AC Dev: We're dropping 60 fps. Because it's hard

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Basically he is saying that 60 fps is twice as hard to achieve as 30 fps (really... REALLY?) and that the industry will eventually ditch 60 fps altogether. Can you believe this guy? No wonder Ubisoft is failing in quality so quickly. I'm really beginning to believe they're worse than EA.

They really need to stop with the cinematic bullshit.

Will this run on PC at 60(and more) at least? Or are they also limiting it?

according to him eventually the industry as a whole will ditch 60 fps. I'm pretty sure he means for consoles because they can't handle it. I doubt they will force PC to be 30 fps. Even then I wouldn't be surprised if modders find a way to make it happen.

Consoles are obviously too shitty to enable 60 fps. But let's wrap it up nicely and say the industry is embracing an idea that 30 fps and sub 1080p looks more realistic and cinematic.

Hilarious shit.

I doubt they can compete with Shadow of Mordor (gameplay). More concerned about that than the framerate.

He is definitely talking about consoles and not PC's, and about this generation and not the upcoming generations.

We are moving to 100+ hz to make good use of Oculus type VR. Imagine if PC gaming is taken to 100+hz and 2k or even 4k resolutions (I think this will BECOME the standard during this or the next generation depending on how long they want to draw out this generation), and consoles would remain below 60 fps because it's hard. That would be too big of a gap and consoles would stop selling.

Oh Ubisoft, you just make me want to pirate your games.

Seriously, Ubi? I'm no graphics whore, but SERIOUSLY?

Anything from Ubi at this point is just damage control..just continue to show they are being lazy. :P

I just don't wanna see developers have this attitude of locking the framerate for the PC version, much like The Evil Within port team is doing, because it "feels right".

He's right though.

Running games at 60fps is much harder than boosting resoltuion and general assets. The problem isn't even running games at 60fps.

Sniper Elite 3 was 60. But neither console could keep it stable. Devs would much rather give you 30fps rock solid (and Ubisoft do) than give you shitty frame rate.

Also, "pwety gwafix" are much easier to help draw attention to your game than 60fps.

The Witcher 3, The Division, Batman AK, and even most 1st party exclusives won't be 60fps.

Well, console players better enjoy the cinematic experience.

Edit: Now, regarding those quotes.

"why 60fps is not only unnecessary, but also harmful to some video games. Nicolas Guérin believes the standard takes away from the cinematic experience, and sees the practice fading from the industry overall."

"you don’t gain that much from 60 fps and it doesn’t look like the real thing"

Enough with the bullshit Ubisoft...

Sort of off topic but some of you console haters do realize that theres only something like 300 games over the past 3 generations of consoles to run at 60fps? Compared to the thousands that were released?

Its hilarious how all of a sudden a console sucks because 90% of its games arent 60fps when its always been that way, even on the so called hyper consoles like the 360 and PS3. It took a couple of years before Madden or 2K basketball was 60fps on the PS3. They were 60fps day 1 on the PS4.

The Wii U has mroe 60fps games then anybody right now just to show you how overrated its becoming. When the big gun devs like NMaughty Dog and Polyphony Digital make their games under 60fps then I'll be alarmed.

Game developers want to use all the graphical bells and whistles available with the GPU's in this generation's consoles and gamers expect to see a massive change from the previous generation. Unfortunately the new consoles have come with poor CPU's to match 2013 mid end GPU's (trying to be nice here) and although capable of the modern techniques and effects, they are not capable of doing so in full HD (1080p) and at a good frame rate (60fps) so the developers need to make compromises.

Unfortunately, developers can not just come out and say "the PS4/Xbox One is too weak to do what you're expecting from us and what we want to do", so they come out with corporate crap to pacify Sony and Microsoft in the hope the if enough people say it and it's said often enough, gullible gamers will actually start to believe it and repeat it.

My worry is that they'll pull this shit on PC as well, The Evil Within style as an excuse for lazy programming and to limit the ever increasing power gap between PC and consoles.

TL:DR Dev's need to make excuses for weak consoles

£49.99 for AC: Unity and Far Cry 4 and not being available on Steam, does that perfectly well.

