Do you really need 60fps in all games?

[himmatsj]

Currently, I am playing Watch Dogs. No matter what I do on 1080p, the game won't run at 60fps smoothly on my GTX750 (though on medium settings it can stay above 50fps almost all the time).

This is kind of a slower paced game. Some others are like Deus Ex HR, which I actually played at 30fps, 720p on my GT620 last year.

Thing is, I am usually very sensitive for 60fps. I play LOTS of side-scrolling platformers. So my GTX 750 is enough to run them all at 60fps no sweat. Same with twitch games like Super Hexagon and Pivvot, and other games with fast action such as racers.

But when it comes to AAA games like Thief, Deus Ex HR and Watch Dogs, I realize that 60fps is not a must. I can live with less. Around 45fps still does the job.

Why is that so? Is this the same with you, where the highest end 3D AAA games don't necessarily have to run 60fps on your machine for you to enjoy them?

Thanks!

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

For me, it depends entirely on the game. if I'm playing a fast-paced shooter, like Battlefield, I much prefer frame rate over graphical capability. If I'm playing something more slow-paced like Tomb Raider, a lower frame rate is perfectly acceptable, and I can make use of better graphics.

There's also the 60fps-PC-master-race thing that people like to go on about; it's really just a way for PC gamers to get one over on consoles, which is rather childish.

 

[Rationale]

I don't bother with 60 fps in any of my games- it takes double the performance and is therefore not worth it for me, considering I aim for low cost and energy efficiency in my PC.

Capped at 30 fps with Dxtory, set max pre-rendered frames to 1 in my drivers (fixes a few quirks with input lag, provided the CPU has the core-per-core performance to keep the frames stable anyway), instant stable 30 fps cap in every game.
And from experience - a stable cap of 30 fps isn't as good as a stable cap of 60 fps (obviously), but a stable cap of 30 fps is much better than a framerate hovering and fluctuating around 35-45 fps.

Don't get me wrong, I can run 95% of my games at a solid 60 fps (Warframe, Mass Effect 3, Borderlands 2, Dark Souls 2, etc), but I choose not to. 30 fps has been working great so far, at least four generations of consoles were fine at 30 fps, and staying used to 30 fps will let me keep my video card for twice as long between upgrades.

Another interesting fact - Many PS4 and X1 games still run at 30 fps, but developers aren't saying it anymore unless they're asked directly in interviews, and the console gamers usually can't tell unless someone else informs them.

 

[himmatsj]

Rationale, I like your rationale. No kidding. I mean, once you get used to 60fps, it is hard to go back to 30. I know this cause I had a GT620 until early this year when I switched to a GTX 750.

Also, eventhough I play mostly 2D platformers, I refuse to get a 120 or 144Hz monitor based on your rationale. My GPU when unlocked would run them at a few hundred FPS easily, but then I will "spoil" myself.

And console gamers do not know much about FPS cause they do not spend time tweaking settings with FRAPS running on the top right corner of the screen.

It is true though that whenever I play FIFA on my cousins Xbox or play mobile games on my tablet (where games usually run at 30fps), they do not seem to bother me.

 

[UKINFINITE]

Personally as i play a lot of moba's and fps games i need to have 60 fps or the game feels like its stuttering like when i got watch dogs i could not get 60 fps i just could not play the game