Importance of 60 fps in arcade/simulation racers *spawn

[Npl]

Personally I think it's the opposite. I think arcade racers are more predictable because the physics are very simple. With sims, I don't think it's just about memorizing tracks and brake points etc. When you're racing high powered RWD cars on a track like Nurburgring (especially in rain), responsiveness and reaction times are very important. Getting a good feel for the traction of your tires is key in getting good lap times (ie when you're gripping and when you're not, when you should give it gas and how much, or when to let off etc.). And every car is different in how they handle, and weather effects and what tires you use (as well as the condition they're in) greatly change things as well. Game makers seem to agree since almost all racing sims are 60fps and almost all arcade racer are 30fps.

Arcade racers are just a bit more than the driving physics, I doubt in racing sims you have to care about dodging oncoming traffic. Just because one component is simpler, or in many cases just unrealistic doesnt mean that the game is simpler or less depending on fast responses.
Why is "realism" a thing anyway? Its not like I learn driving a lamborghini by handling a detached gamepad - sitting in one will give you alot more feedback a screen and speakers can provide (Id rather have a fully simulated damage model and newtonian car pushing anyway). Could aswell just assume that the lamborghini onscreen is driven by someone who can handle the crude basics so I can focus on the Truck coming straight at me while pushing the dune-buggy of the road. Might be that driving around in circles without leaving the road the same way over .. and again.. and again is harder in sims vs arcade racers... the point is that arcade racers just dont stop there. So its easier to drift, you still damn need to know the exact instant you have to drift, brake and do all the fun things that are impossible or despised in real life. And that makes the game alot more complex, usually faster and more dynamic than sims, where you can have an otherwise braindead AI field precomputed perfect laps.

 

[djskribbles]

Arcade racers are just a bit more than the driving physics, I doubt in racing sims you have to care about dodging oncoming traffic. Just because one component is simpler, or in many cases just unrealistic doesnt mean that the game is simpler or less depending on fast responses.
Why is "realism" a thing anyway? Its not like I learn driving a lamborghini by handling a detached gamepad - sitting in one will give you alot more feedback a screen and speakers can provide (Id rather have a fully simulated damage model and newtonian car pushing anyway). Could aswell just assume that the lamborghini onscreen is driven by someone who can handle the crude basics so I can focus on the Truck coming straight at me while pushing the dune-buggy of the road. Might be that driving around in circles without leaving the road the same way over .. and again.. and again is harder in sims vs arcade racers... the point is that arcade racers just dont stop there. So its easier to drift, you still damn need to know the exact instant you have to drift, brake and do all the fun things that are impossible or despised in real life. And that makes the game alot more complex, usually faster and more dynamic than sims, where you can have an otherwise braindead AI field precomputed perfect laps.

Meh, agree to disagree. I said my piece. Obviously console developers feel that 60fps isn't as important for arcade racers and sim developers do. You don't see that many people complaining about 30fps in arcade racers. If they decide to drop Forza or Gran Turismo to 30fps, watch the forums blow up with complaints.

 

[tuna]

People here should really stop using the term "arcade racer" when they do not mean an actual arcade racer.

 

[tuna]

I hate to use the term lazy devs, but I think 30 fps racing games is a symptom of developers who do not really give a shit about how their game actually plays.

 

[djskribbles]

Racers are split into two genres. Everyone uses the term arcade racer for any racer that isn't meant to be realistic. Even Evolution says their game is between simulation and arcade.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

I hate to use the term lazy devs, but I think 30 fps racing games is a symptom of developers who do not really give a shit about how their game actually plays.

How are they lazy if they are working so hard on it ? 60fps just isn't their goal, that , in no way, translate to being lazy. Misplaced goals, maybe, not laziness. Yes, 60 fps is awesome for every game, and I get shaken out of AC4 everytime as it isn't 60 fps and the smoothness of Infamous is completely lost too when locked to 30 fps, but I enjoyed my Most Wanted a lot at what fps it was offered at. Same for Motorstorms. So, personally, I am not that worried. Only a demo can let me know.
But I can't see how they are lazy if they targeted 30 fps.
If they have finally brought such visuals to existence with everything being dynamic , I am sure they are anything but lazy.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

People here should really stop using the term "arcade racer" when they do not mean an actual arcade racer.

