hyperlogic18
Neo Member
Hmmm, i can't really tell much difference, certainly not enough to allow it significantly affect me enjoying the game.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
60FPS vs. 30FPS vs. 20FPS difference shown w/ the help of F1 2013(pcgameshardware.de)
- Thread starter ekim
- Start date
As I said a few pages back, it's not my perception of the smoother image which raises my enjoyment, but the increased response. When I tried Farcry 3 on the PS3 for instance, which I got with Plus, I almost feel as if I'm playing a tipsy character, as it feels more sluggish than I'm used to and I'll overshoot with my aiming often. I know Far Cry 3 is an extreme example, as the performance is very poor on the consoles, even enough for Giant Bomb to make a big deal of it, which isn't the type of thing they'd make mention of regularly.
But this is still applicable to other games, as out of curiosity, I've flicked back and forward from 30 and 60 on PC games, to test the difference. I'm very prone to the response lag from Vsync too and I'm glad there are easy ways to remedy that these days.
For me personally, with some games, it's comparable to when you're watching a movie and it goes slightly out of sync, which is frustrating.
The typical response for my opinion, is to call me an elitist or say I don't enjoy games for they are, but both couldn't be further from the truth. I'll admit I'm just overly sensitive and being someone who puts gameplay first, I feel having that extra response is vital to certain games. As someone pointed out earlier, it's not just a case of PC elitism, but this how games used to be almost all the time.
I absolutely can still enjoy games which don't meet my ideal level of performance and there are games that would receive very little benefit from being in 60. I'm playing Beyond: Two Souls at the minute and I couldn't imagine gaining a massive amount from it having double.
I'm glad there're people who aren't overly sensitive to the same issues and I swear that's not a backhanded comment. I just hate being labelled an elitist every time I try to objectively discuss the matter.
Every game when started up for the first time should ask, "Can you tell the difference between 30 and 60 fps? Be honest.", and then set the game's visuals accordingly FOREVER (the player has to re-buy the game to change this setting).
(Each player's response is then sent to a server and tallied, with the results posted on GAF.)
(Each player's response is then sent to a server and tallied, with the results posted on GAF.)
What people think they prefer and what they actually do, don't always go hand in hand though.
http://techreport.com/news/25051/blind-test-suggests-gamers-overwhelmingly-prefer-120hz-refresh-rates
It would be interesting to have an anonymous tally around these parts all the same, though I'd imagine I would definitely end up in the minority.
Did you even watch the video linked in OP and gifs posted in this thread? If you can't see the difference maybe it's optometry time.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
I want high FPS in my games not only for smoother animations, but also (and very important) for better and more responsive control.
I'd end up there too (but would it really be a minority?).
I can definitely see the difference. Doesn't stop me from enjoying 30FPS games but I really appreciate it when a game has a high, stable framerate. It influences my perception of a game's overall quality.
BigEvilTurtle
Banned
This is bollocks. The difference between 30/60 is night and day; it doesn't need to be "felt" in order to be acknowledged.
I think 60FPS looks better in all cases for video games, but 30 is perfectly acceptable and playable barring frame drops.
I'm not elitist, but I'm one of the ones who can't even play through GTA V or TLOU because of frame rate. In 3 years with a high end pc the only game I've ever capped at 30 was Crysis 3 with everything maxed. And even then I preferred 900p with a 50-60 variable rate by a long shot. It's amazing what you lose in responsiveness, and it's so much easier on the eyes. Honestly, if BF4 on PS4 isn't at least 900p60, I'll just skip it.
I also disagree about slower 3rd person games being ok at 30. Maybe if they actually stayed at 30 with the exception of multiple explosions, but they don't. Console games fluctuate between 24 and 30, and that shouldn't be acceptable imo.
I also disagree about slower 3rd person games being ok at 30. Maybe if they actually stayed at 30 with the exception of multiple explosions, but they don't. Console games fluctuate between 24 and 30, and that shouldn't be acceptable imo.
FrozenCell
Member
60fps has this arcade/videogame standard look
30fps looks like a cheap PS1-era game from the 90s
30fps looks like a cheap PS1-era game from the 90s
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Only game I've played on PC with a locked 30fps was dark souls cause the game is designed around 30fps and in fact could not be played above 30fps without making the game just play faster.
