Evolution Studios’ PS4-exclusive DriveClub will run at 1080p and a regular-arse 30 frames per second. We’ve known this for a long time, but people keep asking them about it. So here’s another explanation for why it’s 30 instead of 60.
It all comes down to, of course, prettiness. It always does, every time. But anyway here’s the quotes.
“It’s a balance, because you can only do so much on any platform,” game director Paul Rustchynsky told Edge. “PS4 has been fantastic to work with and we’ve done a good job of pushing it. It’s always a tradeoff, ultimately, and I think we’ve made the right choices to make the best driving game we could have made.
“I suspect a lot of people think we may have compromised the gameplay experience by choosing 30fps, but we’ve spent a huge amount of time minimising the latency between the pad and what happens inside the game so you never feel disconnected.”
I for one think they should bring it all the way down to 24 for that authentic film look and also so they can really ramp up the tessellation. Because if I sit down with DriveClub and the in-game steering wheel is not perfectly round I will yell loudly about it on the internet. That’s really all I care about in games: round objects should be perfectly round.
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50 responses to “DriveClub Is 30FPS For The Same Reason Other Games Are, Director Says”
This was one thing drawing me to PS4, as a launch title. Lucky I went with Forza instead, or there wouldn’t of been any next gen racing for me.
I actually enjoyed GT6 more than the new Forza for the most part. I like driving in the rain.
I find sound such a huge part of driving a car, always have, and the more I got into real cars, the less I could stand the terrible car noises in GT. It’s like they don’t even try that hard. The sad thing is the console game I’ve played with the best car sounds is NFS Shift, I wish better games would improve.
I completely agree. Yeah GT6 has some neat features that Forza is lacking (weather, night racing, car selection, tracks, enduros etc) but it just doesn’t compare.
The subpar graphics, the absolutely terrible engine sounds…and the handling is just unbearable for me. I feel no connection to the road whatsoever.
While Forza is lacking in areas, it makes up for that with beautifully detailed vehicles, amazingly accurate tracks and engine notes that are just incredible.
You should try out the new Grid game. Not the best looking but the sounds are amazing! RX7s sound like a rotary should, civics blast vtec and the s15 goes BAARPP like the sr20 should. All the top stuff sounds great but its the things you’re more familiar with that needs to be spot on.
Might have to give it a go, to be honest the sound probably matters to me more than the visuals.
The first GRID was better. They stuffed up the drifting in GRID 2 and for some absolutely ridiculous reason took away the ability to link corners so you couldn’t rack up an epic drift multiplier and push your ability/skills to see how long you could drift for; you just had one shot per corner. Utter garbage.
However, GRID has been my favourite racing game so far mainly for the drifting and the touge but there are other racing styles too, even demolition derby. Looking forward to the next one and hope they bring back the drifting styles from the first instalment.
Driving in the rain is good and all but it’s like the developers of GT just don’t care anymore, they still use the same car models from the PS2 era and it really makes the game look horrible.
This sounds like something a dev would say towards the end of a console’s life not right at the start. Sounds like they’re already having trouble getting enough power out of the wonderful ‘next-gen’ machines.
Why don’t you just sit there hitting the pause button over and over again while your racing? Will have about the same effect.
.. posted on an article about a racing game (more driving sim than arcade).
I can’t take you seriously.
and:
just cements it. Seriously, who are you and why are you writing about games?
I think he forgot to add the /s on the end of that sentence.
Edit: Alternatively, I hope he forgot to add the /s on the end of that sentence.
I’m looking for the /s on the whole article, really. Both my quoted parts are concerning. :\
Surely he’s just having a dig at the developers of the Order 1886 and the whole hubbub surrounding the justification of letterboxed 30fps as an aesthetic decision.
Pretty sure that was a joke. Relax.
Clearly sarcasm…
I think he’s just taking the piss out of people complaining that 30fps is the end of the world.
I have to agree to some extent. I know this is a games website and if people are going to get upset about something fairly minor anywhere then it should be here…. But some of the hysteria around framerates is ridiculous.
