[Update 2] How/why are console gamers satisfied with 30 fps?

[Bad Jim]

With many older games they can run at hundreds of frames per second on decent PCs these days and playing them feels extremely streamlined (the gameplay in Doom feels so fast and dare I say, "aerodynamic"), as if there's no barrier between the game and the player. If there was a 30FPS cap the sluggishness would be felt immediately.

Doom is actually capped at 35fps.

http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Uncapped_framerate

 

[Amir Kondori]

I felt/do feel still uncomfortable playing games on my PC and newer titles going at 60FPS. The motions feel unnatural, like an uncanny valley effect.

There's also a fact of, never noticed it before, so there's really no comparison. Frankly all this graphics jargon bullshit is so insignificant to the gaming experience overall that I just don't bother caring about this sorta news, also I don't play Assassins Creed. A high fidelity video of a piece of shit is still a piece of shit, it's not like watching Two Girls One Cup makes the experience any better with more frames per second.

These feel like hot button issues because there is absolutely nothing else of value to market. What next, 'the game developers ate all American cheese burgers while making this game, go buy it!' yeurrrh 'Murica.

So this is totally bizarre to me. I have a 120hz refresh rate monitor, so I can actually play games up to 120 fps and over and get the full effect and the difference in smoothness and motion blur is amazing. Literally amazing. The difference is so huge in terms of how smooth the motion is, the lack of motion blur, the lack of hiccups and stutters in my game play, if I had to play at 30 fps, I wouldn't stop playing games, but I would be a pretty sad panda about it.

I understand that 30 fps is playable, and I get that developers like Ubisoft are pushing this whole idea of a "cinematic look" because the current consoles just can't do high end graphics at 60 fps, but there is a reason developers and publishers brag about hitting 60 fps when they are able to manage it, and it isn't because 60 fps is worse or "unnatural".

 

[Dizchu]

Doom is actually capped at 35fps.

http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Uncapped_framerate

Depends on the source port. I doubt many people play vanilla these days.

 

[Adam Lester]

Due to the lack of reference level and also because playing with a keyboard is a pain in the ass.

 

[Bad Jim]

Doom is actually capped at 35fps.

http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Uncapped_framerate

Depends on the source port. I doubt many people play vanilla these days.

Quite a lot of people play vanilla, since the Steam version uses DosBox. You can use source ports if you want, but the default is vanilla on DosBox, so it's a fair bet that most people are playing vanilla on DosBox. Even with forward/back bound to up/down on the mouse.

 

[Dizchu]

Quite a lot of people play vanilla, since the Steam version uses DosBox. You can use source ports if you want, but the default is vanilla on DosBox, so it's a fair bet that most people are playing vanilla on DosBox. Even with forward/back bound to up/down on the mouse.

I actually didn't consider that. Thanks.

 

[Dragonbums]

So even if the hardware is capable of 60fps, they will keep it locked to 30 to make it feel more "cinematic". But really it's because it seems most gamers are very happy with 30fps, which is disappointing as far as progress goes.

So basically another "consoles are hindering the progress of videogames argument."

Yeah, no.

Nothing was stopping Ubisoft from optimizing their games for 60 fps. Especially on PC's and consoles. For ever lazy ass dev who doesn't feel like doing it, you got 10 other dev studios who put the time and effort into doing 60 fps because they actually take pride in what they put out.

Don't do that.

 

[Rozalia1]

So basically another "consoles are hindering the progress of videogames argument."

Yeah, no.

Nothing was stopping Ubisoft from optimizing their games for 60 fps. Especially on PC's and consoles. For ever lazy ass dev who doesn't feel like doing it, you got 10 other dev studios who put the time and effort into doing 60 fps because they actually take pride in what they put out.

Don't do that.

Don't you know the Big Three cabal paid them off?

Dragonbums hits it on the head but it was nothing that wasn't obvious already. The update might as well have been "yeah you were totally correct in the purpose of this thread".

 

[Little Gray]

Probably because it really does not matter. I cant tell the difference in all these comparisons that have been linked in this thread so I dont really care if the game runs at 30 or 60 as long as its consistent. I would rather a game that runs at a steady 30fps and looking amazing then one that runs at 60fps and looks much worse.

 

[Eddie the head]

This is not a subjective debate, it's an objective fact that 60fps is superior to 30fps.

And it's completely subjective how much that matters. If you have yet to master moving in a 3d environment the FPS are not going to make a difference.

 

[CaitSeith]

Because I quite simply don't care. Graphics come in dead last when it comes to making a game enjoyable. FPS fall into that category for me. I don't care what the FPS are on a game so long as its fun to play.

What, and virtually doubling your potential reaction time doesn't do that?
For games that rely on fast reflexes, like twitch shooters, DMC style brawlers, fighting games, and high speed racing games, a higher framerate is virtually mandatory.

I imagine that attempting to play Metal Gear Rising at only 30 FPS would be a lot more frustrating than it would be at a smooth 60.

