Poll: 60fps vs 30fps? opinions?

[Strazdas]

As I've already mentioned to someone else, you'll need to show that 33.3ms is above the threshold of what humans can perceive before that becomes a relevant number to this discussion.

Please read my link again then, because i already did.

If you knew me, you wouldn't come to that conclusion.

Then why are you claiming that to be the case here?

I'm not fully versed on game programming, but there are games (especially older ones from what I've heard) where actions, speed, and other factors are tied very heavily to each frame. This can cause some very odd behavior as you increase or decrease the framerate, and it may even be possible some games lock the framerate to mask this. I forget the game, but I know TotalBiscuit has put this on display at least once when he unlocked a game that was locked at 30 FPS. The game became unplayable at the 120 FPS he let it go to, as the game speed was directly tied to the number of frames being run at.

In these situations, yes, you could experience a major difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS. The problem, though, is that, from everything I've heard, this is a horrible practice.

But as for this discussion, it is hard to tell exactly how a game is programmed (since most games are proprietary and don't make the source code available), but I would say any game that becomes unplayable to the degree you're claiming probably partook of this practice in some degree. It's not a case of 33.3ms being too much delay. It's the fact that the game is horribly programmed.

some DOS games did this in the 90s, but its very rare nowadays. the game you are talking about is Need For Speed: Rivals released in i think 2013. here is the link to video you mentioned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDA37BmvNwM TB complains that it is unacceptable to do this and that no other games do this nonsense.

Edit: Also any game that does this is very easy to spot without knowing its source code. Actually thanks to modding being popular a lot of source codes are actually accessible.

 

[duwenbasden]

Depends on my tolerance:

If it's a game that requires my immediate attention (FPS, RTS, MMO, etc...), then 60fps is required.
Otherwise (TBS, Sim, etc...), I'll accept 30fps.

Yes, I can tell the difference. 30 fps feels a bit sticky and gluey.

 

[Supernova1138]

As I've already mentioned to someone else, you'll need to show that 33.3ms is above the threshold of what humans can perceive before that becomes a relevant number to this discussion.

Please read my link again then, because i already did.

If you knew me, you wouldn't come to that conclusion.

Then why are you claiming that to be the case here?

I'm not fully versed on game programming, but there are games (especially older ones from what I've heard) where actions, speed, and other factors are tied very heavily to each frame. This can cause some very odd behavior as you increase or decrease the framerate, and it may even be possible some games lock the framerate to mask this. I forget the game, but I know TotalBiscuit has put this on display at least once when he unlocked a game that was locked at 30 FPS. The game became unplayable at the 120 FPS he let it go to, as the game speed was directly tied to the number of frames being run at.

In these situations, yes, you could experience a major difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS. The problem, though, is that, from everything I've heard, this is a horrible practice.

But as for this discussion, it is hard to tell exactly how a game is programmed (since most games are proprietary and don't make the source code available), but I would say any game that becomes unplayable to the degree you're claiming probably partook of this practice in some degree. It's not a case of 33.3ms being too much delay. It's the fact that the game is horribly programmed.

some DOS games did this in the 90s, but its very rare nowadays. the game you are talking about is Need For Speed: Rivals released in i think 2013. here is the link to video you mentioned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDA37BmvNwM TB complains that it is unacceptable to do this and that no other games do this nonsense.

Edit: Also any game that does this is very easy to spot without knowing its source code. Actually thanks to modding being popular a lot of source codes are actually accessible.

It's rare in Western development, but you still see it happen with a lot of Japanese games. Koei Tecmo has started putting out PC ports of some of their titles, they are usually locked to 30FPS and will run into game speed problems if you try to unlock the framerate. Japanese devs still develop primarily for consoles and operate under the assumption that they are never releasing their games on PC so they don't have to worry about the end user unlocking the framerate, so they can be lazy with how they code their games and tie a bunch of crap to the framerate.

 

[RisenStorm]

I will take 60 FPS over 30 FPS whenever it's available, but I do not consider 30 FPS game-ruining except in the case of the fast paced hack 'n slash genre I have a soft spot for.

 

[t850terminator]

Really? Is this a discussion? Its like asking if you want 360p or 1080p.

