John Carmack: Next-Gen Consoles Will Still Target 30fps

[paulemannsen]

carmack is right, epic is wrong. i dont care for one wooden crate more, well, actually i dont care for consoles at all...

 

[pedro_mann]

[citation][nom]supall[/nom]I wasn't aware that hz and fps were interchangeable.[/citation]
Lots of overly complex answers on this one. Simply put, 1HZ =1 cycle per second. So you could loosely say that 1 frame = 1 cycle - then fps and hz could be interchanged.

eg. 30 cycles per second(hz)= 30 frames per second (fps)

The problem is, it may confuse alot of people to interchange these metrics, since it takes alot of cpu+gpu Hz to make 1 frame.

 

[tipoo]

Almost all current console games are 720p, sometimes lower. Just going from that to full 1080p would require about twice the pixel pushing power. Going to 1080p as well as 60fps would likley sap away most of the added power a new console would have compared to the PS3/360. I think it's fairly safe to assume 30fps will be the target of any sufficiently advanced game, and some may still dip to 720p. With the Wii U most games are already 720/30, and that's just first gen games for it.

 

[aragis]

I am not really surprised since the rumored specs of the next gen consoles are just abysmal. There was graphically a huge difference between 5th, 6th and 7th gen, but it won't be like that with the 8th.

And it's mostly because of the Wii's success. Thanks a lot ruining our graphics, casual gamers!

 

[jonjonjon]

i don't get what he is whining about. if a dev feels 30 fps is better for THEIR game then what is the problem? sure in a perfect world i would rather have it running at 60 fps but who knows what sacrifices would have to be made to double the frame rate. fps is also more then just what your eye's can see. fps have an effect on input lag too.

 

[tipoo]

I do hope the next consoles are powerful enough for many or most games to hit 60fps though, look up the Uncharted at 60fps video if you haven't seen it, the exact same game with the exact same assets and animations looks so much more life like at 60.

 

[casualcolors]

i don't get what he is whining about. if a dev feels 30 fps is better for THEIR game then what is the problem? sure in a perfect world i would rather have it running at 60 fps but who knows what sacrifices would have to be made to double the frame rate. fps is also more then just what your eye's can see. fps have an effect on input lag too.

Carmack (who is one of the most influential developers in the history of video gaming by the way) is simply stating facts. He's not whining. He's telling people to abandon their pipe dreams and settle in for a dose of reality. He's one of the savviest tech people in the industry, so you can take a fair amount of what he has to say at face value, as he is often THE definitive source for this kind of insight.

 

[fkr]

gaming would not be any fun if I could not play with my friends who do not have the resources that I do. I will trade 30fps to be able to continue playing with the same people that I have been playing with for 30 years any day.

console gaming works well with a mouse and analog stick combo, I do it every time I play on the xbox.

on another note why is it nowadays that the only games that seems to matter are fps. there are plenty of other types of games that will work just fine at 30 fps. so if you want to play a fps then yes a computer will be the machine of choice but for many other types of games I do not see why this is such an issue.

gaming has come a long ways very quickly and it will only be another 5-7 years till we are all at the 60fps threshold. I do not mind waiting a little longer while also enjoying the great games that are coming out on both my PC and console. then we can all find something new to complain about

 

[noidis]

30 FPS, and the graphics will still look bad. That's pretty disappointing.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]Consoles get away with 30 FPS because their input method doesn't feel like an extension of your body, but use a mouse and 30 FPS is awful due to the input latency caused by low FPS. It causes me to get nauseated within a couple minutes.The occulas rift is going to feel the same way, if not worse. The view changes as you turn your head. The extra latency associated with 30 FPS with a device that makes it so apparent that there is latency would make me sick, and many others.[/citation]

most games i play are around the 40 fps mark, a few get into the 30 range but even than i dont notice input lag unless there is something seriously wrong with the engine, like witcher 2, for some reason i got that game going at around 40fps, but the mouse is so lagged that its about half a second to second slower than it should be, mean while i got crysis at max just for the hell of it to see what it would look like, even though its choppy, the mouse doesn't feel like its lagged.

with the rift and the future of the rift, im not expecting 0 lag at all, just an acceptable amount, which by all accounts could end up being less lag than computer to traditional monitor.

