will the PS3 always output 60fps on all games? i know Killzone 2 has been said to only be 720p @ 30fps but on my plasma display it shows the input source as 60hz. so does that mean that the PS3 is doing something to take a game that is only native 30fps and turning it into 60fps?

No its up to the designers as the processor can only do so much so they have to prioritize fps over other things they may want in the game.

FYI: hz & fps are two different measurements... one is the refresh rate of the tv the other is how quickly the hardware can put up a updated image. So just because the video can do 60hz does not mean the processor/hardware can redraw a new image that quick.

what i am saying is that games that i know are 30fps are being output by the ps3 at a refresh rate of 60hz. my question is how is that done?

Hz is how many times the screen flashes at a given time.
FPS is how much can the PS3 render those frames.
Now in this case the Hz and the FPS doesn't have to correlate.

Hz is how many times the screen flashes at a given time.
FPS is how much can the PS3 render those frames.
Now in this case the Hz and the FPS doesn't have to correlate.

i understand that. my question is what is the ps3 doing when it takes a game that is rendered at 30 fps and sends it out at 60hz. what happens there?

I'd imagine the PS3 renders each frame twice before output to match the scan frequency of the tv. It won't do any good for the game being played as it's still being shown at the slower frame rate but since out electrical system operates at 60hz it seems a necessary step. For those games that are 60fps the system probably just refreshes once instead of twice. i could be totally wrong though, it seems logical enough.

then the question is, what happens when the frame rate drops to an uneven multiple of 60?

i understand that. my question is what is the ps3 doing when it takes a game that is rendered at 30 fps and sends it out at 60hz. what happens there?

It's just sending out whatever frame/image is in the framebuffer at that specific time, regardless of what your tv is doing.

When a new image is rendered at 1/30 a second, it starts sending that next one.

The TV, on the other hand will display whatever that image is 60 times each second, whether it's 1 frame a second coming from the PS3, or 60 frames a second.

Are you looking for a more technical explanation?

then the question is, what happens when the frame rate drops to an uneven multiple of 60?

Nothing....


You PS3 is rendering at a specific FPS, while you TV is refreshing at 60.

Another way to explain it would be to say that (effectively) the TV is "checking" 60 times a second and will display whatever the last frame sent to it was. If there is no change, the same frame will remain on the screen. If the PS3 (or whatever) rendering frames at a slower rate (regardless of multiple or not) then that will just be more refreshes on the TV with the same frame as was on there previously.

then the question is, what happens when the frame rate drops to an uneven multiple of 60?

Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria!