Why do the majority of devs concentrate on aesthetics rather than frame rate?

[werto165]

I've always found it rather silly, why don't more devs aim for 60FPS rather than 30FPS? Is it just because they can't get those "amazing" visuals or acheive their artisic vision? The only ones that seem to be concentrating on frame rate is DICE, all of their games on this gen have been 60FPS, sacrificing that image fidelity for overall smoothness. Surely it would benefit everyone if more games ran at a higher frame rate. A recent example I can think of is witcher 3, it runs better on the xbox one compared to PS4, it's because of the dynamic resolution scaling so it flucuates between 900p and 1080p. I mean in some areas the game runs at like 22FPS that's just a horrible experience.(based of the digital foundry video). So who's fault is it here? is it sony pushing CD projekt to have the "magical" 1080p?

 

So what do you prefer, a higher frame with slightly worse visuals or better fidelity and a lower frame rate?

 

My thinking is frame rate doesn't sell games, big flashy trailers with amazing graphics do.

[I need a better name]

both

[brownninja97]

it works better for advertsing and many people just dont know better.

 

For the graphic artist it is way better for their portfolio 

[brokencross]

For the general gaming audience, aka console gamers, what really creates that visual impact is exactly that: the eye candy. That's what sells.

Framerates are secondary even for the most knowledgeable userbase. 

[ZetZet]

Because it's flashy and you don't need much content after that.

 

If you haven't noticed the most popular/sucessful PC games don't have flashy graphics, they look good, but not flashy. (LOL, Dota 2, CS:GO. Look at the new Overwatch trailers, that game is obviously designed to run well first and look good while doing that.)

[LukaP]

When they show a new game, they either show off pictures (so no framerate noticed there) or prerendered footage, that can be rendered at whatever framerate you want. so its only reasonable to focus on getting those to convince people to buy the game.

 

And when they have your money, you can wipe your ass with the game if it doesnt run satisfactory, for all they care

 

(of course, this is about the moneygrabbing assholes like Ubishit and EA (to some extent), not the ones making real good games, like Cities Skylines... damnit that game was made in 2 years by 4 people and runs better, plays better and looks better than simcity by a large margin)

[werto165]

When they show a new game, they either show off pictures (so no framerate noticed there) or prerendered footage, that can be rendered at whatever framerate you want. so its only reasonable to focus on getting those to convince people to buy the game.

 

And when they have your money, you can wipe your ass with the game if it doesnt run satisfactory, for all they care

This isn't a job interview for ubisoft That's what I hate about the gaming industry atm, just built on false promises, if you're gonna show the game early and it looks worse after two years you're doing something wrong. Yes I know many vertical slices or whatever you want to call them sell games. Just wished the consumers were more aware of this shit that seems to be happening more and more. I guess if you never experience the higher frame rates you don't know what you're missing, having a console for the majority of my life I can understand. However it's easier than ever to see the difference frame rate makes with things such as 60FPS on youtube. 

[LukaP]

This isn't a job interview for ubisoft That's what I hate about the gaming industry atm, just built on false promises, if you're gonna show the game early and it looks worse after two years you're doing something wrong. Yes I know many vertical slices or whatever you want to call them sell games. Just wished the consumers were more aware of this shit that seems to be happening more and more.

In their current state, i dont wanna work for them

 

Its not the industry as much as 2 of the biggest players sadly, making the industry look bad. As well as the fact the consoles are underpowered crapfuck boxes that wouldnt be satisfactory in 2010, much less now

[Kyuubixchidori]

because, if you havent noticed yet, a lot of people turn off the higher framerate on tvs.

 

a lot of people cant see the diffrence between 60 and 30. not because its not there, they just been trained to see 30fps. its the same concept as going to buy 2$ earbuds. they sound like shit when you first get them. after a month, they will sound just like any other studio pair of headphones if they are all you listen to. our senses are weird.

 

basically, everyone can see the better eye candy. not everyone can perceive/want higher frame rates. 

[NeatSquidYT]

Frame rate > graphics. Graphics are nice, but a better experience is nicer IMO

[Sharkyx1]

I've always found it rather silly, why don't more devs aim for 60FPS rather than 30FPS? Is it just because they can't get those "amazing" visuals or acheive their artisic vision? The only ones that seem to be concentrating on frame rate is DICE, all of their games on this gen have been 60FPS, sacrificing that image fidelity for overall smoothness. Surely it would benefit everyone if more games ran at a higher frame rate. A recent example I can think of is witcher 3, it runs better on the xbox one compared to PS4, it's because of the dynamic resolution scaling so it flucuates between 900p and 1080p. I mean in some areas the game runs at like 22FPS that's just a horrible experience.(based of the digital foundry video). So who's fault is it here? is it sony pushing CD projekt to have the "magical" 1080p?

 

So what do you prefer, a higher frame with slightly worse visuals or better fidelity and a lower frame rate?

 

My thinking is frame rate doesn't sell games, big flashy trailers with amazing graphics do.

Because what you can do at 60FPS is actually considerably limited in comparison to what you can do at 30 FPS and most devs don't want to make those cuts 

 

but there are quite a few devs that are developing at 60FPS

 

1080 60

Call of Duty Ghosts     (720 on X1?)