I wonder when they'll learn the best way to beat the pirates is to give good value for money and £50 a game is not the way to do that. Most people are actually happy to pay a reasonable price for something that doesn't feel like a rip off,

I've been saying for months that this 1080p/60 thing is not going to last. These consoles are not powerful enough to support that standard unless there is little to no advancement in the art.

@DarthaPerkinjan: well Nintendo games usually are the best made games. Nintendo doesn't release hyped garbage.

Just like Watch Dogs Ubisoft cant get there shit together.

How does anyone expect a developer to make a game 1080p/60fps if the hardware can't handle it, and is too weak?

What's priceless to me is that some devs actually defend it as if it's a design choice, because let's face it, they can't just come out and say that their pretty piss weak.

Of course they can make their stuff 60 fps. Look at the art! Do you really want everything looking like Saturday morning cartoons like Nintendo games?

A few years from now we probably won't be seeing many 1080p/60 games on these consoles, especially X1. For a late 2013 launch these machines are weak. They've both got plenty of memory, really the only thing they did well (Only a partial accomplishment for X1 since the bandwidth is lacking), but the CPUs are terrible and the GPUs mediocre and bad. They're gonna have to keep up in some way with what is going on with PC gaming for the next several years and no way they can do that at 1080p/60.

Well it's pretty obvious not many people in this thread really understand what goes into developing a game and what kind of hoops you have to jump through to get a game to 60fps on such shit console hardware. I've made a couple of small games in my life time and even games that aren't crazy cpu heavy have trouble hitting a constant 60 fps (yeah, frame rate is more dependent on cpu then gpu in a lot of games). After spending almost 4 weeks trying to optimize a side scroller I've made to run at 60 fps, I quickly came to realize that the gain you achieve from 30 fps to 60 fps is absolutely not worth the time and money for big developers like ubisoft.

I completely agree with this and could not imagine trying to get AC running at 60 fps with the amount of CPU load there is.
Until you guys sit down and spend months and months creating a game from idea to an optimized finished product, you can't say shit, you'll never understand. Diminishing returns people.

Without premium hardware, you can't expect envelop pushing graphics and 60fps .... like always.. PICK ONE.

I don't mind stable 30fps, but 1080p is mandatory.

My purchase will depend of resolution, on this one.

Ubisoft has sucked for a long time. I'm glad people are starting to recognize them as the EA and Activision wannabes they are. The only games I buy from them are from Michel Ancel and unfortunately his games don't sell very well.

What he said is totally correct though. Considering the consoles have locked hardware, it was only a matter of time before devs start sacrificing frames / resolution in order to push games in other areas

Seems the only people expecting 1080p / 60FPS all gen was cows LOL

It's not their fault though. That's what Sony's P.R. sold them. And of course Cows will never admit to being duped. That's why poster like @tormentos have been claiming that there is nothing wrong with the PS4's choice of CPU. It is in fact the Xbox One and Microsofts deep pockets that are dropping multiplats to 30 fps.

ubi really has been on a roll lately

but more games are even struggling with this. What happens 2 years from now when its a miracle any game hits 1080p?

This is what happens when console gamers decide they rather get preety graphics over nice and smooth 60 fps gameplay

I still remember looking at a gaf thread where someone said they rather play a game at a 35 FOV and 15-10 fps as long as the game looked gorgeous

If developers gave you 60FPS at 1920x1080 the games would like they are running on the lowest settings.

Resolution and frame rate are the first things to go in order to push visuals.

It's rumored that Witcher 3, a true next-gen game, is gonna be 720p/30 on X1 and 900p/30 on PS4. That's a far cry from 1080p/60. And that's early, folks. Expect a lot of games to get back to 720p/30 in a few years.

@bunchanumbers:

Man, one game was said to be 900p, and the decision is not locked. Also, out from over 100 games available, only 3 are not native 1080p on PS4. How is that resolution not a trend?

I personally believe that, with a few exceptions, 1080p will be the standard for the entire gen, like 720p was the gen before.

PAL, you have to remember these are ports of last gens games, cross gen games, indies, or 1st party devs, who obviously will have a much easier time reaching 1080p

The problem is, for awhile now, Unity was going to be thE first next gen game that would push consoles further. And after seeing it, along side games such has The Division and Batman AK, I have had a hard time believing they'd be 1080p on the PS4. The xbone is weaker, so nothing to say about that.

