Image courtesy of NVIDIA
Lower system latency
Displaying content in a simulator is different from playing a movie. In a movie, every frame is present on the source (a Blu-ray disk for example) and sent directly to the display or projector. In a simulator, on the other hand, the content is real-time, and every frame needs to be created and rendered. To cope with high speed, kinetic action, and responsive real-time rendering, processing high frame rates has become increasingly important.
Each piece of technology in a simulator system will bring its own latency and add to the overall total system latency, whether it is the peripheral solution (input), the image generator, or the display solution. In the case below, the CPU (Central Processing Unit) interprets the input, updates the state of the scenario, and prepares the frames for the render engine. The GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) takes care of the rendering of these prepared frames. The video below clearly shows the difference between a frame in a 240 Hz and in a 60 Hz system. By the time the 60 Hz system shows the first image, the 240 Hz system is already 3 frames ahead.