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[Oresama]

Isn't it basically unsuitable for games because of the latency?

Not sure how it works, hopefully the techy GAF members can chime in.

I think the way it works now is games like Destiny, and soon Destiny 2, load assets onto the console, and then the console is solely responsible for processing everything.

Maybe the answer is for Sony to allocate a portion of PS+ subscription funds towards running seamless cloud computing servers that devs can tap into?

 

[NeOak]

Not sure how it works, hopefully the techy GAF members can chime in.

I think the way it works now is games like Destiny, and soon Destiny 2, load assets onto the console, and then the console is solely responsible for processing everything.

Maybe the answer is for Sony to allocate a portion of PS+ subscription funds towards running seamless cloud computing servers that devs can tap into?

No.

Nope.

You'll have some instructions of the game calculated instantly and parts showing a quarter of a second or up to a second later.

No.

Like, you need to add two variables to indicate you picked up ammo. Local CPU does it instantly, in nanoseconds and your UI is refreshed the next tick (be 30 Hz or 60Hz). Cloud would be:
1) Send request to server
2) Take 60ms or w/e your ping to said server is to send it
3) Queue the computation in the cloud server
4) Queue the result to be sent to you
5) Take 60ms or w/e your ping is from said server to get the result.
6) Wait for UI to refresh, adding 16.67ms or 33.3 ms.

So you'll pick ammo... and see the result 2, 3, 5 or 10 seconds later. Bad internet? How about a minute, or never.

 

[FyreWulff]

No.

Nope.

You'll have some instructions of the game calculated instantly and parts showing a quarter of a second or up to a second later.

No.

Like, you need to add two variables to indicate you picked up ammo. Local CPU does it instantly, in nanoseconds and your UI is refreshed the next tick (be 30 Hz or 60Hz). Cloud would be:
1) Send request to server
2) Take 60ms or w/e your ping to said server is to send it
3) Queue the computation in the cloud server
4) Queue the result to be sent to you
5) Take 60ms or w/e your ping is from said server to get the result.
6) Wait for UI to refresh, adding 16.67ms or 33.3 ms.

So you'll pick ammo... and see the result 2, 3, 5 or 10 seconds later. Bad internet? How about a minute, or never.

^

 

[katsais]

I think it has to do with the targeted demographics. I mean, for CoD/Halo/Titanfall for example, 60fps & dedicated servers targets it core competitive/try-hard crowd.

And Destiny, well Destiny is full of casuals. People that just want to sit back and play a video game. No dedicated servers and 30fps just reinforces that it is aimed at casuals (target audience 30+ years-old).

 

[NeOak]

I think it has to do with the targeted demographics. I mean, for CoD/Halo/Titanfall for example, 60fps & dedicated servers targets it core competitive/try-hard crowd.

And Destiny, well Destiny is full of casuals. People that just want to sit back and play a video game. No dedicated servers and 30fps just reinforces that it is aimed at casuals (target audience 30+ years-old).

The fact that you are ignorant about the hardcore Destiny community does not mean it does not exist.

Also, Destiny game logic runs at 60Hz. Graphics run at 30Hz.

 

[Jimrpg]

We've learnt enough by now to see that the FPS has been dictated by the CPU mostly because the PS4/XBOne has such shitty Jaguars.

The shitty CPU is cheaper and reduces the power requirements too, yet its fine enough for 30fps games even when you bump up the resolutions by installing a faster GPU.

There is no reason why Sony/Microsoft couldn't do 60fps on their consoles but it'll cost gamers an extra $100 on top of what they're paying to get a better CPU, cooling and power supply. But for Sony/Microsoft its only a marginal difference in terms of marketing the product, compared to being able to market the product at a lower price range to a bigger audience.

So I think unless CPU costs are reduced significantly to the point where its almost neglible, Sony/Microsoft are just going to go for a lower price point where they can over FPS.

When I build a budget PC, one of the more significant costs is the CPU and power supply and the PS4/Xbone is no different.

 

[Maxey]

We've learnt enough by now to see that the FPS has been dictated by the CPU mostly because the PS4/XBOne has such shitty Jaguars.

