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Digital Foundry: Why the return of 30fps console games is inevitable


Slava

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In all seriousness, I’m all for 60fps - that’s great, and obviously preferable to 30fps…

 

…but I think the bigger issue is, if all that AAA developers can think to do with the additional horsepower of an new console is increase the framerate or increase the resolution to 4k, that shows a pretty appalling lack of creativity or imagination on their part.

 

I’d happily take current gen games at 1080p 30fps, if that meant that dev was using that horsepower for something more interesting, like better simulation, or more complex AI, or some other less “pedestrian” evolution than just “make the same games in the same way we always have, but make it look better or look smoother”

Edited by DrBloodmoney
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11 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I’d happily take current gen games at 1080p 30fps, if that meant that dev was using that horsepower for something more interesting, like better simulation, or more complex AI, or some other less “pedestrian” evolution than just “make the same games in the same way we always have, but make it look better or look smoother”

 

Nah. Frame rate or ray tracing. That's your choice!

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2 minutes ago, starcrunch061 said:

 

Nah. Frame rate or ray tracing. That's your choice!

 

Ray tracing is such a meme. Even the games that run at 30 fps to give it more room still end up looking unimpressive. I guess Sony wanted a sexy new gimmick to justify buying a new 500$ console, but the PS5 clearly isn't ready for ray tracing. Should have saved it for next gen or at the very least for a pro model of the PS5.

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15 minutes ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

Ray tracing is such a meme. Even the games that run at 30 fps to give it more room still end up looking unimpressive. I guess Sony wanted a sexy new gimmick to justify buying a new 500$ console, but the PS5 clearly isn't ready for ray tracing. Should have saved it for next gen or at the very least for a pro model of the PS5.

This is true. Cyberpunk looks worse with Ray Tracing 30fps than the Performance mode. PS5 would be at par with 2080 GPUs (maybe worse) in terms of performance and the 3080 series is the entry level GPU required for Ray Tracing to be a viable option.

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What's the optimal performance for games say 30 years in the future? Photorealistic graphics with uncapped performance? At what point does the technology get so advanced and so good that we move away from traditional video games as we know them today and more into the land of augmented reality? Where our screens look better than real life does?

 

As fast as the technology has moved just in my lifetime, it's hard to even fathom how much better it'll get in another 30 years. Those strives in advancement will get smaller and smaller and more incremental as we gradually move higher up the ladder towards achieving photorealism and uncapped performance which I suppose is the optimal goal for gaming in the end. It can't get better than real, can it?

 

Even now with the games; there are examples that look so good like Red Dead Redemption 2 that I can't even think of ways how they could make that game look even better than it already does. I'm sure they will though but those differences will not be as drastic as going from RDR1 to RDR2 was. It'll be smaller and less noticeable going forward from here, incremental improvements rather than big leaps in improvements like we saw in the rather recent past. 

 

Just because advancement is slowing down doesn't mean it's somehow moving backwards. It's getting harder and harder to take that next step and make that next improvement on something that's already astoundingly good. The way games look now, they're better than I ever imagined they would look like at this point in time back when I was a teenager. Back in time when I thought GTA San Andreas was the pinnacle of graphics. No way it could ever get better and I was immediately proven wrong not long after when the PS3 came out. 

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On 10/27/2022 at 9:48 AM, Phantochi said:

I find 30 FPS much easier to deal with than 60 FPS with bad frame timing, for some reason, and it doesn't really bother me since i regularly play on 15+ year old consoles.


Also, most people can't actually tell, just say it's 60 to someone and they'll believe you.

I disagree with this highly. 

 

If we did a study of randomized 30fps & 60fps games and you let me play 100 games... I guarantee I would be able to tell you which was which for every example. 

 

I'm a gamer in my 40s. Playing games at 60fps has been similar to me with making the leap from standard definition to high definition. I have NEVER chosen a "graphics" over "performance" mode in the newer games I play on my PS5. Talk about noticing differences... I don't notice ANY difference in Quality mode vs. Performance in graphic fidelity and I have an LG C2 OLED. 

 

If games start going back to 30fps with no 60 option... I'll be extremely disappointed and more than likely won't even bother with the title. 

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1 hour ago, mega-tallica said:

What's the optimal performance for games say 30 years in the future? Photorealistic graphics with uncapped performance? At what point does the technology get so advanced and so good that we move away from traditional video games as we know them today and more into the land of augmented reality? Where our screens look better than real life does?

 

I mean, that's not really possible outside of stylized graphics or augmenting the human body itself. If we did start making games that looked 'better than real life', we'd likely not be able to tell the difference, as observing real life already exerts the entirety of our visual abilities.

 

1 hour ago, VenlafaxineHead said:

I disagree with this highly.

 

Yeah, that just sounds like more of the 'the human eye can't see more than 30 frames per second!' nonsense.

