The Esports Frontier: Rendering for Competitive Games

TL;DR

This paper explores how real-time rendering can evolve beyond traditional focus on image quality and frame rate, inspired by esports demands for ultra-high refresh rates and continuous updates.

Contribution

It introduces the idea of rethinking rendering pipelines to support more continuous updates, moving beyond current image quality and frame rate limitations.

Findings

Esports displays often exceed 360 Hz, emphasizing ultra-high refresh rates.

Gamers prioritize maximum frame rates over image quality.

Potential for new rendering paradigms focusing on continuous updates.

Abstract

Real-time graphics is commonly thought of as anything exceeding about 30 fps, where the interactivity of the application becomes fluid enough for high rates of interaction. Inspired by esports and competitive gaming, where players regularly exceed the threshold for real-time by 10x (esports displays commonly reach 360 Hz or beyond), this talk begins the exploration of how rendering has the opportunity to evolve beyond the current state of focus on either image quality or frame rate. Esports gamers regularly decline nearly all options for increased image quality in exchange for maximum frame rates. However, there remains a distinct opportunity to move beyond the focus on video as a sequence of images and instead rethink the pipeline for more continuous updates.