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

[Svensk Viking]

Gamecube had plenty of games with 60 FPS when it came to exclusives

 

[PSman]

Gamecube had plenty of games with 60 FPS when it came to exclusives

Some that I can think of are: Star Fox, Metroid Prime, SSBM, FX: Zero.. Could be more, but still significantly less than the PS2, though.

I think the Xbox has the least amount of games running at 60fps.. Surprisingly enough.

 

[vazel]

Sly Cooper and ZoE 2 had framerate issues so did a lot of other games. And the PS2 introduced tearing to consoles by disabling v-sync in order to improve framerate. I'd say the Dreamcast and GCN had the most consistent 60fps games.

 

[Phil]

Sly Cooper and ZoE 2 had framerate issues so did a lot of other games. And the PS2 introduced tearing to consoles by disabling v-sync in order to improve framerate. I'd say the Dreamcast and GCN had the most consistent 60fps games.

No more framerate issues than 30 fps this generation. Framerate issues didn't come with the higher framerate - it came with added complexity in the games. Most games I recall running at 60fps did good enough job most of the time and only got a bit incosistent when things got heated up.

Also count in the TimeSplitters series which was 60 fps.

 

[vazel]

This gen has bad framerate issues. I remember hearing of a publisher study that said most gamers don't care about framerate just as long as the visuals are pretty. It's not just complexity that causes framerate issues it's also engine optimization, the God of War games ran better than many games that looked worse.

 

[Lazy8s]

Dreamcast could simultaneously generate proscan for its native VGA and generate a flicker-filtered CRT display, and has enough display RAM that the full framebuffer didn't get compromised for texture space by games, so just about every DC game, demo, and utility could be output progressively.

 

[tuna]

Dreamcast could simultaneously generate proscan for its native VGA and generate a flicker-filtered CRT display, and has enough display RAM that the full framebuffer didn't get compromised for texture space by games, so just about every DC game, demo, and utility could be output progressively.

There are quite a lot of exceptions though, the first one I can think about is Sakura Taisen 1...

 

[Simon F]

There are quite a lot of exceptions though, the first one I can think about is Sakura Taisen 1...

I don't know of that game in particular, but, AFAIU, some of the early DC games weren't availing themselves of the 2bpp compressed texture format and so, in order to have more texture space, used less than the typical 640x480 frame rendering.

 

[TapamN]

There are quite a lot of exceptions though, the first one I can think about is Sakura Taisen 1...

The Dreamcast version of Sakura Taisen 1 runs on VGA at 640*480 perfectly fine. According to my monitor's display, the video signal is 640*480 at 59.86 Hz. (Although, in the battle part of the game, the background is stretched out on one axis with point filtering.)

I have about ~50 Dreamcast games, and I've only found one that doesn't run on my VGA box. (Psychic Force 2021, which I specifically bought because I heard it ran at 640*240, and wanted to see if it was true.) I heard the European version of Skies of Arcadia doesn't support VGA or 60 Hz PAL (The US version runs fine on VGA). I have two PAL territory games, Shenmue II and Headhunter, and both run fine on NTSC and VGA.

Edit: Oh, Trickstyle won't boot if you have VGA plugged in, but if you use a boot disc or switch cables mid-boot, it will still work on VGA.

 

[Airwave]

Xbox maybe has had, the least number of games running at 60 fps in the last gen, but let's not forget , that it was also the consolle that most massively used resource hungry effect, like normal mapping, stencil shadows and other shader related effects. It's easy to do a 60 fps game, with nothing going on on screen except polygons and (often not very good) textures like on the ps2. By the way the 60 fps titles does not lack, Outrun 2, the 2 rallisport challenge, ninja gaiden, the 2 otogis, jet set radio future, Painkiller hell wars, and others, run at perfectly smooth 60 fps with a level of detail far superior to the average ps2 60 fps games listed in the op.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Xbox maybe has had, the least number of games running at 60 fps in the last gen, but let's not forget , that it was also the consolle that most massively used resource hungry effect, like normal mapping, stencil shadows and other shader related effects. It's easy to do a 60 fps game, with nothing going on on screen except polygons and (often not very good) textures like on the ps2.

Don't underrate the PS2 though. It's not like every 60fps game lacked visual appeal and thus was 'easy'. Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and derivatives had complex shading, dynamic lighting, dynamic shadows, antialiasing, procedural water, etc. and still ran at 60 fps.