 

[MatParker116]

Where's the "I don't give a flying fuck as long as the game works" option?

 

[MysticSlayer]

As I've already mentioned to someone else, you'll need to show that 33.3ms is above the threshold of what humans can perceive before that becomes a relevant number to this discussion.

Please read my link again then, because i already did.

What I saw was a comment about smoothness in the second link, which is very ambiguous. I interpreted it as smoothness on screen, not based on input.

But I guess I should provide a couple links by now that have informed my own opinion (I would have done this last night, but I was starting to get really tired and didn't feel like looking for them).

For starters, here's an article that Gamasutra did a few years ago with the help of a Neversoft employee: link [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130359/programming_responsiveness.php?page=1]

It's long and theoretical, but a couple things do stand out:

"So if we are running at 30fps, then the lag is 3/30th or one-tenth of a second. If we are running at 60fps, then the lag will be 3/60th or 1/20th of a second... [page 2]

One of the great misconceptions regarding responsiveness is that it's somehow connected to human reaction time. Humans cannot physically react to a visual stimulus and then move their fingers in less than one-tenth of a second.

Game players' peak reaction times vary from 0.15 seconds to 0.30 seconds, depending on how "twitchy" they are. [page 3]"

Now, as the rest of the article shows, there's more that goes into input lag than just framerate, and as a result a poorly programmed game at 30 FPS is more likely to show input delay than a poorly programmed game at 60 FPS, which has more "padding". But there are also a lot of other factors, even down to the way the animations go. Essentially, it is an issue with how well the game is programmed, not whether or not the framerate is in the threshold.

Furthermore, this comes up occasionally on Game Development on Stack Exchange. Here's one example: link [http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/59645/what-is-an-acceptable-input-delay]

The premise of the question was bad (they were trying to control input delay more than they should), but there were also a few comments regarding how 30 FPS is entirely within the acceptable range. One person even called it "common knowledge" without content. This is pretty much the way I've always seen these discussions go: 30 FPS is entirely acceptable, but 60 FPs is better. The only exceptions are discussions like this where someone is trying to prove 30 FPS isn't acceptably responsive without much evidence outside of anecdotal experience that may have been indicating bad programming on the developer's part more than an issue with 30 FPS.

If you knew me, you wouldn't come to that conclusion.

Then why are you claiming that to be the case here?

You said I don't measure enjoyableness by smoothness and responsiveness, which is something you've added to what I've been saying.

In actuality, I know very few people that pick up input lag as often as I do or let it bug them as much as I do. I've even put down games because I could tell there was a delay between my button press and what happened on screen, only for someone to tell me they couldn't feel any. This includes those I know that only play their games at 60+ FPS.

 

[hermes]

The poll doesn't really make any sense. Of course 60 fps is better than 30 fps... That is like asking what looks better, HD graphics or SD graphics? What sounds better, 64 kbps or 128 kbps? Which downloads faster a 14.4k modem or a 33.6k modem?

The real question would be if you notice the difference, or if you would accept 30 fps if it comes at the expense of other features, like better physics or particle effects. Personally, I don't mind 30 or 60 as long as it is stable. A game that is 60 but gets down to less than half that when things get hectic is more irksome that a game that is always 30.

 

[NPC009]

Really? Is this a discussion? Its like asking if you want 360p or 1080p.

The actual discussion is, or atleast should be, about when it's acceptable to sacrifice high framerates for better graphics and such.

I hate making food comparisons because they're such clich?s, but in the current gaming landscape (where many big studios put pretty graphics before high framerates, because most consumers really don't give a fuck) 60fps is like food from a good restaurant. It's great when you can afford it, but homecooked mac 'n cheese isn't so bad either, especially if that means you can pay rent and support your action figure collecting habit on top of it.

 

[WindKnight]

Honestly, I consider myself lucky if my rig runs a game, so 30 fps is perfectly fine by me. At least until I win the lottery and buy the mythical slab of silicone that can run Crysis at full spec.