Most gamers don't know how to take advantage of that half-second of extra time to react. Most play just for fun.

 

[Rad Party God]

You should've been there when the N64 and PS1 standards were between 15 to 30 FPS, very rarely did any game saw 60 fps in any of those consoles and personally I didn't care.

Nowadays... I'm a PC gamer and I still don't care. Sure, 60 fps is nice and all, but I honestly don't care if a game runs at 30 fps or lower, I still play some N64 and PS1 games and I'm yet to care at wich speed they're running.

I do notice the difference, however, but honestly, I don't care.

TL; DR - I don't care.

PS - I don't feel like arguing over this, if you want 60 fps all the goddamn time, then great!, more power to you!, keep on enjoying things your way, personally I have THIS [http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/159/172/tumblr_lo1qh68nVL1qzgmxb.gif] many fucks to give.

 

[Danny Dowling]

keep the frame rate down, keep the cost making the game down, keep the dev financially sound, dev keeps making games.

the rate video games have been going it's no secret it's becoming unsustainable.

 

[Vigormortis]

Update: Well lookie here, Ubisoft had more to say...
http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/viva-la-resoluci-n-assassin-s-creed-dev-thinks-industry-is-dropping-60-fps-standard-1268241

"At Ubisoft for a long time we wanted to push 60 fps. I don't think it was a good idea because you don't gain that much from 60 fps and it doesn't look like the real thing. It's a bit like The Hobbit movie, it looked really weird.
"And in other games it's the same - like the Rachet and Clank series [where it was dropped]. So I think collectively in the video game industry we're dropping that standard because it's hard to achieve, it's twice as hard as 30fps, and its not really that great in terms of rendering quality of the picture and the image."

Wow. Just.......wow.

Spoken like a true ignoramus. This Alex Amancio clearly has no knowledge whatsoever on frame-rates, their effects on the hardware and the viewer, and how digital image rendering differs from film projection.

Gads, what a mook. I scarcely know where to even begin dissecting his asinine comments.

And before someone decides to hound me with insults of "elitist!", I'm not referencing the whole 30 v 60 debate.[footnote]And for the record, I don't care what frame-rate someone says they prefer.[/footnote] I'm talking about Mr. Amancio's demonstrably ridiculous assertions. His idiocy goes way beyond the 30 v 60 debate.

That or he's a really poor liar who's trying to excuse his companies laziness or the current crop of console's lack of decent hardware.

 

[Kecunk]

Im gonna have to jump on the because I just don't care bandwagon

I've been gaming for is long as I can remember (my first console was a NES)and I can honestly say that "what FPS is this running at?" is a question that has never entered my mind in my entire life

And for the record I game on PC way more than I game on consoles

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

You should've been there when the N64 and PS1 standards were between 15 to 30 FPS, very rarely did any game saw 60 fps in any of those consoles and personally I didn't care.

Nowadays... I'm a PC gamer and I still don't care. Sure, 60 fps is nice and all, but I honestly don't care if a game runs at 30 fps or lower, I still play some N64 and PS1 games and I'm yet to care at wich speed they're running.

I do notice the difference, however, but honestly, I don't care.

TL; DR - I don't care.

That's not really relevant, because you know...those consoles are like 20 years old. That's like a millenium in technology advancement.

But whatever. Make your game 30 FPS. But if there is no way to uncap the framerate ( I don't mind 3rd Party Framerate), then it's a no buy for me.

 

[BarkBarker]

I have only ever noticed when they are side by side or from a massive leap. Standard all 30fps game? doesn't catch. Smash bros 3DS with 60fps characters and 30fps assists and pokemon? OH BOY, does tat look creepy and weird.

 

[lapan]

I usually don't notice unless it drops too low or I see a side to side comparisson

 

[Strazdas]

for example: A 48" 4K display is indistinguishable from a 1080p display past 2 meters or so.

this is false. there is a circling false graph that seems to claim that, however the graphc is incorrect because it assumes we are using only small part of our vision to see the screen. it also worth mentioning that our concetration point (whithc shifts around hundreds of times per second btw, our eyes move like crazy) has up to 457 megapixels resolution. thats over 21000p on only our focus point. so the whole "you cant see 4k on small displays" is pure bullshit.

Our eyes don't see in "megapixels", the limit to what we can see is determined by its angular resolution. Which, for the human eye, is about ~1 arc minute (1/60th of a degree), slightly more or less depending on individual vision acuity.
At 200-250mm, this means that the smallest objects we can see are around 50-70 micrometers.

Resolution suffers from diminishing returns, though, just look at 1440p and 1080p ~5.5" smartphones.
We can't appreciate a difference in resolution between those displays. Although the moment a dead or stuck pixel presents itself, we tend to notice it.

That's why 4K displays are, for large TVs viewed at distances between 2-3 meters, for the most part worthless.


