30 FPS new standard for PCs?

[Annisman*]

heck anything <80 fps for me makes me quesy

 

[Bateluer]

The hell? How could you even play a racing game at 30fps?

I could deal with 30 fps in a slow paced game and a controller. Anything with 30 fps and a mouse is just horrible. I certainly didn't just buy two GTX 970s to play at 30fps, and would never buy a pc game that had no bypass to get at least 60fps.

Ask Electronic Arts. NFS: Rivals was locked to 30 on PC. To much chagrin.

Well, they are doing it on the consoles because frankly the consoles can't do what they are trying to get them to do with the hardware they have. PC's on the other hand already have single GPU cards which are 3x more powerful than the PS4 and Xbox One have in them (which is essentially a slightly modified ATI HD7870, which was a mid-level card that is 2 generations old).

Bingo. In a nut shell, the Radeon 7790/7850 GPUs in the Xbox One and Playstation 4 are simply underpowered for what they're being tasked with. Instead of trying to make the best game possible, they're now trying to figure out what they can cut and restrict to get something that at least comes close to being playable.

And every time someone says 'cinematic feel', they need to be slapped. Thats pure BS, debunked so many times its simply not funny any more.

 

[Fire&Blood]

Rick James Astley, I started this to be a healthy discussion, I clearly state on the first post that I want to know the opinions of people on this forum, obiously I don't play or enjoy games at lower frame rates, however the reality is that developers will do it and that's why I want to know someone else opinion, even if I have my own opinion, that's the main reason of a forum right?

How is that reality? You say developers will do it as if all developers decided overnight to go with the 30FPS cap as a new standard, in reality it's a handful of games by a handful of studios and all are considered fails by the PC market. Games that have a 30fps cap often get modded to run at higher FPS anyway. There is no new 30FPS PC standard, even Ubisoft is not that stupid, they aim for 60FPS on consoles as well but they have problems delivering: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/re...1080p-60fps-on-ps4-and-xbox-one/1100-6420580/

Vast majority of PC titles (think 95%+) don't have a 30FPS cap. If Ubisoft locks the Division at 30FPS on PC and removing the cap breaks the game, it's nothing more than a Ubisoft fail. Speaking of Ubisoft fails, take a look at Watch Dogs.

PC market will shut this nonsense down and either mod or worse for them, ignore games that fail to deliver what the rest of the industry is clearly able to. And then there is the hardware industry. Monitors, GPU's
G Sync/Free Sync, 144Hz displays... Power supplies, GPU and mobo manufacturers strive to sell multi GPU systems, do you seriously think all these businesses and their customers will just drop their investments because of Massive and a handful of other studios?

I would like to see Ubi actually pull that off with the Division, just for the lulz. A 30fps PC online shooter would make for interesting articles and youtube videos...

 

[BrightCandle]

I dare Ubisoft to put out the division at 30 fps, I want to see that company go under and I think putting out a tonne of terrible console ports locked for no good reason is a great way to start hammering those nails into the coffin.

 

[mmntech]

Hi guys, I'm kind of new to the forum but I want to know what are your takes on this special matter, as you may know ubisoft has announced that both The Crew and The Division will be blocked to 30 FPS on Xbone and PS4 and also on PC... But today bethesda also join to the train and answer a tweet saying that The Evil Within will be locked to 30 frames to mantain a "Cinematic Feel" because the game is a survival horror game... I really don't have the link to the source of this information at this time (I'm at work but fortunatley this forum is not blocked xD) but you can google it easily.

What do you think about this? do yo agree that a "Cinematic Feel" or a "Focus on visuals" as ubisoft respond on the why are they doing this is reason enough to block the fps this way? As PC gamer I really think this is ridiculous when I play a game I always try to find the spot between 40-60 fps to enjoy a game. I'll look forward to your answers.

I suspect a lot of this has to do with the current console war, and that Microsoft has a dirty hand in it. There's speculation going around that they paid Ubisoft to gimp the PS4 version of Assassin's Creed Unity to "avoid debates" about performance. I wouldn't be shocked if they were giving perks to other developers as well. The Xbox One's GPU is roughly 30-40% slower than its competitor based on benchmarks of comparable PC hardware. Just enough for the difference to be noticeable. The PS4 is also outselling it 2:1.

Performance PC gaming is still, by and large, a niche hobby. Now that the two main consoles use x86 hardware, I suspect devs are cutting costs by doing direct ports. Probably of the Xbox One versions, since the two platforms share a lot in common. Very little is being done in the way of optimization, so the games can take advantage of more powerful hardware. Ubisoft in particular is notorious for that.

PC gamers are a small, but very vocal crowd though. There's no technical reason for locking these games at 30fps.

