Why do gamers care so much about getting 1080p and 60 FPS?

[CeruleanGamer]

Well, I am probably a "filthy casual" *awaits filthy casual meme posts* because I play way more visual novels than console/PC games (high FPS don't matter in VNs thank god!) but every gaming forum I see, there's always this one thread about people bitching and moaning about "OMG! This game caps at 30 FPS? *uninstalls*", "The FPS is so low, it got me killed, fuck this game!" or some kind of gamer raging like that.

Oh and whenever I go to the Fuwanovel chat, there's always people comparing their machine setups and FPS like they are in a dick measuring contest (Sorry I'm not like Nepgear). I don't understand.... Someone explain to me why this is such a big deal? I have always been content with my 720p and 30 FPS gaming. Not like my character is having a spasm and the game still seems playable to me. Maybe I might make a bigger deal out of it when I play FPS games, but all I ever play are RPGs.  

Edited December 22, 2015 by CeruleanGamer

[Jade]

If i have a PC strong enough to handle 1080 i think I might be able to answer this.
But since i have a scrubs of a PC i'm just happy enough it can run most game

[Down]

I think the dick-measuring contest explanation is simple but not simplistic and covers a good part of it.
The "gamer" community is a community where a lot of people hold masculinistic values like competition in very high regard (whether consciously or unconsciously, and whether in a healthy or unhealthy way). It's also a very consumerism-minded community, one just needs to see how much video games are viewed as "products" rather than creations or piece of entertainment or w/e.

What also kinda makes me sneer is the race towards hyper-realism. It's like nobody realized painting went down the same path hundreds of years ago and only found a dead end. Of course the circumstances are quite different but I feel like the conclusion will only be the same. We're already seeing alternative paths develop quite a lot with the boom of retro-gaming, retro-like aesthetics, 2D simple games, etc... but AAA games are still running in the same direction without even stopping to think.

[Valmore]

Well, I am probably a "filthy casual" *awaits filthy casual meme posts* because I play way more visual novels than console/PC games (high FPS don't matter in VNs thank god!) but every gaming forum I see, there's always this one thread about people bitching and moaning about "OMG! This game caps at 30 FPS? *uninstalls*", "The FPS is so low, it got me killed, fuck this game!" or some kind of gamer raging like that.

Oh and whenever I go to the Fuwanovel chat, there's always people comparing their machine setups and FPS like they are in a dick measuring contest (Sorry I'm not like Nepgear). I don't understand.... Someone explain to me why this is such a big deal? I have always been content with my 720p and 30 FPS gaming. Not like my character is having a spasm and the game still seems playable to me. Maybe I might make a bigger deal out of it when I play FPS games, but all I ever play are RPGs.  

HE WHO HAS THE MOST FRAMERATES RULES THE INTERWEBS!!!!

[Nosebleed]

It's the input lag, 60FPS makes all the difference, don't you get it?!!?11!!One!?

Like most people, I'm just happy enough if something even boots up on my computer. I do think 60 FPS vs 30 FPS discussions are valid in certain games, particularly FPS games (heh, see what I did there?) where reaction times are very important and are down to the miliseconds in competitive play, but most of the time it's such a miniscule, irrelevant part of the playability that I never understand why it's an issue to some people.

I also agree with Down on the hyper-realism race being sort of silly. I have yet to find "realistic" games that are as fun as 2D platformers like Braid and Super Meat Boy were to me, for example. Implementing fun, playable mechanics is a much better investment than aiming towards high pixel count graphics that only serve to stroke the dicks of the "master race".

But like a lot of people on this forum, I mostly play Chinese powerpoint games where the FPS count hardly matters, so I'm just happy I don't have to face these types of discussions in my "gaming" life.  

 

[Mugi]

I can understand if people complain about the FPS in things like MOBA's, RTS games, fighting games, shooters, but other than that I don't think it matters much. I never understood why people bitch so much about graphics, though. 

Also side rant, I spent way too much on my PC so that I could run every new game maxed out for the next few years, but I've only really played VN's and LoL on it. Don't waste money, kids..  

[CeruleanGamer]

All games should follow Undertale standards (focus on gameplay and experience). You don't need 3D 1080 graphics and hundreds of thousands of budget to contend for best game awards/rankings. 

Edited December 22, 2015 by CeruleanGamer

[Rose]

FPS matters quite a lot when it comes to games like FPSs and RTSs, 1080p is more of a quality of life improvement than a necessity, but I think it also improves your overall experience since thing will naturally look smoother. If you consider both, FPS is definitely more important when you want to perform better in a fast-paced game, or just any game in general tbh. I've seen professional Starcraft 2 players streaming some ladder matches and while they keep their 1080p, they make the game run with the lowest graphics to improve their FPS.

