Is it safe to say that, so far, the PS2 has the most amount of games running @ 60fps?

[Fafalada]

In fact most early PS2 titles aimed for 60fps

This was in no small part thanks to Sony - early SDK only exposed interlaced scan-modes which required 60hz to get 640x480.
Nintendo pulled this kind of stunt with DS hardware design, and it worked too, I'm sure on average, DS titles have way better framerates then PSP (let alone any Other 3d handheld device on the market).

 

[Mobius1aic]

offtopic: gran turismo 4, zone of the enders 2, to name two titles, are perfect examples of what exclusive titles tailored for one platform can be.

ZOE2 had slowdown out the ass in heavy battles with lots of effects. At least it looked amazing whilst doing so.

 

[Grall]

Also, back in the 16bit and earlier days, they didn't drop frames, the consoles simply stopped displaying stuff, which looked MUCH worse.

If you're talking about sprite flicker, then that's a different issue than dropped frames (one is a hardware issue, the other is software).

16-bit consoles are perfectly capable of dropping frames as well. Many 16-bit games did not run at a smooth framerate at all times. Tons of SNES games suffered from slowdown for example, even though they did not neccessarily show sprite flicker at that moment.

 

[TheWretched]

What I meant was "even if they didn't drop frames"... Not that they don't^^

Looking at Sonic 3 for example. If you had many rings and ran into an enemy, it started to flicker AND drop frames heavily (or slowed down, maybe both^^ Don't remember exactly anymore).

 

[I.S.T.]

ZOE2 had slowdown out the ass in heavy battles with lots of effects. At least it looked amazing whilst doing so.

Apparently that special edition of the game fixed most of the slowdown...

 

[Mobius1aic]

Apparently that special edition of the game fixed most of the slowdown...

I can assume this was Japanese release only? I think I remember seeing it on the internet somewhere when I was still playing the hell out of ZOE2. Still hoping for a third game for the PS3! I remember the worst slow downs occurring in the large scale battle where you have to defend the Earth based Phantoma LEVs against Bahram unmanned LEVs, though it was a remarkable achievement of orchestration for a system like the PS2.

 

[I.S.T.]

I can assume this was Japanese release only? I think I remember seeing it on the internet somewhere when I was still playing the hell out of ZOE2. Still hoping for a third game for the PS3! I remember the worst slow downs occurring in the large scale battle where you have to defend the Earth based Phantoma LEVs against Bahram unmanned LEVs, though it was a remarkable achievement of orchestration for a system like the PS2.

There was a European version, released instead of the normal game.

 

[LeeC22]

I must confess, I find 60fps one of the most overrated and misunderstood features in gaming. I'd take a sold 30fps over a flaky 60fps any day of the week, especially in racing games. A brief moment of slowdown in a racing game is a killer.

I remember GT5P boasting 60fps, until the first time the screen was full of cars and scenery and they might as well have boasted 20fps instead. I guess we're still a long way off that 1080p @ 120fps we were promised

I've certainly never noticed any issues playing Grid, DiRT2, PGR, Forza etc... at 30fps. I guess when you're doing 100+, fps is neither here nor there.

And I never seem to hear the end of the "games at 60fps are faster" argument. Even when I have posted demo projects which show things running at the exact same speed at both 30fps and 60fps, gamers still argue the fact, accusing my demos of being false.

 

[Npl]

I must confess, I find 60fps one of the most overrated and misunderstood features in gaming. I'd take a sold 30fps over a flaky 60fps any day of the week, especially in racing games. A brief moment of slowdown in a racing game is a killer.

I remember GT5P boasting 60fps, until the first time the screen was full of cars and scenery and they might as well have boasted 20fps instead. I guess we're still a long way off that 1080p @ 120fps we were promised

I've certainly never noticed any issues playing Grid, DiRT2, PGR, Forza etc... at 30fps. I guess when you're doing 100+, fps is neither here nor there.

And I never seem to hear the end of the "games at 60fps are faster" argument. Even when I have posted demo projects which show things running at the exact same speed at both 30fps and 60fps, gamers still argue the fact, accusing my demos of being false.

Play a fast paced (and chaotic) Game like DMC or Burnout and you will easily recognize the difference 60FPS makes. Fast moving objects benefit from the framerate and are easier to spot and estimate their bearing & speed.

None of the games you listed have as much unpredictable chaos, you might drive at fast speeds but you have enough time for reacting to the course ahead. Accuracy in your driving matters (and thats what slowdowns mess up), but fast response isnt necessary.

And its not so much about flaky 60FPS vs solid 30FPS, its about solid 30FPS vs. solid 60FP with downgraded Graphics. For fastpaced action games I prefer the later - fastpaced as requiring splitsecond reactions and not just traveling at high speed at a laid-out course.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Playing one shot kill back in the day in UT (instagib) or Q2 (railgun arena) was pretty chaotic and unpredictable. 60 fps wasn't any different than 30 fps as long as you didn't hit really low fps. At least for me. People would argue with me until they were blue in the face, and I'd just spank them in game and tell 'em to shut it.

The only advantage to 60 fps back in the day was that your chances for dipping down into single digit FPS was virtually nil. But for most engines at settings I chose, once it hit a relatively 30 fps, it didn't matter if I had 30 or 300 fps. Kills didn't happen faster. Aiming didn't get easier. Players movements didn't get more predictable. People didn't die more or less often. It was just business as usual.

The minimum FPS is a far more important stat to track than what your average is.

Regards,
SB

 

[Tchock]

Not a console game, but just try playing a faster song in Audiosurf on Elite difficulty.

