Jimquisition: Ubisoft Talks Bollocks About Framerate And Resolution

[Bad Jim]

I have a simpler reason Jim.

Ubisoft have bad coders.

In fairness, the code is probably fine. It's more likely that the artists have put too much eye candy in and no-one wants to scale down their precious artwork for something as trivial as making the game playable.

 

[hydrolythe]

I think Ubisoft is trying claim the title previously held by EA, the worst company in America. They're certainly working their way towards replacing them as company most hated by gamers. Honestly I don't care about frame rates or visuals, I just wish they'd stop with the bullshit.

You probably mean the worst company in France. It would probably never obtain that title, since French probably would rather give that honour to Infogrames (which nowadays hides under Atari's brand label to avoid brand-exposure, it is that bad). Mainly because they are well-known there for making lots of shovelware (though a few of their titles are still well-remembered there, but very few).

One has to wonder though if they are as lying to the people in their home country. I do not know.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

... That PC's have been doing for years...

Uh, I don't mean to split hairs here but we both know that it all depends on how much money you invested in your PC, Jim. To run any modern game at 60 FPS takes AT LEAST a $700 machine. A little less than twice what a new XOne/PS4 console costs. In fact, for 60 FPS with high graphics settings, it'll probably cost more.

 

[Biran53]

Could somebody please tell me what fps is and how it affects videogames? I honestly don?t know.

Frames per second, so the number of images displayed every second on your screen. Framerate has to be consistent cause otherwise it cause a chopping effect in a game.

Most movies use 24 fps. For games 30 is usually considered the minimum bearable, but 60 has more or less been the standard for pc games for years now. People were hoping the new gen will move consoles up to 60 fps too, even devs announced it, but it seems the xbox one & ps4 are not powerful enough, so now we have ton of PR people telling 30 fps is fine.

I wonder why the XBone and PS4 aren't powerful enough. You would THINK that improvements would be abound for a brand "new" console generation, but I see failure after failure with both consoles in proving why they should exist in the first place. If neither are going to improve gaming hardly at all, why should we even bother?

EDIT: Because I probably have no idea what I am talking about, would it be expensive to have powerful console machines?

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Want to match the PS4 on a lets say 500 dollar machine? Lower to medium-high. And you may even BEAT it.

Uh... Considering that I have a $750 recent laptop that can't even run Far Cry 2 on medium settings and a reduced resolution without getting choppy, I think you're very wrong.

 

[Muspelheim]

Heh... Jim with children.

*Mental image of Jimmie-Boy pummeling his podium with that baby doll in Think of the Children.*

 

[Bad Jim]

I have a simpler reason Jim.

Ubisoft have bad coders.

In fairness, the code is probably fine. It's more likely that the artists have put too much eye candy in and no-one wants to scale down their precious artwork for something as trivial as making the game playable.

*looks at Watch Dogs on PC*

Nope. Am certain it is just shit coding/optimization.

Metro looks MUCH better. Not a little, MUCH better. The only thing it has less is NPCs and theoretical space around the character. The actual AI probably wont be that good on Unity though.

4A achieved more, with the same hardware, at higher resolutions and 60 fps. With less money and less people on the project.

Well Watch Dogs was bad. But that's just Ubisoft shitting on the PC.

As for Metro, the theoretical space around the character is really significant. In Assassins Creed you can climb towers and see for miles, so detail must be limited to accomodate that. In Metro, you can see a hundred yards down the tunnel you are in, so that hundred yards of tunnel can have a lot more detail.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Want to match the PS4 on a lets say 500 dollar machine? Lower to medium-high. And you may even BEAT it.

Uh... Considering that I have a $750 recent laptop that can't even run Far Cry 2 on medium settings and a reduced resolution without getting choppy, I think you're very wrong.

What laptop? My mate's laptop cost 800 dollars and whilst not even close to a similar priced Desktop PC (what WE WERE TALKKING about here) it can definitely max 6 year old games.

Specs:

Intel Core i5-4200M (2.5 GHz, 4 CPU's)
Intel HD Graphics 4600 (Better than you think.)
1366x768
4 GB's of RAM
Windows 7 Pro

What's funny though is that it can run Serious Sam 3 pretty well and even Skyrim decently enough so I suspect it's probably just Far Cry 2 being stupidly optimized, if at all.