As for games not needing great specs to contend for awards: they actually do. Every now and then you get a game such as Undertale up there but that's a rare occurrence. It's not like the games that get nominated are bad, most of them pack both a great overall experience with narrative and gameplay together with good graphics.

All in all, I honestly just like when my games are pretty. I'm still going to play low-budget games if I enjoy them, but great visuals sure enhance your experience if the gameplay is good by itself.

[CeruleanGamer]

I guess I can see where you are coming from. I would be turned off if my visual novel heroines are now pixelated/blocky minecraft characters. 

[Eclipsed]

Same reason why noone would get a no-color TV once color TV came out. 1080p and 60 fps is a 'standard' nowadays, but hell, soon 4k and shit will be the standard, jeebus these techs are progressing too fast

[Nosebleed]

"Fancy graphics" isn't specific enough. There's a difference between high quality textures and high polygon count and overall aesthetics. That's why you can say a game like super mario looks good in terms of aesthetics, even though it has a very low pixel count.

For a game to be "pretty" it doesn't need super high quality textures and 3D models, imo it just needs to have a good sense of art and aesthetics. A huge issue that's happening often nowadays is that developers start putting their money on all these high end textures and then end up with a product that performs poorly because the game engine just isn't optimized for it.

[CeruleanGamer]

Same reason why noone would get a no-color TV once color TV came out. 1080p and 60 fps is a 'standard' nowadays, but hell, soon 4k and shit will be the standard, jeebus these techs are progressing too fast

Not exactly the standard. There are still PC games/ports and PS4/XBox One games at 30 FPS and 720 and they clearly outnumber the 1080/30 FPS selection. We are slowly transitioning to it though. 

Edited December 22, 2015 by CeruleanGamer

[Zenophilious]

Try playing Dark Souls without DSfix.  You're gonna have a bad time.  When games require really precise reactions in a very small amount of time, 30 FPS or lower just doesn't cut it for most people.  I use DSfix even though it means I can't slide down ladders without clipping through the floor now because otherwise I have trouble just farming easy enemies.

Back when my first processor bit the dust, I dipped down to 30 FPS on a regular basis, and it was very easy to see the difference, having seen 60+ FPS for so long.  It looked almost like a slideshow.  I have no idea how people can play FPSs with a locked 30 FPS framerate, it's awful once you see how they play in 60 FPS. 

Also, if you have the rig to run pretty much every game at 60 FPS at 1080p on Ultra settings, there really is no reason you shouldn't be able to.  What you'll mostly find is people complaining that a game is poorly optimized when their hardware should be able to handle it, which is a very reasonable thing to complain about.  Having to use lower settings just because the developers didn't do their job well enough isn't exactly a good excuse.

[CeruleanGamer]

PCs are not built equally as opposed to consoles where they are more standard/uniform. There's like hundreds of different PCs, all with different specs. I spent a good 1-2 weeks every time I went PC shopping (doing research and reading reviews) as opposed to a day with console shopping.  

Also, I use my laptop maybe 2-3x more than my PC because I like gaming on-the-go, so finding a laptop that can handle games is also a hard chore while keeping my sanity and my wallet in good shape. 

Edited December 22, 2015 by CeruleanGamer

[Zenophilious]

PCs are not built equally as opposed to consoles where they are more standard/uniform. There's like hundreds of different PCs, all with different specs. I spent a good 1-2 weeks every time I went PC shopping (doing research and reading reviews) as opposed to a day with console shopping.

...yes...I already knew that  lol  I've used consoles for years, since I was 11 (handhelds since I was 10), and had a gaming computer since 2014.  I know that consoles are uniformly designed and most computers are not.  I don't really get why you brought that up.

[The Striker]

I play games that require it, and I think 1080p is for good quality image after playing at low quality may affect our visibility, and 60 fps is that the lower the fps, less lag will have in the game, lagIt would hang, only that this only happens on your PC, on the Internet you still theoretically moving so you end up dying or losing a match for it. I'm not sure but I think that's it.

 

[Decay]

For frame rate I could go either way. For resolution, you absolutely need to hit my monitor resolution (currently 1680x1050). 3D games look like shit at low resolution, it's as simple as that. Especially if your monitor is of a higher resolution than the one the game is being run at. It will either end up looking like a pixelated or a blurry mess, depending on how heavy handed the filtering is. This isn't acceptable to me and I'll do whatever it takes to run games at my monitor's native resolution.

Comparisons to games like Undertale aren't really valid. There's a difference between games that are designed for low resolutions and games that aren't and would objectively look way better at higher resolutions.

Also, for PC games, 1080p has indeed been the standard for the last ten or so years. Failure to meet that standard if you're a 3D game should be met with scorn. Stuff like the reactions to the Dark Souls port were entirely justified. Luckily, it seems like most everyone got the message by now.

