I find that I play my favorite game Rocket League at my best at 120 Hz....Is there math that might show why?

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RocketRager
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Joined: 05 Apr 2021, 15:35

I find that I play my favorite game Rocket League at my best at 120 Hz....Is there math that might show why?

Post by RocketRager » 30 Aug 2021, 15:43

Long story short, I’ve played the game for thousands of hours and throughout that time I’ve been obsessed with settings. I know that changing settings a lot with prolong ranking up or whatever but I’m a big stickler in perception perfection.

When I watch people stream the game, I can see that they’re “feeling” things I’m not feeling. So across my thousands of hours I’ve tried so many monitor settings and recently blew my own mind when I stumbled upon 120hz instead of anything higher.

My monitor will do 280 (ASUS VG Blah blah blah) and I got that about 4-5 months ago. It’s really nice but I always felt bad on it. Talked myself out of it and just said “I need to get used to it” or something.

Well out of frustration and curiosity 3 weeks ago I decided to experiment and limit my frames beginning at 60 for a few days and then go up in increments of 20 or sometimes 30 until I hit 280. I would stay at each Hz for a couple days at a time.

I tracked my W/L and also how well I was hitting the ball with power and accuracy etc. I did best around the 120hz mark. Going above that I would progressively play worse. Up in the 200’s+ it was basically RNG if I was going to hit the ball with any power. I could hit it, but it would be weak and in accurate.

I much better with the monitor set to 280 with gsync on, but using the nvidia frame limiter set at 120. That shows my monitor with an 8ish millisecond response time on the steam HUD.

I use a DS5 controller overclocked to 1200-1300 Hz.

I’m dumb and probably just barking up the wrong tree but is there some mathematical/measurable coincidence between 8ms screen and 1200 Hz controller?

Obviously in the end it mostly just comes down to human perception I suppose. I never thought I would want to play at 120fps but I REALLY like it. My recent wins and ranking up, and my recent in game performances of small micro movements are proof that I’m doing well like this.

Long story not so short I guess. Sorry.

Raphaeangelo
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Re: I find that I play my favorite game Rocket League at my best at 120 Hz....Is there math that might show why?

Post by Raphaeangelo » 01 Nov 2021, 22:01

This!!!! I have the same experience. I play Apex Legends on PC with an Xbox Series X controller (wired) and it feels the best at 120fps. My system and monitor can run higher FPS stably but I feel like something is off at higher FPS. It’s less responsive and slower (like I'm running and moving underwater). What I’m seeing on the screen isn’t matching the buttons I’m pushing (it's milliseconds off). When I play at 120fps everything is very responsive and snappy. I always thought higher FPS was better but I guess not. I’d just like to know why. I play with a 165hz monitor with gsync on but I cap my games FPS at 120. Does anyone know what’s going on here?
Last edited by Raphaeangelo on 02 Nov 2021, 12:26, edited 1 time in total.

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Discorz
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Re: I find that I play my favorite game Rocket League at my best at 120 Hz....Is there math that might show why?

Post by Discorz » 02 Nov 2021, 12:05

Could easily be due to stroboscopic effect, fixed or tracking-gaze situations.
https://blurbusters.com/the-stroboscopi ... -displays/

Fixed-gaze at crosshair, 1. high and 2. low refresh and frame rate:
Image Image

Tracking eyes, 1. high and 2. low refresh and frame rate:
Image Image

I kinda experience the same thing.
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lizardpeter
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Re: I find that I play my favorite game Rocket League at my best at 120 Hz....Is there math that might show why?

Post by lizardpeter » 03 Nov 2021, 23:48

Are you 100% sure the FPS was the determining factor? Were you just testing in some online competitive matches? If so, maybe you were winning games and your elo was changing and by the time you got to higher frame rates you were playing better opponents. Or maybe you just got unlucky. How long did you test for? Also, make sure to take note of your ping between matches. If it's not exactly the same in every match, you might be feeling the ping difference rather than anything to do with your FPS, Hz, hardware, etc.

Discorz brings up a great point though. Also, have you ever tried backlight strobing? I too play Rocket League sometimes fairly casually with my friends (I play on keyboard and mouse and maybe only a few times a month - usually about Champion level and competing in the Champ 2 and 3 tournaments). I feel like in Rocket League the FPS really does not matter that much in general, and I'm surprised it's making a big difference for you. With my 390 Hz monitor (and even on my jump from 144 Hz to 240 Hz) I certainly noticed a difference in smoothness, but I did not feel as though I was doing anything I could not do if playing at a lower refresh rate (well, probably down to like 120 Hz - then it would get bad if going to something like 60 Hz). Maybe that's because I play the game very casually and don't know the advanced mechanics you might utilize.
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