60 fps (frames per second) in console games

[Ed Oscuro]

Hmm, I missed bloodflowers' post earlier; I can't say I agree, which is unusual. kengou is right, and ask Twiddle if he thinks PC gaming is on the upswing.

Myself, I think there's still plenty of good, PC-optimized games out there being made, but shit like games being pirated within days of release (or even before) can't be good. Obviously many developers will also be drawn to the promise of extra DLC profits for console customers.

[louisg]

PC? Optimize?

[MadScientist]

The masters of the PS1 were Psygnosis, who have used that technique in Wipeout 3 for the whole game and have become a modern wonder in nextgen gaming, creating of course Wipeout HD with a locked 60fps in 1080p.

The slick, smooth visuals of Wipeout 3 hold up much better than the muddy, blocky looking Wipeout Fusion. I went back to see what the reaction to Fusion was at the time, and most of them praise the graphics despite some of them even mentioning the lack of anti-aliasing and occasionally stuttery frame rate. Gah.

[Ed Oscuro]

PC? Optimize?

Shirley you jest!

Code profilers, software tools, DirectX, never heard of them.

[cools]

*checks thread, smiles, goes back to playing Psyvariar*

[louisg]

PC? Optimize?

Shirley you jest!

Code profilers, software tools, DirectX, never heard of them.

Yeah, but it's not like there are PC games with amazing graphics that *don't* need newish hardware. This is totally in contrast to how current console and old computer game authors do things. I blame Origin Systems.

Also, dunno why PC gaming is mentioned on a 60fps thread. That shit's a judderfest.

[D]

PC? Optimize?

Shirley you jest!

Code profilers, software tools, DirectX, never heard of them.

Yeah, but it's not like there are PC games with amazing graphics that *don't* need newish hardware. This is totally in contrast to how current console and old computer game authors do things. I blame Origin Systems.

Also, dunno why PC gaming is mentioned on a 60fps thread. That shit's a judderfest.

Agreed and Changed the title

[Ed Oscuro]

PC? Optimize?

Shirley you jest!

Code profilers, software tools, DirectX, never heard of them.

Yeah, but it's not like there are PC games with amazing graphics that *don't* need newish hardware. This is totally in contrast to how current console and old computer game authors do things. I blame Origin Systems.

Pining for the old days when everybody's computer was a Model T, only in black or else Henry Ford would take a sledge to it; awesome.

Not every game is Crysis; most allow a good degree of scalability so they can be played on all sorts of different configurations!

And Origin Systems...that's not exactly recent. In the good old days, if you made your view window small enough to get the action running smoothly you got a "Buy a 486 " message.

Also, dunno why PC gaming is mentioned on a 60fps thread. That shit's a judderfest.

Agreed and Changed the title

Disagreed. There's an increasing number of framerate-locked PC ports out there.

[louisg]

Not every game is Crysis; most allow a good degree of scalability so they can be played on all sorts of different configurations!

And Origin Systems...that's not exactly recent. In the good old days, if you made your view window small enough to get the action running smoothly you got a "Buy a 486 " message.

I cite Origin Systems because that was, as far as I remember, a definite turning point. Their games generally required new hardware when they came out, which is in contrast to other games at the time where you were pretty much set if you had relatively old hardware. This set into motion the constant-upgrade mindset, which honestly just did not exist before. For example, the majority of Amiga games in the early 90s still would run on a 500, a system which came out in 1986. This is comparable to the situation with consoles, where you can't just upgrade them mid-generation: you have to make do. I think this brings the best out of good coders and designers.

Disagreed. There's an increasing number of framerate-locked PC ports out there.

That must be a rather recent development; I think the last time I was arsed to seriously play PC games was now 5 years ago, but I don't remember a single one being framerate-locked. I found that the PC audience was more hung up on looking at benchmark numbers than actual fluidity and performance (e.g., "disable vsync, your game will run faster"). Judging by my experience at GDC'06, I can say that unless something's changed in the last 3 years, this is still happening. I've had a lot of PC gamers assert that a particular game on particular hardware was running fluidly, when it clearly was not, and have concluded that maybe it's just an expectation of jitter when you're sitting a couple inches from a monitor.

[Ed Oscuro]

I cite Origin Systems because that was, as far as I remember, a definite turning point. Their games generally required new hardware when they came out, which is in contrast to other games at the time where you were pretty much set if you had relatively old hardware. This set into motion the constant-upgrade mindset, which honestly just did not exist before.

I know why you mentioned Origin Systems (Sierra and Maxis were others I think). My point is that the current wide choice to consumers of hardware, compatible with a wide variety of hardware from other manufacturers, has kept manufacturers more competitive (honest) than they might have been, and has probably helped save us from being stuck with terrible one-size-fits-all solutions that encompass both hardware and software. In any case, it wasn't feasible for a company with the Apple or Commodore mindset about computing to keep market share like they once enjoyed. For every storied model of Amiga, there's an equally horrid Apple out there, and both companies ran the gamut of quality as big electronics makers stepped in.

