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17-22FPS acceptable for ordinary gamers?

S

Sethos

Banned
Okay, this is just a quick topic to check a general view. Currently having a discussion with and individual on another simulation related forum. He's saying 17-22ish FPS is acceptable for a majority of games, no one is able to see the difference between that and higher framerates etc.

My mind is obviously full of fuck and the tearing / unstable framerate alone would make me contemplate suicide.

So I just need to know, would anyone here be okay with that for general gaming? Would you, to the best of your knowledge, say that the every man playing a game couldn't feel an FPS that low, see that tearing and feel the unstable FPS?
 
Thats insane.

I have friends that don't know shit about fps, but when fps dips really low they complain of "lag".
 
People used to be impressed by that FPS range back around the 3DO's heyday. It's not great, but they're not unplayable and I doubt most people would notice much once they got into the game proper.

Heck, there's at least one guy on this very forum who ardently defends the N64's frame rates as super good.
 
I'm playing New Vegas on my PS3 right now and it probably hits 10 FPS at times. How can ordinary gamers tolerate this?
 
Sethos said:
So I just need to know, would anyone here be okay with that for general gaming? Would you, to the best of your knowledge, say that the every man playing a game couldn't feel an FPS that low, see that tearing and feel the unstable FPS?
Click to expand...

I can't tell the difference between any frame rates i've seen before so, as long as it's consistent, i'd be perfectly happy with that :)
 
If Sims was 17-22 FPS and played at normal or lower speed, would it really destroy the appeal of the game? Especially for casuals?

Obviously it would be very noticeable in a racing game, but not every genre would be so handicapped by this that it would lose all of its appeal
 
17 FPS is just far too low, especially for the types of games people are used to playing these days. Everything is just far too jumpy at that framerate.
 
If sales are an indicator, low framerates are not an issue, to the average gamer.

We've seen plenty of stuttering games having huge sales.

Some may argue that the best-selling game ever, Call of Duty, is a great success because it offers 60fps gameplay, though.
 
Sethos said:
Okay, this is just a quick topic to check a general view. Currently having a discussion with and individual on another simulation related forum. He's saying 17-22ish FPS is acceptable for a majority of games, no one is able to see the difference between that and higher framerates etc.

My mind is obviously full of fuck and the tearing / unstable framerate alone would make me contemplate suicide.

So I just need to know, would anyone here be okay with that for general gaming? Would you, to the best of your knowledge, say that the every man playing a game couldn't feel an FPS that low, see that tearing and feel the unstable FPS?
Click to expand...

Short Answer: No

Long Answer: Depends

I have played many games, especially back in the day (take that as you will) in the 20ish range. EverQuest readily comes to mind that first year, heck I had friends with crazy shat cards that wouldn't display textures. That light blue shade really made BlackBurrow a different experience for them! I've played WoW at low frame rates as well, same with Civ4 my first experience with that was on a subpar comp. Really depends on the game and how much someone is invested in seeing through and yet before all that. I guess the question lies in how much your game requires fast visual updates while still being fun and enjoyable
 
I can accept some slowdowns depending on the style of game, but a constant 17-22 fps would make me stop playing very quickly.
 
Freshmaker said:
People used to be impressed by that FPS range back around the 3DO's heyday. It's not great, but they're not unplayable and I doubt most people would notice much once they got into the game proper.
Click to expand...

Back in the day I used to play Rise of Nations which would get as low as 5fps (once I got jets and planes and all that, the game had a shitload of lag for my crappy computer).

You could probably play many games at a low framerate. It's playable, maybe, but people still would notice.
 
Obviously that's not preferable, and anyone claiming they can't tell the difference between something that low and a solid 30 or higher isn't being honest (or has some sort of eye/brain disorder).

Is unstable frame rate, screen tearing, or consistently sub par frame rate "ok?" I don't know, it depends on how distracting it is to the gameplay experience. Generally I would think that sort of thing would have a very negative effect if it's consistent, but I've played a lot of games that I still enjoyed despite those problems (Dragons Dogma had awful and consistent screen tearing, but it was still plenty playable).

So it depends. But there's a big difference between what you begrudging accept and what you actually enjoy and prefer.
 
People (= Dutch PC players) are able to differentiate between 60 Hz and 120 Hz, so I'm very confident that they are able to differentiate between 20FPS and 60FPS.

grafiek1_welkschermvondjeprettiger.png

(Single-blinded test)
Source: Article in dutch only at the moment

So he is wrong for the people that play with a mouse and keyboard as the primary input.

If you now go and look at how fond people are of for example Ocarina of Time and how that is considered one of the best games of all times and that is approximately 20 FPS on average, the question is how important frame rate to overall enjoyment is. That's a different question.

I'm sure the added precision of mouse/keyboard reveals higher framerate better. (Micro adjustment and the expectations that come with it.)
 
Sub 25fps is frankly unacceptable, personally sub 30fps is already pushing it. It also gives me flashbacks to my WoW days. Ah yes raiding at 9fps, running around with 17-21fps, 30fps+ indoors (aw yiss) on my Geforce FX 5500 PCI GPU and 512MB of Ram, ah simpler times.
 
I've played plenty of (mostly N64) games with a framerate around that region. It can be a little jarring sometimes, but it's never ruined a game for me. I think on a place like GAF you'll probably find a (maybe disproportionately?) large group who consider it unplayable though.
 
30 fps on consoles minimum. I can stand a FEW drops here but I can't play a game that is constantly below 30fps.

On PC I need my 60fps, which is a pain in the ass since optimization is usually a bit fucked on PC games and ports :( .
It's wierd how I can play a game at 30fps on a console but not on PC...it just feels much choppier and clunky on the PC for some reason.

I don't understand how a developer like Ubisoft can put a game like Far Cry 3 on consoles since it's always <26 fps. It's just mind bogging.
 
No way in hell is anything under 24 fps even close to acceptable. Even with motion blur though, 24 for games is still pretty damn bad. I want a rock solid 30 fps as the bare minimum for pretty much any game. I have no problem playing single player games in 30 fps for instance.

But for multiplayer only games, 60 fps is practically a must.
 
I don't think most people care that much about performance tbh, OOT had terrible frame rates and it's widely considered as one of the best games of all time.

I can tolerate sub 30 FPS personally but anything below 25 FPS is not acceptable imo, and stuff <20 is just beyond abysmal.
 
I don't know how I used to play half the PS1 and N64 games that I loved. Tron Bonne made me nauseous when I watched a video of it.
 
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