The shitty CPU is cheaper and reduces the power requirements too, yet its fine enough for 30fps games even when you bump up the resolutions by installing a faster GPU.

There is no reason why Sony/Microsoft couldn't do 60fps on their consoles but it'll cost gamers an extra $100 on top of what they're paying to get a better CPU, cooling and power supply. But for Sony/Microsoft its only a marginal difference in terms of marketing the product, compared to being able to market the product at a lower price range to a bigger audience.

So I think unless CPU costs are reduced significantly to the point where its almost neglible, Sony/Microsoft are just going to go for a lower price point where they can over FPS.

When I build a budget PC, one of the more significant costs is the CPU and power supply and the PS4/Xbone is no different.

More powerful hardware doesn't guarantee more 60fps games. It's all about development priorities.

 

[Harlock]

God bless Youtube supporting 60fps videos. Was a game changing in the subject.

 

[sn00zer]

I would much rather have games push the bleeding edge of tech at 30, than play it safe and cut back to hit 60.
-Ratchet and Clank looks like a 2000s CG film
-Uncharted 4...well its Uncharted 4
-Hitman crowd tech and level size/density
-Fighting gigantic gorgeous robots in an open world with Horizon

There is no fucking way those games would look as good as they do, with the additional tech they have in game play systems, if they ran at 60fps.

I like 60 for certain genres (FPS, Fighting Games, Driving games) but for games that are slower paced or do not require split second reactions I will absolutely choose 30 over 60 if it comes with all the extra things you can push at 30.

 

[JordanN]

More powerful hardware doesn't guarantee more 60fps games. It's all about development priorities.

The logic it's all in the CPU hurts my head, since I remember N64 games chugging like ass next to the slower PS1.

 

[NeOak]

The logic it's all in the CPU hurts my head, since I remember N64 games chugging like ass next to the slower PS1.

That was a different beast.

 

[Ceadeus]

I'm a Pc guy mainly so I get my fill of 60 fps there but I still play consoles for games where more friends will play, and destiny 2 aside... How exactly isn't it simply a standard practice to achieve 60 frames in all games by now?

And the thing is this, the difference is huge from 30 to 60...absolutely huge. Now going from 60 to say 100 it is a little more of a situation where the gains aren't always going to be mins boggling huge, maybe for some and not others etc... But 30 to 60 is a must, it's a huge must and I just don't see why even guys like Sony can't make it mandatory especially with pro systems now.

Speaking of which why can't they make it a mandatory standard for games that release on their consoles?

I knooooow

 

[Mass Effect]

? I answer to jett who says that 30 years ago (so before the release of SF and OoT) 60fps was the absolute standard, by those 2 exemples I prove that it wasn't the case, that's all.

EDIT: to be clear: because if even those 2 huge hits of their generations were not 60fps, it means that obviously before it wasn't the norm either.

You can't use two games that didn't exist at the time as evidence against his point. It makes no sense.

Jett is right. 30 years ago (so 1987), the majority of games were 60fps.

 

[JordanN]

That was a different beast.

In what way?

60fps was always possible on N64 if you look at games like F-Zero X.

But developers still opted to trade the frame rate for better graphics.

Edit: Coincidentally, the higher frame rate works more in favor with the N64's visuals. F-zero moving so fluidly makes it easier to ignore the textures.

 

[LCGeek]

Of course Zen has better IPC. At launch Jaguar had 22% better IPC than Bobcat. You are comparing a 2013 IPC vs 2017 IPC.

What I'm saying is that in 2019/2020 the Zen will already be outdated like Jaguar... it will probably something better.

That not saying Ryzen IPC is not the IPC you will find in Zen's APUs... Zen's APU IPC is still unknown... how much increase in IPC it will have compared with Jaguar?

Yes I am comparing IPC of different years, but I'm pointing that out because of the massive jump amd has been able to achieve. Using outdated or percents mean little when a decent apu clocked at similar speed or even more is going to outright shit on the performance offered to devs now. Sure devs will always find ways to spend that power or outright waste it but the increase be it outdated or not literally takes consoles from where they are now to very respectable I7 territory and that's just with the level of tech they have this year. In 2 years it would be a cluster fuck of nvidia proportions like the PS3 gpu for AMD to somehow not deliver a very solid APU with very decent performance to sony or MS.

