Games feature: Forget 4K games, where’s my FPS?
SONY AND MICROSOFT’S ‘MID-GEN’ NEW CONSOLES PROMISE SPECTACULAR VISUALS, ESPECIALLY FOR 4K TV OWNERS — BUT ARE THEY FOCUSING ON THE WRONG THING?
AFTER BEING CAST off as ‘irrelevant’ and ‘dead’ only a matter of years ago, the PC has not only been reinvigorated by high-profile exclusives and eSports dominance, but it also arguably runs games better, too. That might seem like common sense in 2017, but for a long time — especially during the PS3 and Xbox 360 era — the console performance disadvantage seemed negligible next to greater concerns such as, “I want to play Halo!” or “I want to play Uncharted!”
Fast forward to 2017, and both Sony and Microsoft have either released or announced mid-generation console iterations focusing on performance. The PlayStation 4 Pro and the Xbox One X have a lot more grunt than their vanilla siblings, but they’re infamously still trailing behind high- or even midperformance PCs. Both companies have made it pretty clear that these iterative consoles are designed for players who own 4K televisions — a reasonable enough sales pitch. But whatever the truth may be regarding how many people own 4K TVs — not to mention how many actually care about their console games running at this resolution — the most prickly question is this: Where’s my bloody 60 frames per second?
FOR FPS SAKE
To some people, myself included, no amount of pixels on a screen can compensate for the absence of a smooth frame rate — the higher the better. Indeed, I’d prefer for games to run at 720p (yes, even in 2017) if it meant a locked 60fps. Especially when it comes to twitchy, precision-oriented shooters like Destiny 2 — which notably won’t run at 60fps, even on Microsoft’s theoretically superior Xbox One X.
So why is frame rate still seemingly a non-concern to console makers, while resolution is the new holy grail? Well, there’s a whole lot you can do to simulate higher resolutions, such as upscaling, which can milk the appearance of 4K out of a native 1080p title. That appears to be how most PS4 Pro games reach a non-native 4K ‘appearance’, and the reason upscaling is an acceptable solution, presumably, is because console users tend to sit further away from their screens than PC users. There’s no doubt that games such as Horizon: Zero Dawn look better on the PlayStation 4 Pro than a ‘regular’ PS4 console — but is it that much better? Not really. You have to be a stickler for clarity, a stickler for pixels. Bugger pixels, I say.
Perfect 4K is something console enthusiasts will need to wait until November for, which is when Microsoft’s XOX arrives. Even then, whether it will consistently be capable of rendering at 4K as games become more and more detailed is yet to be seen — I’d hazard a guess that it won’t for long.
But it’s all noise really, because higher frame rates arguably provide more of a wow factor than resolution. Look at Doom, for instance (the 2016 version): it’s not an especially detailed vision of hell, but it’s the silky-smooth motion that really makes it beautiful. I’d happily surrender detail for performance, but it feels like we won’t get that kind of guarantee any time soon, because in order for 60 frames per second to become standard, the platform holders would need to make it a condition for third-parties. And overall, it seems most third-party publishers and studios would much prefer to shove more
pixels in their games. Fair enough: it’s their artistic vision at play.
When asked why Destiny 2 won’t hit 60fps on the PS4 Pro, the game’s director Luke Smith told IGN that “our game’s this rich physics simulation, with collision and players, networking etc. It wouldn’t run — not enough horsepower there yet.” The lack of horsepower is a problem with the CPU rather than the GPU, and the latter is what both the Pro and Microsoft’s console have focused their upgrades on.
Still, some games have already offered the ability to trade off detail in favour of frame rate — most notably the Sony exclusive Nioh. That’s nice enough, but it’s probably unlikely that any online multiplayer game would do the same.
THE UNCONSOLED
But whether it’s resolution or motion you’d prefer to see boosted on a console, it’s interesting that the options are beginning to emerge in the first place. Consoles have traditionally been a one-and-done generational box for playing games: developers have needed to develop and optimise their games for specs which, as we saw during the last console generation, could stick around for nearly 10 years. But if both Sony and Microsoft are offering marginally better versions of their PS4 and Xbox One consoles for performance enthusiasts, what’s the point of sticking within these walled gardens at all? Why not go PC?
It’s a good question, but one that might need only apply to those for whom money is no concern. PCs objectively do offer better performance, even on tech that’s several years older than these newer, premium consoles. It also rules out the niggling feeling that developers are holding back their tech in order to attain parity — that’s especially important in multiplayer games where a frame-rate difference on PS4 and PS4 Pro could offer a real in-game advantage to the latter (though some speculate it’s to please the platform holder whose console might not benefit from the other having clearly better performance).
Whatever the case, it’s getting increasingly difficult to feel assured that you’re getting the best possible gaming experience if you’re playing on a walled platform. It’s becoming more confusing. With Microsoft offering the highest-specced device and the increasing likelihood of cross-platform play with PC (and even, in some cases, Nintendo Switch), the Xbox feels like it might gain some traction in the next 12 months. But overall, the 4K gambit feels like a shallow one, a desire to cater for technology which consoles just can’t yet do consistently. Why not mandate higher frame rates before shoehorning more pixels onto the screen?