• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Food for thought for those who don't care about 60fps.

hesido

Member
Either you're trolling or just sadly ignorant. I'll say if you think there are 65,000 characters on screen at any point in that video you need your vision checked. The rest, well you either know how they achieved those visuals or you don't and I'll just leave you to your ignorance.

Way to downplay the technical mastery of that game. Yes, the AI is dumb, but what they have done is incredible with the hardware at hand. Anyway, what RJC571 said was to counter the 1-2 enemies argument with an extreme example that maintained 60fps.
 

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Either you're trolling or just sadly ignorant. I'll say if you think there are 65,000 characters on screen at any point in that video you need your vision checked. The rest, well you either know how they achieved those visuals or you don't and I'll just leave you to your ignorance.

You never played this Musou clone have you?
 

AmyS

Member
Very appropriate for this thread..

30 FPS was the BEST in 3D polygon hardware for the arcade in 1990.

aZxYqGQ.jpg


QLQpv2q.jpg


N33gGvV.jpg


Totally blew away Atari's polygon games of the time like Hard Drivin' , S.T.U.N. Runner, Race Drivin' and Steel Talons.
 

Gusy

Member
Very appropriate for this thread..

30 FPS was the BEST in 3D polygon hardware for the arcade in 1990.



Totally blew away Atari's polygon games of the time like Hard Drivin' , S.T.U.N. Runner, Race Drivin' and Steel Talons.

This is too cool for words. My mind would've been blown if I saw this in 1990.
 

nkarafo

Member
Very appropriate for this thread..

30 FPS was the BEST in 3D polygon hardware for the arcade in 1990.
Thats great. In 1990, 3D graphics (even non-textured) running at 30fps was a step forward. Now, imagine if 4 years later, Daytona (and all these Model 2 games) were 15 or 20 fps (which is the equivalent of what happens today). That would have been a step back, despite the fact that the 3D graphics themselves looked better. But not only the games didn't have slower frame rate, they doubled that 30 and made it 60. So you had both better graphics AND frame rate.

That's the idea. The industry moves forward with better technology and experience = rising the standards, having more expectations and less compromises in general.
 
Im 34 and have gamed since forever ago. I sincerely do not care about FPS as long as its stable. What bothers me is when it jumps. Keep it at 30 or keep it or close to 60 and I really don't care. I have no problem going to between games that are different. I sure as hell can tell the difference, but it Im fine with either one.

I sure as hell do not like 60 fps TV or movies though. Ive watched some 60 fps webms on my tv and did not like it at all.
 

AmyS

Member
The Tekken series would never have been as good if the games ran at 30fps.

Also, Soul Edge on System 11 in arcades and on PlayStation (Soul Blade in the west) was only 30 FPS.

However, I'm actually *glad* Soul Edge was 30fps. It was a truly beautiful game in arcades and on PS1, with real-time day/night transitions, something I really missed in the SoulCalibur games.

VoRtqn7.jpg


4XKoN0w.jpg


jo1LiwN.jpg


pggWg1B.jpg


This is one of the few exceptions I make for frame rate. Given System 11 / PS1's capability, the graphics & lighting could not have been made so beautifully if run at the higher frame rate.


The next game, the first Soulcalibur, was 60fps in arcades on System 12 (same as Tekken 3), yet only got really popular with the heavily upgraded Dreamcast remaster in 1999, which got a 720p HD release on 360 XBLA.

IIMSKOu.jpg
 

AmyS

Member
I didn't know what framerate was back then, but I thought Soul Edge was hella choppy.

Yeah Soul Edge / Soul Blade on PS1 and System 11 arcade was indeed 30 FPS. Loved the game but the franchise wasn't taken seriously until SoulCal on System 12 and later Dreamcast with 60FPS play. Dreamcast upgraded the graphics big time but the framerate was already 60 in arcades.
 

Zebetite

Banned
I attribute part of it to a new generation of gamers who grew up on N64s and PS1s and have dramatically less experience playing games at 60 fps than people who grew up during the era of 2d games. People who grew up playing fucking Perfect Dark, of all things. 30fps is a godsend compared to that. Diminishing returns dictates that the difference between 60 and 30 is less severe. It will only matter to you if 60's what you already know best.
 

DeadTrees

Member
In 1990, 3D graphics (even non-textured) running at 30fps was a step forward.
Oh, make up your frigging mind already. From your OP:

nkarafo said:
Why people stopped caring about smooth motion? Heck, even on 8bit/16bit consoles 99% of games were 60fps (synced with the 60hz of TVs). Why isn't this a thing anymore? Is it that games became so mainstream and all the casual gamers don't care for anything except flashy effects and pretty pictures?
But now 60 FPS -> 30 FPS in 1990 was just peachy, because of...flashy effects and pretty pictures?

