During the delay of PlayStation 4 exclusive racer DriveClub, the rumble of 60 frames-per-second was an ever-present fixture. The firm admitted over a year ago that it was “targeting” the benchmark, but it’s now put to bed any speculation regarding the figure, confirming that the game will run at 30FPS in full 1080p. Cue overreactions.
Speaking with VG247, game director Paul Rustchynsky explained that this was the best decision for the title. “As we got more familiar with the hardware, and also, looking at what we wanted from the game, we decided that 1080p, 30FPS was absolutely the best thing, because it allows us to deliver the most detailed cars in-race that you will ever have seen.”
He continued: “It’s allowed us to create some of the biggest tracks that you will ever see in a racing game, with the most visually dense environments, as well as a full global illumination system, which allows us to [set the] time of day, where shadows are cast, [and implement] full-on reflections. It’s allowed us to push all of those various areas.”
The game does look absolutely staggering, as demonstrated by yesterday’s long overdue re-reveal trailer. Of course, this hasn’t stopped some pundits from vocally disposing of their pre-orders in various forums around the web. Personally, as much as we love 60FPS, we’re glad that the developer's stuck with its original vision, and upped the visuals instead. Our share button is sure to get a workout this October.
[source vg247.com]
Comments 54
I don't think anyone with a minimum degree of sense in graphics expected 60 fps at 1080p with those graphics..
Not a deal breaker at all for me not really much of a downside if you ask me
Dat lak ov next genz 60fps. Forza 5 is 1080 & 60fps. Ps4 so weak sauce. Haha at yur pauperstation4 at onlyz 30 lookin like teh slideshow
Some gamers are soooooo SAD i.e a few have said online that they won't buy the game because it's not 1080p & 60fps I give up with people who comment online. But most are just haters i suppose & don't even own a PS4. Anyway i am looking forward to it
yea, 30fps isn't a game breaker at all, in fact the visuals I bet will be epic if not, beyond that. 1080p/30fps is welcome.
Dealbreaker for me. 60 fps is necessary in a racing game, arcade or realistic. PG4 was 30 fps and it was quite noticeable and detracted from the experience. Forza Motorsport 4 ran at a locked 60 fps and it still is the best racing game on the market.
@Carl-G. I am not a hater, and I definitely own a PS4. As mentioned, I won't touch this game at sub 60 fps. 1080p and 60 fps for big PS4 titles is a necessary requirement for me. Otherwise, I'll plug my last gen console in and play a racing game at game at 60 fps.
@baconcow I'd argue that Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is one of the better racing games of recent times, and was 30FPS. I think the good news here is that everyone will be able to try the game for free, and Evolution seems confident in its decision.
I agree that 60FPS is better for racing games, though. It's not a dealbreaker for me, however.
@get2sammyb This will push a lot of well-informed people away from the game. The NeoGAF forums are clear evidence of this. While it looks beautiful, driving games require a smooth experience or many hardcore gamers will not want to spend 50+ hours in them.
Not a huge shock considering that it was confirmed to be 30FPS months ago
Not a deal breaker for most people, but I still find it a bit depressing that we're getting so many games that can't hit 60fps.
@baconcow I agree, but is that necessarily a huge proportion of the market? Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit sold 8.5 million copies. While I doubt all of those people played for 50 or so hours (I wish I had time to play a game for 50 hours!), I'm assuming the majority of the people that bought it played it and enjoyed it.
Forza Horizon was another critically acclaimed racing game that ran at 30FPS, and is a darling on NeoGAF...
30fps works for me. The game looks incredible, not a racing sim fan but I'm getting this one.
@get2sammyb While I do not wish this game does poorly, I do wish it were 60 fps. Being very sensitive to frame rate changes and the difference between locked 30/60/120 fps, in many genres (mainly shooters, racing games, and fighters), I always hope for the best. I was just looking forward to a game that would surpass the experience of Forza 4 for me, as nothing else yet has.
@McSterls It's not strictly a sim actually, so you should be ok. It sits in between sim and arcade.
@baconcow Yeah, that's absolutely fine - I think different people have different tolerances for this kind of thing, so I totally get it. I'm sure Gran Turismo 7 will be 60FPS. However, I doubt it'll have DriveClub's totally dynamic lighting engine. I guess there are trade-offs even with hardware as powerful as PS4 - that's just the way console development goes.
This absolutely sucks, I would have preferred 720p 60fps the framerate is such an important feature for a racing game my excitement for the game has taken a substantial hit.
