How many frames per second can the human eye really see?

I spend far too many of my first tender minutes in a new game with a framerate counter running in the corner of my screen. I play, hyper-sensitive to the smallest hitches, dipping in and out of the graphics settings to optimise, and worry, and optimise and worry again. 

I swear I don’t have that counter going all the time. That would be unhealthy, right? But framerate is important to us. It’s the core measurement by which we rate both our rigs and a game’s technical chops. And why not? A framerate counter doesn’t lie. It reports a straight, simple number. In an uncertain world it’s something we can stand by. 

But can you see high framerates? So starts an argument as old as PC games, a constant and confused war in which pride clashes against shaky science. But internet rage aside, it’s an interesting question, especially since it engages with the primary way we experience computer games. What is the maximum framerate the human eye see? How perceptible is the difference between 30 Hz and 60 Hz? Between 60 Hz and 144 Hz? After what point is it pointless to display a game any faster?

The answer is complex and rather untidy. You might not agree with parts of it; some may even make you angry. Eye and visual cognition experts, even those who play games themselves, may well have a very different perspective than you about what’s important about the flowing imagery computers and monitors display. But human sight and perception is a strange and complicated thing, and it doesn’t quite work like it feels.