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]most games i play are around the 40 fps mark, a few get into the 30 range but even than i dont notice input lag unless there is something seriously wrong with the engine, like witcher 2, for some reason i got that game going at around 40fps, but the mouse is so lagged that its about half a second to second slower than it should be, mean while i got crysis at max just for the hell of it to see what it would look like, even though its choppy, the mouse doesn't feel like its lagged. with the rift and the future of the rift, im not expecting 0 lag at all, just an acceptable amount, which by all accounts could end up being less lag than computer to traditional monitor.[/citation]

The latency on any 1st person or over the shoulder view game caused by low FPS is very apparent to me if I'm using a mouse, and apparent enough I get sick from it. I experience nausea, others get headaches or eye strain. This is known as simulator sickness.

I used to power through it until I learned that higher FPS and better hardware resolved it. At 30-40 FPS, first person games are unbearable. At 50-70 FPS, it isn't too bad, at 80+ FPS, it goes away (I have a 120hz monitor btw).

It is there, and while you may not experience simulator sickness, the US Army once did a study on it, and found that 40%-50% of those who used their simulators got some form of simulator sickness.

 

[beayn]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]The latency on any 1st person or over the shoulder view game caused by low FPS is very apparent to me if I'm using a mouse, and apparent enough I get sick from it. I experience nausea, others get headaches or eye strain. This is known as simulator sickness.I used to power through it until I learned that higher FPS and better hardware resolved it. At 30-40 FPS, first person games are unbearable. At 50-70 FPS, it isn't too bad, at 80+ FPS, it goes away (I have a 120hz monitor btw).It is there, and while you may not experience simulator sickness, the US Army once did a study on it, and found that 40%-50% of those who used their simulators got some form of simulator sickness.[/citation]Soo... the US Army simulators were laggy? Not criticizing, just making an observation...

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]The latency on any 1st person or over the shoulder view game caused by low FPS is very apparent to me if I'm using a mouse, and apparent enough I get sick from it. I experience nausea, others get headaches or eye strain. This is known as simulator sickness.I used to power through it until I learned that higher FPS and better hardware resolved it. At 30-40 FPS, first person games are unbearable. At 50-70 FPS, it isn't too bad, at 80+ FPS, it goes away (I have a 120hz monitor btw).It is there, and while you may not experience simulator sickness, the US Army once did a study on it, and found that 40%-50% of those who used their simulators got some form of simulator sickness.[/citation]

i probably do get it, or at least use to. but i pushed myself through it so much so often when i was a kid that i rarely get effected any more.

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]beayn[/nom]Soo... the US Army simulators were laggy? Not criticizing, just making an observation...[/citation]
Probably, these simulators were built in the 80's and 90's, when the study was done.

Latency may not be the reason for everyone who gets simulator sickness, but I did learn that is exactly what causes for me. It is interesting to note that watching laggy game play has no affect on me, it is only when a mouse is in hand, and in first person or over the shoulders views.

 

[bystander]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i probably do get it, or at least use to. but i pushed myself through it so much so often when i was a kid that i rarely get effected any more.[/citation]
I used to, and when ever I'd get into a FPS game, like Far Cry for example, I would crank up the visuals and try and keep the FPS smooth. I always got nausea, and even headaches sometimes if I played long enough. I'd always have to start in small doses and work my way up to at most an hour, but I'd feel sick doing this. If I did it long enough, it wasn't so bad after a week. However, this pattern would happen every time I got into a new game that was mouse driven and 1st person or over the shoulder viewed.

It wasn't until I got a really good system that I started putting things together and realized all that grief I put myself through was not needed.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]I used to, and when ever I'd get into a FPS game, like Far Cry for example, I would crank up the visuals and try and keep the FPS smooth. I always got nausea, and even headaches sometimes if I played long enough. I'd always have to start in small doses and work my way up to at most an hour, but I'd feel sick doing this. If I did it long enough, it wasn't so bad after a week. However, this pattern would happen every time I got into a new game that was mouse driven and 1st person or over the shoulder viewed.It wasn't until I got a really good system that I started putting things together and realized all that grief I put myself through was not needed.[/citation]

oh god, i did that crap with golden eye.
i had a n64 before i had a pc,
allot of games there if you really tried you could count the frames,
after getting use to that, than moving over to a pc where i had no gpu, than getting a gpu... yea... anything at 30fps is playable for me.

god... golver... the one game i could never get use to...

anymore now is just fov, if the fov is set to a crappy number and it looks like a fish eye lenses to me, that ill make me sick, 5 points in the wrong direction will do it for me.

portal 2 was the last game to make me sick, till i found out how to change the fov.

