I do agree that at 60FPS you would need ninja training to avoid some of the explosions and devastation though.

Split Second was perfectly fast enough for me, so I've never understood people moaning about games only being 30FPS. I've looked up 30 vs 60 animations and demos online, too, and can't see the blindest bit of difference.

However, the new video released by Turn 10 features a very significant performance upgrade over the previous GC sampler: sustained 60FPS gameplay, no matter which viewpoint you choose to use. At gamescom, all of the external views ran at a beautifully smooth frame rate, but the in-car dashboard view was savagely cut-down to a mere 30FPS. The look was different, the feel was different; it just didn't work. It wasn't quite Forza any more.

Then your eyes and/or brain aren't working properly, seriously.

Then your eyes and/or brain aren't working properly, seriously.

Meh. Everything seems smooth to me, right down to 15FPS or so, as long as it's consistent; it's the spikes that make me notice. And, frankly, I'm not sure I've anything to gain by caring to notice.

Cue me going "I'm not running some random .exe just because someone off the Interwebs told me to." I'm sure it's fine, but...

I've made similar things in the past. No difference as far as I'm concerned. As it stands, I'd only trust something that - to my knowledge - hadn't been made to skew the results. As that would be easily doable.

Oh dear, not this again.

It's not his brain that is wrong, it's yours.

Exhibit 1) Who can enjoy the greater range of games? It's not you. I'd say that was a failing.

Exhibit 2) The Eyes are responsible for only a small amount of what we actually see in the end. As it stands, his brain is far better at interpolating what it should see, which is why he doesn't see any problems. Yours is evidentally shit at it. And that's your brain going wrong, not his, becvause the brain is supposed to interpolate the information coming from the eyes.

From what I can tell, the vast majority can't tell the difference enough to be bugged by it (assuming solid enough input code, and even then not so many - see: GTA4 and it's legions of 10/10 scores.)

So you've either trained yourself out of the ability to play 30FPS games (In which case, congratulations, that was an epically clever move), expectation is making this the case (most likely) or there actually is something wrong with your brain.

This is as simple as I can possibly make it

30FPS is inferior to 60FPS as a gaming experience, it's as simple as that, your pseudo-science about interpolation means nothing (and I think you're getting movies/TV confused with games anyway), my eyes and brain can obviously work with 30FPS just fine (as my times on the Hot Pursuit demo make clear). The act of saying 'It's running at 30FPS which I don't like' is a long way removed from saying 'I can't/won't play 30FPS games and my brain is broken because I'm able to perceive the difference between 30FPS and 60FPS', which appears to be your contention.

You're disingenuously implying that being able to perceive the technical shortcomings of a game - (and running at 30FPS is a shortcoming, otherwise devs wouldn't aim to get games running at 60FPS wherever they can)

Heh. Run.

Poor test, as the rendering is _shit_ regardless of framerate. The level of tearing is quite appalling. Despite that, couldn't tell the difference between 30 and 60 on scene one, could on scene 2, but that is because the rendering was very poorly done and wasn't actually 30FPS or 60FPS given the amount of tearing, despite its claims to the contrary.

Criterion senior engineer Alex Fry concurred in our expansive Burnout tech interview. "We try to get the latency down to the lowest possible, because it's just a better experience. It's one of the reasons Burnout runs at 60FPS."

That's all I'm trying to say here, and this myopic head-in-the-sand attitude of 'They're all the same as each other' is clearly, objectively, factually, measurably wrong.

Blu-ray films are 24FPS, and when did you last see someone say "I really enjoyed that film, but it was a little bit jerky".

Why do gaming companies strive to push for 60 FPS on PC titles?

This is the part I don't get, the hole in the argument. Why spend ages optimising code when you could cap it at 30 FPS (instead of 60 on Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Batman and any recent PC title I have played) when you could just be lazy.

Dirt 2 was capped at 60 FPS with Vsync enabled. So was Grid. However Split second was capped at half of that and felt slow and stuttered immensely.

I do agree if a game runs smoothly at 30FPS that it could well be acceptable, but every title I have that runs at 60 FPS is much smoother and easier to play.

Blu-ray films are 24FPS, and when did you last see someone say "I really enjoyed that film, but it was a little bit jerky".

