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Can we please stop with the whole "60 fps is not cinematic" argument.

South Park anyone? A perfect example of a game that would have been worse at 60 fps.

I think that's probably the only game that I would ever willingly play at 30fps over 60fps. Everything else is better at 60fps. I had to make a small adjustment when I turned my PS3 on for the first time in six months to play Final Fantasy X/X-2; after a year or so of playing everything at 60fps, it was initially jarring for the first 30 minutes. If you had two games - one at 30 and at 60 - side by side, you'd never want to play 30fps. There is little correlation between the cinematic aspect of movies at 24fps and video games; 60fps is always better. South Park is an anomaly, because it looks, to all intents and purposes, like an episode of the show. Playing South Park : Stick of Truth at 60fps is akin to watching an episode of the show with that horrible tru-motion feature that all modern TV's have. It looks unnatural.
 

Mlatador

Banned
It's stockholm syndrome, people have been stuck with 30fps and below so long that they're rationalizing reasons to keep it around.

Can people please stop the use of "stockholm syndrome" to explain why certain gamers like certain things/games?

I've noticed people using this term quite often, eventhough they seem to have no idea what it means and therefore produce sentences that doesn't make sense like the one I just quoted.

Back to topic: I think higher framerates in games and in movies are 2 completely different things. While in the former higher framerates always lead to better, smoother gameplay and better visuals in general, it doesn't apply for the later because movies are perceived differently than games, because they are a completely passiv experience. Since there is no interactivity involved, higher framerates, due to the way human perception works, destroy the artifical "cinematic feeling" that the brain needs to understand that it is watching something "out of reality". This [low framerate of 24 fps] leads to movie-goers feeling more immersed, because your brain has completely accepted that isn't watching reality (the soap opera effect of higher framerates in movies/films destroys this "illusion").
Now with games being played actively by their users, they are more involved in the experience and don't need the lower framerates to relax and make their brain accept that it's something out of reality. In fact, lower framerates and slowdowns (sudden changes in framerates) cause frustration, because they hinder the player <-> game interaction. Constant 30FPS, of course, less so, but 60 will always lead to an improvement of interactivity between you, the player, and the game, because the characer simply does what you want quicker and more fluidly, which is something generally positive in any game.
 

Wasp

Member
South Park anyone? A perfect example of a game that would have been worse at 60 fps.
No.

They can still have a jerky stop-motion animation style for the characters whilst having the game running in 60fps for the scrolling backgrounds.

Stick of Truth looks pretty awful when you're running down the street so the camera is panning alongside causing the background to look like it's stuttering. 24fps or 30fps is awful for panning and side scrolling.
 
I even watch movies with ifc on a plasma for quite some time now, i notice the stuttering and it's really irritating... i am become snob, the destroyer of worlds!
 

nkarafo

Member
No.

They can still have a jerky stop-motion animation style for the characters whilst having the game running in 60fps for the scrolling backgrounds.

Stick of Truth looks pretty awful when you're running down the street so the camera is panning alongside causing the background to look like it's stuttering. 24fps or 30fps is awful for panning and side scrolling.
I agree with you but i think South Park has terrible panning in the show too, on purpose. The point of the South Park game is to look exactly like the show. So if the Show looks like crap the game has to follow or it will look like something different.
 
No.

They can still have a jerky stop-motion animation style for the characters whilst having the game running in 60fps for the scrolling backgrounds.

Stick of Truth looks pretty awful when you're running down the street so the camera is panning alongside causing the background to look like it's stuttering. 24fps or 30fps is awful for panning and side scrolling.

It's not about replicating the jerky stop-motion, it's about the visual look and there would have been a clear difference between the TV show and the game if you had the game running at 60 fps. They made a great decision to frame lock it. 60 fps in South Park would have stood out like a sore thumb.
 
No.

They can still have a jerky stop-motion animation style for the characters whilst having the game running in 60fps for the scrolling backgrounds.

Stick of Truth looks pretty awful when you're running down the street so the camera is panning alongside causing the background to look like it's stuttering. 24fps or 30fps is awful for panning and side scrolling.

It looks fine at 30fps. It's completely hyperbolic to say it looks awful running at 30fps. It apes the show so well, that to even have the background scrolling at 60fps would look inauthentic.
 
I wish people would stop holding on to low framerates being cinematic in general. 24fps shouldn't be acceptable for.... anything.

You people are the reason no theaters around me were showing the Hobbit in 48fps! Embrace the future, you luddites!

