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John Carmack: There will still be lots of 30 fps games next generation
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
DangerousDave
Member
Not all the people feel the difference (for example, I barely can notice the difference between 60 fps or stable 30 fps (if it has a slow motion lag time) if I play normally without making specific tests to check it.
But the graphics difference you can see them clearly in any screenshot, video, and in any second that you are playing.
Is the same reason why games are 720 instead of 1080. If you don't have a quite big 1080p screen, is very difficult to see the change in resolution, but aiming 1080 (that means rendering double of pixels) means lower polycount or effects that are much easier to notice.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone considering what most gamers are expecting out of the next console generation. With mind-blowing visuals that everyone wants, the developers are forced to compromise in other departments as the hardware isn't quite up to the task.
SpongeBob NoPants
Member
Actually.. yes.
As someone who grew up with single digit frame rates in the 8-bit era, I know that you very quickly learn to instinctively compensate for slow framerates. You just can't do that when the rates are erratic.
Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have consistently high framerates, but the consistency is the key.
AtomicShroom
Member
What? 95% of NES games were 60fps.
No, not even that. Few N64 games, even first party ones, managed to run at 30fps.
AtomicShroom
Member
TouchMyBox
Member
Thanks, now I really don't have any reason to get hyped and pay the early adopter tax.
SpongeBob NoPants
Member
Maybe, but when you grew up with Commodore PET's, C64's, various Amstrad's, assorted Spectrums and BBC micros, that really wasn't the case.
Anybody who remembers the likes of Elite, the Sentinel and Stunt Car Racer when they were groundbreaking titles knows what I'm talking about. You... not so much.
N64 Mario Kart is really slow paced, so it gets away with the lower frame rate. Games like Forza or F-Zero would be much more difficult to play. I find its the little adjustments you need to make while cornering. Your reaction time is essentially halved with 30 fps.
I think exposure to some PC titles from that period (or even just the early 90s) can be enough though. Sort of amazed at how Ultima 7 is 10 FPS at best actually, was expecting it to be a smoother running game.
This may also explain why 30 FPS in, say, Rayman Origins 3DS bugs me. I'm used to my 2D platformers being at 60 reliably, so 30 isn't acceptable when there's versions that I can play which aren't.
Genesis Knight
Member
Godmack has spoken. So let it be written, so let it be done.
The VC version runs happily at a 30fps (at a higher native res too). The N64 original didn't, even in single player.
Zelda OoT and MM were capped at 20fps (a lowly 17fps for the PAL versions). I'm not sure about Mario 64, but think it might have held 30fps.
This is one of those cases where I hope he's wrong. Hell, he probably hopes he's wrong too.
SpongeBob NoPants
Member
There's a good deal of sense in that. I find that the expectations of people who grew up playing consoles are quite different to those of people who grew up with home computers (of whatever denomination).
Genesis Knight
Member
I agree with you.
Nizz
Member
I'd actually like to see that too.
NullPointer
Member
With so many chasing after that COD money why is is that they always copy the wrong damn parts?
60fps is a very, very, very good thing.
60fps is a very, very, very good thing.
There is little developer incentive for it is why they aren't made. Screenshots sell games. 60 FPS is not enough of a competitive advantage in sales to: 1 bother 2 cut down elsewhere if needed.
Console makers can't really make it a TRC to enforce it across the board either.
specialguy
Banned
Anybody here want Uncharted 3 at 60 FPS with significantly pared back visuals?
Didn't think so.
Didn't think so.
Would be nice but I don't think any developers have gotten traction with the idea this generation.
NullPointer
Member
We're talking next generation. How about just Uncharted 3 visuals at 60fps?
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/insomniac-60fps-no-more
Insomniac bowed out of the 60fps game for this reason. It seems to be Japanese devs are more likely to cling to the 60fps ideal, but even that has been changing this gen
Agreed. I would love to have a 60fps future, but I'd take 30fps over freakin' lag
lag seriously needs to go
specialguy
Banned
Because your choice here will be "way better than UC3 visuals at 30 FPS" or "UC3 visuals unchanged at 60 FPS" (well, actually next gen should be able to do way better than UC3 unchanged at 60, but I'm simplifying for example)
Guess which one most people want?
The generation thing is such a red herring. EVERY. GAME. THIS generation or any generation can be 60 FPS. All it requires is a visual tradeoff.
In PS2 era they were saying "man, next gen, when we have all this insane power at our disposal, every game will be 60 FPS!". Just like some of you are saying about next gen consoles today. And you'll be wrong again.
Gah how can people not understand this, it's so obvious.
ScreenSplitter
Member
This guy certainly spends a lot of time making extravagant statements. Get back to work on Doom 4 *whipcrack*
Callibretto
Member
Well the hope is that the cost of making a much better looking titles is getting high enough that they will settle to a more acceptable budget and spend the extra power on image quality and framerate...
Schweinehund
Member
Multiplayer = 60 fps
Singleplayer = Locked 30
That's how I see it though. I'd rather have spectacular visuals for immersion and smooth gameplay for competitive play.
