Assassin's Creed dev thinks industry is dropping 60 fps standard

[Atomika]

The beauty of 120/144 FPS and v-sync is that the stutter between each frame is so low you don't need to deal with tearing or have problems because of the stutter.

 

Precisely.

This is why I do it

[Analog]

First the intentional hindering of the PC version of Whatchdogs and now this?! Ubisoft are officially worse than EA. I have not bought any of their games for years and they have just convinced me never to do it again. 

[starwalker]

Basically this Ubisoft dev is saying that it's "too hard" to achieve 60FPS and "you don't gain much" from the higher frame rate. I would recommend reading the whole article, if I put the whole thing here it would be a shameless copy and paste.

 

Source: http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/viva-la-resoluci-n-assassin-s-creed-dev-thinks-industry-is-dropping-60-fps-standard-1268241

 

There is only one word to describe this guy: fuckwit

 

I am new to this forum so hello everyone! 

 

I have a few things to say to clear out what actually needs to be done to get that actual 60 FPS from a console. If you still think calling the person who took that decision deserves to be called "fuckwit" ; the oneness is on you.

 

Background:

I have been in the game industry for 4 years now, as a developer and have worked on Sleeping dogs and Little big planet karting on the engineering side, and I'm writing so that who ever is reading things get a clear idea of what happens behind the scene before you call people "lazy" and other things because its convenient to blame. 

 

Following happens on a typical Ps3 / Xbox / PC title:

 

Inception state of project: the idea, critiques, public demand analysis and pure validity of is making this game for 3 years in development may bear a fruit.

Pre-development stage**: Usually after a month or 2 of planning and getting man-power ready.

Development stage*: This is where all the programmers and all hands go on deck for 3 years.

QA stage: 6 months before launch, the product is usually locked before release so that all bugs are removed and things are ready in every damn corner of the level without bugs.

Launch : Well now you can order your game before or pay full price, your choice.

 

* - Marketing of the product will also start in midst of this development.

** - Kick starters go here.

 

Now the chances of a game hitting above 80 on metacritic can only be hoped for and the date has to be selected hoping that no one else is launching a title which is of the same caliber in the same time , because it harms both companies because the chances of 1 person buying two new 60 dollar titles is less.

 

We dont choose Xbox or PS3 or PC, we HAVE to work with what we get, or leave the job. No options, you are assigned a platform, you have to work on it. I'm a PC gamer and I had to make a game for PS3, I never had a PS3 in my life. <- get the context?

 

The practical standpoint:

 

During development, when you are working with consoles, you have very less freedom in terms of console resources to get more FPS. 

 

When I worked on Little big planet karting, I had 1 Mb to work with for making a glittering shader effect and make it so optimized that it is not a CPU (Ps3 cpu) intensive task, it took me 2 weeks to get it done right + Math and programming books to get the best out of it to optimize every MB I can get. You can google what was inside the tech spec for a Ps3 if you like, you will know what it is like. So, I had to work from 10 am to 9 pm almost everyday before the QA stage hits else whatever I personally wanted to be in the game, wont make it in. Because its time locked and my lead would be disappointed, I'm only human. Its not about 60 fps its because every 5 fps could mean months of work.

 

Our Tech leads have a quota / level to dedicate in terms of bandwidth available vs framerate cost, we have to work with that limitation else the quality of an international title along with the studio is to be blamed for. 

 

It takes a team of 5-6 people to optimize the level in every way to get a steady framerate in terms of CPU intensive operations and 2-3 people on level design and that usually can take 6 months of work depending on the complexity of the environment all things taken in regard, and we don't get paid for overtime. 

 

The publishers will go in a loss if the launch date is changed because the marketing is already been done.

 

Not only that, if the launch failed to meet the marketing or the product failed; the people who worked on it for 3+ years, are fired because the company couldn't break even in development vs profit on the first 6 months of the game.

 

Do users care about any of the above ? yes / no? Mostly we hope that we can make it at a 70+ meta critic game, if below its usually a loss. And its not just 1 person to be blamed but the whole team is sad and because whoever wrote that ubisoft article above has a huge time constrain to get whatever features vs optimization in before things are made public. Because once its made public, people like the OP can call them "fuckwit" because its a Console vs PC battle here. 

