What Makes More Sense 1080p @ 30 or 720p @ 60fps?

This is kind of a trick question because it all depends on how you look at things.
Gamers these days I don’t think understand either.

Someone ask me this the other day so I thought I would explain, so let’s start with the basic’s - resolution is important because it determines how good the picture will look./ More pixels mean better detail. (even though sometimes is hard to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p they are after all both HD.

If you think about your cell phone camera, the more pixels it has, the better the image quality is, because it has more pixels to make up the picture. (So think about this, it’s just like watching a video on youtube, at 360p it’s not that clear, but at 720p it’s really sweet and at 1080p it’s even more detailed.) Same thing with games. When you start to do games in 1080p vs 720p or 900p you are taking about a lot of pixels that make up the picture you see. The more pixels there are the better and clearer the image will start to look.

And fps is important because frames per second is how fast or fluid the image is being show to you.. / More speed means the more it looks true to real life, so higher is better, and that’s kind of why 30 fps works fine, since at 30 you are really close to how you see things in real life, of course 60 fps is the icing on the cake because at this speed you can’t tell the difference, everything will look as fluid as it does in real life. Anything above that is overkill, you really can’t tell the difference past 60 fps.

But here is where it gets tricky, you need both, so of course that’s the problem, you rarely get both and the reason is not as complex as you might think. It all comes down to hardware, if you were on a high-end PC with a monster graphics card, no problem. PC’s have been doing 1080p gaming for years, hell for today's gaming PC’s 1080p is kind of the minimum you expect it to be able to do. But pulling this off on consoles is actually very tricky.

Why? Because it usually means you sacrifice one to get the other, and by that I mean, do I want really amazing picture detail / but less physis less add-ons. Or do I want a really fluid game experience more physis more add-ons. / but less detailed world with lower textures.

But wasn’t 1080p last years big thing, so why in the world are today’s next gen consoles having problems hitting 1080p? Good question, here’s the simple answer, games today are trying to do more, much more than they did on last gen consoles. So graphics are much more detail, size of the games are getting bigger, you begin to try to do more. And that brings you right back to the same problem from before. Hitting 1080p is not as easy as it might look.

It’s mainly because it requires a pretty strong graphics card, so why not just put a super graphics card in the PS4 and XB1. Sure that is a great idea, just one problem, it already has a really high-end card, and no matter what I put in it, the problem will still be there. Why? Because as the graphics card becomes stronger, the game companies then just try to push the graphics even further to look even better. So the problem just starts again.

(it’s a tricky balance, because gamers want next gen graphics that look like a high-end Gaming PC which has a super graphics card in it, but then they want that console to not cost more than $399) It’s like saying I want a car that can go 0-60 as fast as a porsche but I want it to cost the same price of a station wagon.

This is a double edge sword. It cuts on both sides, consumers want amazing graphics and they want it to run at 60 fps. So now game companies make a really tough decision, get the game to look amazing, much better than last gen’s game, and also make it look insane, and then somehow get it to run at 60 fps too. So game companies shoot for the star’s (it’s part of the reason why every demo you see of a new game coming out / Watchdogs / The Division / Looks amazing. Then the actual developers start trying to make the whole game and deliver on the promise, but they run into a problem, the engineers say, “ok we have a problem, as soon as we hit 60 fps there is no way it can keep it looking that detailed. Since we probably won’t get both choose which one suffers if we have to choose one.”

So now the downgrade begins. Make it still look good, like the insane demo we showed, but get it to run really great. The only way for that to happen is for the textures to be slightly turned down. So now it still looks like the demo but not as detailed or as amazing as what you saw at E3. And if it does get close to that demo then the frame rate is going to suffer, no way it stays locked at 60 fps. Project cars I’m looking at you. The game does dip below 60 (gets as low as 45) but it remains above 30 which is more than playable so I really don’t mind that, because it looks and plays amazing.

Game companies don’t really get to ask gamers which one is more important, they instead just try to deliver a great game experience and meet the requirements of the game, while still looking as good as possible. As they should, they basically just try to deliver on the promise.
The problem is most of the time they fall just a little short, but no one wants to hear that.

So which one is really more important to you, do you want that 1080p at 30 fps or is 720p or 900p fine just as long as it’s 60 fps? Or do you say, oh hell no, give me 1080p at 60 fps above everything else or you have failed? What’s your preference when it comes to console games?