IPC + Architecture + and far more friendly clocks for a console yes the next gen will offer some insane jumps in physics, ai scale, or even the open world scope of games finally.

I'm using launch because the original phrase used in this discussion was 60fps being "the standard", and when I think about that phrase I think about how most big PC releases since like 2009 could run at 60fps on a mid-range gaming PC at launch. Throughout that half of the 360 generation it was pretty much a given, and with the PC-targeted games you list none of them were that same kind of safe bet.

Thank you for the clarification. We sort of have that this gen when devs do a decent job of porting, though noticeable less than that part of last gen The recent doom game is the only I've game I've seen where I could drive the renderer down to 500us so pc gamers are always enjoying new ways devs will exploit their titles. It's a shame new apis will not fix devs not being afforded the time or talent to utilize what power they have offered to them. Power has very little to do with why pc ports are still coming out with a lack of polish in this area.

I wasn't listing those titles cause they were safe bets for the most part I listed them cause performance dynamics changed once people got different hardware to use very solid titles with.

 

[Lionel Richie]

Nioh at 60 fps played like a fucking dream. Looked great as well. Comparing it to something like Uncharted 4 which is probably the king of visuals in console gaming, I thought the difference between the performance in both games was bigger than the difference in visuals. Like I'd much rather play with Nioh's smooth as fuck experience than with the extra visual impact of Uncharted.

I hadn't realized up until pretty much now that I'm firmly in the fps > visuals camp all day erryday.

 

[jett]

You... Believe that 60hz = 60fps?

...

It was absolutly not the standard. Starfox didn't even hit 20fps, Zelda OoT was around 20fps too.

? I answer to jett who says that 30 years ago (so before the release of SF and OoT) 60fps was the absolute standard, by those 2 exemples I prove that it wasn't the case, that's all.

EDIT: to be clear: because if even those 2 huge hits of their generations were not 60fps, it means that obviously before it wasn't the norm either.

I think you need to work on your math, my man. 30 years ago was the late 80's. During the 8 bit (and 16 bit) era almost everything ran at 60fps.

 

[NeOak]

In what way?

The N64 was designed to be a more powerful system and it was capable of 60fps a la F-Zero X.

But developers still opted to trade the frame rate for better graphics.

Not all did:

Oh wow. You have to be lying to yourself if you think PS1 games were as clean and presentable as this.

Instead, you got the definition of low res.

Also, the esoteric RDRAM in the N64 had very high latencies. That hurt, plus the default RCP microcode that Nintendo allowed to be shipped was slow as fuck. They didn't allow the fast microcode in release software. Factor 5, Rare and others had to develop their own microcode using a very shitty software with little debugging.

Then again, we have RE2 to show what the N64 can do vs the PS1.

 

[LCGeek]

because its pc. set whatever standard YOU want.

Right On.

 

[Lady Gaia]

We've learnt enough by now to see that the FPS has been dictated by the CPU mostly because the PS4/XBOne has such shitty Jaguars..

That's such a painfully simplistic explanation and yet it gets parroted over and over. It is fundamentally untrue. The Atari 2600 pumped out 60fps visuals and I can assure you the Jaguar is many orders of magnitude more capable than the 6502 that ran everything in that ancient console.

It is, as has been stated over and over, all a matter of priorities. On any modern console you can run a simpler game at 60fps, or a more complex one at 30fps given a comparable level of effort and polish. Given heavier investment in technology, optimization, and clever design you can squeeze some pretty impressive visuals out at 60fps, but you could always do even more at 30fps. It's a really simple concept that remains essentially invariant on every framebuffer-based console design (essentially everything from the PS1/N64 onward.)

There is nothing fundamentally wrong or unintelligent about preferring one set of trade offs over another. There's no point in trying to convince anyone otherwise. The market really is pretty effective at picking winning strategies, so given that we have plenty of 30fps games and 60fps games it's pretty safe to assume neither one is inherently more appealing to consumers across the board. Given the predominance of 60fps in competitive PvP genres I think some not unreasonable conclusions can be drawn there, too.

