AMD vs. NVIDIA - Are they even playing the same game?

[PermaBanned]

30fps is unplayable for many people, including me.

I wouldn't go that far - i play a lot of games at 30fps. It's definately very playable... i mean, i can sort of 'stand' 15fps. As long as it's consistent.

 

[gurusan]

15FPS!!!!???

 

[elpedro]

360/PS3 have much lower standards that's how they cope, a friend gave me his Xbox360 when he upgraded to an elite and he let me borrow a few games, the worst of which was Stuntman 2, seriously this has to be running at about 10fps in places, control a fast moving car through tight gaps with only 10 frames of reference per second is just incredibly hard.

30fps is playable in the sense that you have basic control over your character and you can generally make it from point A to B, but the experience will often be unpleasant because the gameplay simply isn't smooth enough and dips in 30fps often result in stutter which when badly timed can result in death.

To me 60FPS is an acceptable minimum for relaxed play, to get a constant smooth 60FPS minimum you need about 80-90FPS average, especially if you're running vsync! Competative play is another story, almost all competative gamers will agree that something like 30fps will hinder their ability to play well, a lot are still on CRTs to get refresh rates 100hz+

You can cope with 30fps for relaxed play, but you can also cope on just £50 a week to live off and just eating bread and water, who wants to just cope when we could have something much better?

I don't understand why you're describing what 30FPS feels like when 99% of people here will have a had 1st hand experience.

I'm pretty bewildered by the unplayable comments mainly because if a game is good enough, you get into it and don't notice the framerate, atleast not as much. I can play GTA IV online for ages, I don't need fraps running to know the FPS is hovering around 30 at certain points but I continue to play and enjoy it. Certainly 60FPS would be better but I don't refuse to play or say to myself this is unplayable.

Same with Crysis Warhead and Wars, quite a bit of that is sub 60FPS, OK maybe not as low as 30 but still enjoyable let alone playable!

Only thing that gets me are FPS spikes, sub 30, which is uncommon when running a 5870 @ 1080p. Again, I look at the people here demanding 60FPS, do they actually have the hardware to back up that kinda framerate or are they lowering settings. Personally I go for a sweet spot, slightly favouring eye candy over framerate but then again I've always gone for "high end" hardware to get the best of both.

Can't really comment on competitive play as I've never played CSS etc at a high level. I totally agree on it varying from game to game, but on the whole, the very very good majority of games are playable at 30FPS. I also believe this an 'ignorance is bliss' situation...

 

[LegendaryDread]

15FPS!!!!???

Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his power level?

 

[tmaxxthomson]

Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his power level?

nappa, his power level is only 200 gigaflops! lets take out this weakling now!!

 

[Rroff]

snip...

I played through the likes of Q1 and the early jedi knight games at ~10fps and didn't know any better... I was also not very good - looking around fairly slowly - moving fairly clumsily... now I can take the scene in much faster, move around much better and quicker - theres no way I could go back to that framerate - or even 30fps - I might put up with it on slower paced games or an RTS game, etc. but for any decently paced game especially twitch fps it is unplayable because I can't get the response and precision I'm capable of playing at so will quickly get frustrated and put it down... that however is slightly off the original off-topic-topic of what is required to fool the eye into perceiving fluid motion in a sequence of discrete frames...

At one time I could be fooled by ~15fps and didn't know any better - now that I have a higher level of perception - aided by having an interaction with the scene - I require a much higher level of framerate to really feel immersed in a fluid world.

So the original comment doesn't really have a proper application to gaming - only movies - due to the fact that framerate in a game is about more than just perceiving fluid motion - and even then its highly varied to the individual.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

5* from me, brilliant thread

 

[Axil]

I stopped reading at 'Sean Kalinich'

Usual uninformed and bias from someone I find a untalented hack

 

[Rroff]

I have no knowledge of the author myself - it was an interesting perspective I thought tho didn't take the article as far as I was expecting from the headline and preamble. Some of the information he presented was based on a limited understanding of what he was talking about but he managed to put the concepts across well.

