Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2013 June 18

= June 18 =

Production logo
My mom once told me of some producer's vanity card at the end of a TV show, which depicted an elderly woman knocked over on her rocking chair by a burst of static from her TV, causing her to exclaim some unintelligible expletive of some sort. If I have the details right, can anyone discern whose vanity card this was? 66.41.216.19 (talk) 02:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Your IP address geolocates to the United States. Should we assume that your mother saw this vanity card in the US?  Dismas |(talk) 08:48, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * A google search of "rocking chair production logo" finds an answer from several years ago on another question & answer site, saying that it's for David E. Kelly Productions. Here's a Youtube video of the logo: -- 71.35.105.42 (talk) 15:36, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Good job finding that. When Kelley's shows like Ally McBeal and The Practice were hot in the 90's we would see this several times a week. She says "you stinker" as she is knocked out of the chair. MarnetteD | Talk 15:53, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Good find! I had done some searching and I guess I wasn't using quite the right keywords in my search because I hadn't come up with anything close to that.  Dismas |(talk) 19:15, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Is Vertical-Sync (common in Windows/Mac videogames) good or bad for quality of the graphics?
As far as graphics and quality go, should I turn on V-Sync? I am sure turning it on will not degrade the speed at which the game runs with my computer.

Thanks! Nicholasprado (talk) 19:57, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * This would probably stand a better chance of being answered on the computing refdesk. Rojomoke (talk) 14:58, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * In general, yes, if the game is running fast enough, you want V-Sync on.
 * Vertical sync will syncronize the game's framerate to the monitor's display rate.
 * If those two things are NOT syncronized then it causes a problem where the top half of the image is from the old frame, but the bottom half is from the new frame. This causes a very distracting "tearing" effect, especially as you pan the camera from left to right. (For example, if you pan the camera past a vertical line, the line will actually break partway down!)
 * The disadvantage of using V-Sync is if your computer isn't QUITE fast enough to produce every frame. If your monitor is running at 60hz, and your game is running at 59FPS, then turning on V-Sync may actually lower your framerate to 30fps.  (Because every other frame would be just barely late, and have to "wait" until it could be drawn.) 75.69.10.209 (talk) 20:14, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * That 30 fps would happen if the game was using double buffering; if triple buffering is available the game can (rather than idle wait for vsync) render a new frame into a third buffer (with the confidence that a retrace won't force that buffer to be shown when it's half finished). In your example the game would then get an effective frame rate of 59fps - rendering on a 60Hz display it would result in one frame being repeated. I don't know if people really can see that stutter in practice (some people claim to be able to see, and to be bothered by, all kinds of video artefacts that I never notice). A note about how to use triple buffering in Windows Direct3D games is here. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 10:50, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * On the other hand, how bad that is depends on whether you find 30hz or tearing to be worse when playing games. In general if you don't see any tearing, don't worry about V-sync. If you do, turn it on. MChesterMC (talk) 09:46, 20 June 2013 (UTC)