Jimquisition: Ubisoft Talks Bollocks About Framerate And Resolution

nevarran

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Westonbirt said:
It's alright to stay on consoles and to make games which are made to be there, but just fucking admit that they are underpowered and inferior, don't try to make an artistic statement out of it, cause that's just silly.
Neither Sony nor MS would like hearing such thing. They sell their products as a powerhouses, a leap in the technology, revolutionary... They know they cannot compete with PC, so they just pretend it doesn't exist.
It's ridiculous, I know. It's like Fiat boosting about the new Panda's 0-100 acceleration, instead of focusing on it's convenience. But that's the world we live in, many people out there genuinely believe Sony and MS' bullshit.
 

ExiledCreature

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Silentpony said:
Is it just that Ubisoft promised 60fps and then only delivered 30? Would there be a controversy if they just said 30fps and that graphics shouldn't matter if the game is good? Don't we all believe that? Isn't that a core principle of gaming? Why are AAA games taken to task for the exact fucking pixel count when the indies are purposefully praised for having shit graphics? Is it money? Do we expect AAA games to have a great graphics to backup their absurd bankrolls? If so, aren't we tentatively implying that bad games can be fixed by flinging money at them? Then how can we complain about over-budget games? Shouldn't we all WANT an over-budget game, because it must have solved every problem.
The issue we take is that they say 30fps feel "better" or "more cinematic". That's nonsense. On the other hand, Minecraft doesn't lie to you about its graphics being barebones.
 

P-89 Scorpion

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Silentpony said:
Not that I disagree, but how does this stack up to the idea that graphics don't matter? I'll admit, I only have a decent gaming lappy, and I play most of the new releases on my apparently old and worthless 360. But when I hear a debate of 30fps and 60fps, or that the resolution is off(whatever that bloody means!) or that the in-game graphics have been downgraded since the last demo.=, I can follow it, and it makes sense. Gaming companies have been hoisted by their own petard so to speak. They sold us on graphics and then didn't deliver, fair. Good. Great.

But then the same people arguing turn around and say Minecraft is fucking amazing and that graphics don't make the game. They praise shitty looking games for 'evoking a sense of nostalgia!' and for not 'buying the corporate line about graphics, man' And I can't help but feel the people are either being two-faced, or just like arguing for arguments sake.

Is it just that Ubisoft promised 60fps and then only delivered 30? Would there be a controversy if they just said 30fps and that graphics shouldn't matter if the game is good? Don't we all believe that? Isn't that a core principle of gaming? Why are AAA games taken to task for the exact fucking pixel count when the indies are purposefully praised for having shit graphics? Is it money? Do we expect AAA games to have a great graphics to backup their absurd bankrolls? If so, aren't we tentatively implying that bad games can be fixed by flinging money at them? Then how can we complain about over-budget games? Shouldn't we all WANT an over-budget game, because it must have solved every problem.

Again, not trying to start a flame war, but how do the two principles exist side-by-side?

Frame rate, screen resolution and graphics are all different issues.

Pretty graphics make for nice screenshots but a higher frame rate makes a game feel smoother when actually playing the game while having a game at the native screen resolution means you don't get the distortion that can happen especially with text that would appear if the game is not at a native resolution.

Though a game at 900P on a 1080P is more of an issue for PC gamers as you usually have a smaller screen that you are closer too than if you play on a console through a big screen TV.

Here's a link to an article that explains the different graphic setting ( http://lifehacker.com/5985304/get-the-most-from-your-games-a-beginners-guide-to-graphics-settings )
 

ghalleon0915

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It's too bad the Bioware news blurb didn't make it in time for Jim's video, would have been interesting to see his take on that in correlation to Ubisoft's announcement. I do wonder about Ubisoft though, it seems that everytime they open their rhetorical mouth they get themselves in trouble.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Unity and Rogue come out.

Also, damn Jim your podium is crowded now; I remember when it was just Willem Dafoe now he's got friends.
 

Jimothy Sterling

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I love you jim sterling.

One comment that always gets on my tits from developers is "more cinematic". Its an insult to games. To me its saying "video games are not good enough, they must be more like movies." The developers of The Order said the same thing a while back. I can't help but feel these people may be in the wrong industry. I wish people would call them out on this more often.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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Demonchaser27 said:
Silentpony said:
It's the fact that it was promised, nothing more. It isn't necessarily two-faced. Essentially, if humans see a possibility and then fail to see it realized, they are pissed. Had no one ever mentioned 60fps or resolutions then this stuff wouldn't even be debated. They're would be nothing to debate. Because no one would care. It's still these big publishers fault for pushing it and then cowering away and lying. But had they never tried to hype it this generation, it would have never been a problem.
Ah. Okay. I accept that and agree. They shouldn't have promised and not delivered, and graphics don't necessarily make a good game. Thanks for clearing that up!
 

nevarran

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Silentpony said:
...
But then the same people arguing turn around and say Minecraft is fucking amazing and that graphics don't make the game. They praise shitty looking games for 'evoking a sense of nostalgia!' and for not 'buying the corporate line about graphics, man' And I can't help but feel the people are either being two-faced, or just like arguing for arguments sake.