I think Evolution should get rid of this advanced dynamic lighting engine it has. Just pre-bake it, remove any AA, drop texture detail beyond your immediate area, replace spectators & distant trees with 2D sprites & BOOM! 60fps easy lol That's if you regard framerate as being indicative of a games next gen status Personally I'm glad Evolution have stuck to their guns on this to give us a tantalising glimpse at what could be in store with the likes of GT7 with its fully dynamic lighting engine. Bu bu but racing games should be 60fps! Such a shame Evolution haven't sacrificed their original vision to pander to people like that eh
I think developers should let us decide how we want to play the game. They should include the option play at 30 @1080p or 60 @ whatever resolution it needs to be to run smooth. It's absolutely garbage that they decide "what's best" for us.
I would choose 720P 60FPS over 1080P 30FPS any day of the week for any video game.
It saddens me more people care about pretty lights bouncing off trees than they do about gameplay. Watch Frozen if you want to look at pretty images. As a gamer and racing fan, im disappointed with this decision. Even mario kart 7 on 3ds is 60fps because they recognised the importance. At least the landscape shots on the TV ads will look good. Too many games on Sony and MS consoles are designed to look at. No matter how sad the state of affairs are over at Nintendo at the moment at least they still pride themselves in making gameplay number 1 priority. And ppl say they are for casuals... Hah!
Overreaction rant complete
(Will still probably enjoy this game)
xbox lovers will be loving this news!! I own a PS4 and I don this very sad news we meant to be on "Next Gen" now so 1080p and 60fps should be the norm!! I've played my friends X1... And can say Forza 5 at 60fps is sweet as a nut!! All racing games should now be 60fps! It's such a MASSIVE difference, I'm very happy that there's gonna be a "free trail" as I will 101% try that 1st now! I've canceled my pre-order and shall not be holding my breath!! Considering this has been delayed for nearly a YEAR (😳) this is VERY DISAPPOINTING!!
Firstly I'm not a hard core gamer by any stretch of the imagination and it seems that this news has annoyed quite a few on here. But to be honest for your average gamer like myself, we can't even notice the difference between 30fps and 60fps, so long as the game is enjoyable it doesn't matter to us. I'm sure I will get shot down by the die hards out there, but I think the game looks great.
@Jazzer94 my excitement for "next gen" has taken a hit. The ps4 is already showing it's limits and I've become very disappointed.
If the ps4 is like a pc, there is no reason why developers can't "figure out" the hardware. I don't know, this whole situation has left a sour taste in my mouth.
@THEundying27 It's simply not as straightforward as giving you a choice between a lower resolution and faster frame-rate. The reason that this game is 30FPS and not 60FPS like Forza is because it has a completely dynamic lighting system, which will change as you race around the track. Forza uses a more static lighting engine, which means it's all pre-baked into the art, and thus it doesn't change the time of day.
That's the difference. Whether or not you actually enjoy the dynamic lighting system and think it was worth it will have to wait until you actually try the game. The PS4 is by no means 'tapped out', though - I'm not sure where you got that assumption. It's only been out six months!
I'm not really into racing games so I guess its not bad for people like me who like pretty graphics. The good thing is people will be able to try it with PS+ and see how it works for them but I'm sure a compromise to reach 60FPS would have been a better choice for that type of game.
This is the lighting engine in action:
@MadchesterManc that was magnificent
@get2sammyb looks lovely. I'd take 30fps & a genuine stab at doing something remotely next-gen myself over a clearly compromised vision to hit some pretentious malarkey of '60fps or nothing' mindset. As long as it's gonna be a rock solid 30fps tho
The internet makes things seem more than it is. You can have 10 people say they won't play a game at 30fps and it will seem like the majority of people are saying that. In this case, I doubt very much that the majority of gamers out there will detract from a game at 30fps.
I bet that if they claimed it was 60 fps and we all stopped checking the internet after that, 95% of players would not notice.
@ObviouslyAdachi out of all the comments yours is my absolute favorite.
@THEundying27 Likewise.
@ObviouslyAdachiMore like 100%. People are Dumb. They just want to b*tch.
I've played racing games at 30 & 60fps and I haven't seen a difference. 30fps didn't affect my enjoyment of the game, nor did it disrupt my sense of immersion.
Basically, I'm still getting DriveClub, 60fps or not.
60 would have been nice, but the way the game looks now? It doesn't bother me now, it looks amazing. I can't wait to play the game.
