Codemasters: this gen of consoles is not powerful enough

dirtydog

dirtydog

dirtydog

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Before I start I would like to make a polite request that if you do not have anything constructive or civil to say, don't say anything. Because this topic is going to involve the subject of... drum roll... framerate.

The new Colin McRae Rally game, 'Dirt', has been officially announced as being 30fps. This was quite a shock to me, and to a lot of people on the Codemasters forums. The thread is here: http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=152564

It was a shock because all of Codemasters' racing games on the previous gen of consoles ran at 60fps; CMR 3, CMR 04, CMR 2005, as well as the Toca Race Driver series of games. They are the last developer that I would have expected this from. If they feel that they have to make this sacrifice then it really does make me wonder.

According to a staff member at Codemasters it is because the current gen of consoles lack the power to improve much on last gen's graphics, while running at HD resolutions. Unless they choose to run at a low framerate.

one of the fundamental points here is that in this generational leap we're having to deal with somethign we didn;t really have to before - HD resolutions.

Because we have to support HD screen resolutions, an awful lot of the extra horsepower is going striaght on simply drawing a much larger number of pixels than we had to on the old formats. having 4 times as many pixels to shade takes up a lot of time.

now, this shouldn;t be taken as a complaint about the HD nature of the new generation - it's not. (and of course it may be possible that the PC version of the game will run faster) - however the challenges we're facing are the same as those faced by the devlopers of the games you've mentioned (and every game that;'s ever been made) - the appropriate deployment of system resources in order to provide the best game experience.

considering that we won't compromise on physics, damage and AI (places where we have made a large generational leap over already very good systems), that basically leaves us having to tradeoff between visual quality and frame rate. and it's not the post-production effects that are the choke point here, it's the rich, detail-filled landscapes.

anyway, Like I said, this isn't an issue that can be resolved by arguing on forums, and will only be able to be resolved once we're in a situation to show you, the community, video footage of the game running as it will be released.

That won't be too long.

Till then, all I'll say is that when I look to my right at Dirt running on the desk next to me, i'm looking at the most beautiful racing/rally game i've ever seen.
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http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2194624&postcount=19

Are Codemasters right or is there a lot of untapped performance that developers simply haven't extracted yet? Are Codemasters just being lazy and taking the easy option? Or are the 360/PS3 simply not powerful enough to provide a significant improvement on the Xbox/PS2 without sacrificing framerate.

I did question whether much of the extra power this gen would be used simply to run at higher resolutions and it looks like I was right.


By the way, this thread is not for discussing the merits of the 30v60 debate... for that please go here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17651733
 
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Forza 2 runs at 60FPS and is a significant leap over Forza 1, so I'm not sure the argument is valid?

30FPS shouldn't really be an issue if its smooth, but do we really need to get into this again?
 
With games looking like GoW we have plenty of power. Codemastsers are just lazy with their programming if they can't push out good looking games.
 
Teletraan-82 said:
Forza 2 runs at 60FPS and is a significant leap over Forza 1, so I'm not sure the argument is valid?
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How significant a leap over Forza is Forza 2 really? From what I've seen it looks a little bit better; not much. The only big improvements are the doubled framerate and the increase from 640x480 to 1280x720. Other than that, the graphical improvements are not significant, in my opinion. If this is true then it backs up what Codemasters have said.
 
dirtydog said:
in my opinion.
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Exactly.

If you really looked at it properly and compared it directly to Forza 1, I'm sure you would change your mind.

I watched a new vid this morning and it looked sublime.
 
dirtydog said:
How significant a leap over Forza is Forza 2 really? From what I've seen it looks a little bit better; not much. The only big improvements are the doubled framerate and the increase from 640x480 to 1280x720. Other than that, the graphical improvements are not significant, in my opinion. If this is true then it backs up what Codemasters have said.
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Higher res textures
Higher detailed models
Reflections
HDR
AA
HD
Damage
Detailed physics models

So nah...not much difference :p
 
Lazy development or spreading resources for more than 1 platform is probably the case. We already know that the it can be done. As long as the game runs smooth it don't bother me if its 30 or 60fps, Burnout Revenge on the 360 was a damm fine example of a 30fps game, yet that to me was perfect, yet you have motoGP 05 which was 30fps and that was awfull in some parts.
 