Is it just that Ubisoft promised 60fps and then only delivered 30? Would there be a controversy if they just said 30fps and that graphics shouldn't matter if the game is good? Don't we all believe that? Isn't that a core principle of gaming? ...
The frame-rate affects your experience. It doesn't make the game look better.
The frame-rate has more to do with the gameplay than the graphics actually. I see no controversy here.
People are angry that devs take from the gameplay to deliver on graphics, because they can't deliver both.
 

Akexi

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Everyone was talking about the shadow of mordor pre release footage agreement, Jim! It was a good dodge controversy for shitty journalists to avoid GG. Regarding the video's main point, Ubisoft's PR maneuver is most likely for the sake to avoid stating that the PS4 and XBox 1 are substantially inferior hardware wise to gaming PC's. They most likely have to scale back the quality to make sure the games can run on gaming consoles to some degree of a stable rate and will not come out and say that the machines are shit for the sake of their relationship with Sony and Microsoft. I find it somewhat hilarious and in the same way disturbing that you're satisfied with painting Ubisoft to be garbage at programming instead of taking insight into the significant difference in power between an optimized gaming PC and current gen consoles. As someone who stated getting more invested into PC gaming, does that difference just not register with you? Or is it that you do the mental gymnastics equivalent to the physical performance of Gabrielle Douglas and think that when you install a GTX 980, your consoles immediately upgrade as well? With that said, give it time for modders to look through the game code and files; if possible, they'll unlock the framerate just as they restored the graphical fidelity to Watch Dogs. IF you haven't noticed, some gamers will attempt to get all they can out of their games and the PC platform is a good platter for a dissection.
 

Thanatos2k

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I'm convinced that Ubisoft just thinks gamers are stupid, and they'll accept anything Ubisoft shovels down their throats.
 

nevarran

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Akexi said:
With that said, give it time for modders to look through the game code and files; if possible, they'll unlock the framerate just as they restored the graphical fidelity to Watch Dogs. IF you haven't noticed, some gamers will attempt to get all they can out of their games and the PC platform is a good platter for a dissection.
The problem is, that often when a game is developed with 30fps(for example) in mind, crucial aspects of the game are based on that number. And if you unlock the frames, you create a diss-balance within the game. Like Skyrim's physics for example, even a single frame above 60 would cause serious bugs (flying objects, underwater physics activating when not underwater, etc...). The AI, I think, is also refreshed with the framerate.
It's good to have those modifications, but they don't always solve the issue.

Thanatos2k said:
I'm convinced that Ubisoft just thinks gamers are stupid, and they'll accept anything Ubisoft shovels down their throats.
60% are stupid/don't care.
The other 40% would accept everything the devs shove down their throats, if the game is good.
 

Something Amyss

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I didn't know movies couldn't be immersive until now. I mean, I guess that's the takeaway here, if we're contrasting "immersion" and feeling like the movies.

Westonbirt said:
PC MASTER RACE !

But seriously, this is just a console-centric developer jumping through hoops to justify its not taking into account the huge power advantage that gaming PCs have over consoles. They might as well come out with a statement just saying "no, we're not interested in coming onto the superior and more competitive platform, because it makes our dick feel small."

It's alright to stay on consoles and to make games which are made to be there, but just fucking admit that they are underpowered and inferior, don't try to make an artistic statement out of it, cause that's just silly.
I bet those grapes were sour anyway.
 

shrekfan246

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Silentpony said:
Again, not trying to start a flame war, but how do the two principles exist side-by-side?
The great framerate debate:

A lot of people argue that they don't enjoy playing games which are below [X] FPS. No matter how pulling the story might be or how fun the gameplay is, they don't enjoy the relative sluggishness of the controls. See also: People who can't play shooters on console controllers.

And I don't necessarily blame them. I had a hankering to play the old Ultimate Spider-Man game a few days back, and discovered that it had a PC release. But upon further research, I also discovered that the game was forcibly locked to 30 FPS with absolutely no feasible way to change it, and on top of that it would experience even further slowdown during large combat/boss encounters. In an action game that focuses pretty heavily on movement and area awareness, that's kinda just not acceptable. It can easily turn a good game into a tedious one, and that just isn't fun.

Also, a lot of people who are fine with 30 FPS take issue with, again, the forced lock of a game to 30 FPS. Especially on PC, it's not so much that people are absolutely furious they can't play everything at 120+ frames-per-second (though some people certainly do get that way) but rather the fact that game developers and publishers are actively negating one of the inherent benefits of playing on PC in the first place. And when they phrase it the way Ubisoft has here, it comes across as incredibly patronizing and insulting to the intelligence of their audience. As far as it goes on console, I think a lot of people were just hoping that the power of the new systems would allow for a much greater jump than we've gotten so far.

