The flickering was due to a limitation of the number of sprites that could be displayed on a given scanline. Rather than have whole sprites disappear or flicker you would see the scanlines that were at the max sprite limit flicker.
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Were 8 and 16-bit games 60fps?
- Thread starter MercuryLS
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The flickering was due to a limitation of the number of sprites that could be displayed on a given scanline. Rather than have whole sprites disappear or flicker you would see the scanlines that were at the max sprite limit flicker.
Please feel free to elaborate.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Storm Chamber
Banned
Good grief
Fps refers to how often the game image is refreshed per second. Sprites or polygons...doesn't matter.
Of course, you can have various elements refresh at different frame rates...but that's not common in old 2D games
I don't think so, at least usually.
The problem is that old consoles had strange limitations. Such as a maximum number of sprites on a given scanline (8 on NES, 10 on GB IIRC, a bit more on SNES). When there's too many sprites horizontally aligned, some of them would disappear. It's difficult to ensure that there's always 8 sprites or less on a given scanline, though, especially with some games.
To avoid sprites completely disappearing for long amount of time, some games cycle the order of the sprites, so that the ones disappearing aren't always the same ones. Thus the flickering.
That being said, a late updating of the sprites position registers can cause flikering, too, so in very very rare cases, it could be a framerate issue. But that's not the main reason.
A lot of NES games flicker, indeed, because of the 8-sprites limit, which is quite low.
But that usually hasn't anything to do with slowdowns (although flicker appear when there's too many sprites in a single scanlines, and slowdowns when there's too many sprites on screen, so the two can often happen at the same time)
Huh?? Buddy, the difference between 30 and 60fps was just as apparent then as it is now.
Also, you can be running at exactly the same refresh rate as your display 60fps on a 60hz display, and still experience severe input lag.
Actually, it's still extremely common. Lots of modern games render some shadows at half framerate, for instance.
No no my mistake. Meant to put not common in2d games.
In 3D its seen in quite a few titles, especially with regards to NPC animations in relation to their distance from your main character.
The "slowdown" was a result of the game loop executing synchronously, with everything (game state tick, controller input, audio, and video update) occurring in a single frame (16.667ms at 60hz). If the game got behind, everything would slow down. In modern games, these various components are decoupled and updated asynchronously at a frequency that makes sense for the type of game. Some racing games, for instance, will sample the controller input at a higher frequency than the screen update.
In the case of the NES, it had a limit of 8 sprites per line. To go above 8, it was necessary to display them on alternating frames -- hence the flickering.
I don't think it's so uncommon...
I remember a post-mortem on a 16 bits games where the player was updated on odd frames and the enemies on even ones. A strange situation where it was technically a 60Hz game where everything was updated at 30Hz. Quite an interesting way to spare ressources, especially since they implemented faster collision detections using this particularity of the engine.
Should you not be able to do a full update of all the sprite positions in less than 16ms, it's quite an easy solution to only update a part of them for each frames.
I would be at a loss if I had to guess how many games are using this kind of trick, though. I used it myself really often when I was coding small games on (really) old hardware, though.
I hope there will be even more. Low framererates are holding the industry back more than anything else. It shows that there is a focus on the wrong things, not on what makes gaming great. Nintendo, at least regarding that, is far more advanced. They know their shit for the most part.
Take a guess
Which tool is that? Are u german?
I played Rock & Roll Racing the other day and it definitely wasn't 60 fps. So no, all of them weren't but it was more or less the standard.
Regarding the sprite flicker on the NES I just want to clear up something. The sprites flicker because the game is programmed that way. It's not the hardware doing it, it's the software. The software is doing it because of the hardware limitations yes. But it's a design choice so they could have more sprites on the screen at once.
And regarding the PAL signal. The standard doesn't include "PAL-60", aka a 60hz 480i PAL signal. That's something that has been included by manufacturers in most TVs from the late 90s and forward. But the standard itself doesn't include it as far as I'm aware.
