What do you prefer for games: Framerates and Resolutions? [2020]

[iroboto]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, I'm not the sharpest pencil in the kitchen drawer. But AFAIK no XBO-X enhanced games runs at 1080p. Most does not run at native 4K, but I don't think that many XBSX games will either.

There are a reasonable number of X1X enhanced titles that run at 1080p for performance mode.
And there are a reasonable number of games that also run at native 4K.
The majority run at dynamic 4K. but there are definitely a reasonable percentage that run native 4K locked.

X1X is a bit of a different beast from XSX. X1X is marketed as a 4K device for XBO titles.
XSX is not. XSX is next generation and it's not necessarily meant to be the 4K version of games, although most will likely be that.

Here is a list that separates 4K native from 4K dynamic/reconstruction.
https://www.gamesradar.com/every-xbox-one-x-enhanced-game-4k-hdr-framerates-and-features-explained/

You can see, there's a lot of 4K titles in there. Mind you, some of that is probably wrong. But the list isn't so wrong, even with a 50% margin of error, that's still a large number of 4K native titles.

 

[Jay]

they could just keep resolution dynamic and hold framerate at 60, MS hasn't mandated anything, but the recommendations is to aim for 4K / 60FPS for optimized titles.

The optimized badge will fall off in 2022 and anything will generally go.

Didn't think there was a mandate, and without one recommendation doesn't mean a thing.
Thought optimized just means compiled on the next gen dev box.

It's also actually harder to go from 30 to 60fps than it is to double the resolution. Even taking cpu out of the equation. Can't remember of the top of my head why sebbi said that was the case.
Thinks its just the fact you got to get so much done in 16ms compared to 32ms
Would explain why normally we see 4k30 and 1080p60 than 1440p60

 

[iroboto]

Didn't think there was a mandate, and without one recommendation doesn't mean a thing.
Thought optimized just means compiled on the next gen dev box.

It's also actually harder to go from 30 to 60fps than it is to double the resolution. Even taking cpu out of the equation. Can't remember of the top of my head why sebbi said that was the case.
Thinks its just the fact you got to get so much done in 16ms compared to 32ms
Would explain why normally we see 4k30 and 1080p60 than 1440p60

Significantly more power draw as a result as the whole system is getting a heavy workout 2x the amount. Where as with 4K30, each sub-system may have to work longer to get through 4K, but it's rest time is doubled.

With respect to GCN, there were some issues with the way that GCN scheduled work that may have been easier to produce 4K30 over 60fps. ie, it was more efficient at doing bigger workloads of the same thing, than it was doing smaller dynamic workloads

 

[Globalisateur]

It's seemingly a key point of difference between PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X - while stressing that developers can use the console's power as they wish, Microsoft has often talked about 60fps as a design target for next-gen, even mooting the idea of 120fps gaming in some scenarios for the new wave of HDMI 2.1 displays.

Bollocks. The footage of their biggest game they showed so far (Hellblade 2) was running at 24fps. And they are supposed to lecture Sony about their most impressive games running at 30fps? What are DF even doing here ? Haven't they themselves analysed MS biggest game ?

 

[iroboto]

Bollocks. The footage of their biggest game they showed so far (Hellblade 2) was running at 24fps. And they are supposed to lecture Sony about their most impressive games running at 30fps? What are DF even doing here ? Haven't they themselves analysed MS biggest game ?

Yea that's not not their biggest game; Halo is. And Halo is 60.
And MS haven't shown any game footage yet from any of their first party titles, so we're left to speculate still.

 

[MistaPi]

There are a reasonable number of X1X enhanced titles that run at 1080p for performance mode.
And there are a reasonable number of games that also run at native 4K.
The majority run at dynamic 4K. but there are definitely a reasonable percentage that run native 4K locked.

X1X is a bit of a different beast from XSX. X1X is marketed as a 4K device for XBO titles.
XSX is not. XSX is next generation and it's not necessarily meant to be the 4K version of games, although most will likely be that.

Here is a list that separates 4K native from 4K dynamic/reconstruction.
https://www.gamesradar.com/every-xbox-one-x-enhanced-game-4k-hdr-framerates-and-features-explained/

You can see, there's a lot of 4K titles in there. Mind you, some of that is probably wrong. But the list isn't so wrong, even with a 50% margin of error, that's still a large number of 4K native titles.

1080p performance mode is something like 1/3 to 1/4 of the resolution to run 60FPS, not sure whats going on there. From default/quality "4K"@30FPS mode its more like 2x the workload going from 30FPS to 60FPS, assuming a mix of native 4K og dynamic 4K on XBSX.

 

[Globalisateur]

Yea that's not not their biggest game; Halo is. And Halo is 60.
And MS haven't shown any game footage yet from any of their first party titles, so we're left to speculate still.

And GT7 and Demon's souls will also be both 60fps. And Dirt 5 will be 120fps on both consoles. For now it's totally premature to state that fps will be a difference between both consoles. Except if you want to just blindly repeat MS PR like DF just did.