-here's a great video below which helps explains this a little more-

[Concertoine]

9 out of 10 times i choose the higher framerate. There are exceptions though. The first Fatal Frame game was in 60 fps, and the sequel pushed for larger environments and more detailed textures at 30 fps. Ultimately, the sequel was a more effective horror game because it had better environments to enhance the mood.

[Crazyglues]

Yeah it's crazy, Like for example in project cars I love the 1080p @60 even though it will dip below 60 at times down to 45 fps, So I like it the way it is because, I rather have that level of detail at 1080p over a solid 60fps..

But then I could see, how some might prefer 60fps over everything for a racing game, as you might want that fluid feel over everything.. So I guess it's about what's more important to you.

For me it looks so good at 1080p, so clear so detailed, I can't downgrade that quality for nothing. (it really sets the mood and just makes me love playing the game) and since 30fps probably would still feel fine I really don't mind if it dips to 45 here and there.. to me that's just really minor.

[ABizzel1]

The only problem with that is dropping from 1080p @ 30fps, does not mean 720p @ 60fps is instantly obtainable.

There would also have to be some kind of Anti-Aliasing drop (which is a struggle considering most devs are settling for FXAA which is the lowest solution out there), a drop in graphic fidelity (texture quality, lighting, etc...), and possibly a drop in V-Sync which means more screen tearing. One of these areas is going to take a hit in the transition as well, and hopefully most developers would choose graphics.

So the question isn't 1080 @ 30fps / 720 @ 60.

It's best resolution, better post processing, and best graphics at a stable 30fps.

vs

Lower HD resolution, worse post processing, and a dip in graphics, for a potential 60fps.

[Magicite]

30fps is perfectly fine whilst sub1080p is unacceptable (talking about PC games).

[freshslicepizza]

most often on game consoles they will push graphical fidelity over frame rates. they know graphics sell more than performance and a lot of console gamers actually don't care about high frame rates.

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

[Crimzon]

And yet the most commercially successful franchises are the ones that run at 60fps. Call of Duty dominates shooter sales, and prioritizes 60fps gameplay over good graphics. The Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport, Burnout etc. racing games are the best in the genre and prioritize 60fps gameplay. The same goes for the fighting genre and so on and so forth.

Judging by the strong link between high sales and high framerates, I think that console gamers care more about high framerates than they do about graphics, even if the vocal minority on N4G would have you believe otherwise.

Another point worth bearing as well is that the most graphically impressive games of this console generation so far have been complete commercial failures. The Order, Ryse and DriveClub all completely bombed, despite having great graphics.

[coolbeans]

Ironically, no Insomniac-made game since their jump to 30 FPS focused titles has had the same financial or critical success as A Crack In Time.

(Though Sunset Overdrive MAY have a chance of beating its sales in the future)

[user81673]

your video to show the difference of 720p and 1080p is maxed at 720p...

[Crazyglues]

Thanks for your feedback,

keep in mind the video being at 720p or 1080p makes no difference in this explanation as the video is only explaining the difference in pixels.

How many pixels make up 720p and how many pixels make up 1080p.

If I gave you a video in 1080p doing a side by side comparison, that would not explain anything - so for example - https://www.youtube.com/wat...

so you watch that video but it doesn't help you to understand anything. This video in the blog explains everything instead of just showing it.

So a better way to explain this is, look at this video in 1080p - https://www.youtube.com/wat...

At 1080p you notice right away how much better the 4k image looks, even though you are not at 4k... it would look even better on a 4k monitor. Because then you would see the true 4k, but you already get the idea.

It's better because you see more detail on the 4k picture then you do on the 1080p - so the picture didn't change just what res you are looking at it at 720p 1080p or 4k...

So for months my brother was playing GTA V on PS4 on a 720p projector in the living room, (even though it's an 80 inch screen it's at 720p) so he never saw the really clear detail of the game, it looked good but then one day he moved it upstairs to the office and put it on a 50 inch 1080p Screen. Then he was amazed because he could see all the detail and how sharp the game looked.

It was like watching that 4k vs 1080p video once he was on a 1080p HDTV he could see all the detail nice and clear, that he was not seeing at 720p

[SilentNegotiator]

If games like The Last of Us can run at 1080p60fps and look as good as it does, I would hope/think that more games could be 1080p60fps on PS4 with minor adjustments. So hopefully that becomes a growing trend and we don't have to choose one or the other.

[Concertoine]

Keep in mind that there arent a lot of developers as talented and familiar with their hardware as ND. Still, we have MGS 5, Yakuza, and Resident evil revelations 2 in 1080p 60fps and they look great.