Also, it's true that PAL has advantages like more lines and better colors. But those advantages are completely moot when it comes to 8 and 16 bit games since those games were made for NTSC TVs. So the games were designed for 480 lines and the NTSC colors, which means that the colors look more washed out on a PAL console and there will be black bars under and over the image where the extra lines would be. The only "positive" regarding PAL retro consoles is that the scanlines will be less visible since the space between lines is smaller. But most people like seeing the scanlines so that's not really a positive.
Regarding the sprite flicker on the NES I just want to clear up something. The sprites flicker because the game is programmed that way. It's not the hardware doing it, it's the software. The software is doing it because of the hardware limitations yes. But it's a design choice so they could have more sprites on the screen at once.
And regarding the PAL signal. The standard doesn't include "PAL-60", aka a 60hz 480i PAL signal. That's something that has been included by manufacturers in most TVs from the late 90s and forward. But the standard itself doesn't include it as far as I'm aware.
Also, it's true that PAL has advantages like more lines and better colors. But those advantages are completely moot when it comes to 8 and 16 bit games since those games were made for NTSC TVs. So the games were designed for 480 lines and the NTSC colors, which means that the colors look more washed out on a PAL console and there will be black bars under and over the image where the extra lines would be. The only "positive" regarding PAL retro consoles is that the scanlines will be less visible since the space between lines is smaller. But most people like seeing the scanlines so that's not really a positive.
Pimpbaa
Member
Sega of America must not have been giving their teams proper tools. Seems like all their games had shitty art and use the same fart sounding instruments and to top it off 30fps as well. Or maybe it was just a lack of talent. Especially compared to what Sega of Japan was doing.
I dunno if it's bad usage so much as maybe some putting TOO much importance on it. Like if you insisted the color range of the SNES made all games automatically superior, period, Genesis games and jump off a cliff, even though it's really all about how you use that color palate (though it's admittedly harder to screw up higher resolution/FPS than colors.) Kind of like how Metal Slug was OK at 30 FPS, while Rayman Origins unacceptable, the games were paced for different FPSes, but I don't really need the likes of Metal Slug or Gears of War at 60 THAT badly. Nevermind something like turn based RPGs where it's all arbitrary and it's more important to be consistent and not give a headache.
I... what? Even as a joke this is completely random.
It actually makes me sort of wonder how much of this may be cultural and dependent on where they came from development-wise? Last generation was probably the worst about being 60 FPS relative to the technology available, and that was spearheaded by western development. And I noted before PC games did NOT have smooth scrolling for a very, very long time so they really may not have considered it something important at all. Similarly I swear Xbox games were more frequently at a lower FPS and had more performance hitches that weren't as commonly seen on PS2 or GC (or that's the fact the longest games I played on Xbox were Bioware or Bioware engine RPGs and by proxy tainted the perception for everything else. Halo 2 texture load-in did not help.)
copelandmaster
Member
Yep, 120fps Smash looks pretty neat
http://a.pomf.se/tawngi.webm
Hell, 60fps smash ain't bad either
http://a.pomf.se/hpffgu.webm
For the confused, Here's a thread all about Webm's and how to play them on GAF.
Cause people have heard good things. Look at these M's, can you blame them?
Senor Kami
Banned
If those games were running at 60fps then the sprites were only like 2-4 frames of animation per second.
A lot of old games on the Genesis had slow down issues. I think in Sonic 2 there is a place called Marble something zone that's in the jungle and is half under water and half over water. That thing chugs at time. Really anytime in a Sonic game where they funnel you in a chute and you pop out grabbing rings and with enemy sprites that game starts going into bullet time of like 2 or 3 fps (I remember Chemical Plant Zone in S2 having an especially bad one). I don't remember the level name but in Sonic 3 there's like this greek/roman architecture zone that's all destroyed and at one point the whole stage transforms and you have to race through some platforming to escape it. That whole segment is continually going super slow and varying intervals. Streets of Rage has some of that as well. Especially on the beach stage when rain comes down and 3 ninjas come out at you.
It was good stuff though. It made me pretty much immune to caring about slow down in modern gem games. I've had to deal with like stuff dropping to 2 fps. Dipping from 30 to 25 isn't even a thing to mention and anything from 30-60 feels like varying degrees of great as opposed as something to really make a fuss about.