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There's usually a lot of hyperbole when it comes to frame rates over the years and a lot of myths have been debunked long ago yet I still often see people preach them from time to time.

 

Is 60fps preferable? Yes.

Is 60fps noticeable? Yes.

Is 30fps acceptable? Also yes, always will be no matter how advanced the tech gets (for traditional videogames that is, VR is another matter)

 

There's nothing wrong, shameful or unplayable about 30fps and when I see people claim it's unplayable or looks like a slideshow I genuinely cringe a little. Stop lying to yourself xD 30fps has and always will be visually acceptable. Certain elements of gameplay is where frame rate starts to make more of an impact, and that does mean it would be ideal to have it be as buttery smooth as you can get it, but even so, 30 is still fine. There are so many games that have aged wonderfully and play/look silky smooth to this day that were 30 and people have even mistakingly assumed them being 60 upon going back and playing 'em. Sometimes I almost think 60fps+ is a placebo effect to some folk whilst they themselves personally can't really tell. The differences exist, but I do wonder how many people actually can feel the difference and how many just pretend they can.

 

The thing that I feel a bunch about next-gen talk about frame rates and graphical fidelity is quite nicely summed up by

4 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I think the bigger issue is, if all that AAA developers can think to do with the additional horsepower of an new console is increase the framerate or increase the resolution to 4k, that shows a pretty appalling lack of creativity or imagination on their part.

Having a game 'look' better or run at a smoother frame rate is not something that screams "next gen" to me. Next gen feels like something in the game that wouldn't have been possible under previous gen hardware. If you could simply downscale the resolution/cap the frame rate to 30/generally downgrade the graphics and it'll play exactly the same all the way back on a base PS4 or even a PS3 then... you're not really moving game design forwards with technology.

 

I like seeing graphics improve, seeing the journey from playing some ol' Atari "what is that bunch of squares supposed to be?" to borderline realistic representations of people that with the right lighting and VFX could fool someone into thinking it's a live action scene... but, I got into gaming for games, not engine graphics demos. I primarily care about the evolution of game mechanics and game design and will praise games that do an amazing job at being a game so highly over a game that looks pretty and is considered some kind of 'technical' accomplishment for a visual reason alone.

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People who blindly say 60 fps is mandatory for them to consider playing a game annoy me. There is a reason film is filmed in 24fps. There is a reason some games are chosen to be 30 despite being able to go higher. For a super actiony game, yeah 60 fps would be better. For a game like life is strange true colors, or a plague tale requiem? I want those in 30 with better resolution/graphics because they're not super intensive on action and the 60 just makes them feel sped up or goofy looking with the faster framerate. A game like RE2 is great in 60, a game like metal gear solid is not.

 

The inexcusable thing, is having a 60fps mode that looks jank, alongside a 30fps mode that looks great, with no inbetween. Give me a 45fps mode with resolution somewhere in between - at least give me the option. Dying light 2 looks HORRIBLE in 60 FPS.

 

Blows my mind to pick framerate over graphics unless there's not much of a difference in graphics. Just my two cents, we can agree to disagree there. Many times the 60 just looks so bad to me, esp with HZD: FW. Had to play that whole game in 30 just to be able to appreciate the atmosphere and detail. Your eyes get used to 30 pretty fast and you don't even notice it, whereas I will ALWAYS notice the blurriness or lack of "pop" in some games 60fps modes compared to being 30 and visually incredible. Sometimes the devs can nail it and get 60fps looking great, and in those cases I absolutely will pick 60. But I will never pick 60 just to pick 60 when the game just looks way worse, that's silly to me personally. A game like Destiny 2 gets it right. It does 60 and can keep the resolution great, but let's not pretend the PS5 is strong enough to do that with every game, esp open world ones.

 

I don't think it should be a "I refuse to play this game bc of no 60" kind of deal with modern games. That reeks of "I refuse to play Chrono Trigger because it's 16 bit and I'm used to ghost of tsushima graphics". You will rob yourself of great games over petty nonsense, like many did with the latest Life is Strange. Framerate is just one piece of the puzzle, it is not everything. There's a reason you use your 120hz setting on TV's for sports and action movies and not talk shows and soap operas (or at the very least, that's how it is intended).

Edited by ChibsSoA
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6 minutes ago, MilanYildirim said:

Having said 30 fps is fine like you are fine with minimum wage, no raise because bread and butter makes you full. Ask for a juicy steak ffs.

Stop normalizing 30 fps in 2022

 

A better comparison is saying you ask for and get a raise, but you also get an extra 20 hours of work every week. You can't just increase framerate on games without sacrificing resolution. Some people prefer making less pay and having to work less, some people would rather work more and make more. But you cannot have more pay for the same work at most companies. Some companies can accomodate you, but most cannot because the tools they are working with won't allow for it. The PS5, while plenty strong, is not as strong as many probably think it is.

