So wait, his post is insulting and targets me personally, yet I'm the one who is "antagonizing" people?
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60fps vs 30fps Backbone Thread: Pros vs. Cons
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So wait, his post is insulting and targets me personally, yet I'm the one who is "antagonizing" people?
The mountain of other visual effects they managed to pull off by halving the framerate and running at 70% of the pixels is probably being confused for the framerate itself in this case, even if you explicitly state that it's not the case. Also with your example of uncharted it is very probable that you are used to seeing Nathan Drake a certain way, I watched the trailer and nothing seemed off to me about it at all, but I never played much uncharted.
It seems like this is becoming a dialogue between two people who can just not relate then.
Carry on.
Not really. However, your first posts pissed him off, he was getting angry at you, and you are just spiraling it, in a thread with such a heavy emphasis on neutrality that is an unwise thing to do. He is not without blame but you are in part responsible. Honestly wagging fingers is pointless, so I don't care, just both of you cut it out
TB is a PC gamer, 30fps with mouse and keyboard is unplayable to me and many others.
A game locked (and by that I really mean locked, no dips) to 30fps played with a controller is fine, but I would never take 30 over 60 if I had the choice.
The thread is not about filmic qualities, the only reason I am defending my point about 30fps being inherently cinematic is because it is being challenged. The entire focus of the thread is still the OT and that isn't changing. The discussion is largely irrelevant as long as there is no major contradictions or new points to put up or remove.
I'm a videographer who has experimented plenty with every combination of framerate and shutter speed. You're a gamer. Who do you think knows more about this.
I'm not overstating it, I'm saying that it's a different issue.
Okay, so you disagree with my observation that 24fps films tend to look choppier than 30fps games in broad pans, and you think that 24fps films look as smooth in motion as 60fps games?
See, this is the core issue: you're claiming that 24fps films have perceptually smooth motion. I disagree, and I think that the entire goal of emulating the "cinematic look" is to emulate the temporal choppiness.
I don't see how we can even begin to have a discussion, because your eyes and brain evidently work astronomically differently than mine.
This is a pretty uncontroversial statement, I agree with it. Playing CS:GO at a locked 30fps is almost literally unplayable to me, whereas say...playing Halo 3 with a controller on an xbox isn't preferable but it is definitely okay.
Dead Rising 3 actually seems to perform fine at 60fps if you check back at that thread.
Tying game speed to framerate can be a conscious mechanical decision. Look at the entirety of Cave's output or check out that recent Ninja Gaiden 2 staircase thread. It's not scalable and it's easier to code, but how can you call it incompetent in the cases where it achieves exactly what the developers wanted?
also, you seem to be an ass.
This is without a doubt going to sound incredibly arrogant, but me. As someone who has fucked around with hardware programming before, I can definitely say that trying to forget everything I know about one subject because it contradicts another is fucking difficult. And being a videographer what you know is film, and film is massively fundamentally different than computer rendering, so your bias might actually prevent you from comparing film framerates and video game framerates in any meaningful way.
I meant to say can't be overstated...lol. Anyway 24fps looks like complete shit in video games, the smoothness of movies has to do with the fact that it's real life not that it's 24fps. I really don't think temporal choppiness is the focus of the cinematic look, but that's at least a point that can be argued lol. That's the kind of thing where someone might have to be asked.
Honestly I didn't even know the game released, I was just working off pre release press and speculation. And I guess incompetent is the wrong word to use, you have a very good point there. That is why it has been a "pro" for 30fps this whole time. It is easier to create and may be all the dev wants out of their game. However the piece of software at least still ends up being a pretty big piece of shit when all is said and done to the epic lack of scalability.
Muppet of a Man
Member
But it's not a valid rhetorical response because there is no definitive answer; it's a subjective answer always based on the recipient of the experience's opinion. We are back to what's better: a set of higher fidelity pictures that are not animated as smoothly vs. a better animated lower fidelity set of pictures?
True. Still it's not the focus of the thread either way, so best just let it rest. The debate still does need to live on through other threads though.
"what's better: a set of higher fidelity pictures that are not animated as smoothly vs. a better animated lower fidelity set of pictures?" Is still a very fucking important topic in gaming regardless. I'm just listing differences, because a disturbing amount of people don't have a very good understanding of either side of the debate when I read through other proxy war threads.
