Why does 30 FPS on PC suck compared to Console 30 FPS?

[oldestgregg]

Ive found that using a gamepad on PC for games I cant get decent framerates with really helps. As stated above its all in the mouselook with rendering being a lot faster.

On the other hand though,30fps dosnt feel smooth on anything. I own both the consoles as well and its always jarring when you are faced with that kind of framerate,locked or not

 

[Aretak]

Don't know about AMD drivers but Nvidia have the 'half refresh rate' option in the control panel.

Using this makes the 30Hz option look and feel the same as consoles.

This. Using this option seems to provide much more even frame pacing than any other solution I've tried to achieve a 30fps lock. When I used to do it via RadeonPro it looked and felt horrible, even though I didn't mind 30fps too much on console. I've been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition locked at 30fps recently since I'm using a GTX 570 at the moment, and it's fairly pleasant using the half refresh option.

 

[PrinceNelson]

Wow it's surprising how few people are giving you the correct answer. It's because of frametimes. On a 60hz monitor 30fps means a new frame is displayed every other refresh. When this happens motion feels consistent like on consoles. When a frame is delivered irregularly some frames stay on screen for longer than two refreshes and this is perceived as a stutter or a hitch. The easiest way to fix this is to use Nvidia's 'half refresh rate vsync' in conjunction with RivaStatisticTuner to cap to 30. This usually ensures perfect frame times. This isn't common knowledge though and is the reason many PC gamers say 30fps is absolutely horrendous; because they're are not doing 30fps correctly.

Check out this fantastic article from Eurogamer that explains it better than I can: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-the-case-for-30fps-pc-gaming

 

[Kaapstad]

Wow it's surprising how few people are giving you the correct answer.

I think I will get my coat and leave now.


I don't know much about the subject so I can not really contribute. One thing I do know is I quite often get 200, 300 or even 400 fps and it can still look rubbish on a 60htz monitor.

 

[shankly1985]

I kinder called it

Devs on console aim for a consistent frame rate pacing! This consistency is why they feel much better.

Take for example when Nvidia and AMD worked on MultiGPU frame pacing. Before even at 60fps most us wasn't the wiser of the problem.. Once it was pointed out it became a big deal and right away once AMD for me released that frame pacing driver I could see right away the differences.

Brings me to another point "Mantle" the frame render is much faster resulting in smoother gameplay has will DX12 bring to PC gaming.