Arcades are all but dead. The term has thus rehomed itself to mean a style of simpler game. It's even a genre when listing a game on a store like Google Play - "What type of game? - Arcade". An arcade racer is a racer that isn't focussed on realism and generally is far easier to drive than real life (arcades needing to be accessible to anyone). Unless someone can come up with a better description (non-realistic racer is a bit of a mouthful), it seems serviceable to me.

I hate to use the term lazy devs, but I think 30 fps racing games is a symptom of developers who do not really give a shit about how their game actually plays.

That's just stupid. There are different people in this world with different tastes and values. 30 fps may not be good enough for you, but it clearly is for millions of arcade (non-realistic) racing game players, and they're the target of these games. It's extremely arrogant to decide the basis of a game (or movie, or music album, etc.) that you don't favour is because the artists involved don't give a shit about their work.

 

[tuna]

Arcades are all but dead.

Go to China.

The term has thus rehomed itself to mean a style of simpler game.

So arcade fighting games are simpler than other fighting games?

It's even a genre when listing a game on a store like Google Play - "What type of game? - Arcade".

Just because Google is wrong does not mean we have to be here.

An arcade racer is a racer that isn't focussed on realism and generally is far easier to drive than real life (arcades needing to be accessible to anyone). Unless someone can come up with a better description (non-realistic racer is a bit of a mouthful), it seems serviceable to me.

Non-realistic racer seems perfectly serviceable to me.

 

[tuna]

That's just stupid. There are different people in this world with different tastes and values. 30 fps may not be good enough for you, but it clearly is for millions of arcade (non-realistic) racing game players, and they're the target of these games. It's extremely arrogant to decide the basis of a game (or movie, or music album, etc.) that you don't favour is because the artists involved don't give a shit about their work.

Me, arrogant? Nonono....

You can make a great racing game at 30 fps but you can't make a great fast racing game at 30 fps. And good enough is not good enough today. I have millions other entertainment options (including) available and if the game I am playing is not the most rewarding experience of those I will quit and do something else. If the devs are not 100% committed into making the game the most incredible gaming experience they can they will fail.

 

[tuna]

It's called motion blur, people. Learn to love it, it's there for a reason.

Yes, to blur out details in the image and create weird artifacts.

 

[djskribbles]

So the majority of console developers making arcade racing games (yes, they're called arcade racing games) are 'lazy' and don't give a shit about how their games play? Wow, that is honestly one of the dumbest things I've read on these forums.

The game is 30fps. All of your complaining isn't going to do anything. Get over it.

 

[HTupolev]

Yes, to blur out details in the image and create weird artifacts.

Motion blur does have some degree of real-world justification. Human vision behaves as a temporal low-pass filter which smears details along their axis of motion.

Video game imagery does not move continuously, of course, so you don't get a smoothly smeared trail. Instead, without motion blur, human vision will at most recognize a series of frames as a trail of discrete ghosts (this becomes obvious if you wiggle the cursor really quickly back-and-forth on your desktop). Suffice it to say, it doesn't really have the appearance that a continuously-moving object in the real world would.

Motion blur attempts to reconstruct the effect without requiring extremely high-framerate video.

//=======================

Though, I'm not usually very impressed with motion blur's impact in games, and in many cases I wish it weren't there:

It's never coupled at all with the actual motion of your eyes, so objects that you're trying to eye-track can be blurred.

And even when it manages to look vaguely "realistic", it hardly does a good job of actually masking low framerates. Forza Horizon has a pretty good motion blur implementation, but it doesn't feel much different to me than how non-motion-blurred 30fps games tend to feel.

 

[tuna]

The game is 30fps. All of your complaining isn't going to do anything. Get over it.

Really!? I thought Shuhei Yoshida would read my posts and set the dev team straight. Thank you for setting me straight!

 

[tuna]

So the majority of console developers making arcade racing games (yes, they're called arcade racing games) are 'lazy' and don't give a shit about how their games play? Wow, that is honestly one of the dumbest things I've read on these forums.

You haven't read much here then.

Anyway, what is F355 Racing for kind of game then? It certainly does not fit your description of "arcade racing games" even though it is an actual arcade racing game.