 

[JoseWalrus]

How is that reality? You say developers will do it as if all developers decided overnight to go with the 30FPS cap as a new standard, in reality it's a handful of games by a handful of studios and all are considered fails by the PC market. Games that have a 30fps cap often get modded to run at higher FPS anyway. There is no new 30FPS PC standard, even Ubisoft is not that stupid, they aim for 60FPS on consoles as well but they have problems delivering: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/re...1080p-60fps-on-ps4-and-xbox-one/1100-6420580/

I was talking about the developers that I mentioned, not all, big studios like EA, Ubisoft and now Bethesda are doing this, and like I said before, and like mmntech said, even if there's no technical reason to lock the games they are doing it, I know that we as PC gamers are a minority compared to Consoles users but the nice part is that our voice is heard. The good thing is that PC community is growing with the days so let's hope this developers start changing their thoughts about PC's on the near future.

 

[Rakehellion]

Meh. I played Civilization V at much less than 30 FPS. Some angry nerds in this thread.

 

[BSim500]

Any PC game locked to 30fps is a PC game I don't buy.

^ This. TBH, I've completely stopped looking at Ubisoft games after Watch Dogs. Bethesda has gone downhill significantly in my eyes over the past 5 years too. In fact the more I see of "next gen" games, the badly nerfed "next gen" consoles (my tiny HTPC has more horsepower) the sleazy tactics of devs, and bad port after bad port, the more of an urge I get to replay all the Golden Age Greats and quietly pretend this generation of games simply doesn't exist in blissful ignorance...

As for racing games at 30fps, there's something incredibly sad about 1980's/1990's wooden cabinet arcade machines and "the gen before last" games being capable of doing on 1-2 cores what 2014 games cannot do with 6-8... D: :thumbsdown:

 

[BSim500]

I was talking about the developers that I mentioned, not all, big studios like EA, Ubisoft and now Bethesda are doing this, and like I said before, and like mmntech said, even if there's no technical reason to lock the games they are doing it, I know that we as PC gamers are a minority compared to Consoles users but the nice part is that our voice is heard. The good thing is that PC community is growing with the days so let's hope this developers start changing their thoughts about PC's on the near future.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the big studio's do it on purpose either to try and force PC gamers onto consoles or as some deliberate 'race to the bottom' habituation, ie, they make PC games so incredibly badly broken that people won't complain as much when they release half-broken dumbed down games afterwards on the back of 'it could be worse'. Given some apologist comments for certain modern industry porting practices by "franchise fanboys", it already seems to be working on some people...

 

[sweenish]

I was talking about the developers that I mentioned, not all, big studios like EA, Ubisoft and now Bethesda are doing this, and like I said before, and like mmntech said, even if there's no technical reason to lock the games they are doing it, I know that we as PC gamers are a minority compared to Consoles users but the nice part is that our voice is heard. The good thing is that PC community is growing with the days so let's hope this developers start changing their thoughts about PC's on the near future.

You're still not addressing the main point of his complaint against you. You start this "debate" off with a false assumption, that 30 fps is now the norm. Your assumption is false because it is not the norm, and the three(?) games you mentioned do nothing to counter the hundreds of other games that don't, and won't.

While your example games are being PUBLISHED by some big names, you're still confusing the fact that publishers!=developers, and that each of those publishers you named have at least a dozen development houses under them.

Instead of debating about this as a norm, which it's not and never will be....actually nevermind. Let's not debate this. It's a pointless and fruitless discussion.

A better discussion would be educating people on how we as consumers do have power.

Grooveriding got it right. If there is a behavior in the market that you don't like, don't support it. And broadcast the reason for your not supporting it. It took Ubisoft a while, but they caught on with DRM. Origin has been greatly improved. There is a very important counter point, though. You need to support behavior that is good.

I look at CD Projekt Red and they are one of the few great PC dev houses out there right now. People need to support them, and broadcast why. Great products with respect for their customers and their platform of choice. DRM free options from gog.com. People need to take support away from games doing it wrong, and give it to games doing it right.

Or we could discuss where we as individuals sit on the framerate spectrum. What do we try to hit, what frame rate is acceptable for us, and do sacrifice bells and whistles to hit that? That would be an interesting discussion. I shoot for mid-40s with as much turned on as possible. If I'm going to have to sacrifice too much graphically, I might as well have got it for a console. Luckily, my 760 and 1200p monitor easily gets me there and my average fps in a game sits in the 50-60 range.

Way better than "here are three games locked at 30 fps that PC gamers will pan for this exact reason. This must be the norm now. How does this false assumption make you feel?" I mean, honestly, you're asking if this will be the norm based on three games from 2 publishers?

Meh. I played Civilization V at much less than 30 FPS. Some angry nerds in this thread.

Congratulations? You played the equivalent of a digital board game at low fps, and that's somehow supposed to transfer across genres?