I actually agree. I loved both movies in the high frame rate. People whinge simply because they are not used to it. What next, 'oh no it's too high a resolution!, Lower please!'

So yeah, 60fps in games is a huge plus. Visually and gameplay wise.
 

StuBurns

Banned
We've been putting out games at 30fps (more or less, yeah) for a while now. I mean, if you want only 24fps, that will let us put a whole lot more effects in!

Speaking less sarcastically, 30hz, 60hz and anything in between is more than just about being cinematic, it's about the underlying systems that affect gameplay and how they refresh. Your body/eye can't compensate for that like it does when watching 24fps source material on film. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge cinephile and buy Criterions, watch things in as original format as possible, etc., but in games, as most of us know, the higher the frame rate you can pull out, the better the overall experience, generally speaking.

Games vs. TV don't have that "soap opera" effect at higher than 24fps frame rates in my experience, but then again I'm not a dark10x frame rate peeper ;)

I, for one, am looking forward to seeing our final result with TLOU PS4.
While you're here, could you possibly address how the cutscenes are being handled? Are they the original PS3 video files, are they rerendered, are they real-time?
 
It's not about replicating the jerky stop-motion, it's about the visual look and there would have been a clear difference between the TV show and the game if you had the game running at 60 fps. They made a great decision to frame lock it. 60 fps in South Park would have stood out like a sore thumb.

The jerky stop-motion is the visual look. You can still have the characters look the same while having effects, scrolling background, things like that in 60 FPS. It isn't like the TV show keeps completely consistent with things like that.
 
Games vs. TV don't have that "soap opera" effect at higher than 24fps frame rates in my experience, but then again I'm not a dark10x frame rate peeper ;)

They always have for me had that affect. It's how it's so obvious to me when a game or a video is running at 60hz.

The jerky stop-motion is the visual look. You can still have the characters look the same while having effects, scrolling background, things like that in 60 FPS. It isn't like the TV show keeps completely consistent with things like that.

Framerate has always been a part of the visual look for me and it would be painfully obvious that it was different if South Park was running at 60 fps. It would stand out to me as much as how Survivor used to be 60hz but when they went to HD it dropped to 30hz. You can't do South Park at 60fps and have it still look exactly like the show. It would be drastically different visually to me.
 
The fact you prefer 60fps and think it would improve it doesn't mean that the "60 fps is not cinematic" argument is an invalid one, simply that - IYO - it's not a convincing one. 60fps isn't cinematic; I don't think it's reasonable to tell people that what they like is wrong on that grounds that it's not what you like, so the argument isn't "invalid".

And to the people saying that people only like it because it's what they're used to - well, yeah, that's sort of what "cinematic" is - it's a frame rate akin to cinema, ie 24fps. If Cinema had a frame rate of 60fps, we'd be considering that to be cinematic. It's entirely about "what you're used to" and the mental conventions that this creates. It is what it is.

That said, TLOU would be much better at 60fps imo, or even just a rock solid 30. The drops were a pain, especially in the spore'y areas.
 
Mh, now I'm surprised. I always considered the "cinematic 30 (or 24) fps in-game" praise as a running gag. NeoGAF's ironic sideswipe to the game industry's PR vocabular. //edit...or troll ammunition.
So, this is seriously common thinking?
 
I'm one of the most fps insensitive people out there (I rarely can tell a source is 60 or 30 unless it is designed to show such) and even I know this argument is bogus. Lower fps in now way shape or form improves the experience. If it is a trade off of more visual fluff or higher frame rate, I'm in the more visual fluff category, but just plain 30 vs 60, it is 60 all the way.
 

StuBurns

Banned
Framerate has always been a part of the visual look for me and it would be painfully obvious that it was different if South Park was running at 60 fps. It would stand out to me as much as how Survivor used to be 60hz but when they went to HD it dropped to 30hz. You can't do South Park at 60fps and have it still look exactly like the show. It would be drastically different visually to me.
South Park the show is presumably 12fps, is the game?
 

Seanspeed

Banned
Can people please stop the use of "stockholm syndrome" to explain why certain gamers like certain things/games?

I've noticed people using this term quite often, eventhough they seem to have no idea what it means and therefore produce sentences that doesn't make sense like the one I just quoted.
Its not literally Stockholm syndrome, but its analogous to how people learn to become 'happy with' 30fps. It takes breaking free from those shackles to learn what you've been missing and why 30fps actually is bad for your gaming.
 

Wasp

Member
South Park the show is presumably 12fps, is the game?
No, believe it or not the game can be much worse than that, at least on consoles. Stick of Truth has frequent and massive framerate drops after a transition screen and when it's autosaving. The game literally hits 0fps. It's as bad as Skyrim on PS3.

