High frame rate

The game simulates the world 30 times per second. The stock PC engine can draw more frames than that, but the world only moves once per tick, so anything faster than 30 FPS showed the same world several times. Several systems also tied their timing to the frame rate and broke above 30 FPS.

Ringworld keeps the simulation at 30 ticks per second and blends between the last two ticks on every rendered frame, so the game looks smooth at any frame rate.

What is interpolated

• Objects: position, rotation and animated poses of bipeds, vehicles, weapons, devices and scenery.
• The first person weapon and hands.
• Cameras: first person, third person, vehicle and following cameras, and camera shake.
• Particles, contrails, flags, antennas and lights.
• Scoreboard and game rules fades.

In multiplayer, position updates from the server are absorbed into the blend instead of making objects jump.

Cutscene camera cuts are respected: the camera jumps to the new shot instead of sliding across the cut. Interpolation freezes while the game is paused and is turned off on the dedicated server, which draws nothing.

Frame rate independent timing

These no longer change speed or behavior with the frame rate:

• The checkpoint save loop.
• The motion sensor sweep.
• Vehicle camera auto centering.
• Death and cooperative respawn delays.
• Weather particle wind and drift.
• Console text fading.

Cinematics are no longer capped at 30 FPS. The 30 FPS option of the video settings still works.

Frame rate graph

The stock frame rate graph shown with Ctrl+F12 measures frame times in microseconds and scales up past 60 FPS, so it stays readable at high frame rates. For a plain counter, turn on Show FPS in the video settings.

Configuration

Interpolation is always on. There are no options for it.