PC vs Consoles: Unstable vs Stable FPS!

[Khader87]

Hi,

 

why console frames are steady at 30 fps no matter what, however pc fps is volitale and have many frame drops?

 

thanks,

 

 

[bleedblue]

Just now, Khader87 said:

why console frames are steady at 30 fps no matter what

Not really, no. Consoles also experience frame drops and stutters albeit way less frequently than PCs.

 

The simplest way to put it is it's easier for devs to optimize games for consoles since they all have the same hardware regardless of whether it's my xbox or your xbox. PCs on the other hand can vary wildly with different CPUs, GPUs, RAM, etc, etc.

[PlayStation 2]

V E R T I C A L - S Y N C

No, really. Simple as that. Developers on consoles usually implement v-sync at half of 60fps to keep steady frame times. 

Numerous modern PC games have this feature too, with varying degrees of success. 

[Murasaki]

Because one console hardware vs many pc configurations, which is easier to target more consistently?

[LukeSavenije]

let's start a war!!!
/jk

 

to be serious, v-sync and a heck lot of optimalisation.

[manikyath]

in general.. (if the console, and the game running on it are well developed) a console will be more stabile in terms of framerate, because it is more predictable. each console running a game will be identical to another console running the game. so if a specific scene overloads the console's capabilities, the developer can slice some geometry or entities from that scene to reach their v-sync target of 30fps..

 

in terms of how well that worked.. ask speedrunners, chances are they'll be able to name you a scene in a game that lags, for just about every platform.

 

as for why a pc is more volatile in terms of framerate: there is a nearly infinite amount of hardware configurations, and even when accounting for that, a developer cant account for the stuff your computer may be doing in the background as well. all that "small optimization for the platform" stuff essentially falls back to the user, with the graphics options they gave you. 

[mariushm]

Fewer programs running in background stealing cpu cycles from the game

Fewer hardware configurations allowing for better optimizations  - for example if you know all consoles versions have 6 or 8 GB of video card memory, you can tweak the graphical settings to make sure any "scene" in the game won't go over that amount, so you never hit the storage during action, only during level loading or in certain transition places.

Fewer graphical settings, tuning defaults to what the hardware allows, textures and data already in the formats the console wants so you can copy straight to ram or video card while on PC you could have different formats depending on video cards.. Like for example - fictional example - don't use 2048x2048 pixel textures if the polaris video card inside the console is 10% faster with 1024x1024 pixel textures), while on PC and other places you may want to use 2048x2048 on high/ultra quality and cards that can handle it - on console you wouldn't have to load the 2048x2048 texture in memory, resize it 1024x1024 if the quality settings are medium/high, and then use it ... you already have the texture at 1024x1024 on the drive.   

[TacoSenpai]

Because Genesis DOES what Ninten don't.  wait wrong war...

[Majinhoju]

I think it's mostly because it's easier to optimize for a static platform.  If a developer finds that their game is hitching bad somewhere, they can fine tune their game accordingly to hit the target fps.

[nhill638]

21 hours ago, LordOTaco said:

Because Genesis DOES what Ninten don't.  wait wrong war...

Sega does what Nintendon't...., Goes third party.

[SaintERosa]

On 1/8/2019 at 3:59 AM, bleedblue said:

Not really, no. Consoles also experience frame drops and stutters albeit way less frequently than PCs.

 

The simplest way to put it is it's easier for devs to optimize games for consoles since they all have the same hardware regardless of whether it's my xbox or your xbox. PCs on the other hand can vary wildly with different CPUs, GPUs, RAM, etc, etc.

I wpuld second this, games on consoles tend to be set to optimal settings while PCs tend to be user set which coupled with more background work (consoles mostly do one thing at a time except for stream and party chat). PC builds may also be relatively incompatible within itself. You can imagine hundreds of manufacturers making parts that are required for systems e.g. some motherboard support certain manufacturers and speeds of RAM, but sometimes people have running PCs with RAM that wasn't officially validated to work and thus could experience fps issues. Namely if you are using a less than optimal gpu and cpu with some games in Ultra settings or technologies will stutter.

Also some console to PC ports are done badly.

 

But the differences are going to strink as game design software is becoming more platform modular such as with Unity and Game Maker Studio which support multiple platforms originating from PC builds so performance will be comparible relative to hardware specs and special platform considerations (such as lower default draw distance, lower resolution potential, fps locks like in consoles which basically lock to 30 to 60 fps)