brandonh83 said:
It's true, most of the time I don't really take note of it. I take note when it actually becomes noticeable and makes me go "oh my god," like when I was watching the 360 ver. stream yesterday. That, to me, was a horrible framerate drop. I found nothing like that, not even close, in the demo. It was low, but remained steady for me. So yeah, you're right-- this probably isn't the debate for me at all and I see the error of my ways. I'm no technical guru, I just know when something is bad or good enough for me personally and I do also want to note that I'm much bigger on texturing and overall picture quality (contrast, colors, etc.) than I am framerate. If a game has an incredibly high framerate but everything else sucks, I'm not a fan. But Castlevania, while not having a high framerate, excels in so many other ways that yeah, I don't really mind.
Please use paragraphs
That's an _entirely_ valid viewpoint.
You're only going to draw hatred when you start commenting on the facts of framerate without any knowledge of the subject - if you don't know, and you don't care, and it doesn't bother you, why go out of your way to antagonize people who do?
Fact: Higher framerates can have more responsive gameplay. If you want to understand more about why this matters, go read this excellent article on response times:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-lag-factor-article - and ever watched an EVO tournament? There were competitors complaining about the _video lag_ added from some of the televisions used. That's a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of gamers, but everyone knows the KZ2 complaints about mushy controls, and this is one of the reasons why.
Fact: Higher framerates are visually smoother - this can only be accomplished at lower framerates through the use of motion blur, and that requires both a steady, locked framerate and the technical and artistic expertise to make sure it looks *good*
Fact: Lower framerates typically trade off framerate for a higher level of visual effects. This doesn't mean that 'all 60fps look worse' any more than it means 'all 30fps games look better', it just means that with limited hardware power, you have to choose what to focus on, and there will be tradeoffs.
There are a _host_ of related issues to fps problems including
Displayed resolution (MY GAME ISN'T 1080P???)
Field of view in FPS games, which has been constantly cut over the years (sometimes causing nausea, and if you want to hear angry howling, find a cross-platform title that doesn't allow PC users to set their fov)
VSync - often sacrificed on the altar of framerate. There's nothing more beautiful than a game locked at 60fps solid with Vsync on and no tearing whatsoever, but pulling that off is difficult. Even pulling off 30fps with a locked framerate is hard to do (played Glacier in Reach recently?). With Vsync on, you get full-scene framerate drop to a lower level if your framerate isn't locked, without it, you get nasty visual tearing.
Antialiasing - another victim, full scene AA isn't cheap, particularly on top of all the
other effects that get piled onto games these days.
For you to say 'Framerate doesn't bother me, I think it looks great', that's totally cool, but to say 'Framerate doesn't bother me also games look more artistic/better/more movie like/cooler/special at 24 fps than 60 fps', that's pure bullshit.
*sigh*
Sorry for the derail again, this shit should go off on it's own thread. I just fucking hate the '30fps is ok' crew coming out of the woodwork every time gripes with a game's framerates come up. Most of the arguments 'for' 30fps (why the fuck are there ever arguments for 30fps) are backed up by a lot of 'I think, I feel, I'm ok with' and not a lot of 'Here's some actual reasons 30fps is superior!' (hint: It's not, ever. 30fps means you're accepting reduced framerate and responsiveness in exchange for more graphical effects, possibly at the cost of _other_ visual features).
... can it be Tuesday now? I'm sick at home and I'd like to play Castlevania
