What's the Resolution and Refresh Rate of Your Eyes?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2017-05-06
·
1,009 words · ~5 min read
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so with our technology rapidly improving and our graphics cards and digital
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cameras pumping out crisper more lifelike images than ever before it
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isn't surprising that we're wondering how long it will be until we get
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something that could match or exceed our eyes natural resolution or refresh rate
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but what exactly are the specks of our
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eyes does the question even make sense since we see things not with a camera
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lens and GPU but with a squishy eyeball
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and a hunk of meat inside our brain now we here at Techquickie are not the
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first to answer this question in terms of discrete numbers but even so tons of
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people out there are still perpetuating the same myths like the famous assertion
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that the human eye can't see more than 24 frames per second which Garners eye
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rolls from enthusiasts everywhere so we're going to take a stab at explaining
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the truth obviously our eyes don't work exactly the same way as digital cameras
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but they do operate with a few Concepts in common just like an image sensor in a
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camera can capture a certain number of pixels our eyes have a finite number of
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Rod and Cone cells in them plus our eyes
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need different visual elements of whatever we're looking at to be small
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enough so that they don't appear pixelated so in this way our eyes are
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sort of kind of digital but our brains
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render images we can understand by examining how the view from our eyes is
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continuously changing which sounds a lot closer to how and analog technology
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Works something you can learn more about up here so this means that the commonly
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cited answer of 576 megapixels which was
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decided upon with some rather complicated math which we've linked to in the video description needs to be
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taken with some caveats don't get me wrong our eyes are indeed incredible
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tools for seeing the world in detail I mean 576 megapixels is equal to having a
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32,000 by 18,000 pixel monitor this
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would be like having an array of over 275 1080p monitors this makes it sound
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like you'd need 576 million pixels to
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have a photo that fit exactly within your field of view to completely fool
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you into thinking that the picture is actually real life but remember that
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since you only see things sharply that are right in front of you with your
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peripheral vision being a lot blurrier the actual number is only somewhere
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around 8 or 9 megapixels and again since
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your brains don't work in a digital manner the real number can vary quite a
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bit depending on factors like ambient lighting but let's say you're less
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worried about buying a camera that can match the capabilities of the human eye
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and more about buying a graphics card and high refresh rate monitor that can
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crank out so many FPS that your favorite game couldn't possibly appear any
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smoother is that even possible well
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possibly in theory a human brain could process a th000 frames per second
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according to scientific Research into how quickly our neurons can fire signals
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but just like the theoretical Max speeds of things like SATA drives this number
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doesn't mean a whole lot in Practical terms different people have different
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maximum refresh rates and the real life upper limit seems to be around 250 Hertz
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depending on what study you look at but remember again that our brains and eyes
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aren't exactly digital and don't render discret frames the way a graphics card
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would so there is an actual number of frames your eyes can push to your brain
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rather that 250 number is the point at
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which motion becomes realistic looking for people with good eyesight and of
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course there are diminishing returns as you approach this number for example
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it's easy for most people to tell the difference between 20 and 60 FPS but 220
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and 260 will be indistinguishable to a
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lot of folks so while it is possible to
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attach meaningful numbers to the spec sheets of our eyes and brains individual
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differences along with the not quite analog or digital nature of our bodies
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means that you should take them with a grain of salt and that the most
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important thing is to buy stuff that will give you an experience that you
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think looks good unless of course you're cool with waiting around for the world's
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first 18,000 P monitor to hit the market
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