 

Porting: The above team who worked on the title now has to work with additional people who would specialize in porting if the demand of the game rises and people say that "we want a pc/ps3" game. So if the console game is ported on PC, you have at most 6-8 months before it is launched and it has to look atleast as good if not more better on the PC. Also know that at this moment, all art assets are optimized for console, so the artist now have to re-do textures in high-res and make sure the frame rate is still steady even for a PC title. If any of the above doesn't get done right, it will be called a "BAD PORT" out right and the dead line is given by the publisher not the development team. In studios like Rockstar games, the Publisher and Developer are the same, so they can decide whats best for the product's success and go from there.

 

Knowing above, can I ask:

 

If the art of the game was not equal to what was promised on console , would you like it ? would you say you got your money's worth? 

 

If the game-play was a bit stuttery in places where there are lot of AI to combat or lot of breakable objects, would you like it at the cost of degrading visual quality? then would you say you got your money's worth?

 

If you say , no I want both, then that's exactly what the article is about, you are hardware limited so you have to compromise somewhere. The original resolution is usually 720p most of the time and then its scaled up, because the target market of console plays it on a TV. At a distance of 7-8 ft, you cant make out 1080p from 720p, visually. Closer than that you can see the pixels of the TV screen itself.

 

Also the pace of the game usually is decided in order to target an FPS , so if its a game like Hitman, you know you are not running around fast shooting people so more resources can be dedicated to graphic quality and vice versa. PC's have more bandwidth hence you never notice what the load of a GPU is, visually above 60 fps. On Console, the GPU has to do twice the work in 1 second to get double the frames. If you say you are ok with 45 FPS, you can increase the resolution to 1080 and it will still look ok BUT, it will cost the company making it more time and effort on the engineering / programming side to take that challenge. And if the cost is not validated visually or in terms of gameplay features/quality, your idea is tanked. In worst case when the people who finance the title feel that this project wont get them the profit they want (publishers like Sony, EA etc) they will tank the whole title. I was there when 2 big companies closed their door in Vancouver, Canada. The amount of jobs lost were 180+ and I had no job and was disoriented for a year and half of my life trying to get back into the game industry vs going doing any other software development job. Because I have been playing and modding games since I was 15, it was very difficult for me to leave something I love because I have no control over it.

 

So if after knowing all the above, you still think its easy making games for people to be called "fuckwit", knowing that the failure of the title might risk losing their job, do so. Chances are that guy still enjoys and loves doing his job more than most people on the planet because you are still playing a game made by the people who love games themselves. 

 

It is easy to write call some one "fuckwit" or say they are bunch of "lazy people" when the same people made the games you loved before, do you take the time to write what you liked about the game when a game does good? yes/no? 

 

It takes 4 years of Computer science, 2+ years of game development experience to call your life stable when it comes to game development and the person is usually hoping he gets to keep his job after the launch of a title, and did I mention if you have less than 2 years of experience, you will be laid-off out right if the studio doesn't make profit. Would that guy want to make a game again ? I don't know if there would be anyone else defending a game developer here but I wanted to give you guys this perspective of what actually happens because its always the game developers fault.

 

Edit: I agree that the this is a little off topic from the original article posted which is misleading people to believe the argument made, I'm not supporting the original argument, but I dont like it when people generalize all game developers as stupid / lazy people.

 

- Star

[LAwLz]

-snip-

You're probably right in everything you say, but I think you misread/misinterpreted what OP said and is angry about.

If they went out and said "sorry but the consoles aren't powerful enough for more than 30 FPS" then I don't think anyone would be angry. It's this "30 FPS is better than 60 FPS" attitude that makes people angry.

He is also using bullshit analogies like comparing games to movies to justify his bullshit, even though they are completely different. I have no idea how he can say "it actually feels better for people when it's at that 30fps" with a straight face because he is lying through his teeth.

People usually don't get mad at honest answers. People get the most mad when you give bad excuses which they know are bullshit.

[starwalker]

You're probably right in everything you say, but I think you misread/misinterpreted what OP said and is angry about.

If they went out and said "sorry but the consoles aren't powerful enough for more than 30 FPS" then I don't think anyone would be angry. It's this "30 FPS is better than 60 FPS" attitude that makes people angry.