TitusGroan
Banned
Lo, my children! Another blessed pulpit from whence to preach the virtue of the one true framerate! Yet more unclaimed souls waiting to be washed of the taint of stutter, and converted to the faith of fluidity! Gather round, my children, and let us clasp our hands together and recite the Prayer of the Holy Order of the One True Framerate.
Our Father who games in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy frames
Thy V-Sync come,
Thy response done, in half the time of thirty
Give us this day our daily threads
And forgive us our refresh rates
As we forgive those who use them against us
Lead us not into stuttering
But deliver us from chug
For thine is the framerate,
The power and the gameplay
Forever and ever
Amen
Rise, my children. Go forth now, and spread the holy truth. Fear not the sharp words of non-believers. For as it is said in John, Chapter 8, verse 7: "Let him who is without chug cast the first stone."
In the name of the One True Framerate, I say Amen!
Our Father who games in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy frames
Thy V-Sync come,
Thy response done, in half the time of thirty
Give us this day our daily threads
And forgive us our refresh rates
As we forgive those who use them against us
Lead us not into stuttering
But deliver us from chug
For thine is the framerate,
The power and the gameplay
Forever and ever
Amen
Rise, my children. Go forth now, and spread the holy truth. Fear not the sharp words of non-believers. For as it is said in John, Chapter 8, verse 7: "Let him who is without chug cast the first stone."
In the name of the One True Framerate, I say Amen!
D
Deleted member 325805
Unconfirmed Member
30fps feels like the game is running in slow motion and it ruins the experience for me, and it's the main reason I stopped console gaming many years ago until recently when I picked up a Wii U. I will always pick performance over graphics.
That's the entire point, though... the movies are not smooth.
Motion blur cannot hide the chop of 24fps, because 24fps is so low that the viewer can temporally distinguish the individual frames.
Here's a fun fact: the shutter speed for The Hobbit was a compromise which was actually on the low end by 24fps standards but on the high end for 48fps video. So in a framerate-relative sense, the 24fps version of The Hobbit is actually less motion-blurred than the HFR version, on top of just plain experiencing more temporal chop thanks to the framerate being low.
Yet the HFR version was the one that "lacked the cinematic look," according to people who complained.
I don't know what you think the "cinematic look" is, but your notion is very different from most people's.
I still console game every now and again but I agree. I'm buying a Wii U soon, but on my PS3, like 1/8th of the games are stuttery chugging pieces of shit that average at about 24 fps, even GTAV is like that. Nintendo has their priorities straight IMO though. Been wanting to play SM3DW since it came out but nobody I know has a Wii U.
You make a very strong point to be quite honest. I don't know if you can say my notion is that different from most people's, most of the people I have seen arguing that 30fps video games tend to be more akin to movies than higher framerate games seem to be arguing a different point than you are. I still think the idea of capping framerate even if the goal is to create the choppy look is a bit absurd, but I will concede that it's not cinematic. Seems pretty legit. OT edited.
xenorevlis
Member
As a filmmaker and game developer, there are absolutely different "feelings" that can be inferred from the way we process imagery at 24, 30, 60, and variable. The lower end being what was sufficient enough to not feel like stuttering images and instead be perceived as full-motion. The higher end can feel like a "soap opera" or "sports" to many because a lot of that content used to be filmed or transmitted at 60 frames (interlaced).
The main difference is perception of moving detail and how often a person is in front of high-frame-rate content In films, you often find very fine and smooth camera work, which reduces a lot of the stutter effect present in 24 frame-per-second pans, tilts, etc. A 3D 48 FPS film like The Hobbit is actually 96 FPS, with 48 being transmitted per-eye. The additional image data at higher-frequency can actually hurt some of the make-up and special effects that would normally blend away to a 24 FPS film that has sufficient motion blur to hide the "seams" or areas where the set meets the set-extension. 30 FPS content is still susceptible to the stuttering effect, both game and TV-show / TV-movies alike.