They’re delivering a product to the market, nobody has to buy it, they’re making it run at 30fps because they make games for a living and they can make a profit off a title that runs at 30fps because f*ck-all people actually care. I know it won’t stop me from buying it if it’s a good game.
Thanks @StickMan i almost forgot i was on the internet for a moment there! What would a Kotaku article be without someone trying to insult the writer…
If you look at the article and expect it to NOT be sarcastic, then it becomes obvious the author doesn’t know what they are talking about. That’s precisely what I did, so I commented about it. There’s no /s or similar anywhere, so why the hate on me pointing out poor ‘journalism’?
Hate is a bit strong, but I think people are stating that it was pretty obvious that he was joking.
I disagree, it’s not obvious at all. Kotaku authors have a history of “preferring 30 fps” and “seeing no difference between 30 & 60 fps” with absolutely no technical backing (which would actually prove them wrong). So in that case, even with a grain of salt, I believe there’s some truth to what author is saying. :\
It’s pretty obvious that you’ve mistaken the author’s intention by now, but at least 10 other people have taken the time to downvote your initial comment and correct you on it because it truly was that obvious. Forgetting the fact that MOST Kotaku writers have stated that they would prefer a constant 30 fps over an inconsistent 60 fps, rather than just “seeing no difference between 30 & 60 fps” with absolutely no technical backing, making the assumption that “Because if I sit down with DriveClub and the in-game steering wheel is not perfectly round I will yell loudly about it on the internet. That’s really all I care about in games: round objects should be perfectly round.” is a statement that should ever be taken seriously is just plain silly, taken with a grain of salt or not.
You really didn’t get the sarcasm in the last paragraph about round objects and whining on the internet?
His name is Phil Owens and he writes about games?
If they can get a rock solid 30FPS then thats fine, the only reason I really care about the 30 vs 60 fps debate is a lot of the time when they say 30, they mean max 30 and everything between 10 and 30 is “acceptable”
Surely publishers/developers must be running out of language to positively spin the 30fps argument?
Well, they can’t really say “the console is too weak to run it” otherwise MS and Sony will get in a huff. It’s pretty damn clear by now that this is the case, though.
Mario Kart 8 runs at 60fps…..
Runs at 720p and has poor shadows etc. Gotta sacrifice something if the hardware is constant.
Although I find it lacking in realism, it is smooth.
In reality blue shells usually end the race for the person you hit.
:p
I think the reason they’re having trouble breaking 30fps is the list of engine features that was posted here last week or the week before. A list that made me think they’re going to try and sell their engine to recoup some development costs.
At least I can’t imagine why else you’d bother programming the speed of wind affecting the speed of ripples on water. That’s the sort of thing you might notice when a helicopter’s taking off over water after dropping a grunt off in CoD, not something you’re going to notice when you’re driving around a track at +100km/h.
Most of the features in that article had me thinking “that’s nice, but is anyone going to notice?” Maybe, I’ll wait and see how pretty it is before I pass judgement.
I wanna be sick.
this guy is full of poo. as a Sim racer and iRacing the simulation software I am using, extensive testing from many in the community have found that a much higher FPS eg 120hz+ there is less delay from wheel to screen , sure its in millisecond but so are your reactions when the car gets out of shape and you need to correct for it in real time. might be fine for an arcade game like this but for a simulation, I refuse to listen to a marketing director and listen to a technician and the thousands of iRacers that have discussed and proven the benefits of a 120+ FPS.
while you guys are arguing about 30 v 60 fps, ill be just over here, you know, gaming…
Gaming at 30 or 60 fps?
I play all my games at 60fps, but with some of them the alternating frames are the same.
I tried cranking it up to 120fps once but I got bored waiting for the different frames.
What a bunch of elitist, assuming, judgemental assholes.
But I hadn’t even posted yet!
As much as 30fps isn’t game breaking and it’ll still be fun… Consoles are mostly losing their appeal for me and the 30fps ‘but it looks good’ thing just isn’t helping (Not that I think that Forza’s 2D crowds were justifiable either, there should always be a balance between visuals and gameplay IMHO). I find myself only playing Nintendo consoles/ PC most the time lately.