He is also using bullshit analogies like comparing games to movies to justify his bullshit, even though they are completely different. I have no idea how he can say "it actually feels better for people when it's at that 30fps" with a straight face because he is lying through his teeth.

People usually don't get mad at honest answers. People get the most mad when you give bad excuses which they know are bullshit.

Agree, I updated my answer saying the same.

[AlfiePates]

I can't believe they're trying to get out of optimising their software this much.

Their developers can't be this incompetent...

Can they?

[Doobeedoo]

"Filmic feel"......

[The Crazed Child]

You're probably right in everything you say, but I think you misread/misinterpreted what OP said and is angry about.

If they went out and said "sorry but the consoles aren't powerful enough for more than 30 FPS" then I don't think anyone would be angry. It's this "30 FPS is better than 60 FPS" attitude that makes people angry.

He is also using bullshit analogies like comparing games to movies to justify his bullshit, even though they are completely different. I have no idea how he can say "it actually feels better for people when it's at that 30fps" with a straight face because he is lying through his teeth.

People usually don't get mad at honest answers. People get the most mad when you give bad excuses which they know are bullshit.

Exactly what I was intending to say. If they can only squeeze 30FPS out of consoles, I'm fine with that. It's understandable. The fact that he's using shitty excuses is what angers me. Just tell the truth and people will understand.

[AlwaysFSX]

Exactly what I was intending to say. If they can only squeeze 30FPS out of consoles, I'm fine with that. It's understandable. The fact that he's using shitty excuses is what angers me. Just tell the truth and people will understand.

A better answer would have been "It sucks, I'm sorry" instead of having to manufacture excuses.

[sand0oski]

I agree with lawlz completely, they are obviously just trying to convince people that 30fps is better suited for their type of games.  

[mizifih]

Resolution and FPS are just numbers? Well, guess what? Money is just a number too. Here, take $30 instead of $60. Is that ok?

[Zorb]

... I dont really post but this is so irritating I have to. 

I play games on a qnix 1440p monitor which I have tweaked to run at 96 fps.. 

The difference in how smooth the game is, how easy it is to track targets, to not get dizzy and cross eyed when looking around, between 60 FPS and 96 FPS is night and day. 
And when playing a game like battlefield you can quantify this difference because your kills go way up... You can suddenly see enemies quickly and respond quickly.. 
Trying to imagine playing a game at LESS than 60 is insane. 

I have found 96FPS to be so smooth in comparison to 60FPS that I will readily lower all my settings in any action oriented game to get that buttery goodness. 

However I understand the predicament they are in. 

These guys are trying to max out their sellability on these games and that means prettier games.. They know the majority market is on the console, and they know they will not be able to make anything remotely next gen on this gen of consoles that will run at 60 fps so what can they do? 

Gamers are gonna ridicule them for having ugly games but  gamers will only ridicule Sony and Microsoft if the games are beautiful but run at 30FPS.. They are just thinking about their image. 

[Davehaslanded]

-snip-

While i appreciate all this, its not the individual coders, or designers at the base level i blame for these issues. As you stated, there is a lot of pressure from above. I also believe the industry approach is wrong across most developers/publishers. The idea of dropping resolution to boost on screen clutter etc. For me, native resolution should always be a must, and then add in the clutter until you hit the minimum 30/60fps your aiming for. I just  think it sets a bad precedent for companies to think that downgrading resolution is fine, especially when PC and even phones are pushing the tech forward as far as higher resolutions go (I game at 4k and 1440p is become increasingly mainstream in PC and phone games). Personally, i think a well coded 30fps can be fine, although i will always prefer 50fps-60fps+, but the blatant lies and assumption that gamers on any platform are stupid enough to fall for such utter rubbish is what annoys me.

 

Side note, could someone explain to me how i quote a small section instead of a whole post, or tag poster in my post. Thankyou.