The difference between 30fps and 60fps was massive in "the analogue days". How old are you? Damn.
CRTs had almost zero ghosting compared to LCDs, a 30FPS "blinking" the same frame twice was obvious. Panning the camera around in a 60fps game on a CRT was an entirely different plane of existence than on a 30fps game. 30fps games had a "stuttery" motion that was obvious on CRTs.
Almost every NES game that had medium to large sprites experienced heavy slowdown and even flickering if more than 3 enemies were on the screen. This is best seen and tested with TMNT, but most games had it, some worse than others.
And slowdown in some games was so bad it almost mimics Matrix bullet time.
And slowdown in some games was so bad it almost mimics Matrix bullet time.
IAmRandom31
Banned
those Web-M's man
Now instead of seeing 30fps all the time on the web, we can see slick 60fps video.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
The first game I can remember cringing at the framerate was Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout on NES.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXk_oM11xdI
Doesn't look so bad now. Damn you recent gen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXk_oM11xdI
Doesn't look so bad now. Damn you recent gen!
LOL no
That's not a "trick", that's literally how 60 fps interlaced video is displayed. Each field displays a different half-frame.
What? No.
Doom and Doom 2 had a maximum framerate of 35 iirc.
Man, my PC's getting a bit dated so I struggle to lock 120fps with most newer games, but damn 120fps is so fuckin cool.
It's just so smooth! I love it.
Hey, just relaying what people were saying back then.
Also, if SF3TS was not the first 60fps 2D fighting game then what was?
sixteen-bit
Member
lol, which ass said that?
Pong
That's an extremely inaccurate way to boil things down.
Street Fighter II!
This may be serious, each time I played SF1 I swear the FPS was wretched. And animation certainly wasn't 60 fps in SFIII and I don't think it was in any 2D fighter.
Maybe but you couldn't have a full frame at 60 fps so I guess it depends on how you interpret it.
You couldn't have a full 480-line frame at 60fps.
That's not the same as "not 60fps."
And it's absolutely not "30fps."
Yie-Ar Kung Fu or earlier. Basically, whatever you consider to be the first fighting game was 99.99% likely to be the first 60fps fighting game.
Your screen was updating 60 times per second.
Die Hard Game Fan was saying it. So, maybe Nick Des Barres.
Also, again, what was. Second person to say that it wasnt but still no one saying what was.
'cept me and others right up there
shouamabane
Member
Yeah, I think I know what the confusion is.
Comes from people equating the screen updating 60 times a second to "60 frames per second" and SF3TS being the first 2D fighting game with a frame latency of 16.67ms.
Hopefully people understand now(but I doubt it).
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Yep, starting in 2010 there's a clear upward trend. That correlates with my memories of the period where people started talking about it more and more around 2011 or so. I seem to recall that by the time Vanquish came out people were making a big deal about it but I hardly heard any talk of framerates outside of PC circles before then. I mean you'd hear about games being slideshows if they had really bad ones but there wasn't much fuss about shooters, for example. I'm sure fighting game and racing enthusiasts were probably talking about it longer than that though.
Chie Satonaka
Member
It's only rare if you don't use a PC or Nintendo Console for gaming
Or don't play fighting games of course.
Yep. I don't have a PS4 or a Xbone yet, but I do have a pretty solid gaming PC and a WiiU. Love them both. I like high framerates, and it's a shame that more of the "AAA" titles don't hit them more often.
Oh well.
Console launches increase interest.
Look at 2005, when the 360 was launching. There was a peak all the way up to late 2012 levels.
shouamabane
Member
Anecdotally, framerate issues were called "slowdown" in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras.
People always cared about how smoothly a game ran. It can ruin the experience.
People always cared about how smoothly a game ran. It can ruin the experience.
speculawyer
Member
No.
It was impossible for them to be 60 frames per second since displays did not support it. 60 fields per second or 30 frames per second possible though.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
That was prior to the 360 launch by several months actually, but we now have a much more sustained trend, instead of just a spike around launch time followed by a crash back to pre spike levels.
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