 

[g00fysmiley]

maybe it is because i played games on a 8500gt for so long while going through school (ie broke and unable to buy anythign better) played WoW at 6 fps for eyars and other games at around that rate, but as long as it is over 22 fps things look smooth to me, could be just what i am used to, or could be that my eyes aren't as good as some people's .. who knows (note 20/10 vision in the right eye 20/8 in the left but that just means i see sharply not that i process images faster)

 

[rantoc]

[citation][nom]warmon6[/nom]If you have 30FPS in a game on a 60Hz monitor, 2 frames on the monitor (in theory) will be identical. if you have 90+ frames per second, you'll only see 60 as the monitor cant display anything higher. which is why you'll find a lot of people saying it's not worth spend on powerful gpu's if the game your playing on if getting 100+ FPS. Most monitors cant show that many frames.[/citation]

The 90+ fps example on the 60hz display is partially true, at say 120hz with vsync disabled on a 60 hz display the no1 frame is drawn on the monitor and when frame no2 is done it will start to display the remainder of frame 2 during that screen update leaving for instance 0,5 of frame one in the upper part and the lower part 0,5 of frame 2. This is what causes the famous 'tearing' (say you turn left fast in a fps and have a tree in front of you that tree will be chopped off where the frames intersect during the screen refresh).

Gotta love vsync and triple buffering, best of all worlds (including input lag!) but at the price of additional abused vmem and power consumption.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]rantoc[/nom]The 90+ fps example on the 60hz display is partially true, at say 120hz with vsync disabled on a 60 hz display the no1 frame is drawn on the monitor and when frame no2 is done it will start to display the remainder of frame 2 during that screen update leaving for instance 0,5 of frame one in the upper part and the lower part 0,5 of frame 2. This is what causes the famous 'tearing' (say you turn left fast in a fps and have a tree in front of you that tree will be chopped off where the frames intersect during the screen refresh).Gotta love vsync and triple buffering, best of all worlds (including input lag!) but at the price of additional abused vmem and power consumption.[/citation]

having more than 90 frames on a 60 monitor servers a purpose,

having such a powerful card that you dont dip lower than 60.

personally i can accept a 30fps game as long as it doesn't dip
dipping bothers more more than low fps in general ever does.

 

[supall]

I appreciate everyone taking the time to help explain how and when Hz/FPS are interchangeable. I've always had an idea of the differences between the two, but it never really occurred to me the relationship between the two on TVs and Monitors. So thank you, everyone!

 

[PcUser3930K]

Another reason why you should not become a Console Peasant.

 

[myrench]

I've been predominantly a console gamer my whole life, but at this point, I've realized how much better a PC can be and built my own for the first time. Still have my PS3, but probably the last console I ever buy...

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]myrench[/nom]I've been predominantly a console gamer my whole life, but at this point, I've realized how much better a PC can be and built my own for the first time. Still have my PS3, but probably the last console I ever buy...[/citation]

nah, you will buy the next one too, maybe not at launch, but if they put the right exclusives on it, its hard to say no. the pc doesnt really get many of the best of their class games any more... really only fps and rts the best of the best is on the pc, everything else, console exclusives or i would rather paly the games on the consoles, like dark souls.

 

[Sakkura]

nah, you will buy the next one too, maybe not at launch, but if they put the right exclusives on it, its hard to say no. the pc doesnt really get many of the best of their class games any more... really only fps and rts the best of the best is on the pc, everything else, console exclusives or i would rather paly the games on the consoles, like dark souls.

Dafuq.

Please show me all the grand strategy games on consoles. Go on.

PC also dominates MMOs, MOBAs and lots of other genres.

 

[myrench]

[citation][nom]Sakkura[/nom]Dafuq.Please show me all the grand strategy games on consoles. Go on.PC also dominates MMOs, MOBAs and lots of other genres.[/citation]

I don't really know of any FPS that are the best of the best that aren't on consoles either though and I think the reason you would rather play games on the console like dark souls (currently playing daemon's souls on ps3) is because of the controller, but you can use a pc with controller, for now it's a little more difficult with settings and what not, but there is software to do the exact same thing.