What's also relevant is that without the video card arms race starting around 1998 with 3Dfx we wouldn't have the hardware that fuels today's consoles. Ditto on the microprocessor side. Also, those of us who use powerful PCs for serious work enjoy not having to use the Cell or three Xenon cores or whatever, instead using Core 2 Duos or even Core i7s...what's fun for games is often not enough for serious work.

The only thing I can say for console gaming is that it's too easy (always a big plus), and that lately they have started to support big displays (the classic 480i/p resolution was so far behind PCs five years ago it wasn't funny, especially for something like competitive FPSes).

[louisg]

My point is that the current wide choice to consumers of hardware, compatible with a wide variety of hardware from other manufacturers, has kept manufacturers more competitive (honest) than they might have been, and has probably helped save us from being stuck with terrible one-size-fits-all solutions that encompass both hardware and software. In any case, it wasn't feasible for a company with the Apple or Commodore mindset about computing to keep market share like they once enjoyed.

No, but it's an apples and oranges comparison; the IBM PC architecture opened up, but I *believe* it was due to it somehow not being profitable enough. Furthermore, the uncontrolled architecture must have been a nightmare for game development (my evidence being how DOS games turned out). Even now, in my limited experience, a lot of code has to be written to support all the various systems. Not having a predictable target system probably makes it much harder to create games which run consistently.

What's also relevant is that without the video card arms race starting around 1998 with 3Dfx we wouldn't have the hardware that fuels today's consoles.

I'm not sure this is right. Though modern consoles opted to go out to specialized companies for 3d support, and those specific companies wouldn't have existed if not for the arms race, it took a long time for that to happen. The PC, and possibly the Mac, were the two last platforms to add graphics acceleration-- consoles had that acceleration along those lines years and years before.

So, it's conceivable that different companies would have supplied the components, or that Sony, Nintendo, etc would have had in-house expert teams to develop them. For example, Sega, though it blew it on the Saturn, had worked with other companies (lockheed I think?) to develop 3d for their arcade games which, frankly, pretty much destroyed anything that came out for home-- PC or otherwise-- for years. Namco is another example: they were early to the 3d game with Ridge Racer and previous flat-shaded tech (but custom-accelerated, unlike Hard Drivin'). The PS2, though I consider its graphics to be flickery and harsh, generally was on the level with other systems its generation and I believe that graphics system was developed in-house.

... lately they have started to support big displays (the classic 480i/p resolution was so far behind PCs five years ago it wasn't funny, especially for something like competitive FPSes).

That's just the thing though. Resolutions are often cited because they are easily quantifyable. But though PC games supported extremely large resolutions, often times the fluidity was just not there. And gamers and developers flat out didn't notice. In addition, I think good graphics honestly has more to do with the game's art design or coding team, and less with the system specs than people realize.

[Ex-Cyber]

the IBM PC architecture opened up, but I *believe* it was due to it somehow not being profitable enough

I guess that could be indirectly considered the reason. The IBM PC architecture wasn't opened by IBM, it was forced open by Microsoft and the clone manufacturers. Here's a version of the story pieced together from what I've heard:

IBM didn't want to sink a bunch of money into what it saw as a low-margin "toy" market, and so gave the development team(s) for the PC virtually no time or budget. The result was a box that contained no custom IBM chips (the major pieces were 100% off-the-shelf Intel chips) and shipped with a third-party OS ("IBM PC-DOS", better known today by its generic name "MS-DOS"). Once it got popular enough for cloning to make financial/market sense, another company (Phoenix Technologies) reverse-engineered the PC BIOS and wrote a compatible replacement, and Microsoft started licensing "MS-DOS" to clone manufacturers. IBM later tried to break away from the original PC hardware architecture with the PS/2 line, by creating a patented expansion bus (the original PC expansion bus basically being little more than the 8088 system bus hooked up to a edge card slot). That pretty much bombed; since then PC hardware standards have been driven mostly by Intel (PCI, USB, ATX, AGP, and PCIe were all initially developed by Intel).

Furthermore, the uncontrolled architecture must have been a nightmare for game development (my evidence being how DOS games turned out).

AFAIK it's not so much that it was uncontrolled (although that became a major issue in the "Super VGA" days of the early 1990s, before DirectX), it's that it was designed to be almost exclusively a business/"productivity" system, so initially the graphics hardware sacrificed speed and color for resolution/cost, the sound hardware was almost nonexistent, and the only reliable timing source was a low-resolution timer interrupt (something like 18.2Hz IIRC).

[louisg]

(history of IBM PC here)

Thanks for the history! That's pretty interesting.

Furthermore, the uncontrolled architecture must have been a nightmare for game development (my evidence being how DOS games turned out).