Singleplayer = Locked 30
That's how I see it though. I'd rather have spectacular visuals for immersion and smooth gameplay for competitive play.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
Not sure if serious..
NullPointer
Member
For my part I'm more than happy with whatever level of visual quality allows the game to maintain 60fps without jaggies or tearing.
I don't think its asking too much to want smooth gameplay all the time.
CitizenCope
Member
I'm sorry you're missing out. I'll take 60 fps with lesser graphics any day.
Portugeezer
Gold Member
Why would they stop?
Dreams-Visions
Member
duh?
they'll just keep pushing 'raphics effects n' shit until stuff can't run any faster.
they'll just keep pushing 'raphics effects n' shit until stuff can't run any faster.
That's one of the things I find ironic, the games still look really nice to me and it's probably one of the GOOD things to copy, but few will do that while copying stuff that we could use less of (extreme linearity/scripting, damn near every multiplayer game having levels and unlockables).
It's kind of ironic how things started flipping around in the 32-bit era too. Though on the PS1 it was hard to get 60 FPS unless you murdered detail; look at Tobal 1, an extreme case where visual detail is sacrificed for high resolution and 60 FPS.
There will always be a few crazy showpiece games, and I'm more than fine with that! But we have reached the point where we can still cram a solid amount of detail and effects while remaining 60 FPS (CoD games, Bayonetta, RAGE), so it gets exasperating that as the generation draws to a close we're starting to see games that don't even reach 30.
And... no, we do understand. Most of us would like to see 60 FPS, but know we probably won't. At best, it'll be like from PS1 to PS2 where we suddenly saw a lot more games at 60 FPS, and quite a few at a stable 30 FPS, simply because power increased by so much. It's like I said before, we're going to have to reach a point where developers really don't know what to do with all the power they have that they default to 60 FPS, or at least if we enter rapid diminishing returns and need to do something like Witcher 2's ubersampling to get enough of an improvement to kill FPS. Though I half expect a good chunk of developers WOULD rather flip that ubersampling on than go with 60 FPS.
Because 60fps works great for COD (the game other publishers want to beat), even if most fans can't tell what it is that makes the game feel better.
This. Hopefully those Respawn guys were the group that knew how to make a great 60 fps game.
For people who seriously expected it versus just wanting to see it: they may be thinking "More power, so like PC they can run at 60 FPS!", though part of the reason PC can even do that is they traditionally had to keep in mind weaker systems, and nowadays a lot of them are developed with consoles in mind first and foremost, they'd have to go out of their way to make the PC versions run at 30 FPS anymore.
Since wireless controller input lag is 4 to 9 times greater than the time between between 1 30 FPS frame and a 60 FPS frame, it is an utterly meaningless difference between the two. Add in TV lag and the difference is further dimished.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
CoD would be a hot mess at 30fps. I don't think people realize how fast it plays compared to other shooters in the genre.
Agreed. I'd like it if 60fps became the standard with console shooters like it has with fighters and racers. It became sort of an unspoken rule for those genres. The probable reason why this didn't happen with shooters is because most of them come from former PC devs who haven't had to deal with such strict hardware ceilings. I wish more of them would notice the difference Call of Duty's framerate makes.
Kaijima said:
Starting to remind me of the N64 really. Even then, there were a few N64 games that I remember claimed to run at 60.
EatinOlives
Member
Actually, the human mind has a minimum FPS for what it considers the illusion of motion. I believe it's something like 12 FPS.
But I'm just nitpicking. Generally, a framerate that jumps erratically between 40-60 is worse than one that stays at a consistent 30.
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
There is absolutely no reason to believe that better hardware will translate directly into more games running at 60fps. Big budget titles, aside from the twitch shooters like COD, will continue to maximize the more salient aspects of visuals and image quality at the expense of framerate. One reason, for example, is that promo materials don't show 60fps, generally speaking.
I could, however, imagine a scenario in which smaller games, the kinds we see on XBLA and PSN, don't improve their graphics enough to strain the new hardware (because they don't need to due to lower expectations, or they can't due to lower budgets), and as a result can run at 60fps.
I could, however, imagine a scenario in which smaller games, the kinds we see on XBLA and PSN, don't improve their graphics enough to strain the new hardware (because they don't need to due to lower expectations, or they can't due to lower budgets), and as a result can run at 60fps.
Do you have any figures for the lag of current-gen wireless controllers? Tests from Shoryuken dudes point to the PS3 and 360 wireless controllers having less than one frame of lag, so I'd like to know where your "4 to 9 times greater than [16ms]" is coming from.
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Who the heck played that SP though? 99% of the time I was playing MP. 2 player wasn't THAT bad. 3 player got pretty rough, and 4 players was just ZOMG that framerate. Hell on some of the courses/arenas like the big doughnut when you looked at the "lava" shit was like a slide show.
Despite all of that I put in hundreds upon hundreds of hours into it anyways.