine !
I hope this could be implemented in the big update comming up, this would be absolutly amazing.
I feel like 100+FPS is the new standard minimum, especially for 2D video games, where this framerate
could be easily reached without the need of an expensive computer.

edit :
I just found https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-150
"it leaves possibility to free the FPS and UPS, so we can have for example 144 FPS/60 UPS. For example we briefly talked about the possibility of interpolating the position of the player sprite and camera, so very high framerates could make sense sometime in the future."
So are we there yet ? Looks like you guys already addressed the issue years ago.
Why is the game still hardcaped at 60 FPS so ?

With recent https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-393 and faster belts, it feels like this issue should be readdressed. The new belt just doesn't look good anymore at 60 FPS.

MrJake222 wrote: Fri Feb 23, 2024 10:16 pm With recent https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-393 and faster belts, it feels like this issue should be readdressed. The new belt just doesn't look good anymore at 60 FPS.

The belt animation is still tied to the game update so it would have no impact how it looks.

Sorry but there's nothing to be readdressed or reevaluated. 120 FPS *world* rendering Is not happening. Keeping 60 FPS world rendering is already incredibly difficult with the amount of stuff Factorio has to track and render.

Sure, but creating some interpolation (or a in-between sprite) would definitely be beneficial for smoothness of animation.

You're making impossible possible with each FFF, I'm sure you'll come up with something eventually .

MrJake222 wrote: Sat Feb 24, 2024 3:30 pm Sure, but creating some interpolation (or a in-between sprite) would definitely be beneficial for smoothness of animation.

You're making impossible possible with each FFF, I'm sure you'll come up with something eventually .

You can simply re-read developer replies to this topic for why that doesn't work. As far as I know there is no desire, time or effort put towards this idea internally and the answer is simply "no"

As the FFFs get released, I've been getting more and more excited to buy and play the expansion - with the already talented team and adding Earendal and Raiguard, it's going to be an absolute banger and I just can't wait.

Something has been forever ruined for me, though, and that's briefly playing the game at 360hz. I can't un-see it now - I realized that I've been playing Factorio in a move-stop-move-stop-move-stop pattern for the 5600+ hours I've spent on it, and didn't realize that I was basically turning my brain off and waiting for the motion to be over each time I ran on concrete or anything faster than base speed on dirt.

With the Global Tick Time Scaling mod and a 360hz monitor, I was able to see what the game would actually look like with support for the higher refresh rate, and it's absolutely magical. You can actually read / see icons as you're running past them through a base - the belt patterns look smoother and more consistent, and everything is just generally clearer - all the things you'd expect from a refresh rate jump with any kind of media - game, movie, doesn't matter. It looks better.

I did my best to record these difference with my 60fps cellphone camera:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dabXSOTdQ7U

This is a side-by-side comparison of 60hz and 360hz with GTTS. It's hard to tell from the video, but you can see hints of it - specifically the ghosting is what's causing a lot of unnecessary visual confusion as your character is in motion. In person, you can tell right away what a huge difference it makes.

So why am I posting about it if the GTTS mod does the job? Why am I asking for dev attention?

Because GTTS isn't perfect. There are some things it can't do due to what I'm sure are mod limitations - most noticeable are notifications flash extremely fast and time out quickly, some recipes don't really behave like they should, and bot movement and battery life feels off. I'm not sure how much of this is actually wrong or if I'm just unsure of how scaling up the tick scale would wreck the internals of the game, but either way it could use some attention and support from devs.

Devs / Kovarex.... please consider adding support for higher refresh rates. I will literally buy and send you a monitor if you don't have one that supports 360hz, just so you can see the difference for yourself with GTTS. I'm certain you'd end up just like me - starting to realize you've been playing the game with your eyes closed half the time.

I haven't tested it myself unlike the GTTS mod that i can recommend. But someone on reddit said they found another way to play at 120 fps I figure it may be of some interested for players following this discussion.