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You know what? Sometimes I'm OK with slowdown

R

Raging Spaniard

If they are Dutch, upright and breathing they are more racist than your favorite player
Waaaait wait wait, people who don't read, let me explain.

The other day I was at a friends house, he had just started playing the (crappy port) PS3 version of Skyrim and the framerate was all around shitty and there was notorious slowdown just walking around. This was lame and just lets you know shit aint right.

Then tonight I was playing Dragons Dogma, I had been given a quest to recapture some fort way south from some Goblins, so I get out of the main city, onto the plains and

GIANT FUCKING GRIFFIN FALLS DOWN FROM THE SKY

MY FACE GOES （　ﾟ Дﾟ）

MY DUDES ARE GETTING ALL FUCKED UP AND TORN APART, I CAN TELL IN DETAIL BECAUSE OF THE SLOW MOTION AND--

wait, what?

Obviously the game running at 10 fps all of a sudden is not the way it should be, but I dont know, it kind of helps me digest the moment and take it in. Its basically the definition of a happy accident. It reminded me of playing Megaman back in the day, going into a room full of enemies and enjoying the shitty framerate, or when sprsk was raving about EDF and saying that its slow framerate was a feature. He was LOLed out of the room but I dunno, I could relate to that.

I can't be the only one, right?
 
Its not bad all the time. Its something I can overlook if the game is good enough. In something like Shadow of the Colossus it never bothered me. In Odin Sphere for the PS2 it did, but I played through the game and enjoyed it despite it. in ZoE2 it kinda irked me, still love the game though.
 
Well when I experience slowdown I certainly don't scream WORST GAME EVER and throw it away or whatever like some people apparently do.
 
OG Perfect Dark, four player split-screen, that one level with the Matrix-esque lobby, Perfect Sims, double falcons (or whatever the silver handguns were called), elevator opens, sims come out, slooooooooow-moooooooooo and all of the sudden it IS The Matrix.
 
Maybe it's from the fact that I grew up playing those old NES games and the like, but when something happens that kills the framerate in a game (as long as it's not just a constant poor framerate), then my mind still registers "OMG, what's happening on screen right now is so awesome that it can't be handled by the hardware!"

Just thinking about the minecart jump in Mega Man X and its slowdown still gives me goosebumps from the awesome.
 
No. If the game isn't running in a way that allows for realtime interactivity then the developers have made a mistake.
 
I dunno if the slow down in games like Street Fighter II and Streets of Rage II was intentional (at least at the KO stage), but I always loved the epic nature of it.

I also, generally, prefer 30fps over 60fps. The former feels more cinematic to me, where as the latter feels all janky and shit.
 
I don't like slowdown in most games, but I'm pretty sure The Binding of Isaac running at a snail's pace on my computer has gotten me through the game a few times.
 
BocoDragon said:
Gradius III on SNES syndrome
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First thing I thought of. I tried playing the arcade version recently and found it to be infuriatingly hard. I remember loving the slowdown of the SNES version for that huge plant monster boss. It had so many little spores it shot at you that would have been a real pain w/o the slowdown.

Recent example of slowdown ruining it for me was trying to charge the Vector Cannon in ZOE2 HD. Felt like a slideshow.
 
Neiteio said:
OG Perfect Dark, four player split-screen, that one level with the Matrix-esque lobby, Perfect Sims, double falcons (or whatever the silver handguns were called), elevator opens, sims come out, slooooooooow-moooooooooo and all of the sudden it IS The Matrix.
Click to expand...
That game went to what felt like 5 frames a second at times, but it was still extremely fun.
 
Donutta said:
I also, generally, prefer 30fps over 60fps. The former feels more cinematic to me, where as the latter feels all janky and shit.
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Poe's law in full effect here.

I wonder if screen tearing and texture popin is considered cinematic, too.
 
only mega man where he's leapingi n the air with his legs and arms outstetched, mouth agape, and all of the chaos slows down around him....

Donutta said:
I dunno if the slow down in games like Street Fighter II and Streets of Rage II was intentional (at least at the KO stage), but I always loved the epic nature of it.

I also, generally, prefer 30fps over 60fps. The former feels more cinematic to me, where as the latter feels all janky and shit.
Click to expand...
ooh-ah, ooh-ah, ooh-ah
 
This thread disgusts me...

If a game needs to slow down it should be by design not because the developers are bad at keeping a good framerate.
 
In almost every circumstance, I can't agree. I'm annoyed by it when playing Crysis or Arkham City on my PC, or a Mega Man title on the NES/SNES. It's never a dealbreaker or even more than a tiny annoyance, but it isn't something that I enjoy.

However, I feel like I understand where you're coming from, and that's due to Metroid Prime 2 - the game moved at a rock-solid framerate the majority of the time, with the exception of the Amorbis fight. I've always wondered if the slowdown in that fight was intentional or not, as it seemed so uncharacteristically effective to me. These moments, however rare, can and do exist.
 
lexi said:
Poe's law in full effect here.

I wonder if screen tearing and texture popin is considered cinematic, too.
Click to expand...

Of course neither of those are. But regarding 30fps, I personally find a lower frame-rate preferable. I guess it's akin to how people said 48fps looked crappy on The Hobbit.

EDIT: I prefer a lower (but stable) frame-rate so desirable that I intentionally limit it in my games where available.
 
Slowdown is a neat side effect of the framerate plummeting due to everything going off but the low framerate + dramatic changes in framerate can start to physically hurt. Recently I was playing Darksiders 2 and with the framerate going all over the place I was getting headaches from it. So I can't really say I'm okay with it.
 
48fps cinema is horrid but 60fps gameplay is glorious, to the point of being a required feature for me to enjoy shooters and racing games. I guess now I know from this thread how people that enjoyed The Hobbit's HFR showing feel about the prevalent industry opinion.

