Frames per Second "VS" Style of Play

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hcforde

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A lot of talk is about high frames per second and it has become the 'HOLY GRAIL' of gaming. The greatest reason for this is because many players seem to prefer a run & gun style(that would also include racing games). For those players that prefer a more stealthy type of game it would seem that a lower rate of frames would suffice. Real time strategy games would seem to be somewhere between the two styles of play While I know there can be no hard and fast rule of adequate FPS per style of play, has anyone ever looked into this as to what a possible acceptable range of frames per second could be according to the style of play?

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks
 
Depends on the person but yes it often varies with game type. For shooties, particularly online shooties, I want high FPS, and stable FPS. For turn based strategy games, I can put up with fairly low FPS and still be plenty happy.
 
For games like morrowind, oblivion, skyrim, etc lower frames I can deal with. FPS I cannot have low frames in however...
 
hcforde said:
...has anyone ever looked into this as to what a possible acceptable range of frames per second could be according to the style of play?
Click to expand...
In a scientific way? Probably not. It's actually a fairly complicated thing to try to define, as frame rates don't necessarily tell the whole story on how smooth rendering will appear and how high the frame rate needs to be for playability. Certain games, for instance, stutter quite terribly at high frame rates (due to heavy performance fluctuations), while others appear quite smooth at lower frame rates as a result of greater frame time consistency. There's also some dependence on the scenes themselves: in a darker, low-contrast scene, low frame rates are less objectionable than they would be in a brighter, high-contrast scene. Some games also use motion blur to good effect, reducing the frame rate required for the appearance of smooth motion.
 
Even in a slower stealth based game you are going to want higher FPS so you can react to things quicker and more accurately. Also in all games, at some point some kind of reaction based action is going to happen, so 60 is about the minimum acceptable for any realtime game (even RTS... 30fps is terrible..). The only games it doesn't matter are non realtime games.
 
To me, stable and predicatble FPS is the most important. High FPS is good to have, but if you drop from 100fps to 30 every time some smoke or graphical effect appears on the screen then that is much more likely to interrupt your aim than smoothly running at 60fps.
 
Anything online you have to have high FPS (60+) simply because you have to make sure it isn't factoring into any lag you might have. The minimum playable FPS should be around 30fps for anything just to have a fluid picture and not jerking. 30fps is by no means desirable in every circumstance.

Beyond that, it is variable and subject to personal preference. However, the general rule of thumb is the faster the action and the more stuff changing on screen at once, the more FPS you need to guarantee a smooth viewing experience.

Shooters=high fps, single player or online multiplayer
Racing games = high fps, single player or online multiplayer
Arcade style fighting games = high fps
RPG's = more action on the screen, more fps needed
RTS's = low fps for singleplayer, high fps for multiplayer
 
100% dependent upon the person.

I have a friend that has a blast playing shooters at under 30 FPS. I can't stand dropping below 45-50. That said, go read the TechReport's first article examining frame times. Though "Frames per Second" may be higher with one solution than another, a better experience may be had with a lower FPS, that has consistently middling frame times (time from one frame to another). Meaning if in one fraction of a second, I get 0 frames output, then in the next .5 seconds I get 100, that's going to average out to 50FPS, but I still had a single image on screen for half a second. On the other hand, if I have a card that gradually produces 40 frames in a second, the time from one frame to another is going to be smaller.

TechReport does a better job explaining this than I do, so you may still want to go there and read their article.
 
BigJayDogg3:

I have read many card reviews that give the FPS and the major focus seems to be how high the benchmark is. Game play per the type of game is not usually the major focus. [H]ardocp does the best as far as what I have seen in this arena. The TechReport article reminded me of the "torque(power) VS speed" debate that occurs in others arenas. The biggest info I took away from that article was the more eye candy you want the less smooth your game play might be almost regardless of your resolution. Very eye opening article.
 
No matter what games one plays high fps never hurts if not for practical reasons the fuild motions just makes them just look better
 
Do you want it to look better or play better? Reality can be counter-intuitive. BigJayDogg3 mentioned his friend that wants lower framerates which are constant and this is also what the Techreport article was was showing.
 
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