 

[Rakehellion]

Congratulations? You played the equivalent of a digital board game at low fps, and that's somehow supposed to transfer across genres?

So you're saying that genre and gameplay are relevant? So then blanket starements like these must be complete nonsense:

30FPS is trash.

It's crap.

PC gaming is 60fps minimum. There may be cases where 30fps may be ok, but 60fps is the minimum.

Any PC game locked to 30fps is a PC game I don't buy.

That's a load off my mind.

 

[JoseWalrus]

You're still not addressing the main point of his complaint against you. You start this "debate" off with a false assumption, that 30 fps is now the norm. Your assumption is false because it is not the norm, and the three(?) games you mentioned do nothing to counter the hundreds of other games that don't, and won't.

I never made an assumption; I do love games at a higher framerate that's why I became a PC gamer on the first place, if you read the original post and the title of the post, both are questions, like I said I only wanted to know what do you guys think... on the other hand, I didn't keep complaining with him to end the pointless discussion.

 

[Midwayman]

They do it because they were lazy programming and locked some things in rendering to the frame rate. Possibly other things like AI, physics, etc. Mean that running at another frame rate might break them.

 

[sweenish]

I never made an assumption; I do love games at a higher framerate that's why I became a PC gamer on the first place, if you read the original post and the title of the post, both are questions, like I said I only wanted to know what do you guys think... on the other hand, I didn't keep complaining with him to end the pointless discussion.

The title is an implicit assumption. And based off really poor evidence.

So you're saying that genre and gameplay are relevant?

Looks I gave you exactly what you wanted. :awe: Naturally, they are. I think the unspoken rule is that people are talking about "action" games, though.

Generally, 4X and card games and a few other genres natually don't require high frame rates to give good gameplay.

Like I said eariler, mid 40s is typically my goal. At least, that's where the game starts to look smooth enough to me. If some of my games have it locked at 30 and I haven't noticed, then I also don't care.

Also like I said earlier, I feel like that makes for a much better discussion.

 

[BrightCandle]

PC gamers are a small, but very vocal crowd though.

There are over 60 million steam users and about 750million gaming capable PCs out there in the world. The PC vastly outnumbers all the consoles combined. This myth was actually started by Ubisoft as they tried to convince everyone that the PC was dead while they were tanking their PC sales business by using always online DRM. But lets not mix up the lack of popularity of these publishers and their rubbish games gimped on PC with poor sales and translate that into there being a minority of PC gamers, because that quite simply is untrue.

30 fps = no sale for me, period. Isn't ever going to change. Infact I am starting to reject games that are stuck at 60 fps as well, I am a 144hz man now, have been for years and I hate games capable of anything less than about 100.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

There's no technical reason for locking these games at 30fps.

Agreed. If anything it costs development time to do so. 30 fps cap won't happen.

 

[Fire&Blood]

I was talking about the developers that I mentioned, not all, big studios like EA, Ubisoft and now Bethesda are doing this

Since "they are doing this", name 5 PC titles from each that are locked at 30FPS. Try 3 or 2 then.

Fact is, fails like NFS:R and Evil Within are exception, not the norm or trend setters. You made a very poor argument and provided no facts, logic and reasoning to back it up.

Let me show you what patches do to those 30 FPS new standard for PC games:

 

[JoseWalrus]

I said are doing this because of the new games coming... but of curse right now is not the norm or the standard, may be on the future, I really don't know, and AGAIN, the only thing that I want to read was opinions, never tried to say anything with the title, it was just a question... but again, I think I made a mistake with the title. It should be more like "Do you think 30 Fps will be the new standard on PC games on the future?". Also I understand unofficial patches will always fix the problems but I mean... whatever.

 

[Annisman*]

Meh. I played Civilization V at much less than 30 FPS. Some angry nerds in this thread.

Dude that's an RTS, ever play a FPS at 30 fps ? Bring a barf bag and a low frag count.

 

[Fire&Blood]

I said are doing this because of the new games coming... but of curse right now is not the norm or the standard, may be on the future, I really don't know, and AGAIN, the only thing that I want to read was opinions, never tried to say anything with the title, it was just a question... but again, I think I made a mistake with the title. It should be more like "Do you think 30 Fps will be the new standard on PC games on the future?". Also I understand unofficial patches will always fix the problems but I mean... whatever.

I've probably driven my point too far, stems from my immovable stance on the subject. All the previous titles that had the 30fps cap patches were also new at one point or another but they were never taken as a sign of things to come and rightfully so as time has proven. A game locked at 30 comes out every once in a while but never with indication that it's becoming a standard, a rain drop or two don't make a flood.