The industry moves forward

Whoa whoa whoa, "the" industry? You don't realize that consumer displays, consumer GPUs, game hardware, and game production are four different things?
 

Jabba

Banned
I have been gaming since 1979. Like another poster said, 60fps is nice, but it's not going to be a deal breaker for me.

I want a good, memorable game that is going to make me want to play it again. 60fps is not a necessity in that equation, it would only be a bonus.

Since about 73 here. I care but same as you, it's no deal breaker. I could play Skyrim loaded with mods at 12-15 fps. at times, with the regular fps being 25-30 for the most part.
 

AmyS

Member
I don't buy / play games best solely on framerate. I buy / play games based on how they appeal to me, if they're fun and addictive or just captivating. I also don't count (single) frames.

But with that said, 30 vs 60 FPS does make a huge difference to me with the perception of motion.

Everybody's eyes & brains are different though.

I would never say a 30fps game is "unplayable". Even a 20fps game isn't unplayable.

The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time was at or around 20fps on Nintendo 64 in 1998.
I do understand why it couldn't be 30fps like Mario 64 was. OoT was a much larger, more complex game world than Mario 64. OoT's polygon world was also more textured and had more lighting from what I can recall of that version.

The framerate of Gamecube port of OoT & Master's Quest was more or less the same, if not exactly the same

OoT 3D on 3DS was a smoother 30fps in 2011, in addition to having better graphics including textures, not even counting stereoscopic 3D. Made a big difference.

Does anyone remember that Mario Sunshine on GameCube was originally 60fps ?

The very early Space World 2001 footage and the near-final E3 2002 version were both 60fps but just before release a few months later, Sunshine was capped at 30fps. And the fact that Youtube only displays 30fps has nothing to do with it. You can still tell both trailers were running at a smoother rate. I remember CNN showing part of the Sunshine trailer and being in awe of how smooth it looked in motion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arvnhNPUrl0
Again, despite the fact Youtube isn't giving you a real 60fps video, most people should be able to tell the E3 2002 version is smoother than the final game.
(read the comments too)

Edit: compare the above to this other 2002 Mario Sunshine trailer where the game is running at only 30fps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP9D2TSA9VI
 

geordiemp

Member
Strange thread - game makers of course want to do 60 FPS on every game, the issue is its only 'easier' on

- 2D type games / platformers
- racing games
- fighting games
- games with fixed camera

60 FPS is harder for a third or first person game where player has full camera control just judging by console game results.

We are starting to see more 3rd / 1st person type games at 60 , like Wolfenstein / TLOU and it feels good, but these require allot of effort from devs.

Nintendo just happen to make games that are easier to do in 60 FPS - racing / 2d and fixed camera, nothing to see here....move along. If a free roam Zelda type game was 60 that would be news worthy...
 
Born in '75. played everything. I could give a rats ass about resolution or framerate. All I care about is if I like the game or not. This current gens focus on framerate and resolution is beyond ridiculous. The minority (Pc users, people that bitch on forums) are given way too much credence these days.
 

AmyS

Member
I'd say the best example of all came fairly late in the PS1-era.

Namco made it a point to show people the difference between 30fps and 60fps with the bonus disc that came with R4: Ridge Racer Type 4.

On the disc they gave us some notes about the development of R4 and how they decided that only 30fps was possible for that game with all the graphical advancements they made.

However, in their notes, they said something like their R&D did not goto waste. Part of the engine / testbed was used to make a graphically improved version of the first RR at 60fps.
They included a demo of the original 1994 30fps PS1 port and a demo of RR at 60fps with improved shading, textures.

This was called Ridge Racer Turbo Mode, or the Ridge Racer Hi-Spec Demo, depending on the territory.


Edit: Namco's notes from R4's bonus disc

bfEoF7n.jpg

PDcBEZh.jpg

GWmFdso.jpg

zaWjaiC.jpg


This was the PS1-N64 era. It would have been a lot less remarkable if Namco or any dev had done something like this during the PS2 era, with all the extra power consoles of that gen had.

So those of you who have a complete R4, go ahead get that 2nd disc out and play in on a PS1 / PSone (rather than the backward compatible PS2 just so do don't start to think for a second the higher framerate is because of PS2 greater performance, even tho it's not).


With that said, with modern HD consoles, starting with the Xbox 360 forward, there are many reasons why devs choose to target 30fps for most games. More impressive graphics will sell a game far more than a higher framerate will. Better graphics are more instantly impressive to the majority of people buying games.