But this is a thread about framerate, not resolution.

they dont see in megapixels, however for comparisons sake we simplify all the biological science of our eyes because lets face it it would bloat this discussion immensly. Theoretically, our eyes ability to see object size is limited by color wavelenghts width. however our eyes are more "special" Than that. for example we got a blindspot, which would be pretty much unacceptable on any monitor, and yet is on eyes. its hard to directly compare resolution and ability to see it, however it is determined that humans CAN see much higher resolution than we currently use in our technology.

Now you are right that it is diminishing returns, like almost anything. Increasing food quality is diminishing returns too, however we still do it. Thats because even though the returns arent as good as they was in previuos improvements, they are still worth doing. and same is true with resolution. higher resolution benefits are still very much worth it. the natural antialiasing thats done in your vision instead of downsampling is good enough reason to go 4k even if for some reason you are unable to see 4k resolutions (if you would youd still see aliasing on 4k TVs, and thus multisampling would still be needed). and im talking about the real antialiasing here, not the FX or MX thats popular nowadays that while using far less resources all they do is blur the image enough for you to not be able to notice the inperfections though the blur. like if you look through a wet glass and cant see that the table is stainy. its still stainy, you just cant see it.

Well i havent touched a 1440p smartphone yet so i cant tell if i can appreciate it or not, however when it comes monitors the differentece is very visible.

you need to go to youtube, enable HTML5 play and then set playback speed at double to make this comparison doable, thus embeding it in flash form is completely pointless. youtube is a bad place for video comparisons anyway due to their compression. there are websites that support native 60fps videos, but the name slipepd my mind now sadly.

Due to the lack of reference level and also because playing with a keyboard is a pain in the ass.

what does framerate have to do with keyboard? you do know you cant even plug keyboard into a console?

You should've been there when the N64 and PS1 standards were between 15 to 30 FPS, very rarely did any game saw 60 fps in any of those consoles and personally I didn't care.

"Back in my days people used to walk 5 miles top school through snow uphill both ways. now you got these "cars", meh, i personally dont care!"

just because you dont care does not mean its something worth fighting for. for example as a male i personally dont care for female rights, yet i will fight for them because i think its fair that they have them. the "personally dont care" is the shitties attitude you can have.

Progress implies that something is being improved upon. That isn't the case here, because as has been established the "improvement" 60fps is over 30fps is negligible at best, but more often unnoticeable.

Can we please stop telling this lie?

What I mean by that is that there is no reason to keep improving rendering quality to the point that you are rending something in a higher resolution than the human eye can see, at a higher frame rate than the brain can process.

True, but we are not even close to either of those.

keep the frame rate down, keep the cost making the game down, keep the dev financially sound, dev keeps making games.

the rate video games have been going it's no secret it's becoming unsustainable.

so, keeping the framerate down somehow makes it cost less to develop? please explain what kind of logic you used to determine that.

 

[Irick]

"At Ubisoft for a long time we wanted to push 60 fps. I don't think it was a good idea because you don't gain that much from 60 fps and it doesn't look like the real thing. It's a bit like The Hobbit movie, it looked really weird.
"And in other games it's the same - like the Rachet and Clank series [where it was dropped]. So I think collectively in the video game industry we're dropping that standard because it's hard to achieve, it's twice as hard as 30fps, and its not really that great in terms of rendering quality of the picture and the image."

So even if the hardware is capable of 60fps, they will keep it locked to 30 to make it feel more "cinematic". But really it's because it seems most gamers are very happy with 30fps, which is disappointing as far as progress goes.

Update 2: Wow, what is going on? Now we've got Evil Within...
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/478493/the-evil-within-on-pc-is-locked-at-30fps/

Bethesda has confirmed that the PC version of The Evil Within will be locked at 30 frames per second.
According to the publisher, the PC version of the game will be identical to the console versions, and as such will feature the same frame rate.
Bethesda says this was due to the wishes of the game's director, Shinji Mikami, who wanted all versions to look and feel the same.

I really hope this isn't becoming a thing.

....
They took John Carmack's engine...
John Carmack, the champion of low latency gameplay.
John fucking Carmack, the first real software engineer homegrown in the game industry.
JOHN, FUCKING CARMACK. HIS GAME ENGINE.
They took it, and decided to framelock at HALF the typical refresh rate?!

God. Fucking. Damnit.
Shinji Mikami, I understand you are an autour. I do not question your vision, but I question the _hell_ out of your tool choice. This is the engine that John Carmack painstakingly created to give a fluid 60fps experience on last generation hardware. If you're just going to half-ass it with all of the damn work done for you on hardware that is at least five times more powerful...

Look, I can maybe understand the argument that the lower framerate is cinematic. I can maybe understand that the 3rd person horror game isn't going to have the same design decisions as a FPS, but this 'feature parity' argument is some bull. Greater men than you have already done 60FPS fluid 1080p gameplay using the same damn engine on the same damn hardware.

You have no excuse other than lazyness. No excuse at all. You have probably one of the best engines available for making the most of limited hardware resources, a 30 FPS goal is just not even trying.