 

[arc@css]

One man's fps is anothers 'game over'. Its a subjective thingy.

 

[Happy]

The only game (bar RTS) I can happily play below 60FPS is Crysis but it's countered by the fact it looks stunning maxed aswell

Awesome thread derail as well!

 

[Klo]

For me I don't mind 30fps approx, as long as its reasonably smooth and doesn't stutter or anything.

I was brought up on a bad computer though, I remember playing UT2k4 at 21fps and doing quite well. I guess for all the people who upgrade twice a year, anything below 60fps gives them headaches or something.

Basically I agree with what elpedro said!

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I don't understand why you're describing what 30FPS feels like when 99% of people here will have a had 1st hand experience.

Because we obviously disagree on what is playable when we're both getting our opinions from real world gameplay, so something is wrong somewhere, I'm trying to pin down what I'm saying exactly so there's no confusion.

I'm pretty bewildered by the unplayable comments mainly because if a game is good enough, you get into it and don't notice the framerate, atleast not as much. I can play GTA IV online for ages, I don't need fraps running to know the FPS is hovering around 30 at certain points but I continue to play and enjoy it. Certainly 60FPS would be better but I don't refuse to play or say to myself this is unplayable.

I think it comes down to what you're prepared to get used to, like I said console player tend to not be bothered by low frame rates because they don't know any better most of the time, consoles struggle to run anything graphically impressive so low frame rates are common.

Like a lot of things in life, if you get used to the finer things in life then have to go back to something inferiour then it feels significant, those of us playing at higher frame rates and then play something at 30fps it feels just awful, even the motion blur in Crysis and L4D can't mask the low frame rates on some peoples rigs.

Can't really comment on competitive play as I've never played CSS etc at a high level. I totally agree on it varying from game to game, but on the whole, the very very good majority of games are playable at 30FPS. I also believe this an 'ignorance is bliss' situation...

In most competative play people will be running CRTs with a good 120hz so probably prefer 120fps minimum and maybe 150 average to maintain that. I used to play UT fairly competative, a lot of instagib and could feel my performance being hinderd with slow frame rates, dumping down the settings to achieve a high fps in the region of 90-100fps made the game a lot smoother and easier to play, this is a game where you're constantly doing 180 degree flips and doing a lot of snap aiming, trying to identify an enemy while doing a 180 flip in a fraction of a second is much easier with a super high frame rate.

I would agree 100% on the ignorance is bliss comment, which is precisely why consoles get away with it on graphically stressful games.

 

[Final8y]

I don't understand why you're describing what 30FPS feels like when 99% of people here will have a had 1st hand experience.

I'm pretty bewildered by the unplayable comments mainly because if a game is good enough, you get into it and don't notice the framerate, atleast not as much. I can play GTA IV online for ages, I don't need fraps running to know the FPS is hovering around 30 at certain points but I continue to play and enjoy it. Certainly 60FPS would be better but I don't refuse to play or say to myself this is unplayable.

Same with Crysis Warhead and Wars, quite a bit of that is sub 60FPS, OK maybe not as low as 30 but still enjoyable let alone playable!

Only thing that gets me are FPS spikes, sub 30, which is uncommon when running a 5870 @ 1080p. Again, I look at the people here demanding 60FPS, do they actually have the hardware to back up that kinda framerate or are they lowering settings. Personally I go for a sweet spot, slightly favouring eye candy over framerate but then again I've always gone for "high end" hardware to get the best of both.

Can't really comment on competitive play as I've never played CSS etc at a high level. I totally agree on it varying from game to game, but on the whole, the very very good majority of games are playable at 30FPS. I also believe this an 'ignorance is bliss' situation...

I only play EVE now in a window until i can play all my other games at 60fps minimum maxed out..

I have GRID on the PC & on my 360 & i just cant play it on the 360 with its 30fps. it took me considerable time to adapt to playing PGR 4 as well.