30fps is just fine for many types of games. The amount of things Rockstar is adding to the upcoming Grand Theft Auto V remaster on current consoles would not be possible at 60fps, even on PS4.

The traffic, oh look at all that traffic ;)

elawxs.gif


gadbau.gif
 

Fredrik

Member
Strange thread - game makers of course want to do 60 FPS on every game, the issue is its only 'easier' on

- 2D type games / platformers
- racing games
- fighting games
- games with fixed camera

60 FPS is harder for a third or first person game where player has full camera control just judging by console game results.

We are starting to see more 3rd / 1st person type games at 60 , like Wolfenstein / TLOU and it feels good, but these require allot of effort from devs.

Nintendo just happen to make games that are easier to do in 60 FPS - racing / 2d and fixed camera, nothing to see here....move along. If a free roam Zelda type game was 60 that would be news worthy...
Metroid Prime serie is 60fps though with full camera freedom etc. I'd say that it's all about priority and downporting from more powerful PCs. If the devs think it's important that the visuals are great and the downporting from PC doesn't show much they probably can't go for 60fps on console.

As for myself, I've always thought that 60 fps does more for the visuals than both high resolution and lots of graphics effects. The stuttering at 30 fps destroys any attempt to make a game pretty imo. And I just bought my first real gaming PC and the framerate might have become even more important for me now, I've been trying out a bunch of games I have on console too and playing a 20-30fps console game at 100+ fps on a 144hz screen is almost like playing a whole new game. Never thought I would say this but right now it feels like console games is in serious need of having 60fps as standard now for me to buy anything but exclusives on console.
 
Why is "perfectly playable" good enough? Did you ever order a meal at McDonalds and say to yourself "That meal was totally acceptable! Who needs gourmet restaurants?"

The difference is, all the gourmet snobs are saying we should get rid of all the McDonalds because their food is better why would anyone want totally acceptable food.

I don't eat a lot of gourmet food but I don't begrudge people that want it unlike the 60fps snobs that look down on us 30fps liking peasants.
 

petran79

Banned
when I saw that thing at 60 fps in the arcade booth, together with the stomp sfx, my jaw dropped!

The-Lost-World-game%20_a.jpg


or playing this game at the arcades. western arcade fighters at that time were mostly style over substance. gameplay was really bad. Even the original Virtua Fighter had much better controls and gameplay.

Primal Rage and Killer Instinct on the arcades were superior, yet except the cool graphics and the solid FPS, they werent something you'd remember as classics later on. Replayability was very low.

QgCWPx.jpg


Mortal Kombat 4 was the prime example of how to make a bad arcade game, despite having the best hardware.

when western developers stopped producing arcade games and arcades dwindled over here, Japanese arcades had to be limited to Japan. this was quite a blow to arcade technology.

at that time no one could see it coming. but most arcades were mainly for displaying technology instead of good games. Tying those games at 1 coin buy-ins was very limiting. Arcade costs would rise too, so something that was a cheap choice for superior gaming, became an expensive hobby. Tried recently Terminator Salvation. Mediocre game overall, I didnt even feel the need to insert another coin.

In the early 90s ratio of 1 arcade credit to an inferior retail console version ranged from 1/300 to 1/400. Today it is 1/60 or even lower and game is basically the same version.

even though I liked that era too, I certainly will not miss it. During that time you had countless manufacturers of electronics, competing with each other or getting funded and giving consumers the best in consoles, computers and arcades. Most of those now focus on other aspects of technology.

for all the good things, you have also to consider the negative aspects

Now all that remains are Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Nvidia, AMD, Intel and cheap computers. Due to lower competition and the worse state of the economy worldwide, we should be content that games reached the state they are now.
 

Thrakier

Member
The difference is, all the gourmet snobs are saying we should get rid of all the McDonalds because their food is better why would anyone want totally acceptable food.

I don't eat a lot of gourmet food but I don't begrudge people that want it unlike the 60fps snobs that look down on us 30fps liking peasants.

Gourmet snobs? To me, 60fps is not gourmet. It's the standard, a pretty basic ingredient every cook with the smallest knowledge about his craftmanship will include. Also, McDonald's is not totally acceptable.
 
I never heard of people caring about fps then much, black borders on Daytona though...
Yea FPS was never brought up back in the 90s like it is now.

The only time I ever remember FPS being brought up was if the FPS was so low it dramatically affected the playability of the game.

DOOM on 3DO without shrinking the screen size is a good example that was mentioned back then.

DOOM on Saturn was almost just as bad.
 