As I've stated before, I'll be glad when it isn't an either/or decision and displays finally start supporting some middle ground and graceful degradation instead of the juddery mess we get now where you slip in hard increments from 60 to 30/20/15fps.

 

[JordanN]

Not all did:

Also, the esoteric RDRAM in the N64 had very high latencies. That hurt, plus the default RCP microcode that Nintendo allowed to be shipped was slow as fuck. They didn't allow the fast microcode in release software. Factor 5, Rare and others had to develop their own microcode using a very shitty software with little debugging.

Then again, we have RE2 to show what the N64 can do vs the PS1.

N64 being hard to program for =/= why weren't the games running more fluidly.

 

[BigTnaples]

It won't ever be, some prioritize eye candy and others performance.

This. Not hard to believe st all. 30fps is fine for some games. The only games that NEED 60+ minimum are VR games.

 

[NeOak]

N64 being hard to program for =/= why weren't the games running more fluidly.

Who said it was harder to program?

Again, the microcode was a serious limiter on performance. It was universally blamed by devs for the shit performance they could get of the system without doing custom microcode.

 

[Sotha_Sil]

As long as they continually make CPU-limited devices, you go to PC if you consistently want 60fps.

Perhaps even more importantly, the market on a broad scale prefers graphics to performance. You make games for your market. I think it was Insomniac that looked into sales Vs framerate and found no positive relationship.

 

[JordanN]

Who said it was harder to program?

Again, the microcode was a serious limiter on performance. It was universally blamed by devs for the shit performance they could get of the system without doing custom microcode.

Well I'm confused then because are you saying only the games that didn't use microcode should have higher frame rates?

My point was the N64 was technically a stronger system and that 60fps was always reachable, but developers still opted for a lower frame rate regardless of any bottlenecks or microcode.

 

[NeOak]

Well I'm confused then because are you saying only the games that didn't use microcode should have higher frame rates?

My point was the N64 was technically a stronger system and that 60fps was always reachable, but developers still opted for lower frame rate regardless of any bottlenecks or microcode.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_programming_characteristics#Microcode

Fast3D was shit.

 

[jett]

Then again, we have RE2 to show what the N64 can do vs the PS1.

What did it show the N64 can do over the PS1 aside from downgrading the original textures and character models?

 

[NeOak]

What did it show the N64 can do over the PS1 aside from downgrading the original textures and character models?

It gave Leon a bigger dong.

Spoiler

yeah, texture wise the N64 was behind

 

[GLAMr]

Well I'm confused then because are you saying only the games that didn't use microcode should have higher frame rates?

My point was the N64 was technically a stronger system and that 60fps was always reachable, but developers still opted for lower frame rate regardless of any bottlenecks/programming difficulties.

The N64 definitely was a beast in terms of number crunching, but was limited by memory contention issues, latency and low texture cache.

Games with custom microcode could look better (and perhaps run faster), but it was a pain in the ass to do due to lack of documentation and development tools.

 

[The Dude]

Nioh at 60 fps played like a fucking dream. Looked great as well. Comparing it to something like Uncharted 4 which is probably the king of visuals in console gaming, I thought the difference between the performance in both games was bigger than the difference in visuals. Like I'd much rather play with Nioh's smooth as fuck experience than with the extra visual impact of Uncharted.

I hadn't realized up until pretty much now that I'm firmly in the fps > visuals camp all day erryday.

Yea, I agree. I mean as I've said earlier I thought the game looked pretty damn nice on its 60 fps setting, switching between the two wasn't like some mind boggling graphic upgrade to me.

I guess for me it's seeing some of the games that achieve 60 on ps4 make me feel it could be a standard.

Overall I always buy top of the line gpus when they release so it's nothing I lose sleep over but it'd be nice going forward. I bought a pro for this very reason just to be one small step closer to smoother gaming.

 

[Jimrpg]

More powerful hardware doesn't guarantee more 60fps games. It's all about development priorities.

