I think the opportunity to directly compare 30 vs 60 has a lot to do with it. Classic case of you didn’t know what you were missing before. A lot more game let you play in both modes now so it’s easier to notice how much 30 sucks.
Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2023]
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I think the opportunity to directly compare 30 vs 60 has a lot to do with it. Classic case of you didn’t know what you were missing before. A lot more game let you play in both modes now so it’s easier to notice how much 30 sucks.
Flappy Pannus
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...and how was that reviewed on console? It was so bad that Sony removed it from its store. Nobody was giving CD Projekt the benefit of the doubt because they're primarily a PC developer, they decided to release it on consoles and they released an extremely poor product, and it was reviewed as such.
If you can't devote the resources necessary to provide a product that runs decently for your target market, then either don't release it, or accept the poor reviews when it hits. Nobody is arguing that a 1060 should be running all AAA games at 1440p 60fps in 2023, the problem is that there was a preponderance of repeatable issues such as shader compiling that have nothing to do with the relative power of the hardware and everything to do with poor planning.
davis.anthony
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Give it another 12-18 months when we really get those really shiny graphics and see what they think then.
Inuhanyou
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I think if devs want to use 60fps as a baseline they surely will. If they don't they won't. Nothing has really changed in game development from the advent of the 3d era. Except the genres have solidified and the consoles have essentially become capable of doing pretty much any game there is out there capable of doing at 60. And the cutbacks required for that are less noticable than any previous generation as well.
Which will make people split. There are people who want devs to make a game at 30 fps on console from a literal game structure level that's impossible to run at 60. But I think that's easier said than done outside of simply running with higher graphics settings or features like RT. Once something like cyberpunk was possible at 60, it's hard to imagine something so taxing and meaningful to gameplay that 30 would be the only possible option nowadays.
Devs would have to get vastly more creative than they have been. And I don't see dice suddenly coming back with battlefield 6 and 1000 player maps and entire cities full of minute physically based destruction, as they have also have budget and feasibility locked into their dev pipelines
Which will make people split. There are people who want devs to make a game at 30 fps on console from a literal game structure level that's impossible to run at 60. But I think that's easier said than done outside of simply running with higher graphics settings or features like RT. Once something like cyberpunk was possible at 60, it's hard to imagine something so taxing and meaningful to gameplay that 30 would be the only possible option nowadays.
Devs would have to get vastly more creative than they have been. And I don't see dice suddenly coming back with battlefield 6 and 1000 player maps and entire cities full of minute physically based destruction, as they have also have budget and feasibility locked into their dev pipelines
Graphics can scale, it is visible with Plague tales Requiem. If developers decide to go to 30 fps it will be because of CPU workload. This time CPU aren't shitty Jaguar CPU and they are helped by I/O complex, Velocity engine on I/O side and Tempest Engine and Xbox Series audio engine on audio side.
davis.anthony
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The issue is really graphics at 30fps vs graphics at 60fps.
If a game looks like a game that's taking full advantage of those 33ms and looks as pretty as you would expect there generally isn't a problem with 30fps.
The problem is when you have a game that's rendering a frame every 33ms but has graphics that look like they're only taking 12ms to render.
And there's quite a few games releasing now with that very problem.
If a game looks like a game that's taking full advantage of those 33ms and looks as pretty as you would expect there generally isn't a problem with 30fps.
The problem is when you have a game that's rendering a frame every 33ms but has graphics that look like they're only taking 12ms to render.
And there's quite a few games releasing now with that very problem.
The Series S is going to seriously limit how far this generation can be pushed. A game made for 30fps on series S can probably do 60 on the main consoles. It’s up to Sony to save us. I can’t think of anything obvious that would require 30 but can’t scale to 60. To really tax the GPU you would need to target something like 1080p upscaled to 4K so there’s no room to go lower. On the CPU side maybe we’ll finally get proper cloth or fluid simulation. Developers are supposed to be creative types. Hopefully they get creative.
davis.anthony
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But you can only scale so much before the visual sacrifice becomes to much.