[Forum_Pirate]

60 FPS.

I can rarily see the difference between 30 and 60 (there has to be really rapid movement for me to notice,) but I can feel the difference between 30 and 60, especially in shooters.

BTW the PC gets both if your PC is decent and the game has a pretence of optomisation.

[chrisco84au]

I'll take 60fps anyday of the week.

Both are important but a game running smooth is the most important thing about graphics bar none.

You can have the prettiest game in the world at 1080p but if the frame rate is up and down its useless.

Honestly I would prefer developers lock their games at 30 or 60 fps and hit 1080p. A locked frame rate even at 30fps is better than a developer aiming for 60fps and its ends up jumping around from 40-60fps.

[mixelon]

I dunno, variable frame rate isn't always such a problem for me, in some games at least. Maybe it should be optional. :D I'm ok with variable frame rate, providing there isn't screen tear, which doesn't bother some people much but I find really horrible.

Bloodborne was pretty acceptable for me for example despite the wacky frame rate, except a couple of parts of the game (lecture building) which ran like ass until they patched them.

[mixelon]

I'd go for 60fps/720 with a caveat for being able to reach "somewhere near" 60fps being fine in 1080, even if it's not optimal, it's nice to have the smooth bits.

In some games (doesn't work in many) I've liked the effect of TV-inbuilt motion interpolation too, and depending on your TV you can bump a low fps up to a much higher one - yeah it's making the middle frames out of the previous one and it often looks atrocious, but in some games it's nice. I played through most of AC4 with it turned on thinking it was just extremely smooth.. XD

I know a lot of people hate motion interpolation - I can see why - I do think it's worth experimenting with though in certain cases.

[Crazyglues]

yeah but the problem is that it sometimes creates input lag.. I used it on my Samsung plasma and the game was not responsive at all, I was playing battlefield 3.

While it did look nice the input lag was huge, I had to turn all effects off just to play the game.

-But yeah, I guess it depends on what your playing../ some games would not be as intensive and that's an old plasma, today's TV's may have improved the system, smoothing things out.

[mixelon]

Oh yeah completely.. AC was fine but Killzone is hilariously bad, it already has some input lag, so adding more made it v difficult to play, like you were recovering from a hangover and everything's taking your brain slightly too long to figure out. You'd die before you could react.

.. But it looked like you were there.. ! :D

[JazMac34]

"that’s kind of why 30 fps works fine, since at 30 you are really close to how you see things in real life, of course 60 fps is the icing on the cake because at this speed you can’t tell the difference, everything will look as fluid as it does in real life. Anything above that is overkill, you really can’t tell the difference past 60 fps."

That's completely false...the human eye can see a perceptible difference well beyond 60fps and studies show that a person can see the difference way into the several hundreds when shown both. 30 fps isn't anywhere close to real life and from my own personal experience I find 30 to be more like a slideshow.

I recently invested in a 144Hz monitor and just moving the cursor alone across the desktop it's crazy the difference. There is neat gifs you can find showing the difference but sadly you won't see the difference between 60 and 120/144 without a monitor that can display that many frames.

G-sync is a technological marvel btw, I'm a stickler when it comes to framerate and before g-sync if the framerate dipped even a couple of frames I found it intolerable (once or twice in a game I can handle but it still irks me). I'd say when the fps goes below around 58 it becomes a much less enjoyable experience (there are some exceptions depending on the genre - RTS while 60 would be preferable I'm actually fine with 30).

I always want it locked as well, while I find 30 fps unplayable in most cases a variable framerate between 30-60 is worse imo. That is until g-sync where now I can have the fps drop down to around the 50 mark and I really can't perceive too much of a difference. No more V-sync with mouse lag and stutter and no more screen tear (also unbearable).

[Crazyglues]

Thanks for the comment player,

Ok in my statement, I was talking about the average gamer, but this is a good point. You said the human eye can see a perceptible difference beyond 60fps, I don't doubt that. -but the average gamer doesn't even understand what's different.

-And in my experience the reason you get it, is because you know what your looking for.

You are clearly a hardcore gamer if you bought a 144Hz monitor. And therefore you get it, you know when it's dipping or when it's not as smooth, most of my friends couldn't tell at all until I explained it to them... meaning they didn't know what they were looking for before so they saw nothing wrong.

Don't take my word for it, check this out.
- https://www.youtube.com/wat...

-But yeah this is a very good point... and I agree with you G-sync and things like that make a huge difference.