[The Crazed Child]

While i appreciate all this, its not the individual coders, or designers at the base level i blame for these issues. As you stated, there is a lot of pressure from above. I also believe the industry approach is wrong across most developers/publishers. The idea of dropping resolution to boost on screen clutter etc. For me, native resolution should always be a must, and then add in the clutter until you hit the minimum 30/60fps your aiming for. I just  think it sets a bad precedent for companies to think that downgrading resolution is fine, especially when PC and even phones are pushing the tech forward as far as higher resolutions go (I game at 4k and 1440p is become increasingly mainstream in PC and phone games). Personally, i think a well coded 30fps can be fine, although i will always prefer 50fps-60fps+, but the blatant lies and assumption that gamers on any platform are stupid enough to fall for such utter rubbish is what annoys me.

 

Side note, could someone explain to me how i quote a small section instead of a whole post, or tag poster in my post. Thankyou.

You can edit out whatever part of the quoted post you want, if it's a big wall of text most people just wipe it out and type "-snip-" to say that they've shortened the post.

[Davehaslanded]

-snip- 

Cool thanks. Didn't work last time i tried that

[The Crazed Child]

Cool thanks. Didn't work last time i tried that

Just delete the text, not the poster/date and time.

[FeniksX]

Dropping the 60 FPS standing should be good if the standard is becoming 120+ FPS and otherwise NO!!!!

 

Back in the day i had low budget gaming pc, i had to play games with 10-30 fps. I also had a friend that had a job an a insane PC, and when i played the same games on his PC, it was running 80+ fps, you can see all the lil details like fire and smoke being alive instead of looking at a picture of fire and then get another picture shoved in your hands with a different kind of fire.. shit experience!

 

Its up for the consumer to decide what he wants to play with, if that means turning some things lower to get the 60 FPS, then he should do that, if he wants to see all the details at 30 fps, his choice but i don't want my over geared rig to run at a shitty 30 fps while it should be able to run higher, same with watch dogs, it was terrible and gladly found the config file where i was able to remove the limiter.

 

24-30-48 FPS are GOOD FOR MOVIES!!!!, GAME are supposed to be at least 50+ FPS!!

 

[Strider]

...

I try really hard not to hate on these so called "modern" consoles, because I dislike being a "hater", but it's idiotic things like this that make it bubble right over the top. To be fair, it's not the gamers I hate, it's the what the consoles (and companies) themselves have done to the gaming industry in my humble opinion.

Crappy ports. Outdated tech that's expected to last 8+ years. Dumbed down games targeting lower-end console hardware. These things are not "next gen", they are outdated even before they hit the shelves.

The consoles have been a hindrance to the advancement of the game industry in my opinion, at least in a technical aspect.

Then I see crap like this article, and it's not just a hindrance any longer, but a HUGE step backwards!

Resolution is just a number?

60 FPS too hard to reach?

Neither of these really have any effect on image quality?

... *sigh* ...

Sit myself, or most any PC gamer, behind a game and let us see if we can tell the difference between 30 and 60 FPS. Especially in first person shooter titles. There is a huge difference.

I will grant that telling the difference between 900P and 1080P would not be as easy for some, but it's still perceivable. Especially side by side. But in this case, that's not the point. We are moving past 1080P to 1440P and beyond. You can easily tell the difference between 900P and 1440, or 1080 and 1440, and don't even get me started on 4K.

Anyway, I think I should stop there, I can rant all day about idiotic claims like this. Thanks for letting me rant a little, made me feel better.

[suicidalfranco]

Might as well go backwards now. Next conference, "you know, we should go back to 8-bit"

 

Leave Slain out of this

[Altecice]

I am by no means a console person... I dont even own one but some of these comments are ridiculous.

 

You are shouting at a company thats decided to limit to 30fps because consoles are 30fps. They have no doubt done it for efficiency meaning they can hit deadlines and spend money on other things.... While I agree with you all it sucks there is nothing shouting about it is going to do. You are all sitting there on your PC's shouting at consoles when in reality if they were not here at all we would not have the big AAA games we have now. Consoles no doubt produce more revenue than PC's thanks for piracy. So it only make sense that they plan and produce for the majority WE are the minority not the "master race" you all seem to think... grow up at least we have games to play.

 

If you want to see this change stop fucking pirating everything and bloody buy it.

 

/rant

[Razzaa]

Stopped reading @ Ubisoft lol

[7850OC]

i think nvidia want lock all games at 30 fps "to sell more" g-sync monitors lol  :lol:

 

(but that is just me) 

[mizifih]

I am by no means a console person... I dont even own one but some of these comments are ridiculous.