Eusis

Member
But now 60 FPS -> 30 FPS in 1990 was just peachy, because of...flashy effects and pretty pictures?
3D CAN enable different types of gameplay, and usually those earlier, lower fps 3D games WERE doing something you couldn't get in 2D. And I think industry's just shorthand for all of those: development's matured, hardware's matured, it's becoming less and less a matter of what can/can't be done gameplay wise and more what they're willing to sacrifice in visual quality and extras.
The difference is, all the gourmet snobs are saying we should get rid of all the McDonalds because their food is better why would anyone want totally acceptable food.

I don't eat a lot of gourmet food but I don't begrudge people that want it unlike the 60fps snobs that look down on us 30fps liking peasants.
It's probably more like a health food craze: 60 fps undermines the graphical quality but provides smoother, more responsive gameplay, and similarly it IS possible to make really good looking games at 60 fps (even easier with each successive generation) but depending on what you even want that may be harder, nevermind that sometimes suboptimal coding will just make a game run less smoothly, much like how some food's very unhealthy yet tastes like shit.

PC is where the gourmet snobbery kicks in. Yes let's have it both, or if it's going to be prioritizing graphical quality over high fps it will be decadent.
 

Enco

Member
I'd like to know out of the people who don't care, how many are console gamers and how many PC.

If I had to guess, console gamers don't care about FPS while PC gamers do. With exceptions obviously.
 

Thrakier

Member
I'd like to know out of the people who don't care, how many are console gamers and how many PC.

If I had to guess, console gamers don't care about FPS while PC gamers do. With exceptions obviously.

Console gamer by heart, PC gamer for a few years again (was already in the 90s between PS1 and PS2/DC aind in between on/off). But I ALWAYS cared about framerate. Always. I wasn't as used to 60 as I'm now, so I could enjoy most 30FPS games, but games with shit framerates like GTA etc. always bothered me. Now with my brain used to 60FPS, 30FPS are unplayable. I feel disconnected from the experience, it's stuttering, the animation seem off...it's plain bad.

To me, framerate is all about craftsmanship. And that is something that just got lost in the mass producing of videogames for a mass market. ND leading the way back may be the beginning of something great in the future, we will see. 30FPS will die anyway, since VR can't work with framerates that low.
 
If I had the choice, I'd definitely go for 720P60 over 1080P30 for consoles, or some setting that lowers graphics settings. I'm still bummed about Bayonetta not running at its best on PS3, as well as Vanquish. I don't care about graphics as much as I do about responsive controls and not having gameplay interrupted by anything.
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
The difference is, all the gourmet snobs are saying we should get rid of all the McDonalds because their food is better why would anyone want totally acceptable food.

I don't eat a lot of gourmet food but I don't begrudge people that want it unlike the 60fps snobs that look down on us 30fps liking peasants.
The problem is that for the consoles it's a zero sum game. You don't get to choose between 30fps and 60fps except in The Last of Us. So, to use the same analogy, the people that don't mind McDonald's are the justification for not offering steak at the same price. You don't want the non-discerning to get the monopoly on choice.

I can understand if a design is too ambitious for 60fps (like a sandbox game with a huge draw distance) but if the trade-off is graphics or resolution then I think the choice should be offered.
 
The problem is that for the consoles it's a zero sum game. You don't get to choose between 30fps and 60fps except in The Last of Us. So, to use the same analogy, the people that don't mind McDonald's are the justification for not offering steak at the same price. You don't want the non-discerning to get the monopoly on choice.

I can understand if a design is too ambitious for 60fps (like a sandbox game with a huge draw distance) but if the trade-off is graphics or resolution then I think the choice should be offered.

Those same people can just choose a PC if they care so much about FPS. fact is consoles in order to keep a mass market price point have to make compromises the compromise thus far has been in Framerate rather than in graphics since you can't market framerate all that much like you can graphics.
 
Yes, they did stop releasing games for those systems right? And those people playing emulators and indies, they must be masochists!

That's entirely my point. Some people care about visuals, others don't. If nobody did, we would all still be playing NES games. More to the point, some people (like me) care about framerate above poly/pixelcount. That's why to me FTL and Shovel Knight are very attractive, while sub-20 AAA games aren't.
 

sono

Member
60 makes a big difference to me too. Racing games at 30 is very bad. It is good in this gen we are seeing a lot of developers targeting 1080p 60fps. We have waited too long..
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
Those same people can just choose a PC if they care so much about FPS. fact is consoles in order to keep a mass market price point have to make compromises the compromise thus far has been in Framerate rather than in graphics since you can't market framerate all that much like you can graphics.
There are a lot of console exclusives, and ultimately you can market anything you want. People didn't know what blast processing is. Plus, YouTube will support 60fps across the board soon.