The whole Framegate conundrum just makes me sick. Developers are compromising the very playability of the game just so they can make the game a showpiece.
At the end of the day, 720p vs 1080p really doesn’t matter that much, but it is a bit annoying. 30fps vs 60fps affects the game at its very core. The developers know this, but they take us for idiots.
EDIT: Typo
I maintain that in 2014 we shouldn’t have to choose between 1080p or 60fps…
Yes, you can debate that on a reasonable sized TV anything over 900p has diminishing returns and that even 720p, though more pixelated, is OK. But that’s purely opinion. The fact is that 1080p has been the mainstream video standard for years now and we should have native content by now.
I don’t care for the added visual effects if it means sacrificing either of those two things. That’s a preference though and you can’t see FPS on the back of a game box I guess..
Funny they say they are addressing the input lag associated with 30fps… While that’s cool and all, what about the ‘motion’ blurring and the image delay that comes with 30fps? While the game will still be good and looks great, this all sounds like PR bull to me.
Not having a game at 60fps, while not preferred, is unfortunately the standard these days. What gets to me is that they think we are gonna buy the whole: ‘It’s not 60fps because PRETTIES, but gosh it sure feels like it is!’
Just say that you and the team chose 30fps. It’s not ideal, but we’ve been living with it for years and feel insulted when we are told ‘your’ 30fps feels like 60fps, on top of not getting 60fps in the first place.
Edit: Just to clarify, like I said, 30FPs is an unfortunate standard. Yes the games are still/ can still be fun, but I’m tired of making excuses for compromised gameplay and ‘unnatural’ motion blur associated with 30fps and not 60fps! (Edited the sentence for clarity)
I’ll still buy the game, play the game, like the game but I’m done excusing sub-par, regardless of how many effects you can cram in. It may be a short coming in only one area of the game, but it’s quite a vital area and we are aloud to want more… It’s a criticism, even if we still love the rest of the game.
Why is framerate important, and how many FPS do you need?
The commonly-accepted myth is that the human eye can’t detect framerates over 24 fps, so using that “fact,” a lot of people think that getting 35 – 55 fps in iRacing is perfectly sufficient, but I say it’s not.
What it all comes down to is how you look at several questions — for example:
How many frames per second can the human eye see?
This is a tricky question. And much confusion about it is related to the fact, that this question is NOT the same as:
How many frames per second do I have to have to make motions look fluid?
And it’s not the same as
How many frames per second makes the movie stop flickering?
And it’s not the same as
What is the shortest frame a human eye would notice?
If you’d like to dig into some of these questions, you can find more here (which is where I grabbed these questions from):
http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm
Framerates (FPS) and iRacing
If you just want to know about framerates in iRacing, then read on — or come back here after you click through the link above.
For me, my computer can crank out 200+ fps on a single screen setup in iRacing; if I lock my framerate at 60 fps, I have a harder time running close to my own personal best lap times than when I’ve got my framerate running above 90 fps
When it comes to framerate in something like iRacing, what you’re concerned about is keeping up with the “physical” aspects of the game.
At 100 miles per hour, you’re traveling about 147 feet per second; at 70 fps, you’re traveling 2.1 feet per every frame rendered.
Kick that up to 140 miles per hour and you’re traveling about 205 feet per second; at 70 fps, you’re traveling almost 3 feet per every frame rendered.
On a road course, coming down a long straight to a corner where you have to brake, hitting your marks and braking at the right point is critical — if you’re braking down from 140 miles per hour and you’re only getting 70 fps, the difference of one frame could mean braking 3 feet too early or 3 feet too late. The eye may not be able to detect this, and you will always anticipate your reaction to some degree but with higher framerates you come closer to actually seeing in real-time, so there will be less need for anticipation.
I think anything less than 84 fps (the default framerate cap) is insufficient, and everyone’s goal should be to NEVER have their framerate drop below that point.
