Lunchtime Discussion: Frame Rate
How do you like your frame rate? 30, 60, sunny side up?Published 02/02/2010 at 12:00 by Raen
Lunchtime Discussion: Perspective [37]
My Top Ten: FPS Differences [47]
Shadow of the Silenced MP5? [30]
Today’s discussion comes from our lovable Shetlander, Lorcan. He even attempted to bring science into this one, so stay alert.
I recently read a rather interesting article on the Insomniac blog about some research they had done into whether or not the framerate of a game really matters. You can read the full thing here, and I suggest you do because it really is very interesting, but today we’ll be focusing on the point of 30 & 60fps and whether the difference really matters. In the world of gaming journalism, framerate is a writer’s favourite thing because it’s an easy statistical representation of a game’s graphical power, something which usually can only be described using many similes, euphemisms and metaphors. Though I’ve never really found that I actually ever notice any differences between 30 and 60 frames in a second. Obviously if a game starts to drop below 30 frames, you do start to see it, but until then I never really notice anything.
A bit of research showed me that the scientific community is still undecided on just how many frames per second the human eye can register. External influences make a difference too, with lighting and motion having an effect on the results of scientific studies on this subject. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter what the scientific community tell us, it matters to us what the gaming community tells us and that is dependant on how smooth a game handles motion and how well it plays.
Alex has commented lately on the PS3 port of Bayonetta which is clearly a sufferer of a poor framerate. Having played both versions he quoted “night and day” and it’s clear here that the difference between a far from locked 30fps on the PS3 pales in comparison to a locked 60fps on the 360. But for a game like Killzone where we have some of the most gorgeous graphics available on consoles today, did you ever hear anyone make a peep about there only being 30, stunning pictures for every second? I didn’t and nor did I care. I was too distracted by the stunning hell around me.
Super Stardust 3D was quoted recently for running at 120fps, which is 60fps for each eye to make it work smoothly in 3D. This works because the original game never needed any more than 50% of the PS3’s CPU so they can double the number of frames and use up that extra CPU power. I would much rather that a game sat at around 30fps and stuttered occasionally whilst delivering either, stunning graphics, or technically astounding on-screen action than have either of those elements toned down so that the developers could double the number of frames. I’m in no way saying that 60fps games are any better or worse than 30fps ones as it’s all down to the developer, but let’s say they were and we were given the choice, what would we all pick?
Comments
Please note that all comments are the opinion of the individual author and not TheSixthAxis.
cc_star | 02/02/2010 10:36
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Whats important isn’t the actual framerate, but that the framerate is consistent, there is no point having a 60fps game if the frame rate drops to 40 or 30fps every time there is an explosion.
Insomniac have made sure that all R&C games are 60fps, but they have carried out research and found no link between framerate and sales – they have now said they aren’t going to waste development time (and therefore money) doing effectively twice the work when it makes no difference to sales. there is a direct correlation between overall graphics and sales but not from framerate, as discussed in a previous Lunchtime Discussion.
I think there are advantages to certain genres if the frame rate is higher, Burnout and Unreal Tournament III spring to mind. and then there are games which have amazing graphics like Uncharted2, Killzone2 and Halo 3 (for the time) and there is no way the framerate could run higher than 30fps on current tech, the workload for the CPU/SPU/GPU’s would just be too much.
What I think is more important than framerate is that the overall graphics are good, it is V-synced so there is no god awful tearing and the framerate is relatively stable, once these things are in place if you have the development ability (many don’t) and time and money should you try to increase the framerate, but whatever you increase it to, consistency is more important than overall speed.
DJ Judas | 02/02/2010 12:12
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Spot on. Been saying this for years but do the arguements become any less frequent…..no
teflon | 02/02/2010 12:30
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The perfect post.
Another thing to consider is the online play. When you’ve got a ping of more than 20ms, what does the whole 60FpS shebang really matter? Look at Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2 (probably happens a ton in MW2 and all other action games online), there’s such a high number of mutually assured kills it’s almost crazy at times.
But that’s nothing to do with the frame rate, that’s ping, net code and how the game is programmed to handle such situations.
60FpS isn’t going to help you when some laggy f*ckwit is shooting you through walls.. So long as it’s consistently smooth on your end, you’re not really going to notice it unless you can spot the difference and demand 100+FpS at all times, in which case you’re a PC gamer anyway.
DrOf1337 | 02/02/2010 12:05
Tends to spoil major games.