But dark souls 2... 60fps for PC
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Perhaps true. But at the time the only 60fps mod made the game play faster.
moniker
Member
I'm not sure I get what you're saying - that's pretty much exactly what happens with 30 fps (compared to 60 fps). Your example should be like this:
Code:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 (60 fps)
1 3 5 7 9 (30 fps)Dropping every other frame from a 60 fps video of recorded vsynced gameplay would give you the exact same results as 30 fps vsynced gameplay (provided there are no dropped frames in 60 fps video).
Outright Villainy
Member
Yeah the animations just look so fluid as well. DS fix is also really good for illustrative purposes because you can bind a hotkey to toggle 30 and 60. I've showed a few friends the difference in looks/feel that way and they all noticed it immediately.
iamshadowlark
Banned
No, it doesn't. Again, it drops whole frames of data, which means it skips from frame to frame creating extra choppiness. A game would render frames 1 2 3 4 5
moniker
Member
That doesn't make any sense, I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying.
Please tell me that people aren't making a comparison based off watching this directly from there player on their page? That looks like flowplayer which I believe is still capped at 24fps due to Adobe's archaic standards. If you want to see what it actually looks like there is a 60fps h264 mp4 file you can grab within the page source. Put that in to something like VLC or MPC HC.
Outright Villainy
Member
Depends on they type of game but I can see what you mean, for some games dipping to 40-50 can be really distracting, since its a change you'll notice it more.
iamshadowlark
Banned
It makes perfect sense, I could say the same for you.
moniker
Member
Ok, I'll try to make it even more clear.
Your TV displays 60 fps regardless of the framerate in the game.
To expand on the example above. These 9 frames would be 150 ms in-game (9/60). If the game is running at 30 fps vsynced, every frame would have to be doubled to match the refresh rate of the TV:
Code:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... (60 fps)
1 1 3 3 5 5 7 7 9 ... (30 fps)Taking a 60 fps video and dropping every other frame creates the same result (with each frame repeating once of course, otherwise the video would be sped up with a factor of 2).
andromeduck
Member
it would only make sense if the game logic was in the same thread or otherwise dependant on the rendering pipeline
most games (and esp where latency matters) have had that for quite some time.
Captain Tuttle
Member
ouch haha
It really shows up at about 55 seconds or so, those grandstands just chug on by.
iamshadowlark
Banned
We're talking about two entirely different things . You're taking about the video, I'm talking about the source. Your post lays it out clearly, a native renderer doesn't repeat frames. It's a flawed comparison.
chancellor
Member
20fps looks bad enough to ruin a game.
http://www.testufo.com/#test=framerates&count=6&pps=960
Here is another great demonstration if anyone is interested.
Here is another great demonstration if anyone is interested.
moniker
Member
It really isn't. A native renderer locked at 30 fps vsynced, shown on a 60 fps display, does repeat frames - as in, it will show the same frame buffer for two consecutive frames on the display.
It's not really about standards, it's about getting the best possible gameplay experience. Games in 480p or lower are fine because the low resolution doesn't affect the gameplay in any way. When I'm playing a PC game I'll lower the resolution as much as I need to in order to get 60 fps.
MilkyOctave
Member
I prefer 60 FPS, but 30 FPS is acceptable. It bugs me when the game tries to juggle between the two, e.g. RPGs where you have 60 FPS towns, 30 FPS World Map and 30 FPS battles or any other variation. It's just disorienting to me.
LeeRoyBrown
Banned
I could barely see the difference between 60 and 30, I definitely noticed 20 though.
Maybe when I get my new rig finally I will start to give a shit about this sort of thing.
Maybe when I get my new rig finally I will start to give a shit about this sort of thing.
iamshadowlark
Banned
We're talking about raw framebuffer grabs here, a renderer doens't render a frame twice. That applies no matter what it gets displayed at.
It's a standard for me. If a game wont run at 60fps, I will not play it. That to me is the best possible way for me to enjoy a game. You say you're willing to lower the resolution to achieve desired frames. I'm willing to ignore a game that wont let me get 60fps. It's a standard to me, and has been since the day I've been playing on PC.
moniker
Member
No, of course a renderer doesn't render a frame twice, I never said it did. You said the video was shit because they took a 60 fps video and cut the frame rate in half to get 30 fps, and that dropping frames resulted in extra choppiness (but you never explained why).
I'll give one final example of why they're the same.