You'll need 60fps min, any dip is horrendous since the game is ridiculously fast. FRAPS video recording framelocking @ 30fps would just not suffice.

That's basically the only game that would need a consistent 60+fps though. I keep my averages at 190+ to avoid anything from ****ing up, ever.

 

[zed]

Actually quake and other games did offer gameplay advantages with higher FPS rates since gameplay updates are tied to framerate

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/a_q3-125

The problem is that hardcore gamers discovered soon after Quake 3's release that the distance you could jump depended on your frame rate. This kind of bizarre problem is nothing new - some trick jumps in Quake 2 could only be accomplished if you had a high enough frame rate,

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yes, that was actually a very bad bug that some people would exploit in Quake 2.

In Q2 CTF with the grappling hook, you could grapple through solid walls if your FPS was high enough. It made teams exploiting the bug pretty much unstoppable in CTF.

Regards,
SB

 

[Karamazov]

What is the maximum framerate the human eye can "see" ?

 

[zed]

What is the maximum framerate the human eye can "see" ?

well 'to see' is subjective, to react is also
in the olympics a false start is starting within 100msec from the gun (though that is reacting from the sound)
now the testing we last performed in house a couple of years ago 30fps was not fast enuf. but that doesnt answer
" human eye can "see""
which I would love see an answer to,
now Karamazov (btw doest's worst book I think)
If u could measure + presntate the data, many ppl would be interested, good for a PD (No)

 

[Karamazov]

In fact i wanted to know if there's a limit for the human eye to spot the difference.
We can clearly see the difference between 30 and 60fps, but what if between 120 and more.
Are we going to see 120fps games in next gen console games, or would it be useless ?
(btw my nickname does not refer to the book, but to Serge Karamazov, un character from a french comedy movie "la cité de la peur")

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think around 100-120 Hz is a worthwhile limit for attainable viewing. It mostly depends on the distance objects travel between frames. If a dot moves one pixel per frame, 60 FPS is 'perfectly' smooth, as you couldn't resolve smoother motions. Whereas a large square moving its whole width per frame would be jerky. That only won't be true if the frame is visible for a period smaller than the brain can resolve.

I remember an exhibit in a museum that had a viewing windoe on an image, and you could set the shutter speed to view the frame. I can't remember what the average was but, let's say it was 1/250th of a second, a shutter twice that ought to be invisible to the viewer. But I found I could see it at thousands of a second. Perhaps it ws broken.

The biological threshold will be determined by the speed the photopsin 'pigments' in the rods and cones on the retina can be reconstructed after a photon has bleached them.

None of which answers your question, but as I said, I think 120Hz is the sweet spot for fluid movement without requiring utterly insane resources!

 

[Alkohallick]

http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm

Very good read IMHO although nothing in particular to quote, give it a go im sure you wont be mad

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It's also going to vary quite a bit depending on the person, the view distance, and any artificial elements that are introduced.

A shutter for instance which basically reduces viewing to a strobe like effect will put unnatural focus onto single frames and reduce the effect of image retention.

Depending on how fast the rods and cones in you eye can completely discharge what is scene will determine how much image retention (motion blur, etc) will be perceived. The more image retained, the less impacted you'll be by a faster "fps."

Also note that fps in a computer image will be similar to a strobe effect, and thus image retention of the rods and cones in your eye won't function in exactly the same was as in real life.

Then you have things like film, which holds an image similar to your eyes such that it produces natural blurring effects on objects or scenes in motion. So while it's also a strobe like effect, it naturally reproduces much of what happens in your eye. Such that things like motion blur are naturally reproduced and thus film at 24 fps can quite often appear smoother and more natural looking than a computer video running at 60-120 fps.

With some devs now experimenting with motion blur in games, you can start to see this effect being reproduced, where a lower FPS appears smoother than a higher FPS in a game without motion blur.

In other words with a properly extreme artificial measure system (IE - looking through a shutter) you could probably get into the thousands of FPS (or images per second) and still not have things look natural and/or smooth. The closer you can come to making an artificial presentation approach how the eye naturally works, the less FPS dependent that medium will be to appear smooth and natural.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Then you have things like film, which holds an image similar to your eyes such that it produces natural blurring effects on objects or scenes in motion. So while it's also a strobe like effect, it naturally reproduces much of what happens in your eye. Such that things like motion blur are naturally reproduced and thus film at 24 fps can quite often appear smoother and more natural looking than a computer video running at 60-120 fps.

I disagree with that. Film motion blur is still aliased per frame. That is, each frame captures 1/24th of a second, but there is no blur from motion prior to the current frame. I recall with a pained shudder the sweeping mountain panaromas of LOTR when i saw them at the cinema, and the hideous jerking along. In this case, the moutain image was spread across an area of the film each frame for the blur, thus forming a sort of alpha-blended rectangle. This alpha-blended rectangle then moved across the screen at 24 fps, making very apparent jumps. Faster shutter speeds reduce motion blue even moreso.

A computer game adding motion blur from previous frame data would produce a smoother motion blurring than film, which I wish would get replaced with a better format. Ideally you'd want some film technique that could overlap frames, so frame One would span from 0 seconds to 2/24ths of a second, frame Two would span 1/24th second to 3/24ths, frame Three 4/24ths to 6/24ths, etc. You'd then capture the motion 'between' frames. And of course this should also be far higher framerate. However I don't think it's technically possible to record images this way. Maybe if they were recorded at twice framerate at the same shutter speed, and reconstructed?