How Obsidian had such severe performance issues in a game with no polygons I'll never know.
 
They always have for me had that affect. It's how it's so obvious to me when a game or a video is running at 60hz.



Framerate has always been a part of the visual look for me and it would be painfully obvious that it was different if South Park was running at 60 fps. It would stand out to me as much as how Survivor used to be 60hz but when they went to HD it dropped to 30hz. You can't do South Park at 60fps and have it still look exactly like the show. It would be drastically different visually to me.

You can't have South Park looking like 30FPS and have it be the exact same as the show.

The characters in South Park are not animated at the same rate as she show. Animations and frame rates can be independent of each other if you want to. You could only apply it to panning shots, effects, UI elements and things like that. I won't deny that it will probably make a lot less difference in South Park, but it wouldn't make it worse.

That said, I don't even think there are any panning shots in South Park, so if you want to be really be the same as the show you can't even have those.
 

StuBurns

Banned
Consoles can't just flip to 'real' projection sync'd 24fps, they have to use pulldown if it's within a game, so it's still not 'cinematic'.
 
I wish people would stop holding on to low framerates being cinematic in general. 24fps shouldn't be acceptable for.... anything.

You people are the reason no theaters around me were showing the Hobbit in 48fps! Embrace the future, you luddites!
If you had seen it in 48 FPS you would feel differently, it was horrible.
 

jimi_dini

Member
Many gamers such as myself have grown sick of these bad frame rates over this past gen and were hoping that this new gen would be a return to 60FPS games and it looks like this may not be the case. It's definitely disheartening to hear that TLOU may not even hit 60 on average on the PS4.

No idea what you are talking about.

Wii had many 60 fps games. And Wii U has many 60 fps games as well. *shrug*
 
Cutscenes should be 24fps - Filmic, cinematic, whatever.
Gameplay should be 60fps

Agreed. more FPS in a game makes for smoother gameplay, tighter controls, faster interactions, smoother animations. When I don't have control of the character I don't mind going for 24FPS or 30.
 
No idea what you are talking about.

Wii had many 60 fps games. And Wii U has many 60 fps games as well. *shrug*
They aren't all native 1080P though (I actually don't mind, but someone is going to say it).
The kind of games Nintendo make are ones that have to be 60 FPS too... Kart racers, platformers and fighters rely on fast response times.
 

RVinP

Unconfirmed Member
If the game doesn't look 'Cinematic' at 60 frame updates per second, then that would mean the game wasn't done properly by taking 60FPS into consideration and having 60FPS breaks the perception of a cinema(tic experience).

The game looks like its running in fast forward at 60FPS? so, could mean either the developers didn't nail it right or the players/developers aren't able to perceptualize the game running at 60FPS (its like its something new).

The difference dissolves after a while.
 
If you had seen it in 48 FPS you would feel differently, it was horrible.

I have, took some time before getting used to it and traveled about an hour and a half alone to see it for IMAX HFR, but worth it.

Then did the same for the second movie, but this time with friends. The effect is more subtle in the second movie and I think they all enjoyed it except for one who couldn't tell the difference.

Might do the same for the third one, and I don't even enjoy the movies. It takes time before getting used to things like this, but it just does not make sense for 24FPS to look better aside from people being so conditioned to it.

There have been arguments for it increasing the suspension of disbelief by being able to fill in the gaps with your imagination and things like that, but I really really cannot see that as anything else than an excuse.
 

patapuf

Member
I wasn't aware more than a handful of (misguided) people were seriously arguing that all else being equal, 30 fps is in any way better than 60 for videogames. ( i understand taking better visuals over framerate).
 

mechphree

Member
We've been putting out games at 30fps (more or less, yeah) for a while now. I mean, if you want only 24fps, that will let us put a whole lot more effects in!

Speaking less sarcastically, 30hz, 60hz and anything in between is more than just about being cinematic, it's about the underlying systems that affect gameplay and how they refresh. Your body/eye can't compensate for that like it does when watching 24fps source material on film. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge cinephile and buy Criterions, watch things in as original format as possible, etc., but in games, as most of us know, the higher the frame rate you can pull out, the better the overall experience, generally speaking.

Games vs. TV don't have that "soap opera" effect at higher than 24fps frame rates in my experience, but then again I'm not a dark10x frame rate peeper ;)

I, for one, am looking forward to seeing our final result with TLOU PS4.