You also don’t want your framerate fluctuating — if you’re getting 150 fps most of the time, but it occasionally drops to 120 fps, you WILL notice that 30 fps dip, so you’re better off capping your framerate at 120 and just enjoying constant, fluid framerates.
I’ve got my framerate capped at 95 fps, and I never see my framerates fluctuate at all. More would be better, but for me 95 fps is a good compromise because I’m running two monitors, and if I go any higher, I start to see framerate fluctuations.
The benefits of capping your framerate
Being able to cap your framerate allows you to set a cap closer to what you see as your MINIMUM framerate. If your framerate is able to remain constant at 60 fps or higher (like around 84 fps, for example), then you’re going to get the smoothest experience possible (the higher the better, of course).
The problem with no limit, though, is that by yourself or on desolate parts of the track (think back stretch at Laguna Seca) you might get an awesome framerate — say, maybe 120 or higher — but when a lot of cars are around, with dust getting kicked-up, in an area where there are lots of trackside objects and shadows (think anyplace near the pit area at most tracks), if your framerate drops significantly, you WILL notice it, and that framerate CHANGE may affect things like input lag and such.
If this “dip” in framerate occurs during crowded/tight conditions, it may happen when you NEED the most fluid, stable framerate in order to be able to respond properly, so a framerate fluctuation at the WRONG time may cause you to blow your race.
If your framerate drops from 120 down to 105, that’s something you might notice — if it drops from 120 down to 80 or lower, you WILL notice it, and if your max and min framerate is even greater than that, then you need to consider capping your framerate close to your minimum framerate (NOT the average).
On my system, I see anywhere from 135 to 165 fps as my max framerates, but it can dip down below 100, and that leads to problems during race conditions, so I’ve capped my framerate at 95 fps just to ensure that I never see anything below 95 fps, and I never see anything above 95 fps — in other words, my framerate is always the same, and it’s always equally smooth and fluid, with no “hitches” or variation, regardless of the race conditions.
That makes for the best overall experience, and it also means that I’m never going to see a framerate “hiccup” at the worst possible moment, when there’s a lot of tight traffic and scenery, with a lot of dust being kicked-up.
Hope that makes more sense.
What does the “Cap frame queue” checkbox do?
From Build 2009.10.26.01 Release Notes
– new option added, “Cap frame queue”, which tells the sim not to queue up more than 1 frame at a time for rendering to reduce latency. Defaults to on (which is our usual behavior). Turning this option off may increase controller lag.
iRacing staffer Shawn Nash provided this additional detail regarding the “Cap frame queue” option:
Shawn Nash wrote:
The cap frame queue prevents several frames from piling up in a queue waiting to be rendered by the GPU. So it reduces controller lag. It uses frame queries to keep track of how many frames are currently in the queue. It is like the max pre-rendered frames in the nvidia control panel settings.
I’ve not investigated this option previously, but I think it’s worth looking into more closely — I’m not even sure what I’ve got this set to currently, but I am going to check to see if there is any noticeable difference with controller input lag on my system. Based on iRacing’s release notes, I’d recommend keeping this checked, just in case.
More detailed and scientific information on frame rates and perception of motion:
Matthew Picken posted this in a separate thread, and it seemed like it should be included here in this discussion (thanks to Matthew for sharing):
Matthew Picken wrote:
Found this in Google Books:
Handbook of Driving Simulation for Engineering, Medicine, and Psychology.
Fisher, D.L., Rizzo, M., Caird, Jeff K., and Lee, John D. (eds.) (2011).Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis.
On page 8-5, “perception of motion declines when the presentation rate of individual frames is slower than one every 40 miliseconds.” This translates to 25 fps.
“The variation of smoothness of motion is often perceived as variation in velocity that is not simulated in the driving scenario but is an artifact of the variation in frame rate. This change in (perceived) velocity can have a profound effect on driving performance in the simulator.”
On page 34-3, “for optimal perfomance and mitigating simulator sickness, a frame rate of 30-60 fps is considered minimal, and faster frame rates are desirable. Frame rates of 20 fps or less are noticeable to most people and the choppy image that results can be uncomfortable.”