Those of us who often play games at 60 FPS (or higher), will be more prone to "feel" the shutter effect from films and notice the difference between 30 and 60 more immediately before confirming with the controller in your hand. When we interact with higher-frame-rate media, our eyes can become accustomed to perceive detail that happens to move around faster. There is also a difference between passive viewing and being in the "driver's seat" which is not too different than being able to feel the road and being the one driving, so your passenger is more likely to get a tight stomach going around a bend, because they are passively experiencing your choices.
Example: Someone who gets motion-sickness in a car can also experience this with a game if they aren't the ones controlling the camera and you're playing on a large screen or projector (in relation to your seating), so the camera can be whipping around all over the place because I may be accustomed to playing Battlefield or Rogue Squadron and looking all around me quickly to find the enemy.
The main difference is perception of moving detail and how often a person is in front of high-frame-rate content In films, you often find very fine and smooth camera work, which reduces a lot of the stutter effect present in 24 frame-per-second pans, tilts, etc. A 3D 48 FPS film like The Hobbit is actually 96 FPS, with 48 being transmitted per-eye. The additional image data at higher-frequency can actually hurt some of the make-up and special effects that would normally blend away to a 24 FPS film that has sufficient motion blur to hide the "seams" or areas where the set meets the set-extension. 30 FPS content is still susceptible to the stuttering effect, both game and TV-show / TV-movies alike.
Those of us who often play games at 60 FPS (or higher), will be more prone to "feel" the shutter effect from films and notice the difference between 30 and 60 more immediately before confirming with the controller in your hand. When we interact with higher-frame-rate media, our eyes can become accustomed to perceive detail that happens to move around faster. There is also a difference between passive viewing and being in the "driver's seat" which is not too different than being able to feel the road and being the one driving, so your passenger is more likely to get a tight stomach going around a bend, because they are passively experiencing your choices.
Example: Someone who gets motion-sickness in a car can also experience this with a game if they aren't the ones controlling the camera and you're playing on a large screen or projector (in relation to your seating), so the camera can be whipping around all over the place because I may be accustomed to playing Battlefield or Rogue Squadron and looking all around me quickly to find the enemy.
Muppet of a Man
Member
I agree that it is an important topic; we should probably relay our preference per genre type. For example, for Sim Type racers most people prefer higher frame rate at the expense of graphical effects (See Forza series, Gran Turismo series, Project Cars, etc.). This is the opposite of what many prefer for Arcade Type racers where visual effects may be paramount (see Forza Horizon 1 & 2; Driveclub; PGR series; etc.). For fighters, most people prefer 60 fps since there are so few graphical assets on screen to begin with and most of the time the devs can make a pretty pictures without sacrificing graphical fidelity below what is acceptable for most. We could go on and list out majority preference for most genres in gaming. That could be a useful tool to wield when trying to convince publishers/devs.
This is why I love NeoGAF.
JordanN
Banned
Being an owner of UE4, I can totally understand why developers go for 30fps.
60fps, while smoother, is still very limited. You can't opt for more dynamic lighting. In fact, all it takes is 3 moveable lights with shadow casting to bring a scene down to 15fps.
30fps definitely feels choppier but you can better design your dream game with it. Especially something open world, where interaction becomes important (think collision detection or AI routines for cars).
60fps, while smoother, is still very limited. You can't opt for more dynamic lighting. In fact, all it takes is 3 moveable lights with shadow casting to bring a scene down to 15fps.
30fps definitely feels choppier but you can better design your dream game with it. Especially something open world, where interaction becomes important (think collision detection or AI routines for cars).
I would say it's blatantly obvious that it is, at least if we decide to substitute "the relevant people to the discussion i.e. the people claiming that 60fps isn't 'cinematic'" where I wrote "most people."
Look, one of the primary recent cases of "cinematic look" being brought up as an issue is Hobbit HFR, and the results of that test run completely and totally opposite to what you claim is the "cinematic look"; excessive heaps of 'real' MB and a higher framerate was exactly what was "not cinematic."
What made the 24fps version "more cinematic", if not a lack of smoothness?
Link me? The argument is usually along the lines of 60fps feeling "too smooth", from what I've seen, which agrees with my claim that 30fps is more in line with a "cinematic look" due to being more temporally choppy a.k.a. less smooth.