 

[djskribbles]

Really!? I thought Shuhei Yoshida would read my posts and set the dev team straight. Thank you for setting me straight!

You make it sound like consumers have no input on how games turn out.

But in this case, they have explicitly said that the game is 30fps, so all of your complaining is just noise.

You haven't read much here then.

No, I've read quite a bit here actually.

I mean, if the majority of console racers were 60fps and there was a history of shitty 30fps racers, then I'd give you the benefit of the doubt. But the fact that the majority of console racers are 30fps, and there have been several successful 30fps racers, that comment was absolute crap.

Anyway, what is F355 Racing for kind of game then? It certainly does not fit your description of "arcade racing games" even though it is an actual arcade racing game.

Haven't played it, nor do I care. The fact is, in the portable/home console gaming space, arcade racer is commonly used to describe any racer that isn't meant to be realistic, whether you like it or not. I didn't start it. But feel free to make an attempt at stopping people from using the term and giving the industry a new name for the sub-genre.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Go to China

So our choice of terminology needs to factor in countries with closed borders that don't contribute software to the international games industry, nor post on this forum? I'm not seeing the importance of basing our lexicon on what the Chinese (with their general ban on consoles) are doing. In all our spheres of experience, arcades came and went. Games are now played on home computing devices, but the terminology has been enriched by its heritage, just as many words and phrases have. eg. Okay comes from flag signalling. No-one uses flag signals any more but we use the product of that.

So arcade fighting games are simpler than other fighting games?

It's a generalised term. I don't think there is even such a thing as a non-arcade fighting game. Look, everyone understands what an arcade racer is. Someone even posted it in Wikipedia. There's a distinction between game styles and everyone has been calling them 'sims' and 'arcade racers' for as long as people have been talking about racing games on this board. It's not confusing, and if it is a little muddled at some points, it can be easily clarified. So just as we all accept kilobytes isn't base ten, we can all accept 'arcade racer' is a genre of non-realistic racer. By all means type non-realistic racer if you want, but don't expect everyone else to change.

Me, arrogant? Nonono....

You can make a great racing game at 30 fps but you can't make a great fast racing game at 30 fps.

That's not what you said at all. You said categorically that every 30fps racing game was the product of the developers not giving a shit about their art. I quote:

I hate to use the term lazy devs, but I think 30 fps racing games is a symptom of developers who do not really give a shit about how their game actually plays.

If you want to retract and qualify that statement, start with a, "sorry, I didn't express myself clearly," or somesuch.

And good enough is not good enough today.

'Good enough' by definition means 'good enough for people to buy and enjoy', although I accept there's ambiguity in how it's used. 30 fps games are good enough for many folk even if not you. As long as you're selling, your game is 'good enough'. And for arcade racers with lots of eye-candy, 30fps can add to the feel for those fans. You can hate it all you like but that won't change other people's values and interest in 30fps poppin' eye-candy racing games.

Ultimately, 30 fps a legitimate life choice. It doesn't stem from developers being lazy or careless; it comes from their design choices, and maybe financial limits (can't afford the time to fine-tune).

 

[London Geezer]

Ultimately, 30 fps a legitimate life choice. .

It's not a life choice! You are born this way! You'd think modern society would have accepted this by now.

 

[Phil]

Meh, agree to disagree. I said my piece. Obviously console developers feel that 60fps isn't as important for arcade racers and sim developers do. You don't see that many people complaining about 30fps in arcade racers. If they decide to drop Forza or Gran Turismo to 30fps, watch the forums blow up with complaints.

Sorry djskribbles, I agree with NPL. I don't see any correlation between what you define to be arcade racers or what are supposed to be simulators. At the end of the day, it comes to something much more simple:

How fast are the pixels traveling across the screen? Do you want to convey the speed accurately enough? 60fps is the benchmark here. It doesn't matter if it's a sim or an arcade game in that sense. There's also no rule book on how many physic calculation an arcade game is pushing - just that the calculations are probably not based on any realworld data. Take WipEout. Purely arcade, but the framerate is a core feature. It wouldn't be half the game it is at 30fps, but better visuals.

