[General Discussion] Lower FPS Standards

FPS being frames per second; not first person shooter.

In the past couple of years, I've started to notice that develoeprs are releasing game trailers showing pretty poor performance. The games have great graphics and everything, but a lot of them have terrible framerates even when there's not much action going on. I can understand this when games are in beta, but those that are nearing release shouldn't be having issues with fluidity. Is it just me or is there a lower standard with regards to playable framerates these days? Often you see a trailer that shows 15-20 fps for a game that's getting released in a couple of weeks. That's barely even playable anymore. What's worse is that it'll probably run worse on your machine because of the lack of optimization. It's not even a problem of how good your machine is since it's mostly with regards to console gaming. The PC is affected too though as seen in the newly released Dawn of War 2 trailer.

To give another example, I just saw a trailer for that Too Human game. Now I know the game looks like it has terrible gameplay, but the graphics are pretty decent. The thing is, when they first showed the trailer running on xbox 360, it suffered from horrible framerate. The trailer I just saw showed no improvement. The only games that I've seen recently that don't have this problem are Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, but that's to be expected from Blizzard since they take years to optimize their games. Then again, I heard that Too Human was in development for ~10 years.

Has anyone else noticed this or has 20 fps become the standard for playable framerate that no one really notices how bad it is?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Shin

So yes, the problem isn't neccessarily with the developers, you just need to buy worse tv sets.

Actually, I understand what factors into framerate and the perception of fluidity a good deal since one of my hobbies is filmmaking. Yes motion blurring does give you the impression of fluidity and that's why Crysis is very playable at 20-25 fps. The thing is, a lot of games just look like slideshows these days.

You say that console games appear smoother, but I've experienced more slowdown on console games than on PC games. This is while playing on a wide range of HDTVs and on TVs I've had for about 8 years. Mass Effect (on 360), for example, has a lot of stuttering on both new and old TV sets. What bothers me is that reviews say this game has smooth framerate most of the time. This isn't true at all and I'm thinking they only said this because of how everyone is getting used to crappy framerates.

It's definitely the developers who are at fault for this since everyone seems to just be going for great graphics while sacrificing performance.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by KrelEN

Just about all promotional material for EVE makes it out to be faaaaar more exciting than it actually is (think: all the "lol spreadsheet online" jokes people make). They do a fairly good job of representing performance, though.

YouTube - EvE from a newbies view. (Video)

Just skip to the 1:00 minute mark.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Hmmm.. did i link the wrong video? I meant to link the one about how exciting eve is with its endless options such as mining, dogfights, and learning skills.

I played the trial for eve, but it was too slow for me. Plus the fact that you need at least 6 months of skill training to be able to pilot a battleship well really put me off. I really like the idea of eve, it's just that it's too much of a time sink for me to really get into.

How ya doing, buddy?