Resolution vs Framerate on next gen consoles?

[Shifty Geezer]

between a poor quality at 60 fps and a great quality (more detail, more effects, more eye candy, more enemies at time) at stable 30 fps, I will ever choose the 30 fps eye candy

And between a poor quality 30 fps and a great quality 60 fps, I'd choose the 60 fps...

For a fair consideration, you need to qualify how much of a downgrade in visuals 60 fps will incur. Lego Star Wars runs at 60 fps and looks great because of it, despite the simple graphics. Drop the framerate and up the geometry and shader effects and you wouldn't get the same sense of quality.

 

[Griffith]

you miss the point
nobody says that 60 fps game are not impressive, the logical thing is that if a game go at 60 fps, then you can add more polys, more enemyes, more IA, more effects, and get a better experience gameplay and/or better looking one, at 30 fps

 

[London Geezer]

The thing is It's just harder to get a technically impressive game running in 60Hz than it is to get it to run in 30.

Well, i guess it's just harder to get a stable 60fps than a stable 30fps.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

'Better looking' in some ways but not others. 60 fps update contributes to 'better looking' in another way.

 

[Rodéric]

'Better looking' in some ways but not others. 60 fps update contributes to 'better looking' in another way.

Great screenshots vs smooth gameplay...
I don't care about the screenshots (but marketing departments most likely do )

Well there's the Guild Wars way of doing it, screenshots are made in highest quality mode, game is running at auto-detect settings (except if you did override it).

 

[Griffith]

this is a good example of how much can be pushed the look with different framerate in mind

60 FPS PGR engine:

30 FPS PGR engine:

of course the 30 fps means a lot of more detail, I will prefer 30 stable eye candy games than 60 fps poor looking games

 

[Farid]

Framerate is king! (bis)

you miss the point
nobody says that 60 fps game are not impressive, the logical thing is that if a game go at 60 fps, then you can add more polys, more enemyes, more IA, more effects, and get a better experience gameplay and/or better looking one, at 30 fps

That would be assuming that a game can be evenly CPU/GPU/BW bound.

A particular 60Hz game should benefit, in some ways, from being remade in 30Hz. But it doesn't necessarily mean that will evenly benefit from 100% more CPU cycles and 100% GPU shading power, because that would be, as I said assuming that the game is evenly bound. Thing that is rare if not totally improbable.

Also, as I said, 60Hz for me is a minimum, and sacrificing Framerate for effects or anything else would is not something I'd consider as a technical prowess.

And as already pointed, some of the best looking games in each genres this gen, are in 60fps.
Why should we choose between high quality graphics and framerate when we can have both?
It's possible to provide incredible graphics, effect, gameplay, sound, physics in 60fps
I don't care if a fast paced action game could look better if it was in 30fps, because the framerate alone will make me pass on it.

Anyway with this kind of "logic" a steady 15fps, like the days of the N64 or the early 3D games on the PC, could also mean improved graphics, etc...
But then someone will argue that there should be a "minimum" and that 15fps shouldn't be tolerated. And that minimum should be 60fps!

There are 60fps 3D games on Saturn and PSone, I can't even fathom how some people on Beyond3D(!), of all the places, could argue that 30fps should not only be tolerated but also accepted as a standard, or as a common practice, for the modern hardwares we have these days.

 

[London Geezer]

There are 60fps 3D games on Saturn and PSone, I can't even fathom how some people on Beyond3D(!), of all the places, could argue that 30fps should not only be tolerated but also accepted as a standard, or as a common practice, for the modern hardwares we have these days.

A 30fps engine would only look better than a 60fps "brother" would, if it's GPU limited. Lots of applications today are still vastly CPU bound, so that wouldn't make a difference in the look of the game..

[Moderated]

 

[Griffith]

this is a very personal opinion, this cange depending of who plays the game

what I see is:
"cinema films are @ 24 FPS"
"tv programs are 30 FPS (NTSC) or 25 FPS (PAL)"

so, for me, if a game implement a motion blur, then 30 fps will be fine, very very smooth experience

some need 60 fps, some need 90 fps, but I think that majority will stay very good with 30 stable.

there're out of there a lot of games that runs @ 60fps but in heavy situations will fall to 30.
in my opinion the "dropping 60 to 30 fps" is far more disturbing than a stable 30 fps, as it's more noticeable in action

and again, some as you will prefer less detail at 60 fps, some as me will prefer stable 30 fps with eye-candy.

if you take a pc game that ran @60 fps and enable 4x MSAA 16x AF, then it will drop in the 30-45 fps range ( this means 30 stable fps)
the same hit can be obtained enabling high res textures + better shadowing

when a game is tweaked to 30 fps, a devs paid attention to use resources that stalls in order to obtain the best use of resources

 

[Shifty Geezer]

this is a good example of how much can be pushed the look with different framerate in mind

60 FPS PGR engine:
30 FPS PGR engine:

What do these pictures show? One's night, one's day, so you're comparing different graphics sets for one. And you're in a different location. And one's a super-antialiased development/promo shot and the other is from in game!

When you say PGR engine, is that PGR 1 or 2? Is there an option to select framerate? Do you know for a fact that selecting an alternative framerate different resources are used (did they model two versions of every vehicle for the two different framerates)? Was the 60 Hz game totally optimized and built from the ground up for as much, or a cut-down extra added after the 30 fps version?