Personally, I don't really define "next-gen" games by the resolution or framerate of them, I'm going to define it by how much more interactive the game worlds can become. As of yet, I haven't really seen a "next-gen" game because they've all just kinda been continuations on the pattern and formula we've had for years already.

As far as resolution or the graphical fidelity is concerned, I personally don't give much of a toss about them. It's far more about aesthetics and optimization to me. The Witcher 2 is still one of the most beautiful PC games I've seen, even from a technical standpoint, and my laptop can play it far better than games released this year which are only barely even beginning to reach the same level.
 

Thanatos2k

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Also, one thing that never gets mentioned is absolute frame rate is not what's important - framerate CONSISTENCY is what matters. 30 fps DOES look better than 60 fps if the 30 fps is consistent but the 60 fps is not. Show someone a game and ask them what frame rate it's running at and they'll get it wrong half the time, but EVERYONE notices stuttering, and even if it's always above 30 fps but stuttering somewhere between 60 and 30fps it's going to look terrible.

Yet no one talks about this. They'll proudly tout 60 fps or 30 fps but never say what the average fps is, and you'll have to wait for reviews for them to maybe mention stuttering.

If Ubisoft decided to cap it at 30 fps because they couldn't get a consistent 60 fps then fine - say that. But given the performance of previous AC games which go into slow motion once 7+ enemies are around you or you throw a smoke bomb I'm guessing they couldn't even get a consistent 30 fps.
 

teh_gunslinger

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That Unity video at the end, where he was running the city? Yea, that looked really choppy and bad. 30 fps can be accepted I guess, but it's never, ever better and that video showed precisely why. It looked bad.
 

Jman1236

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To me, I have a 40 inch tv in my bedroom that I game on, and I can't tell the difference between 1080p and 900p on it. A bigger issue for me is which version has a better frame rate, is there slowdown, and it is stable on the platform.

Also I agree, graphics don't make the game. Look at Gmod, the engine is garbage but the cult following is insane, I'll take a round of TTT over any military shooter anyday.
 

Mikeyfell

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I don't want to piss one everyone's perception of what they "personally" consider to be "objectively" better, but I can't stand looking at things that are 60 FPS.

I can always tell the difference and it always looks worse.
So you can take your "objective fact" and shove it. I'd think of all people Jim would have the common decency not to call his opinion an objective fact and claim science supports something that is obviously his opinion.

Thank god for the improper usage of the word objective
 

Callate

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Just have to note: "cinematic" itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. Launching myself between rows of seats in the movie theater in Duke Nukem 3D or taking out every mook in a room as I slide across a table in slow motion in Max Payne is "cinematic"- that is, it feels like a well-produced scene successfully designed to bring feelings of excitement and a rush of adrenalin, much like an action sequence in a movie.

By contrast, of course, what Ubisoft is doing is trying to spin a shortcoming as a positive. Not surprising, but that's no reason to buy the line.
 

Spanglish Guy

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Yeah 30 certainly feels better than 60, it's not like when playing at 60fps the gameplay is buttery smooth or anything like that, that's just your mind lying to you. Let's believe Ubisoft instead.

Surely the people at Ubisoft that spout this garbage don't actually believe it. Of course they don't, they just assume that we will believe them because consumers are 'stupid'. Fucking Ubisoft.
 

WouldYouKindly

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Grach said:
Oh, Ubi, Ubi... When will you stop getting flogged?
When they stop putting on the gimp suit and begging for it.

The problem is that console gamers do not put up much of a stink when their games don't hit 60FPS at full HD resolutions. That was the promise of this new console generation and it is not, by and large, being met.

Show me an Xbone or PS4 game that looks as good as The Witcher 2 and runs at 60 FPS. Granted, one required a computer reminiscent of the monolith from A Space Odyssey, but it also ran on the Xbox 360. That was a fucking incredible achievement.

Right now, console games look much as they always have with some shinier textures, occasionally at higher resolutions, but still stuck at 30 FPS.

ghalleon0915 said:
Got a link? I'd like to see if it's nearly as bad.
 

Trishbot

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Ubisoft: We totally borked the graphics of Watch_Dogs, downgraded them significantly from the E3 showing, and intentionally hobbled the PC release... and it was a smash hit that sold millions. Thank you, everyone, for letting us get away with it. We can't wait to get away with it again and again and again until you finally stop buying our games like sheep.

I really don't know how to "solve" this problem. The solution is to get people to stop buying the same old thing every year... but the people willing to do that are far fewer than the people who need their "fix", and Ubisoft (and EA, and Activision, and countless others) know this.