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Digital Foundry vs Mario Kart 8
- Thread starter XDDX
- Start date
lol
It's due to the nature of displays. With g-sync this wouldn't be noticeable but in normal 60 hz displays it's very obvious. I noticed it within seconds of first loading up the game. It persists throughout normal play.
It's akin to the issue with the Gameboy Player on GC. That was due to refresh rate differences between TVs and the gba but it resulted in a noticeable skip inset intervals during play. Very distracting.
It's very bothersome to my eyes and it was worth noting as it's a very strange issue for a Nintendo game.
That nintendo magazine link from above is from 2013. The eurogamer article says april 2014.
JetSetRadio
Banned
720p 59fps huh
Orniletter
Banned
Pretty interesting, I honestly don´t think that it is out of the question to see a performance improving patch down the road
no pun intended
59 ->60 fps seems like such a small jump.
PdotMichael
Banned
1 fps now, 2 fps next year.
Nintendo is slowly moving to 30fps.
Nintendo is slowly moving to 30fps.
abstract alien
Member
Good lord. Nintendo is amazing at what they do.
RMS Gigantic
Member
Super Mario 3D World would like a word with you.
onken
Member
Sweet.
They just focused on different things, here it seems to be lighting.
The four tires, lights on the track, headlights, etc. are all dynamic.
The 59fps thing seems to be a bug as the article details it's only present when CPU controlled people are in the race. So 12 player online races should be 60fps anyway, and there were no drops regardless of what was happening.
A repeated frame exactly every 64 frames? How very odd. Could that be intentional? I mean, it's not some off number, but 64 being 0100 0000b (2^6) sounds like someone implemented some sort of counter. Which begs the question, why, and is it intentional or a bug? Also, what happens when the entire engine basically doesn't render anything during that last frame? Is the entire engine stalled, including game logic, or is just the graphics part in disarray? Is it some kind of overflow? Lag compensation? What is it?
Dammit, now I'm curious.
Dammit, now I'm curious.
abstract alien
Member
Yep. I remember that DF being pretty humorous when they were talking about how constant 60fps was in that game.
Mithos
Member
I noticed the 60fps -> 59fps "thing" in the youtube video on DF homepage, but then again that's how youtube videos almost always looks for me.
Canis lupus
Member
They reported 1080p so close to the release date people thought it was set in stone, and because it came from eurogamer who are known for their performance analysises and not some Nintendo exclusive site, people took their word for it.
abstract alien
Member
I read this entire post in Neil Tyson's voice and it was beautiful.
Kratos' 2nd cousin
Banned
Good lord they go out of their way to make 1 frame drop sound like a huge deal.
To be fair, dropping out of refresh sync even to 59fps can be quite jarring if it happens often.
It is a huge deal. Not for everyone but to my eyes it was immediately evident and distracting.
abstract alien
Member
3D World set their bar and now we have to live with it.
you left the most interesting part out, OP.
What makes this situation all the more strange is the fact that this problem only appears when CPU opponents are active. In time trials or split-screen matches, with AI-controlled drivers disabled, the frame-rate updates flawlessly while race introductions and victory animations all display correctly as well. The frequency and pattern of this problem suggests an internal timing issue, potentially related to Mario Kart TV, rather than one of performance. We can't be certain where the root cause lies but we certainly do hope Nintendo will take time to correct this problem in a patch.
What makes this situation all the more strange is the fact that this problem only appears when CPU opponents are active. In time trials or split-screen matches, with AI-controlled drivers disabled, the frame-rate updates flawlessly while race introductions and victory animations all display correctly as well. The frequency and pattern of this problem suggests an internal timing issue, potentially related to Mario Kart TV, rather than one of performance. We can't be certain where the root cause lies but we certainly do hope Nintendo will take time to correct this problem in a patch.
Dragon1893
Member
If they didn't mention it then eventually someone else would and they would be called out for missing it and labeled incompetent.
Pointing this stuff out is what these articles are for, it's not their fault if people make a bigger issue out of it than it really is.
59 FPS on a 60 hz display can introduce noticeable stutter. Its essentially the same sort of problem people have with unlocked frame rates..
The news here isn't the loss of one frame but that Mario Kart 8 doesn't maintain a frame rate that will exhibit zero stutter on a 60 hz display.
Judging by the video it's more like
59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 60 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps 59 fps
Ha ha, I'm glad someone caught that.Was watching the FPS video. Dat red shell at 5:05. Sweating much, dark10?
In the two player split-screen video I actually recruited my wife who really doesn't play twitch games. It was her first time trying Mario Kart and she was struggling hard but in the end did OK. She insisted on using motion control, though.
Exactly.
Mihael Mello Keehl
Banned
Wow 59 fps? Thats as bad as 30
CrimsonCommie
Member
The article says that most people won't even notice it, I haven't seen any of the people that have played it already mention it, and apparently it only occurs with cpu players so the online should work fine.
Ha ha, I'm glad someone caught that.
In the two player split-screen video I actually recruited my wife who really doesn't play twitch games. It was her first time trying Mario Kart and she was struggling hard but in the end did OK. She insisted on using motion control, though.
Exactly.
Hahah, was she the lakitu? It look like she gave up on the airport stage.
Dictator93
Member
happening every 64 frames. So it is a constant phenomenon, and arguably, really annoying froma visual perspective.
Unlike a game having that 1.5% of poor frames at the beginning of a sequence and fat lining.
IMO, I am suprised such a constant stutter got past QA
As I just stated, this is not the same as consant 59 FPS, (which would not be a problem), but rather a constant hitching like every 1.X seconds
Well, if a game is locked at 30fps or 60fps, its "average framerate" is technically lower if it ever drops. Say, in a game which is 60fps nearly all the time with only a single framedrop in the entire game, per mathematical definition becomes the average becomes something like 59,999999.
In the case of Mario Kart, it actually seems to be running at 59 fps most of the time. Not that it matters much, obviously, but it's a different thing.
The game seems to be a great achievement considering the hardware it's running on. Disappointing they couldn't implement some quality texture filtering or AA. You would think the GPU could handle one of these two at least.
Correct, hopefully they patch it.
Correct, hopefully they patch it.
Indeed. Which you can see clearly on the frame-time graph.
Yep, she didn't like that stage one bit.
CrimsonCommie
Member
The stuttering bug doesn't occur online right?
DF isn't giving the facts alone. The prose that they use to convey those facts has a tone that offers a subjective opinion.
There is texture filtering.
And as for the OP, this problem will drive me bananas. If the frame rate isn't locked due to a timing bug related to CPU ai sub routines, it may as well be 30fps with even more bells and whistles.
Pre-order canceled for now.