McManicMan said:
Lazy development or spreading resources for more than 1 platform is probably the case. We already know that the it can be done. As long as the game runs smooth it don't bother me if its 30 or 60fps, Burnout Revenge on the 360 was a damm fine example of a 30fps game, yet that to me was perfect, yet you have motoGP 05 which was 30fps and that was awfull in some parts.
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AFAIK Burnout Revenge and Moto GP were 60fps. The Moto GP games have always had serious framerate problems, even on the last gen Xbox. I can only assume that the Moto GP devs are incompetent.
 
It's also due to people having unreal expectations.

Too many prerendered trailers being pushed as 'in game' and nonsense about 4D graphics have raised what people think they should be seeing from this new generation.

Games graphics and physics are much improved from last generation; bang for buck when compared to last generation / current PC hardware what you get is pretty phenomenal.

How significant a leap over Forza is Forza 2 really? From what I've seen it looks a little bit better; not much. The only big improvements are the doubled framerate and the increase from 640x480 to 1280x720. Other than that, the graphical improvements are not significant, in my opinion. If this is true then it backs up what Codemasters have said.
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This kind of backs up what I'm saying. What are you expecting this generation from a £200 console? Photorealism?
 
my mistake it does, lol, well anyway 30fps or 60fps as long as its capped at either i don't see a prob, its when its starts to fluctuate between both or lower then you notice.
 
smcshaw said:
This kind of backs up what I'm saying. What are you expecting this generation from a £200 console? Photorealism?
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I would expect games this gen not to be worse than the last gen, in any respect.

I just get confused when a 200MHz Dreamcast, a 300MHz PS2 and a 733MHz Xbox had a ton of 60fps games, yet the 3.0GHz consoles this gen, with vastly more powerful graphics hardware and memory mostly either have 30fps, or 60fps but with stuttering and tearing and crap like that.

Perhaps the same malaise that has afflicted PC gaming for years has come to the console market. As power increases, developers get progressively lazier :(
 
I think from a static screen shot perspective, some of the next gen games don't let as spectacular as they 'should'..

But I think that some of the things next gen games are bringing are much better dynamic lighting/reflections, etc and this really only shows in motion when you can see the light/reflections doing what they should..
And as mentioned, obviously they are bringing more AI, Physics and the like which make for a better game but cannot be seen from screenshots..

I suppose the expectation of next gen is to have 10 times the graphics and 10 times the AI/Physics, and on this front, the 360/PS3 are nowhere near powerful enough to pull this off..

Saying that, they are whingeing a bit, as milestones like GoW are proof that the consoles can produce some spectacular results..
 
dirtydog said:
I would expect games this gen not to be worse than the last gen, in any respect.

I just get confused when a 200MHz Dreamcast, a 300MHz PS2 and a 733MHz Xbox had a ton of 60fps games, yet the 3.0GHz consoles this gen, with vastly more powerful graphics hardware and memory mostly either have 30fps, or 60fps but with stuttering and tearing and crap like that.

Perhaps the same malaise that has afflicted PC gaming for years has come to the console market. As power increases, developers get progressively lazier :(
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I don't think so I just think we have to be realistic. I've heard criticisms over Forza 2 graphics yet it runs at 60fps and people saying Colin McRae looks fantastic but is capped at 30fps. Motorstorm is capped at 30fps and GT:HD despite the jaw dropping visuals apparently plays like a dog (taking Nokkon's word on this). I guess we're seeing the platform power ceilings already and Codemasters are probably right. No doubt things will get better but one has to ask the question is what we're seeing good enough? We're not going to see GT:HD graphics, with Forza 2 physics at 60fps this generation.
 
dirtydog said:
I would expect games this gen not to be worse than the last gen, in any respect.

I just get confused when a 200MHz Dreamcast, a 300MHz PS2 and a 733MHz Xbox had a ton of 60fps games, yet the 3.0GHz consoles this gen, with vastly more powerful graphics hardware and memory mostly either have 30fps, or 60fps but with stuttering and tearing and crap like that.

Perhaps the same malaise that has afflicted PC gaming for years has come to the console market. As power increases, developers get progressively lazier :(
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All of those things are a result of higher resolutions (up to 4x the res) and new interfaces (vga/component). Though I think that Codemasters need to either code better or drop the graphics detail to get it to 60fps, i think games like this need a higher framerate to play better.
 
30fps is enough as long as it is a steady 30fps without dips.

I remember running CMR3 or 4 on the PC and it never ran at 60fps.
 
Dutch Guy said:
30fps is enough as long as it is a steady 30fps without dips.

I remember running CMR3 or 4 on the PC and it never ran at 60fps.
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You must have had a slow PC then. But more to the point, the Xbox versions sure did as I have played them :)
 
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