 

[iroboto]

And GT7 and Demon's souls will also be both 60fps. And Dirt 5 will be 120fps on both consoles. For now it's totally premature to state that fps will be a difference between both consoles. Except if you want to just blindly repeat MS PR like DF just did.

oh you're mad at DF?
ok.
https://www.xbox.com/en-CA/consoles/xbox-series-x

I mean, just scroll down.
and you'll see the 6 titles there all listed at 4K 60 FPS, and 6 titles that are not 60fps.

That was their first showcase. They've put out marketing materials and recommendations for 60fps as well. Halo will be 60fps, Forza will be 60fps. I mean, at this moment I'm seeing more 60fps titles than non 60 fps on Xbox.
It's still early of course, but if this trend continues, I would say MS somewhat hit their target.

I don't know if that means PS5 will run a majority of 30fps games. I don't think LeadBetter was implying that, just that I think he's implying that Sony isn't recommending to their developers to target a 60fps experience so don't expect it.

You'll need to look at them in isolation as opposed to comparing them. I'm sorry, I don't think it's a good idea to compare in this case. We did this before with X1X and 4Pro and MS recommended and ask devs to target 4K, and for the majority of the time that happened. And 4Pro had the technology to do it, but Sony didn't seem to press developers to do 4K, so the results were sort of everywhere.

This isn't commentary on their power differential more so than a commentary on how the platform owners want their products positioned. As @Inuhanyou writes below, if Sony wants them to focus on 30fps experiences, some games, will develop the entire rendering pipeline around it. And sometimes it takes a lot of work to change that for a 60fps, see the issue they ran into for Halo 5.

Nothing wrong with that, but if you want more 60fps titles, I think you'll likely see more on XSX.

 

[Inuhanyou]

I expect ps5 first party studios to focus on 30fps for the the single player games of the future. And as a ecosystem divorced from hardware i expect xbox to stay in the crossgen period where they have overhead for 60fps for a while too until third parties and games like hellblade push things too far

What people need to understand is that theres far more to optimizing games than graphics. 30fps affects the entire rendering budget of the machine not just gpu and not just cpu. In this way game design is affected when console devs optimize for 30fps at the outset versus 60fps. Games like shadow of the colossus, gta and countless others which likely would not run become possible.

 

[iroboto]

1080p performance mode is something like 1/3 to 1/4 of the resolution to run 60FPS, not sure whats going on there. From default/quality "4K"@30FPS mode its more like 2x the workload going from 30FPS to 60FPS, assuming a mix of native 4K og dynamic 4K on XBSX.

the CPU is the biggest limiter for 60fps on the current generation. I expect this to open up fairly large for next gen.

 

[Inuhanyou]

the CPU is the biggest limiter for 60fps on the current generation. I expect this to open up fairly large for next gen.

Many devs will substitute 60 for more ai, more npcs, more detail, more scope and scale for their games as well. Its not really a binary choice tbh, especially when the same people who complain about 30fps also complain in current gen about games playing and looking the same as they have in the past. Its always a tradeoff of development priority for console devs who work on limited fixed hw.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Dumb question: Could TV set be used for programming work? Or would it be bad for eyes health / exhausting?

Yes, it's perfectly usable as long as the monitor supports 2 important things.

1. Low latency mode. Usually game mode on the TV. If it doesn't have low latency the latency will absolutely drive you nuts when using a PC.
2. Support for 4:4:4 Chroma. On my LG that's achieved by putting it into PC mode. If it doesn't have this, text will be hard to read.

My current setup is a 55" 4k TV in landscape orientation as main display and a 49" 4k monitor (Korean monitor using a TV panel) in portrait mode on the side.

Regards,
SB

 

[iroboto]

Many devs will substitute 60 for more ai, more npcs, more detail, more scope and scale for their games as well. Its not really a binary choice tbh, especially when the same people who complain about 30fps also complain in current gen about games playing and looking the same as they have in the past. Its always a tradeoff of development priority for console devs who work on limited fixed hw.

yep absolutely, that will probably define this generation for sure but that shouldn't be the case as next gen moves into maturity. The beginnign of next gen may start off with some 30fps titles, but late into the generation, I expect more engines to move rendering workloads to gpu driven dispatches, dramatically freeing up the CPU for either framerate or physics, destruction etc. 60 fps should be attainable with GPU scaling accordingly.

And those are my general thoughts for PS5 and XSX.

 

[BRiT]

Is it really DF's fault for lack of clear messaging from Sony about higher FPS games?

 

[iroboto]

Is it really DF's fault for lack of clear messaging from Sony about higher FPS games?

This is a good way to put it, I failed to do that in my post.
It's not DFs' fault Sony did not come forward to message about 60fps.
That doesn't mean the hardware isn't capable. Just that's not the message they're giving to developers or their customers.

Sony had their heyday with SSD. That campaign seems oodles way more successful (to the point that people think SSD is a requirement for rendering next gen) than 60 and 120fps.

 

[PSman1700]

Haven't they themselves analysed MS biggest game ?

How? They will have to wait because hasn't shown their big AAA games show yet, which includes Halo infinite.

And GT7 and Demon's souls will also be both 60fps.