The problem with Unity is we have to know if Ubishaft downgraded the PS4's original version at 1080p, or if they brute forced the xb1 version up from 7xxp.

Going by Ubi's statements that they didn't downgrade any version, it seems to indicate the latter. DF analyzis will shed more light on the matter.

However, if Unity was 900p native, i don't think you should expect 1080p to come easily. Not that i can't happen, and optimization will occur over the years. But it's not looking good for consoles if the first game that stresses them is sub-full HD.

Many of those games are ports of last-gen titles and/or are running on last-gen engines.

When it comes to resolution and framerate I think where the biggest drops are gonna come is gonna be with games ported from PC to console, like Witcher 3 as I mentioned above (OK, this might not be a port, per se. But I think we can agree that PC is the lead development platform for that title). PC tech was already miles ahead of these consoles when they launched and it's just gonna keep widening. In order to keep up an increasing number of those ports over time will have to be 720p/30.

They are dropping it because almost all console games are 30FPS i don't think it is going to change now sure this gen has bring more 60FPS than the start of last gen but 30FPS will be the norm like always quality over frames it has always been like that.

lol Ubisoft are having a nightmare of a year.

I hope Far Cry 4 is good.

Whats more annoying for me is that they are limiting the PC because of the consoles.

Sure, you guys have a point, especially when it comes to future PC games ported to consoles. At the end it will be all about dev priorities. I know 60fps won't last much, but as long as devs develop their console games with full HD in mind, and then push the visuals as much as they can, that scenario may end up becoming reallistic.

That said, optimization will have a hand on that. Take last gen as example: Halo 3 ran at sub720p. 5 years later on the same console, 343i managed to run Halo 4 at native 720p with better graphics.

Then again, it will depend of devs.

Over-hype, and under-deliver

The console way

I would honestly take a dip in resolution to even 720p (and upscaled it from there) if it meant every game ran at a rock solid 60fps.. There are some games that 30fps is fine with.. But anything in which there is alot of motion on screen and/or is faster paced.. Your going to notice it.. Furthermore if there are dips in fps, they are not going to be a huge notice if they are going 10 or 20 (down to 50 or 40fps) when at 60fps than 5 to 10 fps on 30fps (down to 25 or 20fps)..

So in other words...

"We don't have the tremendous power on consoles like we do on PC... So our code work can't be sloppy. Which in turn costs us money, brain cells and time to do it correctly. It's the industry standard for us to be as lazy as we can and cry as much as we can. Maybe if we kick and scream enough, others will follow."

whatever, after watch dogs,i'm getting all ubisoft games for free :D

I never expect too much from consoles. 30fps is fine for consoles. Though, fighting games and racing games should make the exception and 60fps should be achieved for those games.

I find it amusing that he is saying the industry will eventually ditch 60 fps where many others are saying it's the standard now as we move into next gen and those that can't have 60 fps aren't keeping up.

@deadline-zero0 said:

He's right though.

Running games at 60fps is much harder than boosting resoltuion and general assets. The problem isn't even running games at 60fps.

Sniper Elite 3 was 60. But neither console could keep it stable. Devs would much rather give you 30fps rock solid (and Ubisoft do) than give you shitty frame rate.

Also, "pwety gwafix" are much easier to help draw attention to your game than 60fps.

The Witcher 3, The Division, Batman AK, and even most 1st party exclusives won't be 60fps.

Well, console players better enjoy the cinematic experience.

Edit: Now, regarding those quotes.

"why 60fps is not only unnecessary, but also harmful to some video games. Nicolas Guérin believes the standard takes away from the cinematic experience, and sees the practice fading from the industry overall."

"you don’t gain that much from 60 fps and it doesn’t look like the real thing"

I really dont mind though. I have a PC when I want to push things, but I've never played a console game and thought to myself, golly I wish I had more FPS. As long as the game is FUN, I don't really care.

ugh, even the PS2 had 60fps games so tell me how consoles cant handle it? Devs just choose to have the prettiest graphics over smoother framerate. Dont be naive

Damn straight it's hard. I'm okay with 30 fps anyway. The Wii U Assassin's Creed 4 game dropped down to 24 frames, and I didn't really care. It was still enjoyable and playable.

Why is Ubisoft so stupid?

@IgGy621985: Considering many devs hit those standards I'm going to say Ubisoft is shitty not the consoles.