 

[TotalerKrieger]

The difference in quality between 30FPS and 60FPS is very easy to perceive on recorded video. Certainly, some may genuinely prefer a lower frame rate for aesthetic reasons, but the advantage of higher FPS is obvious if one is interested in recording motion as close as possible to how it was perceived in person (even 60FPS isn't sufficient for this purpose, IMO).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nU2_ERC_oE

If you have trouble perceiving any difference, try pausing the video when the dune-buggy reaches the peak of its jump (0:06-0:07/0:39).

Admittedly, the effect can be more subtle in 3D applications, but it is indeed a significant change if one also considers the reduction in input lag.

My bet is this issue will fall to the wayside once PS4 and XB1 titles start reaching 60FPS more frequently as developers make greater use of low level APIs like DX12 and Mantle, as well as the usual late-gen optimizations.

 

[Supernova1138]

The difference in quality between 30FPS and 60FPS is very easy to perceive on recorded video. Certainly, some may genuinely prefer a lower frame rate for aesthetic reasons, but the advantage of higher FPS is obvious if one is interested in recording motion as close as possible to how it was perceived in person (even 60FPS isn't sufficient for this purpose, IMO).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nU2_ERC_oE

If you have trouble perceiving any difference, try pausing the video when the dune-buggy reaches the peak of its jump (0:06-0:07/0:39).

Admittedly, the effect can be more subtle in 3D applications, but it is indeed a significant change if one also considers the reduction in input lag.

My bet is this issue will fall to the wayside once PS4 and XB1 titles start reaching 60FPS more frequently as developers make greater use of low level APIs like DX12 and Mantle, as well as the usual late-gen optimizations.

DirectX 12 and Mantle aren't saving the Xbone and PS4 from poor performance, there just isn't enough horsepower in either console to do 60FPS without making serious compromises on visuals, world population density and draw distance. The only stuff that is going to run at 60FPS on Xbone and PS4 are going to be indie titles or lower budget games that don't have the resources to put into extra shiny graphics or gigantic game worlds. I'd say remasters should be 60FPS too, but they often aren't because the developers are too lazy to port them properly or want to add even shinier graphics to them that tanks their performance back down to 30FPS.

We're waiting until the 9th generation at least for 60FPS to become standard, and at that point we're probably going to be trying to render games at 4K resolution, which will probably mean 30FPS on the consoles again unless the 9th generation machines have some truly beastly hardware inside.

 

[TotalerKrieger]

The difference in quality between 30FPS and 60FPS is very easy to perceive on recorded video. Certainly, some may genuinely prefer a lower frame rate for aesthetic reasons, but the advantage of higher FPS is obvious if one is interested in recording motion as close as possible to how it was perceived in person (even 60FPS isn't sufficient for this purpose, IMO).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nU2_ERC_oE

If you have trouble perceiving any difference, try pausing the video when the dune-buggy reaches the peak of its jump (0:06-0:07/0:39).

Admittedly, the effect can be more subtle in 3D applications, but it is indeed a significant change if one also considers the reduction in input lag.

My bet is this issue will fall to the wayside once PS4 and XB1 titles start reaching 60FPS more frequently as developers make greater use of low level APIs like DX12 and Mantle, as well as the usual late-gen optimizations.

DirectX 12 and Mantle aren't saving the Xbone and PS4 from poor performance, there just isn't enough horsepower in either console to do 60FPS without making serious compromises on visuals, world population density and draw distance. The only stuff that is going to run at 60FPS on Xbone and PS4 are going to be indie titles or lower budget games that don't have the resources to put into extra shiny graphics or gigantic game worlds. I'd say remasters should be 60FPS too, but they often aren't because the developers are too lazy to port them properly or want to add even shinier graphics to them that tanks their performance back down to 30FPS.

We're waiting until the 9th generation at least for 60FPS to become standard, and at that point we're probably going to be trying to render games at 4K resolution, which will probably mean 30FPS on the consoles again unless the 9th generation machines have some truly beastly hardware inside.

You may be right, but look at the fairly dramatic increase in FPS that what seen in AMD GPUs for the Ashes of Singularity DX12 benchmark. At 1080p, the R9 290X went from 28FPS in DX11 mode to 48FPS in DX12 mode. Both consoles use AMD GPUs with similar GCN architecture. If this benchmark is representative of the performance gains to be made by GCN GPUs under DX12, then console users could possibly see a significant increase in FPS.