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I played Borderlands on the PC before I got it for PS3 and the frame rate difference was absolutely disgusting. I must have been running Borderlands at 80fps on my PC and then it’s so patchy on the PS3 at times. Especially after the game has been on for a few hours, it really starts to chug when people get killed or large amounts of loot drop. Took me a long time to get used to it.
Oviously in an ideal world the framerate would be up at 60fps for all titles but I agree with cc_star, as long as a framerate is LOCKED and consistent, I can get by on 30. 40 is nicer, it makes quite a large difference over 30 imo. I think teams aiming for 30fps is a throwback to meeting NTSC standard isn’t it? Seems a bit redundant.
Deathbrin | 02/02/2010 12:12
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Yeah, it’s only noticeable slowdowns that matter. When you’re in the beat of the game and it suddenly changes, that is annoying.
jimmy-google | 02/02/2010 12:18
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I’ve never noticed frame rate problems (though I’ve read that it can make a big difference on the 3D games). The only issues I tend to suffer from are control ones (one game I’ve had control issues with at the moment is AC2 – it’s certainly no Uncharted or Batman AA)
cc_star | 02/02/2010 12:53
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AC2 is an embarrassment not just for framerate (which is improved on the PS3 over the ancient AC1, but is still poor), but for texture and shadow pop-in/up and tearing, the tearing is atrocious, which is a shame because Ubisoft have a perfectly good Far Cry engine, it makes me wonder why they haven’t ditched the Assassin Engine, especially as it ruined Shaun White as well
commuterzombie | 02/02/2010 12:24
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Twitch games like fast racers and FPSs (and I suppose beat ‘em ups) need to be at 60 FPS to feel responsive enough to be enjoyable. Digital Foundry have done an excellent couple of articles on both FPS and controller latency.
Ratchet and Clank is an excellent example of a game that doesn’t really need 60FPS. Wipeout HD on the other hand definitely does. Maybe if KZ2 had 60 FPS there’d have been less noise about how it seemed awkward and slow to some people. Then again maybe they’d have just found something else to moan about
teflon | 02/02/2010 12:51
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The awkwardness and slow pace in KZ2 is down to the game style itself. Your character’s movement have got a decent heft to them unlike the First Person Shooters on Ice twitch fest that CoD has popularised the last couple of years.
There were the initial complaints about input lag at the start, but that was patched out, and then they added the high precision targeting that upped the sensitivity of the movement. But neither of those was tied to the 30FpS rate, which is 99% completely nailed.
Everything else, such as the simultaneous kills, is down to the individual’s internet connection.
commuterzombie | 02/02/2010 15:41
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Fair enough, I still haven’t got around to picking KZ2 up (no split-screen) so I can’t speak for the game style but there will be a noticeable difference in responsiveness between a 60 and a 30 FPS shooter. I’d hazard a guess that Guerilla opted to go for a ‘hefty feel’ to help mitigate the added latency with 30FPS.
Watchful | 02/02/2010 12:25
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A stable framerate is key. Dragon Age is an example of of PS3 game where the framerate is all over the shop, ranging from acceptable down to single-digit-almost-unplayable-ness. When the engine is struggling so much it even starts missing button presses and when it’s struggling because you’re involved in heavy combat those missed button presses can literally be killers.
And SSHD isn’t doing 120Hz because it only used 50% of the CPU. It can do 120Hz because they’ve dropped the resolution from 1080 down to 720 which more than halves the number of pixels it needs to draw. Thereby allowing them to double the framerate.
Deadpixel | 02/02/2010 12:52
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It’s discussions like these that nostalgically remind me of my good old game pc. I was so happy to play Half Life 2 back then. But framerates were horrible. Sometimes below 20fps and that sucks obviously… But the pc’s specs simply were not good enough (what to expect from a single core amd machine with an agp gpu interface…).
The thing is, I never really cared about framerates because the game was so beautiful… However, now that I am spoiled with the PS3’s capabilities I demand more. Today I consider noticeable framerate drops unacceptable. So, for me it is all about the balance between the fps and the image quality..
bunimomike | 02/02/2010 13:57
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I remember playing Amiga games where the framerate flatlined at times. It would usually make us howl laughing because we’d brought the hardware to its knees. Rarely did it ruin the game. If anything it was recognition that the shit had truly hit the fan.
However, with that a thing of the past (mostly) I’ll plump for zero-screen-tearing and 30 FPS anyday.