That's such a painfully simplistic explanation and yet it gets parroted over and over. It is fundamentally untrue. The Atari 2600 pumped out 60fps visuals and I can assure you the Jaguar is many orders of magnitude more capable than the 6502 that ran everything in that ancient console.

It is, as has been stated over and over, all a matter of priorities. On any modern console you can run a simpler game at 60fps, or a more complex one at 30fps given a comparable level of effort and polish. Given heavier investment in technology, optimization, and clever design you can squeeze some pretty impressive visuals out at 60fps, but you could always do even more at 30fps. It's a really simple concept that remains essentially invariant on every framebuffer-based console design (essentially everything from the PS1/N64 onward.)

There is nothing fundamentally wrong or unintelligent about preferring one set of trade offs over another. There's no point in trying to convince anyone otherwise. The market really is pretty effective at picking winning strategies, so given that we have plenty of 30fps games and 60fps games it's pretty safe to assume neither one is inherently more appealing to consumers across the board. Given the predominance of 60fps in competitive PvP genres I think some not unreasonable conclusions can be drawn there, too.

As I've stated before, I'll be glad when it isn't an either/or decision and displays finally start supporting some middle ground and graceful degradation instead of the juddery mess we get now where you slip in hard increments from 60 to 30/20/15fps.

I'm not denying that. Obviously Pong could run at 60fps on PS4 if we're talking an extreme case.

Like you said Sony AND devs have decided that the trade off for their games are better if they go with better looking 30fps games than middle of the road 60fps games.

 

[JordanN]

I found more examples of 60fps being pulled off on N64.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snu7UipEIj4

Assuming no BS, that's a lot of wizards. Especially the Tigger game.

 

[ginger ninja]

Because folks keep telling themselves 60fps isn't better than 30 and gamers keep buying it. Like its not a hard Fucking thing to understand and yet we have a six page thread.

 

[GLAMr]

I found more examples of 60fps being pulled off on N64.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snu7UipEIj4

Assuming no BS, that's a lot of wizards. Especially the Tigger game.

PS1 had even more 60fps games (a lot of them are fighters).

 

[Lady Gaia]

Like you said Sony AND devs have decided that the trade off for their games are better if they go with better looking 30fps games than middle of the road 60fps games.

That decision has nothing to do with Sony's hardware design. It's only in their hands for their own first-party titles like any developer. The hardware is perfectly capable of 60fps, and like every console in the post-sprite era the decision of whether or not to aim for 30fps comes down to whether you want to spend twice as long working on a frame or not. It's that simple. You can make the CPU one hundred times faster and you'd still be faced with the same decision as a developer.

 

[hidys]

It's hard to believe that we're in 2017 and we are still using current year argument.

 

[Novocaine]

Frames don't sell games.

 

[Savantcore]

It's hard to believe that we're in 2017 and we are still using current year argument.

Haha seriously. The PS2 had 60fps games. It's nothing to do with 'when' we are, but rather what developers decide to focus on. Consoles are more than capable of 60fps but it just isn't done.

That decision has nothing to do with Sony's hardware design. It's only in their hands for their own first-party titles like any developer. The hardware is perfectly capable of 60fps, and like every console in the post-sprite era the decision of whether or not to aim for 30fps comes down to whether you want to spend twice as long working on a frame or not. It's that simple. You can make the CPU one hundred times faster and you'd still be faced with the same decision as a developer.

This, basically.

 

[Harmondale]

Its hard to believe we are in 2017 and we still get These threads

 

[Tomeru]

Harder to believe that in 2017 the same jokes about the subject are being made, and its still treated as if its unbelieveable. 30fpsis what it is.

 

[nkarafo]

PS1 had even more 60fps games (a lot of them are fighters).

The PS1 had many more games in general. It's library was nearly 10 times larger. They also had much better support from Japanese developers (Western developers didn't care about smooth frame rates at all back in the day). So it's only natural that the PS1 has more 60fps games. It has more of everything.

It wasn't because of the systems.

I found more examples of 60fps being pulled off on N64.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snu7UipEIj4

Assuming no BS, that's a lot of wizards. Especially the Tigger game.

This video is BS. Earthworm Jim doesn't run like this, neither that shooter game before it. They both run at fast-forward 60fps in the video because of emulation timing errors.