I admit that this is pure speculation, DX12/Mantle might ultimately be of little benefit to console performance. However, this one data set does suggest that a significant increase in FPS is possible. Hardly sufficient to really say for sure, I guess I was being a little too optimistic. If consoles did see an increase of 15-20 FPS, devs could likely tweak existing post-processing effects to allow for consistent performance in the 48 to 60 FPS range (although most first person shooters already run at 60FPS on both consoles). However, it is also possible that they would sacrifice any potential FPS gain for more post-processing effects as better graphics is a far more marketable concept.

 

[Patathatapon]

Lemme tell you a little story: Once upon a little while ago I wanted to play Halo 5 with my brother just like we always did with all the previous ones. Then we learned it had no co-op. Why? Graphics. And specifically, 60fps. Why bother letting us by more controllers if we can't even play in the same room? Next thing you know the next Mortal Kombat won't have local co-op. If that's what having 60fps means, I don't want any of it for my console games.

Also, from what I can tell, the only time you can guarantee a "necessity" for 60fps is if you need every single frame you can get that can make the difference. So basically competitive play. Okay. Why does that affect my fucking co-op campaign experience you assholes?

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Whatever allows me to play the game flawlessly and unencumbered.

I've played The Last of Us for the PS3 for a little and found it to be an amazing title. Then, when I bought my PS4 and downloaded the remastered edition, I was just as amazed, if not blown away, at how much of a difference 1080p and 60fps makes to an already stunning game.

So a set fps will not deter me from certain titles, but if I can go 60, I'll do 60.

 

[Fijiman]

My vote, as a PC and Console gamer: WHO CARES

The answer is PC Elitist snobs who have nothing better with their non-gaming time than ***** and moan about how terrible they think any system that isn't on par with their super deluxe high-end computers are. That or people who can never seem to get a stable frame rate no matter what system they're using.

 

[Strazdas]

It's rare in Western development, but you still see it happen with a lot of Japanese games. Koei Tecmo has started putting out PC ports of some of their titles, they are usually locked to 30FPS and will run into game speed problems if you try to unlock the framerate. Japanese devs still develop primarily for consoles and operate under the assumption that they are never releasing their games on PC so they don't have to worry about the end user unlocking the framerate, so they can be lazy with how they code their games and tie a bunch of crap to the framerate.

Fair enough, i am not as familiar with the exclusively japanese market so that may be the case in there. still clearly the debate here is not about those games as they are mentioned only as an exception.

Really? Is this a discussion? Its like asking if you want 360p or 1080p.

i once had a person on this very forum very seriously claim that he prefers 480p over 1080p in games. That was two years ago though.

Where's the "I don't give a flying fuck as long as the game works" option?

Its not available due to framerate being important part of game working.

But I guess I should provide a couple links by now that have informed my own opinion (I would have done this last night, but I was starting to get really tired and didn't feel like looking for them).

For starters, here's an article that Gamasutra did a few years ago with the help of a Neversoft employee: link [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130359/programming_responsiveness.php?page=1]

It's long and theoretical, but a couple things do stand out:

"So if we are running at 30fps, then the lag is 3/30th or one-tenth of a second. If we are running at 60fps, then the lag will be 3/60th or 1/20th of a second... [page 2]

One of the great misconceptions regarding responsiveness is that it's somehow connected to human reaction time. Humans cannot physically react to a visual stimulus and then move their fingers in less than one-tenth of a second.

Game players' peak reaction times vary from 0.15 seconds to 0.30 seconds, depending on how "twitchy" they are. [page 3]"

Now, as the rest of the article shows, there's more that goes into input lag than just framerate, and as a result a poorly programmed game at 30 FPS is more likely to show input delay than a poorly programmed game at 60 FPS, which has more "padding". But there are also a lot of other factors, even down to the way the animations go. Essentially, it is an issue with how well the game is programmed, not whether or not the framerate is in the threshold.