 

Sometimes the dev is just flat out lazy, on a time crunch, or whatever and they can do better and don't. In those cases I think it's fair to criticize. I just don't think it's fair to say "no 60 FPS means it's a POS". That's not true a lot of the time.

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31 minutes ago, JohnCenaSong- said:

Sometimes I almost think 60fps+ is a placebo effect to some folk whilst they themselves personally can't really tell

 

I can't believe it's 2022 and people are still regurgitating this cope.

 

18 minutes ago, ChibsSoA said:

People who blindly say 60 fps is mandatory for them to consider playing a game annoy me. There is a reason film is filmed in 24fps.

 

... You do realize that movies are different from games, right? There's a reason why slideshows only show a few pictures a minute, if that, but that doesn't mean movies running at 3fps would be pleasant to watch.

 

18 minutes ago, ChibsSoA said:

The inexcusable thing, is having a 60fps mode that looks jank, alongside a 30fps mode that looks great, with no inbetween. Give me a 45fps mode with resolution somewhere in between - at least give me the option. Dying light 2 looks HORRIBLE in 60 FPS.

 

Yeah, that's called poor optimization.

 

Also, the in-between of 30 fps and 60 fps is 40 fps, not 45 fps, due to how frame pacing works.

 

Just now, ChibsSoA said:

You can't just increase framerate on games without sacrificing resolution.

 

Tell that to all the PS5 games that run at 4k and 60fps. You can increase the framerate on games and maintain a high resolution, if you aim for that. The problem is that developers don't care about maintaining decent framerates and as such make a game that barely runs at 30fps and then have to majorly downscale it to run at 60.

 

Edited by Darling Baphomet
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7 minutes ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

I can't believe it's 2022 and people are still regurgitating this cope.

 

 

... You do realize that movies are different from games, right? There's a reason why slideshows only show a few pictures a minute, if that, but that doesn't mean movies running at 3fps would be pleasant to watch.

 

 

Yeah, that's called poor optimization.

 

Also, the in-between of 30 fps and 60 fps is 40 fps, not 45 fps, due to how frame pacing works.

 

 

I realize 2 things

 

1) starting a sentence with "..." is even more annoying than people who demand 60 fps in their games

 

2) Non-action based games, such as tell-tale games or the dark picture games, definitively look goofy as hell in 60 fps. Everything just looks like it's on fast forward mode and un-natural. I'd compare those kinds of games to movies since you're mostly watching cutscene, so yes I always take 30 in those if possible

 

 

Optimization would be great but sometimes they do not have the time or resources to. Sometimes having to create for last gen holds things back. It's not like it's always just laziness. Sometimes, like with LiS, it's intentional because 60 just again, looks so absolutely goofy in certain games. All I know is, those who are refusing to play stuff because of all this are robbing themselves of great experiences at times, and that's just foolish.

Edited by ChibsSoA
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2 minutes ago, ArmoredSnowman said:

I must be blind, because the 30 and 60 lines look about the same for me. 

 

It's not a great example to show framerate at all, in that example they deff look similar but within a game there is a very noticeable difference. It is impossible to be a human being and not see the difference when a game is put side by side 60 and 30. Go look up a vid for plague tale requiem, then look at a vid for the PS5 version of plague tale innocence. Clear as day.

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On 10/27/2022 at 7:35 PM, mega-tallica said:

TV aficionados arguing about resolution. 1080p versus 4K, 4K versus 8K, etc.

For me, I can't really tell much difference past 720p. Even 480 looks decent enough to my eyes. I tend to play videos at 1080p, but I doubt I'd notice much from 4k/8k.

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4 minutes ago, ChibsSoA said:

1) starting a sentence with "..." is even more annoying than people who demand 60 fps in their games

 

... Personally, what I find annoying is people using inane arguments to justify their bizarre hatred of people who... have preferences in games?

 

10 minutes ago, ChibsSoA said:

2) Non-action based games, such as tell-tale games, definitively look goofy as hell in 60 fps. Everything just looks like it's on fast forward mode and un-natural. I'd compare those kinds of games to movies since you're mostly watching cutscene, so yes I always take 30 in those if possible

 

A good thing that the vast majority of games aren't Telltale games, then. In fact, I fail to see how Telltale is at all relevant, given that the company died years ago and has yet to release a new game since.

 

"Unnatural" is also a very funny choice of words here given that 30 fps is a thing that exists only in media and 60 fps is far closer to what the human eye perceives in real life. Real life being the thing that is 'natural', not the television you're staring at.

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4 minutes ago, ArmoredSnowman said:

For me, I can't really tell much difference past 720p. Even 480 looks decent enough to my eyes. I tend to play videos at 1080p, but I doubt I'd notice much from 4k/8k.