AFAIK it's not so much that it was uncontrolled (although that became a major issue in the "Super VGA" days of the early 1990s, before DirectX), it's that it was designed to be almost exclusively a business/"productivity" system, so initially the graphics hardware sacrificed speed and color for resolution/cost, the sound hardware was almost nonexistent, and the only reliable timing source was a low-resolution timer interrupt (something like 18.2Hz IIRC).

I think that's true for the most part, but I remember hardware varying an awful lot. By the early 90s, the audio hardware was all over the map and non-standardized. I remember video being roughly the same for higher-than-VGA resolutions, but by that time DOS was going away anyway. Not sure how much of a blow not having timing hardware is for most action genres (you can time to vsync, which can result in, ahem, very consistent framerates), though even oldie systems had really fast timers available!

[kengou]

The Modnation Racer beta has started. I'm very disappointed already. Considering the visual style of the game, you'd THINK they could have made it 60 fps. Besides which it's a RACING GAME, which generally need a fluid framerate.

But no. I have no way to actually test the framerate, but it seems to me like it's barely even pulling 30. If I had to guess I'd say average of 25. The controls felt very laggy and steering my car accurately was really difficult. I really hope this will get fixed before the final release, because it's a complete deal breaker.

[neorichieb1971]

I wish the PC community would take its piracy, its online loud mouth screw heads back to the depths of ID softwares domain of hell.

I don't know if its 2010 or 2011, but somewhere around there, something is going to happen to the games industry. Compared to 10 years ago, I buy about 1/5th of the games I did back then, for twice the price of todays.

Amazing.

[Ed Oscuro]

I wish the PC community would take its piracy, its online loud mouth screw heads back to the depths of ID softwares domain of hell.

Sounds like a description of the console kiddiez - bottom line, if you go looking for badness, you'll find it. The jackasses using voice in Steam are no better or worse than those on the consoles. Different restaurant, same serving suggestion of shit.

I don't know if its 2010 or 2011, but somewhere around there, something is going to happen to the games industry.

Add this to the "game predictions" thread. People have been predicting the end of PC gaming for years now.

Compared to 10 years ago, I buy about 1/5th of the games I did back then, for twice the price of todays.

Games being less expensive is bad? Not sure I can follow your thoughts here.

[neorichieb1971]

I was trying to make the point that even though the games cost 5 times as much I bought more of them than I do now. Meaning that todays offerings are far too samey.

I remember back in 1996 ish, Resident evil, Street fighter zero, Mario 64 all came out within a month or two. How many months do you have 3 "must have" games these days? Even if there were 3 games in a month, it would consist of Turok, Halo and Killzone something or other.. ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

[PROMETHEUS]

I was badmouthing new consoles games for running at such a low performance, and then I played Golden Eye and Star Wars Racers again on a Nintendo 64 at a friend's and realized they ran at like 10 fps in multiplayer. I guess consoles have always been like that ?

I definitely enjoy PC gaming a lot more in general for that reason + the superior controls in a number of genres, such as RTS or FPS. (And jackasses who bitch about how console pads are better than PC pads should remember the best console pads are usable on PC no problem. Not that you really ever need to play with a pad though, except for the odd action game or something where you need to hold a lot of buttons at once.).

[neorichieb1971]

N64 isn't the best example of a console that does good framerates.

[Ed Oscuro]

N64 isn't the best example of a console that does good framerates.

PlayStation? Saturn? Sega CD, 32x? Many examples of games with good and bad framerates on all these platforms (but mainly bad, IMO)

[louisg]

I think people let framerates slip a lot in 3d just because they couldn't get them to run consistently. 2d is generally full framerate, with some games being half. I can't think of any competently designed 2d game which is actually variable rate. Generally, pre-00's arcade games are full rate, excluding Midway and stuff like that.

[null1024]

N64 isn't the best example of a console that does good framerates.

Understatement of all time. Weren't there like, 3 games that ran at 60 [no research here, so someone confirm]?

[saucykobold]

It's entirely possible to get a smooth framerate in Goldeneye. Just holster your weapon and make sure an Egyptian wall takes up your entire field of view.

[gs68]

I think people let framerates slip a lot in 3d just because they couldn't get them to run consistently. 2d is generally full framerate, with some games being half. I can't think of any competently designed 2d game which is actually variable rate. Generally, pre-00's arcade games are full rate, excluding Midway and stuff like that.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor on DS uses sub-60 for battles, and 60 otherwise.

[null1024]

I think people let framerates slip a lot in 3d just because they couldn't get them to run consistently. 2d is generally full framerate, with some games being half. I can't think of any competently designed 2d game which is actually variable rate. Generally, pre-00's arcade games are full rate, excluding Midway and stuff like that.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor on DS uses sub-60 for battles, and 60 otherwise.

But that doesn't really count, because it switches between fixed rates, right [warning: no research done]? I think by variable rate, he means frameskip.