Yes, there are plenty of N64 games that do run at 60fps. But you need to use an actual N64 to be sure. N64 emulators aren't accurate and many games run at the wrong speeds.

Here are some of the games that i know they do run at 60fps

Dark Rift
F-Zero X
Killer Instinct Gold
Mortal Kombat 4
Super Smash Bros. (haven't tried more than 2 players though)

There are others too but it can only be confirmed using a real console. There are also many games with unlocked frame rate that can go up to 60fps but it's too unstable so i don't count them.

What did it show the N64 can do over the PS1 aside from downgrading the original textures and character models?

To be fair, they managed to cramp a lot of stuff in the cart that most people thought it was impossible. There are some minor improvements (like less clipping) and some downgrades (FMVs look compressed, textures aren't as sharp) but the overall look is very good for a 64MB version that includes both characters from both PS1 CDs.

 

[jotun?]

Also, wouldn't cloud computing via dedicated servers help take some of the computing load off the weak CPU and allow for 60fps?

Isn't it basically unsuitable for games because of the latency?

There was an interesting idea/experiment that I read about a couple of years ago

Instead of waiting for each input from the player, a powerful remote server would render many different frames, several frames into the future, accounting for different possible inputs. It would stream all of those possibilities to the client, and then when the player presses a button (or doesn't) the client is able to just pick the nearest match from the set with less or no lag


Of course, that would require a huge amount of bandwidth and server processing power, so it's not really feasible today, but maybe some time in the future

 

[nOoblet16]

Isn't it basically unsuitable for games because of the latency?

Not really, AI, scripting, physics and simulation do not have to be instantaneous like rendering. Even 150-200ms of lag would be alright, you don't want AI to react instantly in the first place but rather with an ever so slightly delay...which is what most games do. Titanfall has canon fodder AI but it is offloading the AI to cloud servers, so it doesn't really matter how complex the AI it is as the cloud that will be doing the heavy lifting. What is important to note is that it is doing it over a network so it is indeed possible to do it regardless of the AI being canon fodder or not.

As for physics, Crackdown 3 will have total destruction in online mode because of cloud, once again a case of where you don't actually need instantaneous response. Racing games on the other hand need to do the physics internally because they do need that instantaneous response...it's why their physics simulations runs much much faster than the game's framerate. But for other games it's completely possible.

 

[HiredN00bs]

It's all Bungie's fault for continually proving for the last 13 years that you can make fun, peer-to-peer action games that run at 30 frames per second and millions of people will buy them and play them. They've clouded our minds with their evil witchery.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

3D graphics have fucked up the good thing consoles had going since before the PS1/Saturn/N64 gen. PC is just going to continue to be that imperfect brute force solution until devs care about native refresh rates across the board again.

 

[mckmas8808]

I can't believe people still think 60 fps should be a standard.

 

[Mozendo]

I rather have adjustable FoV and SMAA standard than 60 fps

 

[MightyHedgehog]

I can't believe people still think 60 fps should be a standard.

Why is it so unbelievable? 99% of arcade and console video games were effectively 60fps from Pong on through to the 16-bit consoles and virtually all arcade games ever made. It was an unquestioned standard for fluidity and feedback for over twenty years at home on dedicated gaming units. 30fps will always feel and look inferior to 60fps (or better). It feels like crap to transition from a 60fps game to 30fps one every time.

 

[PnCIa]

Different games require a different set of tradeoff depending upon the platform they are running on. A GTA-type game needs a ton of time each frame for its world simulation (on consoles) for example, going to 60 on consoles would require tradeoffs (less dense world) that most people would not care for because a huge focus is a densly populated american city.
It depends on the game and whatever the developer chooses to do on a platform. Making something like 60 FPS mandatory would be plain stupid. Its no more usefull than making 1080p or 4k mandatory.

It's all Bungie's fault for continually proving for the last 13 years that you can make fun, peer-to-peer action games that run at 30 frames per second and millions of people will buy them and play them. They've clouded our minds with their evil witchery.

.

 

[Novocaine]

I can't believe people still think 60 fps should be a standard.

We're all just so entitled huh.