720p/60 also equates to 1080P/30 more than 900/30.
Right, 1152*810 @60 would be "equivalent" to 1728*1080 @ 30 or even 1920*972 (wouldn't be too bad of a black bar experience there tbh), but I'm just speaking generally here.
However there would be other caveats involved like render target memory and such.
I struggle to remember sebbi's posts on the matter but I believe did he not term 60 FPS even more difficult to achieve than doubling the pixel count?
Yes, it's because the geometry rate and CPU are factors that have less to do with the pixel/texel side (there's still some factor in there with quad utilization, which actually gets better with more pixels per triangle, but anyways).
It would be theoretically easier for a game targeting high framerate from the start to go from a lower res to a higher res at lower framerate since they would have already targeted a specific geometry and CPU load (the world/object update etc), so it becomes a pixel shading/fillrate issue.
If the game were targeting 30fps from the get-go, you would need to have at least double the geometry or CPU speed or memory bandwidth, which doesn't quite happen.
I know Frank has mentioned that there would be issues in the rest of the engine if they were to cap the framerate but it seems a rather broad, high level statement that I'd actually like to hear an in-depth technical explanation. Genuinely curious.
Figured it might have to do with the online co-op syncing, but I really don't know that sort of thing.
Watching the ViDoc you definitely feel like they are still battening things down.
Certainly. The game has months to go.
There could be some edict of "scale the res but make sure 60 is locked at all time, and we'll worry about upping the res later".
I imagine they'll be doing it as they go along, stress testing every single area to ensure high frame rate. It has to be done pretty much from the start with regards to the assets and effects involved.