Based on the complexity of this book in the few excerpts that I read, the answer may well be anything above 60 fps that looks good to the user. Those excerpts came out of Chapter 8, Sensory and Perceptual Factors in the Design of Driving Simulation Displays. Not your everyday light reading.
Do you have a point or are you just trying to advertise? I don’t know, your comment is long, boring and its hard to see what your statement actually is or what it has to do with my comment…
In the end though… how many FPS is enough? For gaming: 60fps. Motion my look good with only 14fps in 2d animation etc, so saying:
Is vague and does not even go into the effect that frame rate has on image delay (Other than blurring) or the effect frame rate has on input lag.
How many FPS can people see… subjective. Many PC games are migrating to 144hz screens, so that should be considered in the argument.
In all… you comment is a poor show regardless. If you, at minimum, had a clear point I would take it seriously, plus you’r a guest… so… Not expecting much here.
Absolutely pathetic, there is no excuse.
For Ridge Racer Type 4, Namco wanted 60fps but they just couldn’t get to work smoothly, and that was PS1. Now here we are on PS-freaking-4, 15 years later and these amateurs just aren’t up to the task. Should be bringing 90fps. These randoms could have gotten away with 60 though.
Man, I’m so tired of people comparing PCs to $400 boxes.
I don’t think it’s about comparison. It’s about where the standards are vs where we would like them.
which is a discussion that almost always spills into “Well, even a decent PC can do it” territory, which, I don’t think anyone would dispute, but it’s a pointless discussion nevertheless. The standards are where they are, and no amount of bitching will change this one.
Would we like them higher? Of course we would. We always would. But it also wouldn’t cost us US$400.
If Nintendo can make fun games with the Wii U, I certainly don’t need my games to be at 60fps, or to take advantage of better hardware on PC. I just need them to be well designed. Well designed and fun.
I feel like a lot of people seem to forget why they got into gaming in the first place.
Nintendo have more 60fps games than Sony and MS. And we are aloud to be disappointed with 30fps.
Something I’ve come to understand is this: PC isn’t for graphics whoring. On a pc, even a cheap $450 on like a PS4 or spend the savings from the cheaper PC games on a better pc, and if you aren’t happy with your FPS, you lower the settings. (Just btw, you can outshine a PS4 with about a $650 machine. These new consoles are not the beasts that new consoles once were. They are EXACTLY where they are price to performance to PC’s.) I guess you were right. It did end up going here. Why? Because this gen it’s true.
On a console they compromise gameplay for visuals, graphics whoring. Every console game is compared graphically to the other console. What’s even more ridiculous is that, especially this time around with the cheaper/ weaker consoles, is that the consoles don’t hold a candle to a reasonable PC. Consoles ‘should’ look worse than a PC and still play good. But that wont happen because then playing ‘who’s is bigger’ between the consoles isn’t as much fun.
Put it this way. When the PS3 launched it was around $1000 right? Doesn’t it make some seance to spend about that on your next gen system? What I would recommend to someone looking to upgrade to ‘current gen’ right now: Buy a decent PC, or a low end one with about a 7850 (Like the PS4, which can play watchdogs higher settings than the PS4, at 1080p) and get a WiiU as your secondary machine. The other two consoles were rushed and are not going to last too long. Wait for a price drop.
Edit: To clarify. 3 years ago I bought a PC for about $550. It had a Phenom 2X6 and a 550ti and it got 1080p. For reference the 550ti is about the same as the Xbox1 gpu. (In-between a 7750 and 7790)
Yes you can tell the difference between 30 and 60, hell even a jump to 45 you can see a major difference. BUT, if the game is really pretty and the 30fps is constant, no dips at all – then the game should be good. BUT, BUTTTTT, 60fps for racing and shooters is king.
I still remain adamant that this new console generation released too early (yes I know it was a 7yr cycle – but barely any games at launch and sub-par hardware), or they just went really cheap on the hardware – in-turn generating a less desirable gap between it and last-gen.
Lol so much for next gen. 1080p60 shoulve been the norm long ago. And you want 24fps? For film effect? Gtfo