Because the human eye has an effective “refresh rate” of around 30 frames per second, there is a certain point at which even major increases or decreases in frames per second will have no visible effect. I’d place that number, off the top of my head, around 100fps — at that point your eye isn’t going to “catch” the display in mid-update, as the refreshes will happen faster than our visuo-temporal granularity — so movement appears completely continuous and no interpolation is done by the eye, which interpolation, paradoxically, is what makes 24p such a convincing frame rate for film.
But all those big words didn’t stop Sony from showing GT5 at 240fps, though! Using four PS3s working in parallel (like in this nearly 4K resolution demo), their “Field Emissions Display” or FED took frames from each PS3 in turn, displaying at a total of 4 x 60 = 240fps. The people there were reportedly awed by the smoothness of it, but honestly play a game at 30fps, then play it at 60 and see the difference, then go up to 90 — not much better. The higher you go, the more your returns diminish. I’m glad they have a display that is capable of it, it means less flicker and Vsync that doesn’t limit your framerate, but somehow I’m guessing this won’t be a household technology for a couple years.
Instead of going up in frame rates like you suggested, try starting high, then going down. That is where you see a big difference. I played Forza 2 (60 fps) for months, then started playing Dirt (30 fps). It was like a chop fest. Once your eyes get used to 60 it is hard to go down to 30. I never thought anything was needed over 30, but I was obviously wrong. Personally, I think 60 is the magic number developers should shoot for in game development. Especially for driving games.
60 is a good round number to shoot for, especially when a lot of displays are tested on the standard numbers – 24, 25, 30, 48, 50, 60, etc.
Alex I agree based on how visuo-temporal granularity in the human eye sovereigns over our actual sense of touch and feel. LMAO!