[coolbeans]

I'd hardly call one "average gamer" test subject a conclusive answer on this subject.

Even if you were talking about it in that context, I still have a problem with the bits of misinformation like "since at 30 you are really close to how you see things in real life."

Graphing real-life perception to frames per second is firstly not the correct way to go about doing this since the human eye doesn't transmit visual data to your brain like some computer screen. I know I'm tooting my horn here, but I brought this up in one of my recent blogs about trained fighter pilots able to spot images flashed on a screen for something like 2.2 milliseconds (60 FPS @ 16.6 milli for comparison).

Still appreciate you trying to bring up this topic but some stuff at the beginning simply isn't correct.

[Crazyglues]

@ coolbeans

yes I will agree with you on this, it's not the best test, but what I found with my friends and why I stated it like this, was they could not tell when movement was at 30 or 60fps.. (I had to explain to them what they are looking at)

For example one of my friends on PSN swears up and down that The last of Us plays no different then it did on PS3 - I said no it's at 60fps now

He could not tell.

That's really what I meant, to the average gamer it just seems fluid to them. To your point a fighter pilot is far from the average gamer, but I see your point.

Technically it's not 100% accurate but maybe I should have said in terms of how most gamers here will view it.. I wish we could do a test right here to see how many people can tell 30 vs 60 fps.. (that would be a good test to see how many people see the difference)

Also on a side note I would love to read that blog if you have a link for me. (I clicked on your name but I could not tell which blog was the one you were referencing)

[coolbeans]

http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...

And be sure to check out the links at the bottom of the page.

[Crazyglues]

@ coolbeans

Amazing blog, I think it was too much info for people to understand, but wow really nice..

I also didn't know the Hobbit tried to do 48fps I want to see this movie now.. Very nice blog post.

I'm still getting around to some of the links, was reading the one on Ratchet & Clank very nice info.. never played the game, but was a very nice read.

[coolbeans]

Thanks Crazyglues.

Yeah, I knew how tricky the subject is so I dove headfirst into that information to try and express my thoughts as clearly as possible.

And in regards to the 3rd link that's split up: copy+paste the second link and submit that info in the search bar of the way back machine (1st link). I tried making it direct but it kept bugging out on me.

[Rookie_Monster]

Here is a perfect example why 720p and 60fps is preferred.

I had a heated argument about how Forza 5 is the only next gen racers than ran at 1080 and 60fps.

Then, this person said this to try to counter argue:
uptownsoul + 1d 13h ago
@Rookie_Monster
"Forza 5 is NOT the only racer that is 1080p/60fps…Mario Kart 8 is 1080/60fps too. And before you tell me about the cartoony graphics of Kart8---Let me stop you & say Thats My Point!!!…Racers with less demand are easier to hit 1080p/60fps…So that's NOT as big of an accomplishment."

Haha, he didn't realize Mario Kart 8 is only 720p native. If he can't tell the difference between 1080p and 720p, then the case is close. 720p and 60fps all the way.

[NerdStalker]

I know what makes perfect sense 1080p at 60fps

[Rookie_Monster]

Welcome to the world of PC.

[GamingTruth]

if there was a game on pc that looked like ps4 exclusives at 1080p or higher and 60fps and higher on pc; then i would love to invite myself into the pc world

[MadLad]

@GamingTruth

Well, off the top of my head, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter runs at around 100 FPS at 1440p on my single GTX680 (three year old card), and looks undeniably better than any console exclusive I can think of.

Welcome to Planet PC.
We have cake.

[GamingTruth]

I would almost agree with you, but just like all other times in other generations; pcs only defense against exclusives from sony or microsoft is games that aim for photorealism, beach and forest environments.

Why are there no characters on screen? Nothings going on in the game at all, just walking around.

Nice try, SlapHappyJesus

[Crazyglues]

@ SlapHappyJesus

I would love to play at 100 fps @ 1440p just to see how crazy that is...

was going to get the GTX680 but waited so now I think I'm just going to get the GTX980Ti, I feel like I waited this long might as well get something that can do 4k gaming..(even though were not quite there yet)

[metalgod88]

If you're going to buy the GTX980TI GPU, you might as well go out and buy a monitor that has the G-Sync capability.

If you're not aware see the below article:

http://www.geforce.com/hard...

http://www.geforce.com/what...

This is the world I live in and it is amazing.

[MadLad]

Console should always be pushing for smooth experiences. If graphics were a main concern, then you should be looking at PC - which could offer both - depending on the setup.