Question: Does your own refresh rate impact a (let’s say) 60 FPS game?
jacklum | 02/02/2010 14:35
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As commuterzombie mentioned, frame rate directly impacts the smoothness and responsiveness of the controls, so for certain games it can make all the difference. Bullet hell shmups or fast paced racing games (Burnout, Wipeout etc…) wouldn’t be the same if they ran at less than 60fps.
Many 3D games on the C64 were virtually unplayable due to the staggeringly low frame rate, e.g.;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSRGdlKZSPc
Apnomis | 02/02/2010 15:26
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I don’t think I’m really susceptible to this as it’s very rare I notice something ‘wrong’ with the graphics of a game – some people complain about fps rates and screen tearing etc but I just don’t notice it most of the time. Although I do game on a 1080p/24 Plasma and in honesty I find the picture far far superior to that of an LCD TV straight away…
Unless it is noticably bad during ‘busy’ screens to the point where you think you have turned on a slow motion camera then obviously I notice it, but it is the change that is noticable, not the actual fps. As long as it can be held steady most of the time I don’t really care whethet it’s 30fps or 60fps.
One thing I do notice though is when a sub-HD resolution with bad anti-aliasing has been used – it looks terribly blurry to me. Recent examples of this have been Ghostbusters and the Bayonetta demo…
Sambuque | 02/02/2010 18:41
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Locked 60 fps is really necessary on some kind of game (beat’em up, manic shooter…) and a nice addition for others when it comes to competition (lan party on an fps…).
Should it be locked 60fps, locked v-sync 30fps or variable framerate above 25fps with triple buffering, doesn’t matter much usually as you get a consistent feeling. But more delay in input from the first to the last.
Reviewers don’t care, and easilly give high praise to games with terrible framerate and horrible screen tearing.
When you read on many forums that a massive number of players don’t notice the poor framerate on the ps3 version of Bayonetta or Dragon Age; games which often visit the sub-20fps world.
You understand why reviewers don’t care and why Insomniac won’t care.
cam the man | 02/02/2010 18:48
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Most people don’t notice any difference between real life and ‘video’ if the frame rate is above 25 fps.
It’s only recently that TV and cinema have increased frame rates above 30. Some of the smaller TV channels broadcast at <30 fps.
Haven’t heard any complaints about frame rate from TV viewers over the past 50 years or so.
cc_star | 02/02/2010 18:54
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Cinema is obviously 24fps… I think it looks jerky sometimes,
The human eye can make distinguish up to around 100fps is there is enough contrast between two frames
cam the man | 02/02/2010 22:14
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Not mine ;-(.
Some eyes can see that well but most of the time while watching ‘video’ at lower refresh rates the majority won’t notice.
3shirts | 02/02/2010 18:57
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It’s very hard to really compare since each game is different. What we need is a test version of something like GT which has the option to restrict the FPS to 30 so we can compare ‘like for like’ and see if it really is noticable. We have Bayonetta but there are obviously other factors at play and the frame rate, as you said, isn’t 30 anyway.
I’d be interested to see some kind of side by side of the exact same game on the same console but one limited to 30fps and the other at its 60 (or whatever it can do)
cc_star | 02/02/2010 19:16
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The Digital Foundry analysis of the recent GT Academy showed that 5% of frames were dropped at 30fps, and 12% at 60fps, obviously thats a pre-release promotion rather than a full game, but as there weren’t 15 other cars on the track, and the track was really sparse graphics-wise it is somewhat worrying
3shirts | 03/02/2010 09:42
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I don’t think GT Academy was intended as any kind of indicator though, it was literally just for the purposes of finding the next GT Academy driver.
I didn’t think it looked even as good as Prologue.
Do they have similar results for that game?
TheShepanator | 02/02/2010 20:18
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I don’t really notice until I play the same game thats running noticably smoother, like a PC version compared to a console.
cam the man | 02/02/2010 22:29
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Is 1080p really better than 1080i ?
When watching Sky HD if I change between the two settings I find it very hard to see a difference.
Daywalker | 02/02/2010 23:34
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My tv can only go up to 1080i and I’m not bothered. I have the hurt locker on bluray and i have to say, the hd-ness is stunning. Btw it was £300 more for a 1080p model at the time.
3shirts | 03/02/2010 09:44
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I remember when I got my telly (also only does 1080i or 720p) I read loads of stuff saying that 720p was better because the resolution isn’t as important as the scan type but, like you, I can really notice the difference between 720 and 1080 but not between i and p.