Furthermore, this comes up occasionally on Game Development on Stack Exchange. Here's one example: link [http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/59645/what-is-an-acceptable-input-delay]

The premise of the question was bad (they were trying to control input delay more than they should), but there were also a few comments regarding how 30 FPS is entirely within the acceptable range. One person even called it "common knowledge" without content. This is pretty much the way I've always seen these discussions go: 30 FPS is entirely acceptable, but 60 FPs is better. The only exceptions are discussions like this where someone is trying to prove 30 FPS isn't acceptably responsive without much evidence outside of anecdotal experience that may have been indicating bad programming on the developer's part more than an issue with 30 FPS.

If you knew me, you wouldn't come to that conclusion.

Then why are you claiming that to be the case here?

You said I don't measure enjoyableness by smoothness and responsiveness, which is something you've added to what I've been saying.

In actuality, I know very few people that pick up input lag as often as I do or let it bug them as much as I do. I've even put down games because I could tell there was a delay between my button press and what happened on screen, only for someone to tell me they couldn't feel any. This includes those I know that only play their games at 60+ FPS.

Your link doesnt work, so thanks for taking up to quoting it. Gamasutra apperently has itself fallen for the misconception that responsiveness is about human response time, it is not. it is about games response time. yes, humans can and do both see and feel when after pressing a button the game responds faster or slower, even in those amounts. in fact the reason any monitor that has a response time above 5ms is considered "shit for gaming" is because the monitor introduced lag of even 6 ms makes game controls unconfortable, and this is 5 times higher numbers you are talking about. Of course purists will go fo 1 ms TN panels, but in general the 5ms ones are accetable.

as far as your stack exchange link, it seems to support my statement above with "note that this and what you are talking about are not the same thing. The acceptable delay between making a motion with a mouse and seeing a result is almost certainly much smaller than the time it would take a human to react to something displayed on the screen with the mouse."

You said you can enjoy games regardless of framerate. framerate is the main factor in smoothness and responsiveness. therefore, you can enjoy games regardless of their smoothness or responsiveness, which means that the value you put on games lies elsewhere. hence my conclusion.

The actual discussion is, or atleast should be, about when it's acceptable to sacrifice high framerates for better graphics and such.

I hate making food comparisons because they're such clich?s, but in the current gaming landscape (where many big studios put pretty graphics before high framerates, because most consumers really don't give a fuck) 60fps is like food from a good restaurant. It's great when you can afford it, but homecooked mac 'n cheese isn't so bad either, especially if that means you can pay rent and support your action figure collecting habit on top of it.

If most consumers wouldnt give a fuck then why are there literal riots every time a big franchise anounces a 30 fps lock, FPS police is one of the most followed curator on steam and FPS is one of the main features advertised in games? Maybe you "dont give a fuck", but most consumers most certainly DO.

Oh and there is no point in the discussion above, the answer is of course stop being limited by outdated hardware.

Certainly, some may genuinely prefer a lower frame rate for aesthetic reasons,

what? how is stuttering visuals preferable aesthetics? Or is that whole "cinematic" bullshit again? because that was never ever in any way shape or form true.

My bet is this issue will fall to the wayside once PS4 and XB1 titles start reaching 60FPS more frequently as developers make greater use of low level APIs like DX12 and Mantle, as well as the usual late-gen optimizations.

the issue is already on the "Wayside". the discussion has moved to 60 fps vs 120 fps.

DirectX 12 and Mantle aren't saving the Xbone and PS4 from poor performance, there just isn't enough horsepower in either console to do 60FPS without making serious compromises on visuals, world population density and draw distance.

DirextX and OpenGLNext that will be in Xbone and PS4 respectively allows driver handled multicore draw calls, which, given that consoles have many weak cores and currently most games use only some of them, may improve performance on consoles of the developers take advantage of the features. how much effect it will actually have..... well sythetic tests show 20-30% improvement, in reality though its still to be decided.

You may be right, but look at the fairly dramatic increase in FPS that what seen in AMD GPUs for the Ashes of Singularity DX12 benchmark. At 1080p, the R9 290X went from 28FPS in DX11 mode to 48FPS in DX12 mode. Both consoles use AMD GPUs with similar GCN architecture. If this benchmark is representative of the performance gains to be made by GCN GPUs under DX12, then console users could possibly see a significant increase in FPS.

worth noting that Ashes of Singularity is being designed from the ground up specifically for DirectX 12 and is the type of game that will benefit the most from it (a lot of independent AI actors interacting constantly with literally thousands of particle effects on screen). The effect would be much smaller in, say, driving game.