Switch ports of Doom show what happens when you sale back too much.
If they limit to 30fps it will be because of the GPU workload as has been the case in 99% of all games on console, this will be especially true when developers start to push next generation rendering features as lets not forget, the only 'next gen' engine we've seen running on them is UE5 The Matrix demo and that runs at sub 1080p, sub 30fps on these consoles.
It's only because last gen CPU's were so bad that they seem like a big upgrade but let's not kid ourselves, what they have is crippled mobile versions of what is a 5.5 year old PC CPU with clock speeds well below what modern PC CPU's have.
Looking at Guru3D's CPU IPC chart the consoles are ~30% down on IPC compared to the latest PC CPU's and ~45% down on clock speed.
This is why a modern 6 core PC CPU can handle a PS5 exclusive port that leverages the I/O complex while also offering better performance than PS5.
davis.anthony
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Ray tracing should save the day as when I asked a few developers on Twitter how much extra work it was to add additional RT effects once the engine is already set-up for one RT effect they said it's pretty easy.
I would hope that we end up with consoles only having one RT effect on and then developers scaling the RT up on PC to include more RT effects, we're seeing this already in games like Dying Light 2 and CP2077 with consoles getting one effect and PC getting multiple.
People who want 60 fps don't care of visual sacrifice. I don't think graphics will be a problem if a Battle Royale game can run at 60 fps with Nanite and Realtime GI Lumen. I think software GI will thrive on current gen console and RT will probably only use for reflection for games running in a city. I suppose other type of game can useraytraced cubemap and planar reflection.
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Part of that story also has to be the popularity of the competitive shooter. With the explosion of PUBG, Fortnite, Apex, etc. presenting the value of higher framerate to a larger audience than previous generations, once people are used to it, it's harder to go back as lower FR become perceptively worse and juddery. Like no-one complained about SDTV and couldn't really see the difference when HDTV came in, but now no-one will go back!
davis.anthony
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But we're not talking about a single genre, we're talking about all types on games.
If the next Horizon games comes out and it's 30fps with no 60fps options but looks vastly superior to Forbidden West I don't think people will complain about the frame rate.
Again there is nothing in graphics justifying no 60 fps , a game like Jedi Survivor can have a 60 fps mode with dynamics resolution and going down to 648p. And some people prefer play the performance mode on PS5 and XSX. I don't think there is a problem knowing most of the game won't use HW RT GI and go so low in resolution.
If the next Horizon is at 30 fps it will be because GG will push the CPU so hard 60 fps won't be an option.
Jedi Survivor is the worst case with HW RT GI and partial HW RT reflection with dynamic minimum resolution going down to 648 p and some people prefer play the performance mode.
davis.anthony
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Sigh...we've not seen any 'next gen' games yet and the only demo we've seen was sub 1080p at 30fps.
And that was because of GPU limits.
People seem to really have high expectations of these consoles but please remember they're only packing as much performance as a 5 year old PC GPU, they're not packing RTX 4070's.
The Matrix Awaken demo use HW RT. I don't expect many games to use HW RT out of Reflections for a game taking place inside a city this generation... This will not be a generation we will see a big usage of HW RT out of PC.
People need to understand HW RT is not mandatory and current gen console GPU aren't performant enough to use it extensively and devs know this. Developer can use Software GI, Virtual Shadow maps, cubemap reflection and Planar reflection too.
davis.anthony
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Did it use HW-RT on console?
And all UE5 games will be using HW RT on PC, the hardware is there and the capability of the engine to use is there too.
Yes it is using HW RT on consoles. Without HW RT usage Lumen run at 60 fps.
And this is not the problem of console developer they will use software lumen and run at 60 fps.
davis.anthony
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You mean Lumen runs at 60fps in a what is a very simple game (Fortnight)
And when it's pushed in an actual next gen looking environment it drops to 30fps.
Tells me everything.
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