I think the data will show that the people that aren't that discerning about framerates aren't that discerning about graphics either. Minecraft isn't exactly a graphical powerhouse, and yet it sold over 54 million copies. But there's a chance that, for certain genres, people will enjoy the higher framerate experience more even though they don't know why.
 

Pimpwerx

Member
NTSC and PAL were both interlaced. Contrary to the op, you didn't actually get 60fps, since you were only getting half the frame every 1/60th of a second. Fields don't equal frames.

Even then, games regularly had slowdown and stutter. Trying to paint the past as a silky smooth experience is a laugh. I don't remember playing anything at smooth frame rates outside of the arcades. Even Sonic and its blast processing dropped frames. PEACE.
 

HTupolev

Member
NTSC and PAL were both interlaced. Contrary to the op, you didn't actually get 60fps, since you were only getting half the frame every 1/60th of a second. Fields don't equal frames.
Console games outputting 240p messed with the signal timings to force the CRT to treat fields as all even or all odd, which meant that you got an actual progressive-scanned frame 60 times per second. It was not interlaced.

There's an argument to be made that field-rendered 480i60 games aren't "60fps", but that's wishy-washy semantics; the game is still doing a full fresh geometry pass 60 times per second, and the appearance of motion and the responsiveness you get isn't a very far cry from 60fps progressive games. It doesn't really mess up the argument the OP is making.
 

Pimpwerx

Member
Console games outputting 240p messed with the signal timings to force the CRT to treat fields as all even or all odd, which meant that you got an actual progressive-scanned frame 60 times per second. It was not interlaced.

There's an argument to be made that field-rendered 480i60 games aren't "60fps", but that's wishy-washy semantics; the game is still doing a full fresh geometry pass 60 times per second, and the appearance of motion and the responsiveness you get isn't a very far cry from 60fps progressive games. It doesn't really mess up the argument the OP is making.
Never heard once in my life that consoles ever overrode the signal, but you're also saying the games are outputting at 240p, to an NTSC standard the supports 480 vertical lines.

The rate the inputs are read at means nothing if you're not outputting a full 480p frame every 1/60th of a second. Interlacing require half the fillrate. Same as choosing between 1080p and 720p or 30 vs 60fps. You have to compromise to get the higher frame rate. However, most games don't need that high a level of responsoveness, which is why most games don't run at 60fps. As I noted before, most games in the past had slowdown and stutter anyway. Hell, I always thought games should've aimed for 85Hz if anything. That's the point where things start to become truly flicker-free for me anyway. Otherwise, 30fps is fine. Modern games run smoother than games in the past. PEACE.
 

HTupolev

Member
Never heard once in my life that consoles ever overrode the signal, but you're also saying the games are outputting at 240p, to an NTSC standard the supports 480 vertical lines.
In practice, using SD CRTs, NTSC simply supports 240-line fields, that can be scanned into even or odd positions on the screen at 60 fields per second. If you set up the signals to tell the TV that all fields are odd (or all even), it scans every field into the same location on-screen. Obviously the vertical line separation is high when this is done, which is why 240p60 console games experience the "scanlines" effect.

They're not really "overwriting" the signal, they're just using it in a way that wouldn't be considered "standard" in broadcast television.

(Incidentally, modern flat panel TVs are sometimes more picky about the signals since they're not just scanning them in an analog-ish manner out as they come in, and will usually have some issue or another with "240p NTSC.")

The rate the inputs are read at means nothing if you're not outputting a full 480p frame every 1/60th of a second.
That's simply not true. Even if the entire 480 lines aren't getting updated 60 times per second, field-rendered 480i60 still gives you a visual response every 17ms.

You could argue that it's not as valuable as 480p60, but to say it "means nothing" is just plain silly. (Especially when, on an interlaced display, 480i 30fps video suffers from very significant combing; field-rendered 480i60 actually results in a boost to spatial cleanliness of the image in addition to the obvious increased temporal smoothness. I personally suspect that this is part of why AAA games seemed to target 60fps more frequently in the 6th gen than the 7th.)

Interlacing require half the fillrate. Same as choosing between 1080p and 720p or 30 vs 60fps. You have to compromise to get the higher frame rate.
Well yeah, I'm not disagreeing with that. Lots of things have compromises.

Modern games run smoother than games in the past.
Eighth-gen consoles certainly seem to be making strides over seventh-gen, but my experience certainly hasn't been one of monotonic improvement.
 

Sothpaw

Member
60fps is a huge factor in my enjoyment of games. 30 and below just feels sloppy. I primarily game on PC though so it is never an issue for me.
 
Top Bottom