Code:
Buffer swaps at 60 fps
|
_________________
| | | | | | | | |
* * * * * * * * *
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... (60 fps vsynced)
1 1 3 3 5 5 7 7 9 ... (30 fps vsynced)
* * * * *
|___|___|___|___|
|
Buffer swaps at 30 fpsTake a video recording of the above 60 fps, cut the frame rate in half, then double the frames and you get the exact same frame sequence as the 30 fps output.
Devs can add motion blur to make 30 fps games look less choppy and if the engine applies different amounts of motion blur depending on framerate then a comparison like this would be invalid of course (I have no idea any engine do this on PC).
cobragt4001
Banned
And this is why I love my pc setup. All my games run 60fps except Arma3, most of the time I get 45fps average.
iamshadowlark
Banned
Its obvious, no? Its not the sequential frames. It jumps to every other frame, you're missing half the data. 30FPS is half the data inherently yes, but its still rendered sequentially. Have you still not looked at the videos? In the OP video, when it goes from 60 to 30, the game(video) starts to move in slowmotion almost and chops from frame to frame. In my youtube video(native 30) its the same speed roughly, but markedly less smooth.
Aizu_Itsuko
Member
Oh, definitely, when it comes to racing/action games 60 FPS is a better choice. Slower games can be played perfectly fine at 30 FPS, and in many cases the trade-off could give you better results, even though 60 FPS would still be ideal if we had unlimited performance.
Still, I would take a steady 30 FPS over unstable 60 FPS any day of the week. Drifting around some corner in Sega Rally 2 while the framerate jumps all over the place was annoying.
cascardian
Member
Absolutely. For anyone who'd like to see actual games that are nearly ruined by this, play Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask on your old N64s. And the games' engine (which was derived from Super Mario 64, which in turn ran at 30 FPS) cannot even hold that. Those games were infamous for their lagginess and massive frame drops. As a kid I didn't know any better and consequently didn't mind, but nowadays it is unacceptable. Sadly, even playing on emulators doesn't completely remedy that, because the games--like many old console games--tie their FPS to an internal timer, and if you change counterfactors or VI rates, quite a few quests will break.
60 FPS would be great. Yes, we have sophisticated motion blur technology these days, which will emulate the cinematic effect of 24/30 FPS we were all indoctrinated into since childhood. But, having played games all my life, I have come to find that I actually don't like the juddery panning and detailless motion of traditional films anymore. And holy hell, don't even get talking about the cheap animation shortcuts of TV anime.
60 FPS remains much more crucial to games, though. Having only 16.67 ms to render a VSYNCed frame to the screen simply feels a lot more responsive (and is tearing-free!), as what you're doing on your input device compared to what you're seeing on the screen will become more aligned. If you want to read about at what kind of speed humans are able to detect changes and respond to them, this paper here has got you covered. Reviewing the literature, it also says that the target control latency for your typical console is already at 3-4 frames in a 60 FPS/60 Hz setup. At 30 FPS, that would translate to 7-8 frames of accuracy lost. Humans typically start to complain at about 100-150 ms control-to-output delay, and most games "range from 66.7-150 ms". Therefore, I can understand how some gamers can be peeved about this issue while others don't seem to care. There does appear to be some personal variance. To counteract this, I would really, really like for developers to just push for a 60 FPS experience in games in general.
Truthfully, though, I would like consistency even more. If a game is a consistent 30 FPS from start to finish, players will most likely be response-primed to that amount of delay (and, due to the cinematic effect, maybe even think it's cool), whereas everything else will be perceived as either lagginess or jankiness. In short, if you're going to do one or the other, be sure to do it right.
On the other hand, especially in terms of PC releases, don't be so goddamn lazy and design everything with an FPS-tied global timer in mind. I'm of course talking about FROM Software here, because even Dark Souls' animations, e.g., are like this. Granted, they didn't know they'd have to port it over when they made the game, but such a design is still unnecessary these days. It's nothing more than an old crutch. I also hope to God that there won't be another Blighttown in Dark Souls II. Fingers crossed.
andromeduck
Member
well that's the whole point...
they removed frames instead of playing back at 1/2 speed to show the diffrence in smoothness between 60 and 30
Played at 60fps for me. It is worth noting, though, that not everyone has a computer that could handle a 60fps HD stream, sometimes not even 30fps. I've seen people watching netflix streams on crappy laptops at horribly choppy frame rates.