 

[irishda]

I'm willing to bet this is just going to become a rehashing of this thread.

I played Last of Us on PS3. I've got no problems with framerates as long as it's north of 0.

It's hard to deflect the criticism that gamers are childish when they're so willing to blow up over something as inconsequential as 30 v. 60 fps. Watching the footage Jim was using for AC: Unity, I'm having a hard time figuring out what the problem is.

If this is the measure of a controversy for Ubisoft, I'd say that says more about the type of controversies drummed up against them than it does the company themselves. At this point, I wonder if there'd be less of a controversy if they just put out there, "We're doing it a 30 fps because we lot aren't happy no matter what so go fuck yourselves. /crotch grab"

 

[Piorn]

At least they don't force us to wear 3D glasses at home with our regular monitors yet.

And I totally agree with Jim here, higher framerate is literally and absolutely always better, wether it's games, movies, TV or anything. When I have to stop rotating the camera and have to reorient myself because the screen became a blurry stuttery mess while turning, then that's just not good. But at least in games you know which way you turn, in movies you don't, and if you pay attention, you'll notice how much of screentime is actually just audio with blurry filler-vision. The hobbit was the first movie I could actually keep watching during fast scenes, because there was actual visuals there.

 

[RandV80]

Yep, if these graphic & performance issues 'aren't important' anymore then gamers may as well go out and buy Nintendo consoles.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I don't understand why Ubisoft lies about this stuff. They have to know the majority of gamers who care enough to read all this stuff in the first place are not idiots and know that they are lying. It just makes their customers feel like Ubisoft has total contempt for them.

This parity makes zero sense as well, as all it does it make their games less competitive on various platform compared to other games on said platform, I don't see how it helps them at all.

I really feel like Ubisoft is run by people who don't understand the industry they are in.

 

[Kohen Keesing]

Specs:

Intel Core i5-4200M (2.5 GHz, 4 CPU's)
Intel HD Graphics 4600 (Better than you think.)
1366x768
4 GB's of RAM
Windows 7 Pro

What's funny though is that it can run Serious Sam 3 pretty well and even Skyrim decently enough so I suspect it's probably just Far Cry 2 being stupidly optimized, if at all.

Not bad, I'm running an i5 @ 1.7GHz with two phys and two logical cores, Intel 4000HD and 3 or 4 GB RAM.
But for sure, if I cut out AA and complex shadows, and turn off Depth of Field (personal preference more than anything) my shitty little laptop can fucking curbstomp our 360.

I mean come on use your testers better.

You know, I'm not actually sure that game publishers really test anymore. You used to get paid for that stuff, and nowadays public betas and alphas are almost commonplace to the point of exploitation.

It's hard to deflect the criticism that gamers are childish when they're so willing to blow up over something as inconsequential as 30 v. 60 fps. Watching the footage Jim was using for AC: Unity, I'm having a hard time figuring out what the problem is.

A video embedded on a forum site doesn't do it justice. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I play using my laptop on a 50" screen with a tendency not to blink for an hour at a time, and when you see a game like, severe example here, Crysis 1 on a large screen, the framerate really does become an issue, and a blindingly obvious one at that. I wouldn't say that 30 v 60 is "inconsequential" in all cases, as I stated I play a lot of twitch-reflex games like DeadSpace and Nuclear Thone, and when you're relying on good aim or the ability to react within milliseconds, you get into a sort of 'flow' as you play. When you rely on said 'flow' too much, a dip in framerate becomes somewhat jarring visually, especially if your display has a low refresh rate.

A low framerate in a game like Skyrim, where combat is slow and methodical, and the animation for someone swinging a weapon takes close to a second to finish, a drop from 60 fps to 30 fps isn't too bad - maybe visually offputting, but not actually impacting gameplay. But in something like Risk of Rain where there's about three frames in the animation for a devastating attack from an enemy, losing those milliseconds can become straight-up rage inducing.

This is, of course, leaving out all the other issues that start with framerate deviance, with Yahtzee talking in his Quantum Conundrum video about bugs resulting from framedrops, or for example in the original Dark Souls - with DSfix on - even just climbing and sliding down ladders becomes glitchy and risky.

Actually, an even better example is Skyrim,: I can't even count how many times there's been a sudden framerate drop, and the physics engine has bugged, resulting in me flying off the side of a mountain at the speed of a getaway vehicle to splat on the ground a kilometre or so below and two kilometres away.