I will probably start a thread like that one after I feel this list is meaningfully complete, I think a nearly definitive list of pros and cons of one side and the other is an absolutely necessary foundation for any good debate later on. You never know, maybe after a few threads of building a up a strong mostly factual and mostly universal foundation for the debate we could find a much more satisfying, much more definitive answer than "depends on the genre" but until that foundation exists the debate will be mostly mudslinging across various random threads about new games and the like.
Pretty much how I feel.
Why?
The motion blur used in games is very different than what humans experience.
The point of motion blur is to emulate this:
The ultimate result is the same as what you get from a low refresh display.
In my opinion that is still a bad choice. A dream game or anything of the sort should probably be something that is very very playable, and if you can't get the environment you are trying to build to run at a high frame rate now, your best options are either to go for something less ambitious in favour of playability, or wait until you have more powerful hardware and do both.
The thing with The Hobbit wasn't really that it was too smooth itself, but that it was almost smoother than anything anyone had ever seen in real life, there was a hugely uncanny feeling to it, and I think that it wasn't necessarily that people felt the lower framerate version was more cinematic because of the framerate but for other reasons. I think the difference runs a lot deeper than framerate itself, but I still think that games running 30fps games don't feel anymore cinematic than 60fps games, it just feels choppy, it must be something else imo. I am pretty sure people are just subconsciously mistaking another property of film for the framerate. I don't really know though so I removed the point.
EDIT: Now that I think about it, I guess when you are panning a camera really quickly the choppiness from movies does translate half decently into games that are actively trying to emulate movies, but when I'm playing a game like CoD at 60fps and pan the camera really quickly I don't notice any choppiness. I can see if I actively look for it, but I don't notice when I'm not, whereas capped at 30 it's just laggy and frustrating moving the camera, because it is so fucking choppy, but I guess if you are actively emulating a movie that could be important. Either way though movie games are a extremely small minority, and the order itself isn't important enough to anchor the whole discussion, sure it might look a bit more like a movie at a 30fps, but in almost any other case there is no experience of "too smooth."
Novan Leon
Banned
Some comments based on my observations from this thread:
- Some people don't understand the difference between "facts" and subjective opinions.
- There is no such thing as an invalid opinion on something that is subjective.
- Generalizations about everyone are almost always wrong. Everyone is different. (ironically)
- Just because something is logical for you doesn't make it logical for someone else.
CadetMahoney
Member
I don't see how ppl can defend target 30fps other than saying these consoles are underpowered and a balance needs to be met.
Not exactly. Sample-and-hold blur is caused by eye tracking relative to the screen, and it can sometimes behave somewhat similarly to a bad non-object-based motion blur (i.e. one that only accounts for camera rotation by using a constant filter across the screen in the direction of screen-center motion). Even in video games, "decent" motion blur is doing a lot more than that.
That's how people often articulate it, but I suspect it's a quirk in intuition; another common complaint that went right alongside it was that it looked like "actors walking around a set", which means it was evidently an extremely accurate portrayal of real life (just not a cinematic portrayal of middle Earth).
Obviously it's not actually "smoother than real life"; how could your eyes see something more smoothly than actual continuous real-world motion? Using a camera rig can lose some of the jerky texture to how your eyes look around and get yanked around as you walk and whatnot, but you're not increasing your core temporal resolution.
What "other reasons"?
The difference between the two versions of the film is that the 24fps version has half as many frames. What could it be other than the framerate? Aliens and wizards from the Moon?
That's about as close as you can come to a mutually agreeable end to this thread.
I tried to make my list incorporate both nearly heavily favoured opinions and facts. There are plenty of people that confuse them both constantly, but I believe that an opinion or a position that is founded upon misinformation and misunderstanding is invalid in the context of a debate. Not an invalid opinion but an invalid position to hold when discussing something like this. I also didn't generalize as much as it's implied that I did. I think "Pretty much everyone thinks that 60fps is way smoother than 30fps" is a pretty uncontroversial thing, it is mathematically 100% different, and diminishing returns don't start hitting hard till well higher than 60, sure there are people that disagree, but it is a pretty solid generalization imo. Logic is logic.
I don't see how ppl can defend target 30fps other than saying these consoles are underpowered and a balance needs to be met.
Everyone already knows that. Although I would argue that it's not necessarily that the consoles are underpowered but that developers have the priorities completely fucked when they are trying to get seriously overambitious graphics running on console.