Call of Duty AW           (Dynamic Render Res on X1)

Child of Light

Diablo III

Fifa 14+15

Flower

Forza 5

Killzone (MP)

Minecraft

Murdered: Soul Suspect (30Hz on X1)

Metro 2033                (912 on X1)

Metro LL                    (same as above)

MGSV GZ                       (720 on X1)   

MGSV TPP                      (as above)

Outlast

Plants Vs Zombies Garden Warfare

Rayman Legends

Resogun

Shadow Warrior

Sniper Elite 3

Tomb Raider               (30hz on X1)

TLoU  

Trials Fusion

Trine 2

Warframe

Wolfenstien: TNO  (Dynamic Renderer on both)

Resident Evil Revelations 2

Saints Row 4

Halo MCC except the remake of H2 which is 1080 x1382?

60

BF4

NHL 15

TitanFall

+The witcher 3 doesn't run that bad on either console

I'm playing it at 20FPS avg lel

[Guest]

Back when I was a console gamer I didn't really care how much fps it ran

All I cared was the image quality

But the PC Master Race changed me

And so is my idea of spending money to get fps stuck

[Th3 Mans1ay3r]

It's what they see as most of the community wants especially if they release on both PC and console. 

[Sharkyx1]

Good to know there are developers like Bethesda that care about neither, I'm sure it's going to be the worst looking game of 2015 and it will likely run like shit too

[Nexxus]

You can sell aesthetics on a box, you cant sell smooth framerate on a box.

[Whiskers]

30fps is perfectly playable when players acclimatise to it. The fact that so many people out there play at such a framerate without complaining about it should be sufficient to prove that. 60fps is always nicer of course - but when a developer needs to choose between 30fps with higher fidelity graphics and 60fps with lower fidelity graphics, the choice is usually pretty simple.

 

It should also be noted that games which demand a higher framerate to be playable or enjoyable usually do run at 60fps on consoles - Call of Duty, Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo etc. Some games benefit more from a higher framerate, some benefit more from higher fidelity graphics. Developers must choose whichever they feel is more important as a goal for their game.

[werto165]

30fps is perfectly playable when players acclimatise to it. The fact that so many people out there play at such a framerate without complaining about it should be sufficient to prove that. 60fps is always nicer of course - but when a developer needs to choose between 30fps with higher fidelity graphics and 60fps with lower fidelity graphics, the choice is usually pretty simple.

 

It should also be noted that games which demand a higher framerate to be playable or enjoyable usually do run at 60fps on consoles - Call of Duty, Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo etc. Some games benefit more from a higher framerate, some benefit more from higher fidelity graphics. Developers must choose whichever they feel is more important as a goal for their game.

sorry to nit pick but I thought gran turismo ran at 30FPS. Well also the case with forza horizon, they went for 30FPS to reach a look they would be happy with which woulnd't be possible with 60FPS.

[Whiskers]

sorry to nit pick but I thought gran turismo ran at 30FPS. Well also the case with forza horizon, they went for 30FPS to reach a look they would be happy with which woulnd't be possible with 60FPS.

 

 

Gran Turismo 5 runs at 1280x1080 upscaled to 1920x1080 at a framerate target of 60fps. Gran Turismo 6 runs at 1440x1080 upscaled to 1920x1080 at a framerate target of 60fps. Forza Motorsport 3, 4 and 5 each run at 60fps whilst the Forza Horizon series have a framerate target of 30fps owing to their more arcade-like focus compared to the Forza Motorsport's more sim-like nature.

[werto165]

Gran Turismo 5 runs at 1280x1080 upscaled to 1920x1080 at a framerate target of 60fps. Gran Turismo 6 runs at 1440x1080 upscaled to 1920x1080 at a framerate target of 60fps. Forza Motorsport 3, 4 and 5 each run at 60fps whilst the Forza Horizon series have a framerate target of 30fps owing to their more arcade-like focus compared to the Forza Motorsport's more sim-like nature.

I have no idea where I got the idea of that GT5/6 ran at 30FPS. I've played both of them too. Maybe I can't tell the frame rate myself... Sadly no game on the PC to match the fun of GT or FM sadly

[tomison25]

Because developers are struggling to make people see a reason to jump ship from last gen to new gen. Eventually the Aesthetics/gameplay thing evens out around about the half way point in the life cycle.

[neebuilda]

cos nobody talks about dem framerates when telling their mates about a new game they saw. all they talk about is dem graphics

[Samsara]

To make it seem as if the graphical leap between the 7th and 8th generation consoles is bigger than it actually is.

[evilarceus]

I don't care if the game looks like crap; as long as it's 60fps. It can look like Minecraft and I'll still play it. If developers can work more into optimizing the game while keeping graphic fidelity high and a stable 60fps, that's great.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Graphics are actually important in games. I don't see why the game needs to cut down graphics for higher FPS. 

Artists also design the art style and graphics of the game with the story and gameplay in mind. Graphics, gameplay and story line all complement each other

equally. Graphics also tell the story as well. Depending on the graphical effects used we can also see what the artists also want to tell us. 

 

Take for example God of war. There is tons of blood and fire effects used in this game and lots of emphasise on the colour red. The red tattoo/marking on Kratos's 

is also more emphasized by giving him grey skin. Red is usually associated with anger and it shows the players the rage filled Kratos. The grey on his body also tells

me that he is lost and sad.

 

Of course this is only my own deduction and may very well be far from what the artist is trying to tell us. Also this wouldn't be the only reason for higher graphics. But what I've realized is the only thing that really doesn't give a better gaming experience is 60fps. If the devs and artist decide to sacrifice 60fps for 30fps to push higher LOD distances in WC3 to make the world of WC3 more alive then I wouldn't mind.

 

"A picture is worth a thousand words"         

[ICantThinkOfAnyGoodName]

People who buy the game will much more likely buy it because of some pretty screenshots than because of it running at 60fps. Many console gamers think of FPS as "just a number".