The reason any game doesn't reach 60 fps is design decisions based on the developers' ability (technical and financial) to put however much eye-candy into a frame. It's incorrect to say any console was 'simple' and so, as it couldn't achieve eye-candy, could achieve faster framerates.

 

[vazel]

Back then just the amount of polys the ps2 was pushing was impressive enough without all the fancy shader stuff. I remember how amazing the Jak games were.

 

[Airwave]

Don't underrate the PS2 though. It's not like every 60fps game lacked visual appeal and thus was 'easy'. Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and derivatives had complex shading, dynamic lighting, dynamic shadows, antialiasing, procedural water, etc. and still ran at 60 fps.

The reason any game doesn't reach 60 fps is design decisions based on the developers' ability (technical and financial) to put however much eye-candy into a frame. It's incorrect to say any console was 'simple' and so, as it couldn't achieve eye-candy, could achieve faster framerates.

yes i agree that developer's decisions and skills are often crucial, but usually xbox games are much more charged with effects, more complex geometry and physics, and thus more subject to run at lower fps. That's not to bash the ps2, i know it has good looking games running at 60 fps too, but you'll agree that having to compute normal mapping and stencil shadows (for example) does impact on performance much more, than using simple dynamic lighting, and simple textures.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

...but you'll agree that having to compute normal mapping and stencil shadows (for example) does impact on performance much more, than using simple dynamic lighting, and simple textures.

But if the XB didn't use those effects, it'd hit 60fps. And if PS2 did use those effects on its 60fps games, they'd drop to 30fps. The hardware isn't the issue here. You can't point to PS2's hardware as being simple as a reason for more 60fps on PS2. The only thing that shows is more developers on PS2 were willing to reduce eye-candy to gain framerate.

 

[Fafalada]

but you'll agree that having to compute normal mapping and stencil shadows (for example) does impact on performance much more, than using simple dynamic lighting, and simple textures.

No doubt - but see what Shifty just said about tradeoffs - and also what I mentioned at begining of the thread about higher fps being kind of forced to be the preferred solution.
Though I find it peculiar you picked stencil shadows, as that was commonly used for shadows (perhaps, most common) on PS2, and also one of the very few things that was actually faster then on Xbox.

 

[Airwave]

But if the XB didn't use those effects, it'd hit 60fps. And if PS2 did use those effects on its 60fps games, they'd drop to 30fps. The hardware isn't the issue here. You can't point to PS2's hardware as being simple as a reason for more 60fps on PS2. The only thing that shows is more developers on PS2 were willing to reduce eye-candy to gain framerate.

Ps2 couldn't reproduce a lot of shader effects that xbox was capable of, nor the heavy physics engines of an half life 2 or forza motorsport, it is indeed a simpler hardware. So on the ps2 the choice to wether prefer technical features over fps was somewhat less difficult, beacuse the options given you from the hardware were more limited. simple shadows , does not impact performance as complex shadow volumes, used in many xbox games (thief, doom 3, the splinter cells), a simple multitexturing does not impact the performance the same as normal mapping (used in many xbox games), and i could go on. Maybe i didn't make it clear enough, but i don't completely disagree with you, as i said before, i am aware that programmers choices and knowledge of the hardware is critical in locking the fps at a certain rate, i just wanted to note that the stress on pushing more in terms of effects, polys eatc. at the cost of fps was much more heavy on the xbox than on ps2.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You could do normal mapping on PS2. It'd be very expensive and your game would run slowly. Thus the choice is 10 fps with normal mapping, or 60 fps without. Developers chose without. You could do normal mapping on XB. It wasn't very expensive because the hardware was better designed to suport it. The developers had a choice to either use normal mapping at 30 fps, or without at 60 fps. This is of course a gross simplification, but the point is, whatever the hardware can do, the developers have to choose where to allocate the performance.

Perhaps most telling is your line here -

Ps2 couldn't reproduce a lot of shader effects that xbox was capable of, nor the heavy physics engines of an half life 2 or forza motorsport, it is indeed a simpler hardware.

Because it was a simpler machine, getting the same effects was harder, and yet games still did it. If you haven't seen BGDA or CON from Snowblind Studios, you perhaps don't appreciate some of the fantastic shading qualities achieved on PS2, but it was certainly capable of a great deal by using overdraw and blending as opposed to the XB approach of single-pass shading. So to get BGDA on PS2 at 60fps is a more impressive feat than getting the same game running on XB, yet it could still be done. Case being, including fancy effects doesn't mean running at 30fps or slower. It all comes down to how the developers choose to use the hardware.

i just wanted to note that the stress on pushing more in terms of effects, polys eatc. at the cost of fps was much more heavy on the xbox than on ps2.

