30FPS is NOT the maximum the eye can see

[l1ake]

Two sites with in depth explanations
http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_c ... ns_see.htm
http://www.daniele.ch/school/30vs60/30vs60_3.html

A comparison of frame rates in video
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre ... p=14742160

A comparison of frame rates in pc games (to fully grasp it, dont try to look at both halves at the same time. Look at one, then the other. The beginning of the movie sums it up quite well though.)
http://kimpix.net/2006/12/03/60fps-vs-24fps/

A quick summation for those short on time:

24fps has been the industry standard in movies for the MINIMUM frame rate where viewers will not notice stuttering.
This works mainly because of motion blur. Video games do not have natural motion blur and that is why 24fps and 30fps
contain noticeable stuttering compared to video. In the past, technology was basically limited to 30fps - CRTs ran at 60hz
but were interlaced, meaning that half the image was drawn in one frame, the second half drawn in the second frame (60/2 = 30).
In this case, having more than 30fps would be pointless since the display itself can only show a maximum of 30fps. That is mainly where the misconception - that
we cant see more than 30fps - comes from (and too the industry standard in movies). However, displays now run at 60hz progressively (no interlacing). This means
that the display is capable of showing up to 60fps. However, anything more than 60fps cannot be seen because the display only flashes 60 times.
Hence, the maximum amount of frames humans can see has never been limited by their eyes, but more so by the display that they use. If you have a 120hz display,
then it could show up to 120fps (which I hear some counter strike players swear by).

Another thing for those sensitive to frame rates (using a PC):

If a game is running at 60fps+, yet still seems to stutter, vertical sync is probably the solution to your problem (Battlefield 2 suffered from this problem).

What is vertical sync? What vertical sync does is synchronize your frame rate with your display. If your display is 60hz, then your game will run at a max of 60fps (remember its synced though, so its not the same as simply setting a max frame output). Why would you want this? Without it, your video card is just sending frames to the display all willy nilly. Sometimes, the display will flash the end of one frame and the beginning of the next (this is called page tearing - you will see a visible horizontal divide on the screen). Also, if the fps is sync'd to your display, you will get the smoothest motion possible out of your games (I mean EXTREMELY smooth - this can lead to a wonderful gaming experience on its own). I also recommend turning on triple buffering when using vertical sync.