 

You are shouting at a company thats decided to limit to 30fps because consoles are 30fps. They have no doubt done it for efficiency meaning they can hit deadlines and spend money on other things.... While I agree with you all it sucks there is nothing shouting about it is going to do. You are all sitting there on your PC's shouting at consoles when in reality if they were not here at all we would not have the big AAA games we have now. Consoles no doubt produce more revenue than PC's thanks for piracy. So it only make sense that they plan and produce for the majority WE are the minority not the "master race" you all seem to think... grow up at least we have games to play.

 

If you want to see this change stop fucking pirating everything and bloody buy it.

 

/rant

 

So basically, we don't blame consoles, we blame PC gamers!? All right then, lets point fingers. You don't know what you're talking.

 

Some facts that might contradict what you are saying. Steam, Humble Bundle and others alike are companies that hardly make money, right? I mean, according to you, your logic at least. In the last three months last year (2013), Steam increased it's active user base to 75 million, a 10% growth in three months, due to a summer sale or some other sale they had going on. So yeah, be surprised and amazed, PC gamers buy games.

 

I think that piracy is a problem in any platform, even Playstation 3 had it's issues. I have a friend that buy PC games, but all his consoles have HDDs attached, his Wii, Xbox360 at least. And even his PS3 runs illegal downloaded stuff as far as I know. Also his portables, his DS (or 3DS, don't know what) and his PSP runs on pirated stuff. And I have other friends that casually do piracy. I don't, first it's wrong, I don't do it on my gaming, I don't do it on my phone, and to be honest, and I wouldn't trust white list a .exe file on my PC to do I don't know what. For the looks of it, piracy in a console looked way easier, he download a file, put it on a hard drive and start playing, on a PC you have to crack and sometimes the cracked .exe file doesn't save right, or crash when you hit a certain level, it's more trouble then joy, as far as I can tell.

 

I'm a PC gamer and I bet most of the people here are PC dudes. I have hundreds of games on my Steam Library, and again, I believe most of the dudes here also have.

 

So piracy is everywhere, not only PC, keep that in mind when you start blaming other people's incompetence in delivery decent work.

[mizifih]

i think nvidia want lock all games at 30 fps "to sell more" g-sync monitors lol  :lol:

 

(but that is just me) 

It's like what Linus said on the last WAN Show, "the way it was meant to be played", I believe is nVidia's motto.

[Altecice]

So basically, we don't blame consoles, we blame PC gamers!? All right then, lets point fingers. You don't know what you're talking.

 

Some facts that might contradict what you are saying. Steam, Humble Bundle and others alike are companies that hardly make money, right? I mean, according to you, your logic at least. In the last three months last year (2013), Steam increased it's active user base to 75 million, a 10% growth in three months, due to a summer sale or some other sale they had going on. So yeah, be surprised and amazed, PC gamers buy games.

 

I think that piracy is a problem in any platform, even Playstation 3 had it's issues. I have a friend that buy PC games, but all his consoles have HDDs attached, his Wii, Xbox360 at least. And even his PS3 runs illegal downloaded stuff as far as I know. Also his portables, his DS (or 3DS, don't know what) and his PSP runs on pirated stuff. And I have other friends that casually do piracy. I don't, first it's wrong, I don't do it on my gaming, I don't do it on my phone, and to be honest, and I wouldn't trust white list a .exe file on my PC to do I don't know what. For the looks of it, piracy in a console looked way easier, he download a file, put it on a hard drive and start playing, on a PC you have to crack and sometimes the cracked .exe file doesn't save right, or crash when you hit a certain level, it's more trouble then joy, as far as I can tell.

 

I'm a PC gamer and I bet most of the people here are PC dudes. I have hundreds of games on my Steam Library, and again, I believe most of the dudes here also have.

 

So piracy is everywhere, not only PC, keep that in mind when you start blaming other people's incompetence in delivery decent work.

 

Yes I understand its in almost every platform. I said this is only part of the issue with PC gamers... We think we are an "elite" form of gamer when really we are nothing special. If a game company decides to limit to 30fps because its easier for them then I can't blame them, Im just glad they brought it out on PC in the first place. I bet most people shouting about it don't even have a clue how to program games and how hard it actually is.