Framerates Matter [Slashdot]

[DP ServBot]

An anonymous reader writes "As more and more games move away from 60fps, the myth of the human eye only being able to detect 30fps keeps popping up. What's more, most people don't seem to realize the numerous advantages of a high framerate, and there's plenty of those."http://games.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&op=image&style=h0&sid=10/01/06/1428226 (http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/01/06/1428226/Framerates-Matter?from=rss)
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[b0ub0u]

For myself... I REALLY see the difference. I can pop any game and tell you after 5 secs if it's running 20, 30 or 60 FPS.

First person shooters have to be played at 60fps and above to be playable on a competitive level. Halo is a joke at 30fps.

Same thing for racing games, the first Forza was 30fps and my god.. was this hard on the eyes! Also the controls are MUCH tighter at 60fps.

I do not care what people say... but I think in the end it may be that some people do not see it... and some people will see it. It's the same as the refresh rate on a monitor.. if it's below 75hz, it will give me a headache after 1 min looking at it! And other people will have their monitor set at 60hz for years and never complain.

Every human being is different I guess. We see what other people cannot. For me framerate is the most important thing I check when I plan on getting a game.

[diskoboy]

I thought the myth was no human could see over 150 FPS...

I can notice the difference between 60 and 120fps, easily. It's 30 and 60fps I have a hard time distinguishing...

[chrisbid]

the atari friggin 2600 could render games at 60fps

its extremely annoying that game companies push higher 'quality' graphics over a great frame rate

[kedawa]

Well, they'll need to get their shit together and start getting consistent 120Hz refresh rates to use the super-duper 3D shutter glasses, so hitting 60fps should be the bare minimum.

[b0ub0u]

its extremely annoying that game companies push higher 'quality' graphics over a great frame rate

AMEN to this!

The thing is that the new generation are used to this so they do not even notice the drop in gameplay! They like shiny graphics, blooming effect, super physics.. at the expense of having a game that run at 20fps lol. I don't want my games to look like a powerpoint presentation!

[alexkidd2000]

AMEN to this!

The thing is that the new generation are used to this so they do not even notice the drop in gameplay! They like shiny graphics, blooming effect, super physics.. at the expense of having a game that run at 20fps lol. I don't want my games to look like a powerpoint presentation!

EA racing games need to learn this!! Even Shift had problems especially on the PS3. I had it for both 360 and PS3 and I could not play it on PS3 at all. The lower framerate kills the sense of speed. I have my G25 wheel for PS3 though so I was fuxored either way :(

[Ed Oscuro]

The article hits all the main points about why it's not just straight-up FPS, so there's no reason to rehash those. I'm sure we've had this conversation recently though.

I'm out of the loop for consoles, mainly, but it seems to me the natural progression would be for early games to have better framerates and less details, while later games tend to have more detail at the expense of framerate. That's the theory, anyway - obviously it doesn't match up to reality all the time.

We're actually overdue for the hardware getting revved, but we all know there's a few good reasons that's on hold for a while.

[TonyTheTiger]

For me the framerate itself isn't as important as the consistency. I'll take a solid 30fps over 60fps that dips from time to time.

There are, in fact, situations where I think a lower framerate might be more aesthetically pleasing. A lot of cel-shaded games that try to look really similar to a straight up cartoon, like Tales of Vesperia or that Naruto game, look nearly indistinguishable from traditional animation in screenshots. But once things start to move it no longer "works" so to speak. I think games like that might be served better if they moved like a cartoon in addition to looking like one.

[kedawa]

Well, in those cases it makes sense to try and match the fluidity of the media the game is trying to imitate, so 24fps for film, 30fps for tv, etc. are okay.

[Ze_ro]

"For a high speed game like Quake even 60fps is totally unplayable and there's a massive difference between 90fps and 120fps. I consider 120fps the minimum for Quake and for that reason I continue to use a CRT."

That was probably the funniest thing I've ever read on Slashdot. It amazes me that people can be so elitest without having killed themselves over how unfair the universe is.

The fact of the matter is that if you want a higher framerate, you have to sacrifice a good bit of detail to do it. In some genres (like racing games, for example), this makes sense... but for the most part, people just won't notice or care. While you may be able to tell the difference between 30 fps and 60 fps, a lot of people (including me) can't... and the average Joe who buys Madden every year certainly can't either. So if you blew all your rendering time on framerate while your competitor got more flash in there, then your screenshots aren't going to look as good, your commercials and internet trailers won't look as good (Can Youtube even handle 60 fps?), and you will lose at retail.