Let's hope RT is the reason for the graphics of GT7 being just a notch above GTS, and not the framerate at 4k.

Nothing wrong with that, but if you want more 60fps titles, I think you'll likely see more on XSX.

Maybe that's why MS went for a 12+TF machine and much more bandwith and CPU power, they want to aim for that 60fps experience everyone and their cat screamed for, whilest enabling a graphical improvement aswell. The ones that aim for 30fps with upsampling, like hellblade 2, just overshadow everything else by fully extracting everything of the 12tf gpu.

Sony had their heyday with SSD.

MS hasn't really shown off the SSD and their compression tech behind it yet i think. Their turn will come.

 

[see colon]

Monitors have little value for games and multimedia. Poor image quality, poor HDR, poor colors, insane prices considering etc. Better to just buy a cheap monitor for PC work and a TV for everything else.

I'll give you HDR, but everything else I'm confused why you would think monitors underperform TVs. Monitors tend to offer lower latency, higher refresh rates and faster pixel response than TVs plus support for full RGB. Image processing on TVs is geared towards watching media while monitors are tuned for performance. There's certainly a case that a quality TV will offer a superior movie watching experience, and might even win in image quality for games, but latency much higher. There are tons of monitors on the market that advertise 1ms response times, while I don't think I've ever seen a TV under 10ms. 240hz monitors are also common. 120hz TVs are just becoming mainstream.

HDR on onitors (and in the PC space in general) is just starting to get good, but image quality and latency are great on monitors right now. And latency is one of the most important things for games.

 

[techuse]

I'll give you HDR, but everything else I'm confused why you would think monitors underperform TVs. Monitors tend to offer lower latency, higher refresh rates and faster pixel response than TVs plus support for full RGB. Image processing on TVs is geared towards watching media while monitors are tuned for performance. There's certainly a case that a quality TV will offer a superior movie watching experience, and might even win in image quality for games, but latency much higher. There are tons of monitors on the market that advertise 1ms response times, while I don't think I've ever seen a TV under 10ms. 240hz monitors are also common. 120hz TVs are just becoming mainstream.

HDR on onitors (and in the PC space in general) is just starting to get good, but image quality and latency are great on monitors right now. And latency is one of the most important things for games.

The 1ms marketing is pure nonsense. Monitors have a small input lag advantage over TVs. Not something anyone here would ever be likely to notice. Similar for refresh rates above 120. Unless you're a pro-gamer looking to play on lowest settings at 240 fps, monitors offer very little value to anyone for gaming and media. It's not just HDR, image quality in nearly every way is just dramatically better on TVs. So much so that a high end GSYNC HDR monitor looks worse than a random cheapo TV at best buy.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The 1ms marketing is pure nonsense. Monitors have a small input lag advantage over TVs. Not something anyone here would ever be likely to notice. Similar for refresh rates above 120. Unless you're a pro-gamer looking to play on lowest settings at 240 fps, monitors offer very little value to anyone for gaming and media. It's not just HDR, image quality in nearly every way is just dramatically better on TVs. So much so that a high end GSYNC HDR monitor looks worse than a random cheapo TV at best buy.

Eh, not so much unless you're only looking at TN panel monitors.

Uncalibrated color accuracy and color uniformity are generally superior on the better monitors. Once calibrated, however, TVs and Monitors can be virtually indistinguishable although the best monitors will generally have better color uniformity than the best TVs. The exceptions come into play with studio monitors that costs significantly more than your standard consumer monitors.

Latency is important. Far more important when using a PC than a console due to the fact that there is a 1:1 mapping between mouse and hand movements unlike console controllers. Basically once you get below a certain point with a controller, it's harder to notice the lag because there isn't a 1:1 connection between moving the analog stick and the response on the screen.

However, even with a controller there is a noticeable effect when it comes to pressing a button (for example for a precision frame perfect jump or move) and seeing the feedback of that button press on the screen. It's something most people can adjust to, but if you go from a very low latency control -> display feedback look to a higher latency one, the differences are very noticeable as your timing will be completely off and everything feels like you are controlling someone or something moving slight off to what you expect.

As to Image Quality, in high processing mode (high latency mode on TVs) the IQ can be better for content in motion as the TV spends significant processing time improving the visuals. Disable that for low latency gaming mode on the TV and almost all of that disappears leaving it at the same place as a typical average PC monitor.

But, here's the kicker, if you want all that fancy processing that TVs do to improve image quality in movies, you can have that on PC as well through multiple various media players, filters, etc. The one place TVs still have a significant advantage in processing is motion interpolation (smooth video) as they have dedicated chips for that. But that is something you'll never use in games as it comes with a hefty processing (latency) penalty. As well, having interpolated frames forced onto a game isn't necessarily going to make the gameplay experience better even if the latency for it wasn't relatively massive.

I use a TV as my main display for cost. If I was as serious about gaming as I was in the past and my reactions were like they were 20 years ago, I wouldn't touch a LCD TV for a gaming monitor with a 10 foot pole.

Regards,
SB

 

[Arwin]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1281011899640041474

the screenshots there, that level still looks amazing.