 

Curious what brands/models you guys are using. 720p to 1080p is a decent difference, but 1080p to 4k is a HUGE difference on a quality TV. Those who pay for size over quality of a TV are going to have to realize that this is where they will fall behind. The image has to stretch out over a bigger size so it's harder to notice. On a 50" or below, the difference is very noticeable. Lot of lower end brands also do fake 4k/upscaling and not true 4K. Not a TV snob FWIW.

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1 minute ago, ChibsSoA said:

 

Curious what brands/models you guys are using. 720p to 1080p is a decent difference, but 1080p to 4k is a HUGE difference on a quality TV. Those who pay for size over quality of a TV are going to have to realize that this is where they will fall behind. The image has to stretch out over a bigger size so it's harder to notice. On a 50" or below, the difference is very noticeable. Not a TV snob FWIW.

I play on my 1080p TV, but have a 4k TV in the living room. Guess, most shows aren't in 4K, so I never get to experience the "difference in quality", but I couldn't care less.

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4 minutes ago, ArmoredSnowman said:

I play on my 1080p TV, but have a 4k TV in the living room. Guess, most shows aren't in 4K, so I never get to experience the "difference in quality", but I couldn't care less.

 

Television shows are generally not in 4K. There is not much easily accessible media in 4K even still compared to 1080p. Gaming is where you really see 4K shine. With cable TV, even I don't notice much of a difference between 720p and 1080p a lot of the time. On something like youtube, you can deff see a huge diff between 480 and 1080 though. But yeah, none of that is comparable to how gaming functions IMO. Gaming is far more detailed than television. I'd argue the only reason you don't care is because you haven't seen things side by side properly and are just used to whatever you use. Also depends on the hardware transmitting the image - PS3 games were in 1080p but they still look way worse than 1080p PS4 games on average because of things like better engines and whatnot.

 

But again, ultimately boils down to quality of the TV. A garbage Toshiba 1080p is not going to look like a higher end Samsung 1080p. Lot of people out there just buy cheap or big TV's and don't realize how much image quality they're really sacrificing.

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48 minutes ago, MilanYildirim said:

Having said 30 fps is fine like you are fine with minimum wage, no raise because bread and butter makes you full. Ask for a juicy steak ffs.

Stop normalizing 30 fps in 2022

I am normalizing it because to me it is normal, as I literally am incapable to see any difference between 30 and 60 even when watching a comparison video, so whiners who act like 30 fps is somehow torturous to witness are hilarious to me. If 30 fps is becoming more common again, I'd say you being annoyed or hurt by that is a bit of a you problem, guess being on PC where some people fetishize fps numbers in the 3 digits and consider it as the bare minimum for a game to even be considered playable would be more your thing than being on console.

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14 minutes ago, Dauersack said:

I am normalizing it because to me it is normal, as I literally am incapable to see any difference between 30 and 60 even when watching a comparison video, so whiners who act like 30 fps is somehow torturous to witness are hilarious to me. If 30 fps is becoming more common again, I'd say you being annoyed or hurt by that is a bit of a you problem, guess being on PC where some people fetishize fps numbers in the 3 digits and consider it as the bare minimum for a game to even be considered playable would be more your thing than being on console.

No offense, but that sounds like a legless guy saying people who like jogging are whiners when they're forced to ride a wheelchair. The vast majority of people do notice the difference, and whatever their choice may be, it is a pretty big difference. Objective and measurable difference. I can't smell, but I won't say not smelling 90% of things is normal ?

 

Given how we got used to 60fps this generation, and how this generation is progressing so far, I just want two things... 

1. games being designed with current gen in mind. I know, maybe next year... 

2. Games designed with 60/40/30 choice in mind. Fine, make the game look as good as it can but just let me switch to 60, even if it is a big downgrade in terms of graphics. I'd prefer if it was polished to some rational degree, but yeah, I want to have that choice. I can go back to 30 but I really, really don't want to. 

 

We're not gonna get 4k/60/rt in the vast majority of games this generation anyway and we're decades away from truly photorealistic games. Might as well have the prettier/smoother choice for now. 

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I'm not doubting the people who say they don't notice a difference between 30fps and 60fps (I mean, it would be a weird thing to lie about), but I'd love to know exactly why that is. It seems mind-blowing, because to me the difference is so pronounced that I find it utterly bizarre that someone else with functioning eyeballs wouldn't notice the very same thing. And it isn't like higher frame rates being better is a subjective opinion or something, they're objectively better. It isn't something you can even debate. I do wonder if maybe in some cases it's a matter of people not caring, rather than not noticing. Regardless of the reasons, I guess I just find it interesting how some people are incapable of noticing any difference.

 

Although perhaps even more bizarre in my opinion is the person above who claims to not notice much of a difference in resolution beyond 720p, and claiming that even 480p looks "decent". No offense meant, but that's just wild to me.

Edited by The Alchemist
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