None of this is going to change anytime soon either. Even when the next generation of hardware comes out, the tradeoff between polygons and framerate will still be there, and the eventual 3D revolution will just make things worse as it effectively halves the framerate.

--Zero

[kedawa]

3D shutter glasses require a very high and consistent framerate to function properly, so there really is no trade-off to be made. The game either hits 120fps, or it gives people vertigo/seizures.

[PC-ENGINE HELL]

It matters well enough to me. I wont buy a 360 or PS3 due to lower details AND lower framerates. Modern gaming in the house is either done on the Wii for the casual or original titles, and gaming computers Ive built for the FPS, driving games, ect. I use for myself a Phenom X3 system set up for Crossfire X2 3850HD cards. Also have a Ageia card slapped in for the sake of having one. My son uses a Athlon 64 X2 4400+ with a Radeon x1950gt. Card still has punch to it and runs alot of the newer games still perfectly fine. He just finished Modern Warfare 2 on that machine infact.

My daughter likes to play alot of the older stuff, like Call of Duty, Warcraft 3, ect. The newest game she plays infact is the Sims2 and Thrillville, but even then I still have her running a Sempron 2500+ with a Radeon x800xl. I could have easily just stuck in a Radeon 9700 in there and she would have gotten by fine for the stuff she likes, but fuck, why get by when you can do alot better?

[whoisKeel]

3D shutter glasses require a very high and consistent framerate to function properly, so there really is no trade-off to be made. The game either hits 120fps, or it gives people vertigo/seizures.

I don't think that's what that means. They aren't going to start filming movies at 120fps for 3D or anything like that. You probably are confused with monitor refresh rate of 120hz.


I don't think we need to worry too much. Any game played on any sort of competitive level is going to need a respectable amount of fps. Not many people are going to take a FPS, fighter, or shmup very seriously at 30fps.

Hell, it drives the video card industry alone.

[kedawa]

I don't think that's what that means. They aren't going to start filming movies at 120fps for 3D or anything like that. You probably are confused with monitor refresh rate of 120hz
I'm not sure what you're getting at. For 3D glasses to work effectively, the screen has to alternate between left-eye frames and right-eye frames at a rate of 120Hz. The only way to do that without redrawing the image at 120Hz would be to have two frame buffers that can alternate consistently without actually being updated. Maybe that'll be possible in the next generation of consoles, but I'd rather see a shift to consistently high framerates.

For 24fps film, there's nothing to render, so it's not that big a deal to just repeat frames, and sequence them like:
L1-R1-L1-R1-L1-R2-L2-R2-L2-R2-L3-R3-L3-R3-L3-etc.

[whoisKeel]

That's exactly what I'm saying...

The monitor might refresh 120 times a second, but that doesn't mean the source produces that many frames. There's no reason the monitor won't repeat frames just like a movie...the TV doesn't know if it is running a game or movie.

[Enigmus]

AMEN to this!

The thing is that the new generation are used to this so they do not even notice the drop in gameplay! They like shiny graphics, blooming effect, super physics.. at the expense of having a game that run at 20fps lol. I don't want my games to look like a powerpoint presentation!

I'm 13, and me and 2 of my friends find them all idiotic. That, and people say I'm retarded for owning an NES, but the thing they don't get is that they're dicks. Everyone else I know agrees the NES is fun and that they're dicks. And these are people who think these kind of Powepoint games are amazing. Turns out not all of this generation are hardcorists and Gatezis. 8-)

[kedawa]

That's exactly what I'm saying...

The monitor might refresh 120 times a second, but that doesn't mean the source produces that many frames. There's no reason the monitor won't repeat frames just like a movie...the TV doesn't know if it is running a game or movie.
Right, but like I said, without two separate frame buffers, it won't work for games. You can't just overwrite the left frame with the right frame and then magically get that left frame back. It has to be re-rendered, so it may as well render a new frame.

[skaar]

I'm 13, and me and 2 of my friends find them all idiotic. That, and people say I'm retarded for owning an NES, but the thing they don't get is that they're dicks. Everyone else I know agrees the NES is fun and that they're dicks. And these are people who think these kind of Powepoint games are amazing. Turns out not all of this generation are hardcorists and Gatezis. 8-)

I sense it might not just be the NES that's spawning the remarks...

[Robocop2]

ROFL Zing