@Demi_God Exactly the majority of gamers out there don't give a crap about this kind of stuff only gamers on the internet do
@get2sammyb Wow that looks gorgeous who would complain about looking at that for 50hrs in 30fps
We really should be seeing 60fps as standard at this point. We're supposed to be in a new generation, and yet all that seems to mean is that we have increased sharing functions. It's getting ridiculous that many games can't even push the bar a little further than last generation,. Graphics are nice, but super smooth gameplay is nicer. At this stage in the gaming industry, we should have both.
That isn't to say I won't look in to the game (I'm interested, but racing games are not my forte), but it's just disappointing to hear that we're still a ways off of realising the true power of the PS4.
@Crimson_Ridley I still think the ps4 is in it's infancy having only been out 6 months. I still believe we will see amazing games pushing ps4 to its limits, but once designers learn how to milk the best out of the hardware. Thinking back to ps3 it was the same then. It took a good while before a game had a real wow factor. Have faith
@Shellybird27 Haha thanks. You're absolutely right.
Racing games on PS4 and X1 should be locked in at 60 fps no exceptions. This isn't a deal breaker though, just another reason on top of a pile of them why I'm not confident in this game. Nearly a one year delay, and Evolution still can't get it in 60 fps. Unacceptable. Funny that people I've talked to are blaming the hardware though. PS4 has already shown it can do 1080p, 60 fps better than the competition but I guess the X1 fans can have this one.
I'd much prefer 60fps over 1080p or just graphical grunt (a worse-looking game could still run at 1080p 60). A racing game seems like one of the better games to have running at 60.
@BornOfEvil I agree. It's sad when people can't enjoy a game even though it's 30fps. I'm just glad that I can play games at both 30fps and 60fps and not be bothered by those two different frame rates. Sucks to be some of those other people. LOL
@Mrskinner - "Thinking back to ps3 it was the same then. It took a good while before a game had a real wow factor. "
UnCharted 2 almost makes Uncharted look like a PS2 game. And inFamous 2 looks much better than inFamous. (Neir looked like a Wii game though.)
But, wasn't that the problem of Cell and 7 co-processors that were very difficult for programmers to get a handle on? Isn't PS4 just a mid-range PC in comparison?
I believe games will look better when large companies take 3 years to make a game - Last Guardian should look more real than real, and FF15 should be awesome some day - but do you really think the jump this gen on almost generic hardware will be as great as Cell last gen?
@rjejr I do agree with the points you are making, I guess I am more referring to the start of a consoles life in general and that cross over period of a year or so. My opinion is games will be better when they aren't multi platform ie ps3/ps4 dual platform. I believe games once made only for next gen (this gen?) will show their potential. No lazy ports. Second son was great in my opinion
im sure the game will be amazing , even though its only 30fps , there appears to be a lot of negative people on here , 1 thing to remember guys the crew will be running at 30 fps as well , are you gonna steer clear of that title as well , if you do steer clear of these games , it will be your loss , mark my words both of these games are gonna be awesome
Gamers are such whiners.
If Evolution chose to downgrade the graphics for 60 FPS, the same people who complain about the 30 FPS now, would be complaining about the downgrade.
I for one want a next-gen game to actually look like a next-gen game.
If you want 60 FPS with last-gen graphics, go play Forza 5 instead.
No matter how beautiful it looks, a racing game lives and dies with the handling so I'll wait and see.
And another thing: your EYES are running at roughly 24 fps... so...
It would be real ironic if this article hits 60 comments.
@Davekeeh Evolution was never gonna come out of this unscathed. If they went for 1080/60 & downgraded (amusingly Forza5 got a free pass doing this though. E3 build running on Titans was noticeably better than the launch build) they would be ridiculed for downgrading > If they launch with 1080/30, they would be ridiculed for the 30fps. Thats the problem with Evolution only being a 'second-tier' Sony studio I suppose. If it was one of the industrys 'darling studios like ND, noone would care. Funnily enough the Motostorm series by Evolution last gen were perfectly playable (probably my favourite racers last gen too) and they were only 30fps yet never was they bashed for that fact
@Mrskinner - "Second son was great in my opinion"
PS4 only, it better be great. Same for God of War and Uncharted.
Guess it's a good thing PS4 isn't 4k resolution, we'ld be getting 15FPS
@MadchesterManc Xbox one can't achieve 1080p on any games. Your argument is invalid
There should be an option to choose either 1080p at 30 frames or lower graphics as 60 fps
It's not that I don't trust their decision, it's that I'm disappointed if the PS4 can't do it.
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