And of course, there's the video that darkhollow put up (hopefully he doesn't mind me stealing it) that is exactly what I'm talking about in the Skyrim example

"Framerate doesn't matter"
Have a gander here: http://gfycat.com/SaltyGraveAmazondolphin
This applies to most games not only FPS.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

has Jims background changed back to the old flag? Did that just happen or have I only just noticed?

 

[irishda]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I play using my laptop on a 50" screen with a tendency not to blink for an hour at a time, and when you see a game like, severe example here, Crysis 1 on a large screen, the framerate really does become an issue, and a blindingly obvious one at that.

I weep for the poor gamers who also don't blink for hours at a time, as truly they will be the most hurt by this decision.

I wouldn't say that 30 v 60 is "inconsequential" in all cases as I stated I play a lot of twitch-reflex games like DeadSpace and Nuclear Thone, and when you're relying on good aim or the ability to react within milliseconds, you get into a sort of 'flow' as you play. When you rely on said 'flow' too much, a dip in framerate becomes somewhat jarring visually, especially if your display has a low refresh rate.

A low framerate in a game like Skyrim, where combat is slow and methodical, and the animation for someone swinging a weapon takes close to a second to finish, a drop from 60 fps to 30 fps isn't too bad - maybe visually offputting, but not actually impacting gameplay. But in something like Risk of Rain where there's about three frames in the animation for a devastating attack from an enemy, losing those milliseconds can become straight-up rage inducing.

"Framerate doesn't matter"
Have a gander here: http://gfycat.com/SaltyGraveAmazondolphin
This applies to most games not only FPS.

If it's not inconsequential, then why is the example you provided (a twitch game) show almost no difference with regards to framerate except for once it reaches the low teens and below. I mean, it WOULD be really annoying if they locked it in at 5 fps. I might be pretty put off by that.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

More like Ubisoft talks bollocks about framerate and Revolution

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[small]sorry, I had to[/small]

 

[EMWISE94]

Now I'll admit, when it comes to 30fps vs 60fps I'm one of those people who don't really care, don't get me wrong 60fps is great but if a game runs at 30fps I'm not gonna throw a hissy fit about it, its only ever really a problem when the framerate keeps dropping or some shit. That being said, claiming that you're locking your game at 30 because you claim its better is utter bullshit, it would've been more sound if Ubisoft just said "we can't achieve 60fps cause we suck." cause really.. this business of claiming you know what people like when you obviously dont is getting annoying.

 

[RandV80]

Now I'll admit, when it comes to 30fps vs 60fps I'm one of those people who don't really care, don't get me wrong 60fps is great but if a game runs at 30fps I'm not gonna throw a hissy fit about it, its only ever really a problem when the framerate keeps dropping or some shit. That being said, claiming that you're locking your game at 30 because you claim its better is utter bullshit, it would've been more sound if Ubisoft just said "we can't achieve 60fps cause we suck." cause really.. this business of claiming you know what people like when you obviously dont is getting annoying.

And really there would be nothing wrong with that sort of admission. But rather than the reason being 'we suck' just tell us that other technical demands such as physics (being able to latch onto & jump around anything) & npc AI/density is taking up too many resources and preventing optimal graphics performance.

 

[ClockworkAngel]

Apparently, the "cinematic" excuse is what the devs of The Evil Within used to justify their game being capped at 30 fps. You know, if you can't get a game to run at 60 fps because of console limitations, fine. I get it. That's part of the sacrifice of a console at the moment: less hassle, but less performance. (At least, that's supposed to be how it goes.)

But don't lie about it. Don't treat your customers like idiots. I'm even less inclined to buy Unity (as much as I want it) at full-price now than I was before.

 

[J Tyran]

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.

You're a very sexy person, thank you. With all this babble about frame rates no-one ever seems to discuss frame rating which can be much more important, there are some great guides on PC Perspective and their YouTube channel for anyone wanting to understand this issue.

They are actually benchmarking graphics cards to measure their frame rating as well, not just raw FPS at different settings. Stuttering will always take you out of the game faster than a locked low frame rate will, in this way the Xbone release of Tomb Raider played better than the Lamestation 4 version because of its locked frame rate over the Lamestation struggling and not quite reaching 60 FPS and having frequent and noticeable huge dips.