Slowdown is never not horrible due to the impact it has on control response.
 
Donutta said:
Of course neither of those are. But regarding 30fps, I personally find a lower frame-rate preferable. I guess it's akin to how people said 48fps looked crappy on The Hobbit.

EDIT: I prefer a lower (but stable) frame-rate so desirable that I intentionally limit it in my games where available.
Click to expand...

Big thing people dont understand about framerate is its not just how it makes the game look but how well it controls. The lower the framerate the longer the response time between your click of a button or moving a stick and that action happening on the screen. This is why 60fps is so important in fps and racing games. Example In a racing game you have a much better response time that will help you take turns and break more effectively.

Saying you like slow down is like saying you want control taken away from you. You can have games with slow-mo (Max Payne) designed to be slow things down without the chunky frames and bad response times.

Also 48 frames in a movie looked fine.. it made CGI look worse thats all. It needs to be used in a few non CGI films before people can say it looks bad.
 
Atomski said:
Big thing people dont understand about framerate is its not just how it makes the game look but how well it controls. The lower the framerate the longer the response time between you click or moving a stick and that action happening on the screen. This is why 60fps is so important in fps and racing games. Example In a racing game you have a much better response time that will help you take turns and break more effectively.

Also 48 frames in a movie looked fine.. it made CGI look worse thats all. It needs to be used in a few non CGI films before people can say it looks bad.
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It even looked really awesome during panning shots and action scenes. I'd love to see a (good) martial arts movie shot in 48fps. It could be glorious.
 
The scenario you made in the OP is going to be .001 % of anyone's experience with slow down. Most of the time it just hampers playing the game.
 
Sometimes slow down can be cool, if it's happening during some sort of amazing moment it can kind of make it more awesome.You know, in a "HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO AWESOME EVEN THIS SYSTEM CAN'T HANDLE IT!" sort of way. Even beyond the slowdown allowing the OP to see what was going on in more detail a huge motherfucking griffin and some pawns tearing shit up so bad the frame rate dies kind of sounds super awesome.

(I need to try Dragon's Dogma someday, I wasn't taken with the demo, but I'm totally interested in giving the full game a go at some point.)
 
Atomski said:
Also 48 frames in a movie looked fine.. it made CGI look worse thats all. It needs to be used in a few non CGI films before people can say it looks bad.
Click to expand...

It's been used for as long as digital video has existed (50i/60i) and the industry collectively decided it looked horrible and the issue was put to rest until The Hobbit came along.
 
Hypron said:
It even looked really awesome during panning shots and action scenes. I'd love to see a (good) martial arts movie shot in 48fps. It could be glorious.
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Exactly, it really drives me nuts that everyone seems to be against it. It could be great used in a film without a bunch of rendered crap all over the screen.
 
I remember the slowdown during the Ganondorf boss fight in Ocarina of Time. He would launch some beam attacks and I would jump to a different platform trying to dodge it. The slowdown would hit right as I was jumping and his attacks exploded behind me. It looked awesome. It was basically slow motion, and it made the moment. It wasn't until years later that I realized it was probably just regular slow down.
 
Meatvillain said:
Sometimes slow down can be cool, if it's happening during some sort of amazing moment it can kind of make it more awesome.You know, in a "HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO AWESOME EVEN THIS SYSTEM CAN'T HANDLE IT!" sort of way. Even beyond the slowdown allowing the OP to see what was going on in more detail a huge motherfucking griffin and some pawns tearing shit up so bad the frame rate dies kind of sounds super awesome.

(I need to try Dragon's Dogma someday, I wasn't taken with the demo, but I'm totally interested in giving the full game a go at some point.)
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It was awesome man, the Griffin is like 30 feet long, tearing my dudes up and Im charging towards it as fast as I can trying to hold on to it .. epic stuff.

The demo is kinda bad, it doesnt showcase the game very well. Its a very open game that really rewards exploring, walking around, trying different job combinations (some of the higher level spells are amazing!) You can also customize the UI so that you dont have to deal with how ugly and overbearing it is.
 
I could maybe get behind this if a game intentionally used it in sort of a self-aware way to frame a scene as particularly over-the-top epic, but the problem is that most games that struggle with their framerate do it in more mundane instances too.
 
Reminds me of the shitty argument from Ninja Gaiden 2 apologists back in the day, arguing the staircase fight was "cinematic" because it ran at like 15FPS before they finally patched it.

EDIT: oops didn't even read the thread and missed someone already mentioned it >.>
 
I just encountered that, except I had no idea a griffin was even there until everything was dead.
 
Only in old games where I expect it. Sometimes it worked out to be epic, or sometimes I just grew accustom to it. These days there are less excuses for a frame rate drop so drastic.
 
You disgust me OP! The only time I think it's appropriate are arcade ports that are trying to replicate the machine accurately.
 
Skilletor said:
No, it made it unplayable, especially in an action game where reaction and timing matter so much.

This opinion is so ridiculous to me. I can't believe anybody thinks slowdown is good.
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uh no. they were trash enemies which you could kill easily then chain to obliteration techs it made for glorious piles of dead enemies which sigma 2 so pathetically removed.
 
I loved the slowdown in PSO, typically only came while casting chain spells and new spawn, added a good feel.

In everything else i've played, not so much...
 
You hear that developers!? ..we need consistent framerate drops at key points of every video game so one may bask in the glorious moment of whatever amount of 'epic' is currently happening on screen... Fuck, what? No. just no. To each its own and I'm glad you can find the good in a shitty situation but fuck that.
 
With older games that had game speed tied to the framerate, it wasn't always a huge deal, but with games now that just drop frames, the experience is marred by input lag and the like.
 
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