Movies and TV use Motion Blur, so that if at any time you freeze a movie scene on your DVD player for example, a large part of the scene may consist of blurred objects. Furthermore, the images in a movie or on TV do not have crisp detailed outlines. In a PC game on the other hand, if you take a screenshot or pause the game at any time, you will notice that everything is usually extremely sharp and distinct regardless of how fast it was moving when the shot was taken. Take a look at the screenshot comparison above: on the left is a fast motion shot of an alien from the movie Alien vs. Predator, on the right a fast motion shot of an alien from the old game Alien vs. Predator 2. Thus 24 often-blurred frames from a movie wind up looking much smoother to the human eye than 24 or even 30 distinct frames from a fast-moving PC game. So why can't games use motion blur? Well indeed most recent games have started incorporating blur effects. This can definitely help to reduce the visible impact of lower framerates, but aside from the fact that not all games have motion blur, the next point addresses why this doesn't always work. Even with motion blur, the graphics in PC games may still have very sharp outlines which only settings like Antialiasing can smooth out, but ironically this usually come at the expense of further lowering FPS.

SHUTUP, YOU! I was trying to poo-poo the 60 FPS bollocks with vague memories from my PC gaming days when I a) gave a shit about this sort of thing, and b) didn't enjoy video games at all,

In my personal experience it was a binary decision. Of course you can still enjoy Space Invaders - that's meant to look shit. It's when you're not quite achieving the THEORETICAL MAXIMUM POSSIBLE PERFORMANCE in SUPER NEW HIGHLY ADVANCED DIRECT X 56 SHOOTER II that things start to become less about enjoying yourself and more about obsessing over every dropped frame and every lag spike. The day I let that stuff go is the day I started genuinely enjoying the latest games rather than "testing" them.

"I've invested X pounds in my new machine, why is this game slightly juddery? OH GOD, I CAN'T ENJOY IT AS MUCH AS I MIGHT HAVE!"

I can perfectly understand and empathise with the situation, but looking back I do think it's silly, and I'm glad I mainly game on consoles these days. I'm not "competing" with people for framerates, and I'm not worried about tweaking drivers and settings because I don't think I'm getting the level of performance I could be out of any particular game. I can just play them instead.

Ack

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_5.html

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_5.html

So that basically says that in modern games that use motion blur and anti-aliasing, there's no need for high FPS, right? Unless you're looking to take screenshots.

In all fairness Wogan, I don't believe I've ever 'competed' with anyone over framerates here at BEEX (or indeed anywhere else for a long time, although I admit I used to when I was into maximum overclocking and suchlike), I'm not sure I've ever even posted my PC's spec either, or if I have, it's been to point out that it's really quite shit. (CPU, mobo and RAM now 3 1/2 years old, graphics card two years old, case about six years old, clattery old 500GB hard drive etc.)

I think you're mixing up 'PH33R MY SPECS!!!! ZOMG!!!' with 'I just want the best gameplay experience possible' (without spending a fortune, the last thing I upgraded in my PC was the graphics card, which was two years ago and wasn't the best available even then).

To me, 60FPS is pretty important, it makes for a better gaming experience, so if I can play a game at 60FPS, I will. It's not about willy-waving HYPER-PERFORMANCE figures all over the place, it's simply a case of me feeling it adds to the overall game experience.

(I may still with go with the 360 version of Hot Pursuit 'cause the friends integration looks really cool and I can see that being a lot of fun, I don't see that also saying 'It'd be nicer if it ran at 60FPS though' is really such a terrible thing )

Also, sorry Meaty. I like brum-brum go drive cars. Poot-poot!

Even if the demo is a sinister underhand plot to corrupt framerate discussions across the world, and even if the (marginal) tearing fundamentally breaks the distinction between 30 and 60 FPS (which it doesn't, is it still completely wrong if you set it down to 10FPS? Is the jerkiness there still a result of tearing?), you only need to look at real actual games to see the difference between various framerates.

I've played all three games and I've enjoyed all three games, but I can see the huge and real difference between Paradise at the top of the table and GTAIV at the bottom, and anyone in their right mind would take GTAIV at 60FPS over the GTAIV that actually got released.

That's all I'm trying to say here, and this myopic head-in-the-sand attitude of 'They're all the same as each other' is clearly, objectively, factually, measurably wrong.

Unless, y'know, Criterion's senior engineer doesn't know what he's talking about:



http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... or-article

Why do gaming companies strive to push for 60 FPS on PC titles?

I always thought the 60FPS mark was because of refresh rates at 60Hz, therefore allowing for fewer v-sync issues

You're painting it as being the same binary decision that Mr Dave did

Handling is a bit wallowing, but I suspect that is more the cars than anything else.