Don't take it from me, take it from the industry leaders who are bent on achieving 60FPS on consoles:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-last-of-us-remastered-devs-discuss-making-60fp/1100-6421147/

 

[HeXen]

I've been playing DriveClub and it's 30fps. Seems fine. On PC I don't really know what my frame rate is per game since I very rarely ever fire up an FPS monitor.
Now on PS3 there are a few games that are pretty bad, like GTA 5 isn't very fluid at all.

 

[HeXen]

I found these video's which display the difference between 30 and 60 fps.
I still don't think I can see the difference, I would probably have to focus really hard on each one.

What do you think?
http://30vs60.com

*edit: ok in the little link at the bottom of that page, it shows another situation. In that instance the only difference I really see is that the 30 fps appears to be moving slightly faster. Not something that would bother me when actually playing so I guess that's why I don't ever really notice it.

 

[werepossum]

i actually dont mind 30fps

but I can understand why some do and i absolutely hate unoptimized software but im not sure thats totally to blame here

think some motion capture tech is limited to 30fps... same thing happened with LA Noire and it was the motion capture

Pretty much me too, IF it's 30 fps 100% of the time, and I play exclusively first person shooters and racing games. If however there are any dips, then having those dips start from a 30 fps baseline is catastrophe. And for people with the eyes and reflexes to tell the difference, it would suck for fast-moving games.

Isn't the ability to store unused frame renders practically non-existent? (Meaning that by limiting maximum frame rates, minimum frame rates increase.) If so, then there is no point in locking the frame rate. It's just trying to label a negative as a positive. i.e. I meant to do that!

Ask Electronic Arts. NFS: Rivals was locked to 30 on PC. To much chagrin.

Bingo. In a nut shell, the Radeon 7790/7850 GPUs in the Xbox One and Playstation 4 are simply underpowered for what they're being tasked with. Instead of trying to make the best game possible, they're now trying to figure out what they can cut and restrict to get something that at least comes close to being playable.

And every time someone says 'cinematic feel', they need to be slapped. Thats pure BS, debunked so many times its simply not funny any more.

Amen to the bolded. "Balance" was once the same way, so that a gamer could say "Your game sucks" and the developer would respond "It's balanced to suck!" Well, almost. Another version of trying to make one think that a particular fail is necessary and therefore good.

There are over 60 million steam users and about 750million gaming capable PCs out there in the world. The PC vastly outnumbers all the consoles combined. This myth was actually started by Ubisoft as they tried to convince everyone that the PC was dead while they were tanking their PC sales business by using always online DRM. But lets not mix up the lack of popularity of these publishers and their rubbish games gimped on PC with poor sales and translate that into there being a minority of PC gamers, because that quite simply is untrue.

30 fps = no sale for me, period. Isn't ever going to change. Infact I am starting to reject games that are stuck at 60 fps as well, I am a 144hz man now, have been for years and I hate games capable of anything less than about 100.

It is true that generally speaking, big games sell far more copies on the consoles, even though the potential market based solely on operating system is larger for the PC.

 

[Dankk]

I found these video's which display the difference between 30 and 60 fps.
I still don't think I can see the difference, I would probably have to focus really hard on each one.

What do you think?
http://30vs60.com

*edit: ok in the little link at the bottom of that page, it shows another situation. In that instance the only difference I really see is that the 30 fps appears to be moving slightly faster. Not something that would bother me when actually playing so I guess that's why I don't ever really notice it.

IMO, the examples on that site aren't very good because of the crappy video quality, combined with the fact that most of those games have motion blur that makes it harder to tell the difference.

Here's a 60fps Youtube trailer for Battlefield Hardline (be sure to click the little gear icon in the corner and select 1080p/60fps fullscreen). Notice how it feels unusually "smooth" compared to other Youtube videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3ny9zIckP0

Here's a Shootmania GIF with a high-speed fly-through that switches between 60fps and 30fps.

http://gfycat.com/InbornFrequentJanenschia

Here's another GIF (not as good as the one linked above, but still fairly obvious). Notice how the animation on the left is smoother than the one on the right.

Edit: Also be sure you're viewing this on a PC and not a cell phone, because I just tried to view it on my phone and my mobile browser doesn't play gifs at proper speed.

 

[greenhawk]

There is no 'cinematic' feel to renders at 30 fps. The only reason there is cinematic feel to video running at 24 - 30 frames per second is that there is natural motion blurring happening between frames when video is recorded.

+1

I think it is mostly crap. It sounds good, but developers are not going to release games and be assured of controlling the minimum frame rate, and ensuring those 30 frames are evenly spaced. I know some video cards can go the constant playback mode, but they are the CAD cards, not the gaming cards. It would required a massive change in the GPU area/ market and I do not see the card makers making this sort of change that will effect there high end CAD cards.

Next it will effect PC monitor manufactures as pushing gaming monitors or anything faster than 30 fps will not attract top dollar as nothing will use it.

Just another "bend over PC user" from the console world developers.