It just seems daft to me - to create a game where you drive the fastest cars we know, accurately modelled to perfection, yet the speed at which you are supposed to drive them (which is 90% of the time while playing this game - the other 10% being the menues etc) is not.

There just isn't much more to say really. The developers failed miserably in achieving this goal, so the next best thing they can say "oh, but our game will be the prettiest". Well, it will - until the next better game comes out on either the PS4 as well, or the next PS or PC or whatever. You can marvel all you want about these graphics, but at the end of the day - the game needs to feel good when playing.

At 30fps - it probably does too - and without a 60fps version outthere to compare it to, we won't know how much better it would be. But the same goes for graphics too; if the team had maximized their effort to create a solid 60fps experience, we wouldn't know how much better the game could have looked if it had been created with 30fps in mind.

Sadly, this game is THE exclusive for the PS4 - so I understand the pressure the team obviously had to deliever on the graphics point. A pitty. It might be the most gorgeous game outthere, but at 30fps, I'm not sure I really give a damn anymore. Anyone on the boat for visuals over framerate - ask yourself this; After the first 2 hours of playing a game, how much are you still suckered into the game itself? I'm willing to bet most people will focus on the gameplay of the game - and if you're still playing after 2 hours or not depends way more on how good the game is at being a game than how nice it looks. We don't play games for visuals, we don't want slideshows, we don't play screenshots.

 

[Globalisateur]

Motion blur does have some degree of real-world justification. Human vision behaves as a temporal low-pass filter which smears details along their axis of motion.

Video game imagery does not move continuously, of course, so you don't get a smoothly smeared trail. Instead, without motion blur, human vision will at most recognize a series of frames as a trail of discrete ghosts (this becomes obvious if you wiggle the cursor really quickly back-and-forth on your desktop). Suffice it to say, it doesn't really have the appearance that a continuously-moving object in the real world would.

Motion blur attempts to reconstruct the effect without requiring extremely high-framerate video.

//=======================

Though, I'm not usually very impressed with motion blur's impact in games, and in many cases I wish it weren't there:

It's never coupled at all with the actual motion of your eyes, so objects that you're trying to eye-track can be blurred.

And even when it manages to look vaguely "realistic", it hardly does a good job of actually masking low framerates. Forza Horizon has a pretty good motion blur implementation, but it doesn't feel much different to me than how non-motion-blurred 30fps games tend to feel.

I agree with that!

Why add another motion blur effect on the eyes? 30fps (even 60fps!) on a LCD monitor already creates its own ghosting blur which, on my LCD screen, is really similar (and even better ) than any motion blurs I have seen.

The eyes, even if not perfect, work naturally on a "perfect" image running at an infinite fps so why give them an already roughly and or badly motion blurred material (on top of the already 30fps induced kinda motion blur ghosting coming more or less from our screens?

And in fact motion blur in game is unrealistic and even sick inducing for most people. What's most bothering people in many 30fps games (like TLOU) is not the 30fps itself, it's the heavy dose of motion blur shown by the game each time you quickly move lateraly the camera. They did reduce motion blur in the latest KZSF patch because people were getting sick because of it...in the ~60fps MP mode, not the 30fps SP campain!

Any effect (motion blur, DOF) that artificially creates a blur, for whatever reasons, in my games is immensely unrealitistic for me. in my real life, wherever I look at something in motion (when I follow the motion with my eyes) or stationary at things close to me or far away in the background, I always see something sharp and detailed, I never see something blurry.

When I try to follow the motion in most videogames I only see fuzzy stuff: TVs induced motion blur + GPU expensive in-game motion blur.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

1) You aren't always trying to simulate the eye. Games tend to favour simulating a video camera with shutter speed and motion blur

2) You can't get the eye's natural motion blur without stupidly high refresh rates. The eye accumulates lights in a continuous sampling of the environment, whereas games render discrete samples and at best approximate the eyes' sampling over time. For a visual aesthetic regardless of realism, motion blur makes sense in some games, just as CA, DOF and lens effects do. Look at how impressed people are with Infamous:SS and it's photographic look in photo mode. I imagine a car game offering that for nicely rendered cars will reach plenty enough fans to make it a worthwhile choice. Those wanting 60 fps realism need one of the simulators.