Only because the developers made it so! If the pixel shaders were slowing them down, they could have eased up on using them to hit 60fps. Just as on PS2, if a game was comfortably runnig at 60 fps, the developers could have added more effects and dropped down to 30 fps. The only legitimate aspect to your argument I can see is that developers may well have felt inclined to use more effects on XB because they were easier to implement, whereas even if they were willing to take a 60 fps PS2 game and reduce it to 30 fps to get some fancy effects going, the technical hurdles would have prohibited them, so instead they stuck at simpler, faster operations.

But given the number of 30 fps I played on PS2, I don't think there's any real argument here. Hardware makes no difference. Developers set their own targets and used the hardware however they chose. Most developers on any 3D platform seemed willing to sacrifice framerate, and only a few kept the faith!

 

[Phil]

Some good arguments in this thread here. I would also add that Xbox developers (coming with a lot of PC development background) were already used to using lots of these effects so it was probably natural for them to stay on that course. I would also think that using these effects was key to differenciate them from the competition on the PS2. With the Xbox being out later, it's premise was built on it pulling off better visuals (or at least attempting to do so by using cleaner IQ and effects that the PS2 lacked).

Nice mention of Baulders Gate and CON there Shifty. I really would love to see something like this on next gen consoles. Playing CO-OP in those games was a lot of fun and very impressive from a technical point of view too.

 

[Airwave]

You could do normal mapping on PS2. It'd be very expensive and your game would run slowly. Thus the choice is 10 fps with normal mapping, or 60 fps without. Developers chose without. You could do normal mapping on XB. It wasn't very expensive because the hardware was better designed to suport it. The developers had a choice to either use normal mapping at 30 fps, or without at 60 fps. This is of course a gross simplification, but the point is, whatever the hardware can do, the developers have to choose where to allocate the performance.

Perhaps most telling is your line here -
Because it was a simpler machine, getting the same effects was harder, and yet games still did it. If you haven't seen BGDA or CON from Snowblind Studios, you perhaps don't appreciate some of the fantastic shading qualities achieved on PS2, but it was certainly capable of a great deal by using overdraw and blending as opposed to the XB approach of single-pass shading. So to get BGDA on PS2 at 60fps is a more impressive feat than getting the same game running on XB, yet it could still be done. Case being, including fancy effects doesn't mean running at 30fps or slower. It all comes down to how the developers choose to use the hardware.

Only because the developers made it so! If the pixel shaders were slowing them down, they could have eased up on using them to hit 60fps. Just as on PS2, if a game was comfortably runnig at 60 fps, the developers could have added more effects and dropped down to 30 fps. The only legitimate aspect to your argument I can see is that developers may well have felt inclined to use more effects on XB because they were easier to implement, whereas even if they were willing to take a 60 fps PS2 game and reduce it to 30 fps to get some fancy effects going, the technical hurdles would have prohibited them, so instead they stuck at simpler, faster operations.

But given the number of 30 fps I played on PS2, I don't think there's any real argument here. Hardware makes no difference. Developers set their own targets and used the hardware however they chose. Most developers on any 3D platform seemed willing to sacrifice framerate, and only a few kept the faith!

this is the core of what i was trying to say , on the xbox there was a much more convenience on going for 30 fps, beacuse the potential gain in terms of technical quality was much larger than doing the same on ps2. But the fact, that there was a huge technical gap between ps2 and xbox, does remain undebeatable.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Nice mention of Baulders Gate and CON there Shifty. I really would love to see something like this on next gen consoles. Playing CO-OP in those games was a lot of fun and very impressive from a technical point of view too.

Well I always plug Snowblind Studios when I get the chance! If you ask for a list of top-tier PS2 devs, you'll hear ND and Insomniac and Polyphony etc., yet what Snowblind did with a dozen people for their launch title is a match for any other developer IMO. Very underrated studio, and to get an idea of what PS2 could do, SB's output should be included as reference material.

this is the core of what i was trying to say

Well, that's okay then.

But the fact, that there was a huge technical gap between ps2 and xbox, does remain undebeatable.

1) It is debateable.
2) This thread isn't about which platform was the most powerful, but which platform had the most 60 fps games, which is independent of hardware performance. If anything you'd expect the more capable machine to be producing the smoother framerate!