Without that sort of info, a screenshot comparison (ignoring the in-game versus promo comparison) is no use.

For me, I can appreciate there may be occassions where twice the detail at 30 fps is better than less detail at 60 fps. But for me, what made consoles appealing as ga,mes machines was the constant high framerate. Crappy jittery framerate is what PCs are all about. I don't go with Vysez's idea that all games should be 60 fps, but I do demand (quietly and without authority) fixed framerates at 30 or 60 (25/50) Hz, and i would prefer 60 Hz as standards or an option. 60 fps doesn't add eyecandy but adds class. Like minimalist interior design can look good without needing loads of furniture and decorating (eye candy), 60 fps adds quality to visuals.

 

[Rodéric]

this is a very personal opinion, this cange depending of who plays the game

what I see is:
"cinema films are @ 24 FPS"
"tv programs are 30 FPS (NTSC) or 25 FPS (PAL)"

so, for me, if a game implement a motion blur, then 30 fps will be fine, very very smooth experience

some need 60 fps, some need 90 fps, but I think that majority will stay very good with 30 stable.

A real camera frame record everything which happened in 1/FPS, that is most likely 1/24th second.
A computer frame is instantaneous, (no duration), and hence is completely different.

Now you have two solutions to the problem:
1/Display many frames (way above 24/s) in order to get the same effect.
2/Make the frame qualitatively equal to that of the camera frame (motion blur...)

Now I'm not sure that 2/ is faster than 1/.

So if you have the choice between 1/ & 2/ I think none of us will complain, because that's exactly the same.

The issue is that we have 30FPS with some more effects (which is not smooth), or 60FPS with little less effects...
I choose 60FPS, because I want to have a smooth display.

If we add into our factors that framerate isn't a steady 30/60FPS, then I want 60FPS even more.

[edit]
I'd also like to add that this is an issue we only see in consoles, since with PCs you can select your options and choose what is the most important to you, resolution, effects or framerate.
So a solution could be to have settings in console games, but that kinda break one of the benefit (for a dev) to work on a console, that is, to have far less paths to check...

 

[fearsomepirate]

When most people say "30 fps," they don't have true 30fps games in mind. They generally have in mind games that hover just over 20 fps with frequent slowdown.

I think the reason for 30fps minimum is simple: interlaced TVs, which lots of us poor schmoes still have, can't display above 30 full frames per second. 60 fps vs true 30fps is barely noticable on a normal TV. Depends on genre, too...I like my fighting and racing games at 60fps, especially if I'm racing a futuristic hovercar at 1000 kph. I'm fine with platformers, RPGs, etc at 30fps, because they're not as twitchy. IMO, games that actually achieve a constant 30fps look fine. Maybe not so much on a PC monitor, but fine on a TV.

I do like the idea of having some options in the menu. I think it would just be a single "Framerate/FX" option in the menu as opposed to the thousands of options in PC games (I got so sick of tweaking gfx options in Serious Sam, UT, etc). Any chance we'll see the end of load times?

 

[Bobbler]

I'm of the same opinion. fearsomepirate. I don't think 60fps is necessary for the vast majority of games, and the ones they are I think developers do a pretty good job of trying for (fighters/racers -- fast moving games). Platformers, a lot of action games (depending on the type), rpgs, etc., really don't need 60fps, and I'd much rather have the extra resources concentrated elsewhere (be it more stuff on the screen or whatever). A solid 30fps is all I really want, unless the game is spectacular enough in other places that I can forgive it (SoTC for example).

I guess after losing most of my interest in PC gaming (mostly from the lack of a solid stream of games over the last few years), my need for 60fps and stupid amounts of AA have sort of gone down. I don't even notice jaggies in current gen console games, and rarely am I annoyed by framerate. =\

 

[c0_re]

I will take rock solid 60fps framerates in all games over higher resolution any day. maybe the very nature of Revolution gaming with its controller will demand better framerates. I hope!

if so, Revolution could become my most played console.

Turn your computer monitor down to 640x480 and use it all day I think you'll have a different opinion. Once you go HD you don't go back, even Xbox games in 480p hurt my eye's.

Perfect example play FNR3 on a standard TV and then switch to an HDTV, it's a complete joke.

 

[scificube]

I prefer a steady framerate with eye candy. 30FPS is fine as long as it's stable...no dips...no speedups. I'm much more concerned with how the game looks and it's responsiveness that the framerate of the game. As long as the framerate is high enough that the game is properly responsive to my input I'm good to go.

 

[Griffith]

I prefer a steady framerate with eye candy. 30FPS is fine as long as it's stable...no dips...no speedups. I'm much more concerned with how the game looks and it's responsiveness that the framerate of the game. As long as the framerate is high enough that the game is properly responsive to my input I'm good to go.

I agree 100% with you

 

[Phil]

I think the reason for 30fps minimum is simple: interlaced TVs, which lots of us poor schmoes still have, can't display above 30 full frames per second. 60 fps vs true 30fps is barely noticable on a normal TV.

There's a very large difference in feel between a game that has 30 full-frames per second and one that has 60. Even on an interlaced display, the display still has a refresh each 1/60th of a second, regardless if the refresh are only virtually half of the pixels (odd or even). A game running at 60 full-frames per second will at least have half it's information displayed with every odd-even refresh of the interlaced display.

A nice game to notice that the difference is noticable: MGS2 vs MGS3. The latter is much less responsive, especially in 1st person view.