My vote, as a PC and Console gamer: WHO CARES

The answer is PC Elitist snobs who have nothing better with their non-gaming time than ***** and moan about how terrible they think any system that isn't on par with their super deluxe high-end computers are. That or people who can never seem to get a stable frame rate no matter what system they're using.

People who care about quality of their games = elitist snobs. ok then.

 

[SquallTheBlade]

Lemme tell you a little story: Once upon a little while ago I wanted to play Halo 5 with my brother just like we always did with all the previous ones. Then we learned it had no co-op. Why? Graphics. And specifically, 60fps. Why bother letting us by more controllers if we can't even play in the same room? Next thing you know the next Mortal Kombat won't have local co-op. If that's what having 60fps means, I don't want any of it for my console games.

You really wouldn't want fighting games to run at sub 60 fps. And fighting games won't get rid of the local multiplayer ever. That kind of defeats the point.

Also, from what I can tell, the only time you can guarantee a "necessity" for 60fps is if you need every single frame you can get that can make the difference. So basically competitive play. Okay. Why does that affect my fucking co-op campaign experience you assholes?

Not true. We play Tales of games with my friends and every single game so far has been 60fps in battles but the latest has been 30fps. Every one of us noticed it and has complained about it. It hinders our experience. It just doesn't feel good. One night after playing we decided to pop in Xillia 2 and god damn it felt good to play it. The difference was nigth and day.

60fps does effect casual play too.

 

[NPC009]

The actual discussion is, or atleast should be, about when it's acceptable to sacrifice high framerates for better graphics and such.

I hate making food comparisons because they're such clich?s, but in the current gaming landscape (where many big studios put pretty graphics before high framerates, because most consumers really don't give a fuck) 60fps is like food from a good restaurant. It's great when you can afford it, but homecooked mac 'n cheese isn't so bad either, especially if that means you can pay rent and support your action figure collecting habit on top of it.

If most consumers wouldnt give a fuck then why are there literal riots every time a big franchise anounces a 30 fps lock, FPS police is one of the most followed curator on steam and FPS is one of the main features advertised in games? Maybe you "dont give a fuck", but most consumers most certainly DO.

You're making the mistake of assuming the vocal majority on the internet is the actual majority buying the games. It doesn't work like that. Companies don't sell millions to whiny elitist bastards with awesome rigs, they sell millions of copies to people who buy their games in toy stores.

And even among the pro-60fps people is kinda obvious some don't even understand what framerates really are and do. That's when you get bullshit arguments like 'retro games all run at 60fps, look at how far we've fallen'. No, they didn't. They were shown at 50 or 60hz interlaced, which translates to 25-30 actual frames per second. At best. TVs were kinda shitty back then and other hardware limitations were also a thing. Not to mention that animations were often less than spectacular. So, yeah.

Oh and there is no point in the discussion above, the answer is of course stop being limited by outdated hardware.

Yes, people should all have infinite amounts of money so they can keep up with the Crysises. I don't know about your situation, but most adults have to spend most of their income on rent, utilities, food and other basic neccesities. High-end gaming PCs are a big investment many people can't reasonably afford.

And honestly, that's not a terrible thing. Development costs of triple A titles have risen to absurd heights in the past decade. We've gotten to the point where selling 'only' 3-4 million copies may mean losing money. Many developers can't afford to really put the PS4 hardware to work, let alone push PC gaming to greater heights. Even if you, as a consumer, do spend big amounts of cash on hardware, your advantage over people with consoles or even low-end PCs isn't that great. Many recent awesome games have fairly low system requirements, so even with an outdated system, you're unlikely to run out of great games to play.

 

[Hazy992]

60fps is absolutely better than 30fps, in fact I can't think of a single game that wouldn't be improved by being at 60. It just looks smoother and feels more responsive. I honestly don't get how people don't notice the difference, it's night and day.

Granted I'm not one of those people who finds games running at 30 unplayable (which is good cause I'd miss out on some great games), but given the choice I'll always go for 60 and my first priority when I'm playing on PC is to get the game running at a stable 60.

I will say though that stable 30 > 60 with frame drops.