[Bolverk]

First person shooters the entire gameplay depends on your experience while moving and looking around. If you have 30 fps the experience will feel highly choppy and unresponsive, it's just not fun. Having a steady 40-60 fps is alright. That's really all you need mostly..

If you really like twich-type of FPS games you might want a 120 hz monitor with some kind of reduction of motion blur tech such a lightboost. For the majority of people that's a waste of money though.

[DarkZedge]

Nowadays it's become a topic of competition and discussion rather than a topic of wether how you enjoy paying your games...people bring up 1080p as the high and mighty Full HD res as standard for gaming and use it to brag about their hardware and even look down on other people who maybe run their games at 720p to get better framerate...some say that games look terrible at 720p and while they don't look nearly as good as a 1080p setting they're alright and fully playable too.

It's also a bragging point against console players and supporters for the so called "pc master race" it's quite dumb to brag about such thing instead of just enjoying the bloody things, i do however agree with the comment above that said 1080p is standard as other things were in the past but i'd add that 720p and 1080p are the standard for not everyone has enough juice to pull a 1080p 60 fps pc....that's for the resolution and for the frames per second i do think that 60 is the best way to go even at the cost of lowering your resolution a bit because it makes the game way more fluid and smooth as an overall experience..30 fps is alright  but just alright

anyways that's my take on this topic and sorry if it's a bit of a mess to read though xD

[Decay]

Nowadays it's become a topic of competition and discussion rather than a topic of wether how you enjoy paying your games...people bring up 1080p as the high and mighty Full HD res as standard for gaming and use it to brag about their hardware and even look down on other people who maybe run their games at 720p to get better framerate...some say that games look terrible at 720p and while they don't look nearly as good as a 1080p setting they're alright and fully playable too.

I can assure you that it's not just nowadays, but this sort of behavior has been around in earnest since the introduction of the Voodoo2 around 18 years ago.

[DarkZedge]

Nowadays it's become a topic of competition and discussion rather than a topic of wether how you enjoy paying your games...people bring up 1080p as the high and mighty Full HD res as standard for gaming and use it to brag about their hardware and even look down on other people who maybe run their games at 720p to get better framerate...some say that games look terrible at 720p and while they don't look nearly as good as a 1080p setting they're alright and fully playable too.

I can assure you that it's not just nowadays, but this sort of behavior has been around in earnest since the introduction of the Voodoo2 around 18 years ago.

Yeah i know it has been around but it seems to just get worse and worse than it was, that's why i said nowadays..you're right though

[Decay]

People are a bit more vocal about it now because cross-platform releases are so much more common nowadays, and there are companies that want to take shortcuts and release lazy, framerate and resolution-locked ports. I think outside of this, people are more chill about their sense of PC superiority than they used to be. In the late '90s and early 2000s, it was way worse than it is now, trust me on that. That was back when PC had a large number entire genres that consoles did not have, from first person shooters to strategy games. Nowadays, every platform has everything and there's not much to feel superior over, outside of the few stalwarts still clutching onto their keyboard and mouse. I also see fewer people bragging over case mods and that kind of thing. 

Now it's just people wanting high resolutions and framerates as options in games, which is entirely reasonable, to be perfectly honest. Maybe on shitholes like gamefaqs there are people deriding others for not playing at max graphical options but I see that in the internet at large a lot less than I used to.

[Nayleen]

Show me one TV or PC screen that actually displays at a lower resolution than 1080p; They just don't exist (exaggerating, you've got laptops that are mostly at 1366x786, still above 720p ironically enough).

If you're not at the native resolution, things get mushed, pixels bleed all over each other, the picture gets this washed-out look, and that's pretty much about it.

30 vs 60 FPS is a different issue in that a lot of people don't even notice the difference, I (and a lot of other people) definitely do. Hell, back in the NTSC/PAL days (60 vs 50hz leading to games running @ 60/50 FPS, respectively) people who are into gaming noticed the difference already.

Games just play differently, and to me a lot more fluently, when they run at 60 FPS, especially with a screen running at a higher refresh rate. A perfect recent example was Tales of Zestiria, which, after the 60 FPS patch came out, played like an entirely different game.

[Deep Blue]

http://www.30vs60fps.com/

https://frames-per-second.appspot.com/

there is a difference, specially when you are playing and the frame rate drops.

[Clephas]

Mmm... to be honest, I don't notice small differences, but you can definitely tell when framerates fall severely.  One of the reasons a lot of Japanese games (such as the Final Fantasy series) limit their games to a specific framerate (usually 20-30) is because 'getting greedy' tends to result in badly bugged games.  The way they do it basically makes certain there is little to no variance in framerate throughout the game, thus making relatively low framerates less noticeable to the untrained eye.  However, in the cases of games like the Witcher 3 or Skyrim, you can definitely tell when framerates are falling, because they tend to fall and rise drastically.