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    Is framerate important?

    dixee
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    Post by dixee 10/30/2009, 6:57 pm

    In a recent blog post on Insomniac Games' website (Spyro, Ratchet & Clank, Resistance: Fall of Man) they mention that this last game they made is possibly the last time they make a game run at 60 FPS.

    Now, I think 30 FPS is plenty as long as framerate is solid and there's no tearing, but what are your opinions? What's an acceptable framerate, and are there genres where it matters more?
    SoulRed12
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    Post by SoulRed12 10/30/2009, 10:42 pm

    Well Game Maker defaults at 30 fps so naturally I got used to it. At 60 you really only have to get used to halving speeds and timers (to make it, and it does tend to look "smoother"...but I like 30 better. Dunno why.

    What I'm thinking is, if the game has objects that move at very fast speeds, a faster framerate could make it so that the objects don't skip other objects; if there's an 8-pixel wide bullet for example that goes at a speed of 32, then there's 24 pixels that are entirely skipped. If you raise the f/r to 60 and cut the speed to 16, then you've only got 16 missed pixels whereas the object still looks like it's going the same speed.

    Then again, there is the issue of computers that can't handle the higher framerates - if you set the game to 60 fps and have some object going at a speed of 4 rather than 30fps with a speed of 8, a computer that can only run the game at 30fps will make the object move at half the speed it's meant to move. If the game was 30 fps at speed of 8, the object would move at normal speed.

    I'm curious, what reasons did Insomniac Games give for not wanting to write any more games at 60 fps?
    John
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    Post by John 10/31/2009, 1:39 am

    I have gotten into writing my games at 60fps for the simple fact that they look smoother. It really doesn't matter much though.

    Fps only starts to matter if the game starts going too slow. There are ridiculous framerates like 10fps or like 90fps. You'd have to do some math to get the speeds right...

    One thing that I have found annoying with 60fps is the speed of the particle effects but that's pretty much it.
    dixee
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    Post by dixee 10/31/2009, 7:41 pm

    Here's the link (should have included originally):
    http://www.insomniacgames.com/blogcast/blog/mike_acton/1503082

    Mostly it's hard to get it up to 60, keep it solid, and have graphics as good as they could be. They claim that it doesn't have a huge effect on reviews or purchases, and that higher-end graphics probably would.

    Anyway, I don't really care. I can get more done per step with it at 30 FPS, so I think as long as that is solid, it's much better. I usually design pixel-perfect collisions anyway, so ramping it up to 60 FPS isn't actually going to help in that department.

    The only reason why I would use 60 FPS is because some fast-moving objects can be hard to follow, and my eyes usually see three to six frames at once. Thus, it can look like there are multiple instances of a bullet on the screen when there is only one. However, a good motion blur will eradicate this problem most handily. What having more frames would have done is make the segments closer together, more closely simulating actual movement. But, I don't think it's necessary.

    After all, most action movies are at 24 FPS, and the live filming produces a real motion blur. So, simulating that would seem to me like it ought to do fine.

    I've heard some complaints regarding controls feeling tighter, but I don't know that this is all that verifiable of a claim. Given the difference of 30 and 60, and given an evenly displaced random set of reactions, half of the time the reaction would be the same. The other half of the time, it would be a 60th of a second later. Big deal. It takes longer than that for your brain to fire the neurons which will tell your muscles to flex.

    Anyway, I'm glad Insomniac is doing this. There have been some very impressive games lately which are only 30 FPS (Uncharted 2, for example). But, back to another question I had: Are there certain genres which are affected more by FPS than others? Racing, perhaps?

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