I went ahead and shot a couple demo clips.
24.mp4 is shot at 24fps at the film industry standard 1/48 shutter speed. This replicates cinema.
30.mp4 is shot at 30fps with a 1/500 shutter speed, fast enough to eliminate all motion blur. This replicates a videogame.
I conclude that 30.mp4 already looks too smooth to pass as film, so to say 60fps would look MORE filmic is wrong.
Don't know where you came up with that theory anyway.End to that specific argument perhaps. The thread is not about whether or not 30fps is "cinematic," it was just a bullet point I had up that was apparently both wrong and highly controversial, and since having a controversial opinion on a list that exists primarily to be very neutral is counter productive so I deleted it. Move on.
Like I said I don't really know, I pretty much completely lost my point on that one, but I also think that cinematic as an idea tends to be thrown around way way too much in video games in general, and I wouldn't feel right leaving it there as something invalid so I just deleted it. I really don't care about cinematic games at all. Plenty of 30fps games aren't themed the same way.
AI and animation are two different things and wholly unrelated to each other. If by some stretch you are so CPU limited that it simply can't track another NPC anymore, then sure, but that isn't an ANIMATION problem which is governed by the GPU primarially. Generating that additional NPC graphically is another issue, but if that NPC isn't in the field of view, there are tricks around that.
The size of the world you are in would be a more directly relatable thing and how it is rendered.
HyperBitHero
Member
There are no pros to 30fps, because going for it in lieu of 60fps is a con in and of itself.
I went ahead and shot a couple demo clips.
24.mp4 is shot at 24fps at the film industry standard 1/48 shutter speed. This replicates cinema.
30.mp4 is shot at 30fps with a 1/500 shutter speed, fast enough to eliminate all motion blur. This replicates a videogame.
I conclude that 30.mp4 already looks too smooth to pass as film, so to say 60fps would look MORE filmic is wrong.
I really want the thread to carry on from that bullet point because it is now completely irrelevant, but I will pick that apart anway. First of all, there was plenty of motion blur in the 30fps video. Not a lot, but a little bit that was still there. Second, Filming real life faster than film is usually filmed will of course look to fast for film, but there are other aspects to filming real life that still differentiate it from video games in a way that would make 30fps filmed in real life with very little motion blur still far better than a video game running at a similar framerate, but I'm not an expert on the subject, so I would rather just leave it out of the discussion completely. I don't even have the source to the article of someone explaining why 60fps was more similar to film running at 24fps, I can't argue a point that I don't know that well, carry on with the thread please.
Perhaps, but it seems like it's the only reasonable position for someone who would be pushing for a lower framerate with more "pretty". If the game world doesn't have to be interacted with in the same way you would in a game based around any kind of action, be it a platformer, 3rd person action/adventure, fighting games, FPS, whatever; then there seems to be a good case for sacrificing that aspect of it to net better gains in the areas that are most important.
It is absolutely a con in and of itself, which is why the lack of 60fps was put (in a different way) as a con for 30fps. However in a closed console space it is pretty ignorant to say that there is no pros to 30fps.
Oh god wut rewrite that. That is very confusing to read.
Insane Metal
Gold Member
Jesus, this will never stop, will it? :/
This is subjective. It might be hyperbole sometimes, but for some, 30fps can be too much of a hinderance to swallow.
Usually what people mean is that they might be able to see the difference under 'controlled circumstances', but wouldn't notice it in normal situations.
Its a valid point.
Yes, there actually is a real thing as an 'average' consumer. It is hardly a strawman. You might simply be far too used to conversing with people on GAF and forget that for every one of us, there are a dozen people who are far less informed and tech conscious.
I feel this is a perfectly valid point. The way its often used is a bit patronizing at times, but seriously, if you place a high priority on framerate and playability, then PC is absolutely the way to go.
Yup, subjective like you said. This isn't an invalid argument whatsoever.
Don't get me wrong, I swear by 60fps, but I think its really tiring to hear people try and decredit people's opinions on the matter just because they aren't as perceptive on the matter.
Probably not, no.
Uno Venova
Banned
Usually 30FPS is done for better visuals, I would say allowing for better visuals is a plus.
HyperBitHero
Member
Better visuals at a lower framerate is a con in my opinion.
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