I'm excited for the ps4 version. I checked my total game time on it and it said I had like 100 hours or so of multiplayer lol.
But back to my OP I don't just don't get people saying it will "ruin the cinematics " of the game if it's at 60 fps. I just don't get that arguement. I can see it being made for in movies because of the soap opera effect but not in games.

I recently beat infamous second son, and it has beautiful graphics and runs pretty decent. But I also can feel some input lag when I do quick turns or run around that I just don't feel with something at 60 fps.
 

abunai

Member
After using 120Hz monitors for ~18 months, even using 60Hz on the desktop gives me a headache. 60fps is alright in games, but 120 is better obviously. 30fps in games gives me nausea. Not trying to be a dick or anything, it just literally makes me feel unwell.
 
South Park won't be 12fps - it's done in a 3D animation package, and there's no reason at all to do that at 12fps.

The game or movie? Because both are animated in a 3D animation package. Doesn't mean you can animated on a lower framerate to achieve a visual style.

You have the same thing in the latest Lego movie.
 

mechphree

Member
The fact you prefer 60fps and think it would improve it doesn't mean that the "60 fps is not cinematic" argument is an invalid one, simply that - IYO - it's not a convincing one. 60fps isn't cinematic; I don't think it's reasonable to tell people that what they like is wrong on that grounds that it's not what you like, so the argument isn't "invalid".

And to the people saying that people only like it because it's what they're used to - well, yeah, that's sort of what "cinematic" is - it's a frame rate akin to cinema, ie 24fps. If Cinema had a frame rate of 60fps, we'd be considering that to be cinematic. It's entirely about "what you're used to" and the mental conventions that this creates. It is what it is.

That said, TLOU would be much better at 60fps imo, or even just a rock solid 30. The drops were a pain, especially in the spore'y areas.

I feel you. But "60 fps not cinematic " is your opinion well. No need to state it like it is factual. I feel 30 fps is not the ONLY frame rate in video games that can be used for a cinematic feel. Especially when you have movies with like the hobbit at 48 fps and James Cameron pushing 60 fps for the next avatar movies.
 

arne

Member
While you're here, could you possibly address how the cutscenes are being handled? Are they the original PS3 video files, are they rerendered, are they real-time?

That's all still in progress, but they were at least be rerendered in the higher 1080 resolution plus maybe whatever else we can add. I highly doubt we'd do them real-time based on our past history with cinematics, so I wouldn't hold my breath for that.

Franklly, the visual fidelity of our PS3 cinematics were pretty fantastic. I'd love to see the gang push beyond that, but it is a pretty high bar to start from! As we get closer to release, etc., we can probably shed some more light on all this.
 

Vitor711

Member
Well, we haven't had any major films at 60 fps yet, soooooooooooooo...

In any event, there's nothing inherently bad about a movie running at a higher framerate, either.

The lack of excessive blur during camera pans in the first Hobbit at 48FPS was eye opening.

Every film needs to be shot that way, it's madness that 24 is still the norm.
 
The game or movie? Because both are animated in a 3D animation package. Doesn't mean you can animated on a lower framerate to achieve a visual style.

You have the same thing in the latest Lego movie.

That's a bit different, though - that was certainly still rendered at 24fps, even if a lot of the animations were done at 12fps and stepped.

It's animated on the 2s, it is effectively 12fps, and it's processed with a 3-2 pulldown to produce 30Hz versions, I checked after I posted.

I stand corrected! But isn't that only for character animation? If I recall, there are times when there's stuff happening on the screen that's not 12fps (like fancy effects and whatnot).
 

StuBurns

Banned
That's all still in progress, but they were at least be rerendered in the higher 1080 resolution plus maybe whatever else we can add. I highly doubt we'd do them real-time based on our past history with cinematics, so I wouldn't hold my breath for that.

Franklly, the visual fidelity of our PS3 cinematics were pretty fantastic. I'd love to see the gang push beyond that, but it is a pretty high bar to start from! As we get closer to release, etc., we can probably shed some more light on all this.
That's cool, real-time was a stretch, I was just concerned with going from 1080p gameplay to a more muddy video source, but rerendered is definitely very nice. And I guess it makes more sense if the director's commentary thing is a menu option, so we don't need loads between scenes.

Thanks for the reply.
I stand corrected! But isn't that only for character animation? If I recall, there are times when there's stuff happening on the screen that's not 12fps (like fancy effects and whatnot).
It is just characters/objects, etc, yeah, there's some tracked animation which is 24. But also, that article was from just after the film, it could all be different now, I've not seen the show for a very long time personally.
 
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