So me and a few other players have been debating about which is better.
I'm not that good at writing so I'll keep it short. "What's the difference between 500 and 1000fps?"

500 fps

I'd reckon 1000 fps is better since it's a bigger number.

Of course 1000 fps is better... If the server is going to be used for 6vs6 go with 500 fps since there won't be much of a difference with 12 people. If it's going to be 16+ people going with 1000 fps might be better. It's really just the smoothness of the server.

1000 fps servers are better then 500 fps servers. The extra 5 bucks a month makes a difference in your gameplay.

Here is a good article I've found on the subject.

http://www.moreal.org/articles/fpsund.php

A lot of interesting tidbits on information in this debate, but here is my understanding of things, I would like to frame this as understanding of observed behaviors and the developer wikis and so forth.

Ticrate - This is how many times a second the server actually calculates the game world to send updates to client out, AKA player positions, projectile positions, when hitscans fired etc. In TF2 is always 66tic per second on just about any GSP you go with. CSS can go up to 100.

fps is how often the game is actually running the game world without actually calculating the packets to update the clients. QuakeLive used the term "Resolution" in a recent update when they increased this value on that game. 1000 fps is roughly every single millisecond, 500fps is every 2 milliseconds, the default of 256 (300 effectively runs at 256) is roughly every 4 ms.

Due to the resolution increase, this is why you see people say the weapons are more accurate and so forth. since it does to some degree make a difference in the game world. So it is slightly more then a sales gimmick at this stage.

Basically, even though the ticrate is only 66, the game is actually running at the fps, so having a higher fps is helpful the way that SRCDS is running things.

As far as Pubs go, I really don't believe there is a need to spend money to go beyond the default honestly, but that being said a "Hi-res" application is still required to actually get the default intended performance out of the server at least on windows, otherwise the fps basically will match the ticrate of 66fps, many server farms are in this state and the games are running fine for pub play.

For match servers, 500fps is really a solid minimum I would take, 1000fps would work also, but the diff between 500 and 1000 just to me doesn't add up to anything feasible. All the technical definitions aside, much of this debate is about perception. Do i think your throwing your money away, not at the 1000fps level, at the 2000fps yeah, not sure that is really worth the money.

On your servers, you can occasionally run the 'stats' command to see the output of the servers current fps. If your buying a 1000fps, you want to keep an eye on that during a game and make sure the server is actually sticking to the 1000fps, otherwise your wasting money.

As an interesting experiment, I would like to run a match server for a series of matches with players, some at 256, some at 500, some at 1000, take the feedback and see if people actually can perceive the difference. Just need a dedicate server and a company willing to do such an experiment (results could dramatically alter sales numbers so most I have talked with aren't exactly jumping on this.

tl;dr
In short, yes there is a technical reason to have 1000fps over a 500fps, its actually difference in practice though is debatable (1ms difference). Some players really want it.

cool cnp from gf hawkeye :P

Didn't cnp anything actually.. where on gf?

Didn't cnp anything actually.. where on gf?


Same thread where cnpd the article I posted.
Not like it matters, GF doesn't work more then 75% of the time anymore.