DriveClub is easily one of the prettiest games in the pipeline for the PlayStation 4, but it has come under increased scrutiny due to developer Evolution Studios’ decision to favour flair over framerate. Speaking in an interview with Red Bull – yes, the energy drink – game director Paul Rustchynsky has rubbished claims that it’s taken the wrong turn with the title by adopting a refresh rate of 30 frames-per-second, imploring people to actually play the next-gen racer before, er, writing it off.
“I can see why players assume that a higher framerate means better quality, because in pretty much every other technical statistic the higher numbers directly translate to better performance and more detail,” he candidly concluded. “With high framerates, though, you’ve got to sacrifice a lot of detail, and ultimately we’re really satisfied that we’ve got a great balance of a racing game that looks stunning and plays beautifully.”
Rustchynsky continued that the first-party outfit’s worked hard to maintain the fluidity of the fast-paced foray despite the lower than expected framerate. “I’d encourage any sceptics to give it a go, because we’ve spent a lot of time and effort making sure that the game never drops a frame and that your inputs have no noticeable input latency, which even some of the games running at 60FPS can’t guarantee.”
Of course, that’s not going to stop it from pushing even further in the future. “The PS4 is fantastic to work with because it’s been built in collaboration with studios like ours,” the racing game veteran enthused. “Looking back at what we’ve been able to do in the past two years, and how we’re continually finding new ways of getting even more performance out of the hardware, I don’t think that we’re anywhere close to reaching the limit of what the system can do yet.”
And we can believe it, considering the leaps and bounds that the racing specialist’s PS4 debut has come on over the past twelve months or so. Is the title's framerate still very much a bee in your bonnet, or did you leave those complaints behind long ago? Roar like a Ferrari F50 in the comments section below.
[source redbull.com]
Comments 20
MK8 got flak for broadcasting at 59 FPS instead of 60, so I guess someone's inclined to spread it all around. :/ Just waiting for someone to knock down Forza. lol
I have no problem whatsoever, with driveclub being locked at 30fps. It runs smooth as silk from what ive seen. It is also the best looking racer ive seen ........by a comfortable margin
Loads have argued about this personally as long as it's a steady frame rate then it's fine but the real issue is why do PC gamers (most of the time) get to choose fps & resolution etc but console gamers get what there given?
It'll be interesting to see how Driveclub sells, especially with those that complain about too many indies. Clearly they want something that's a graphical showcase which this definitely looks, same goes for The Order: 1886 too.
Never was worried about the frame rate. As long as it's smooth, it's fine.
Well that's no fun!
Sometimes 5 people on an internet forum can sound like 5,000 because they keep repeating the same criticism over and over again. Really though, those people that ragged on Driveclub because it is 30fps are people I wouldn't really want to talk to anyway. It seems to me that some people are so picky and things that bother them shouldn't really bother them, but they take it and run with it. I'm surprised with as much as some people complain about FPS even if a game is running smooth as can be at 30, how do some of these people even pick up a controller? I'm starting to wonder if some people actually game or just go onto forums to spew out of their bums on the idea that they may not like something. o.O sounds harsh I know, but I don't really care. LOL
I play games for fun not numbers. Numbers is math and that's definitely not my definition of fun.
Frame rate for me is definitely important. It would never stop me trying a game but it could certainly stop me from enjoying it to the fullest.
I do think its interesting though that some of this website and/or its readers seem to defend this RACING games lower frame rate and then go ahead and praise other next gen games for being at 60fps like its a great thing.
There have literally been entire articles on this website boasting about how the next gen version of a game will support 60fps, and similarly, the comments in those articles state how much better the game is going to look once its played because of the frame rate.
@Demi_God In my instance the whole reason why I care about frames is due exactly to the fact that I DO game. You wont see me complaining if a game doesn't have the latest particle effects etc. You're right on the whole vocal minority thing.
@eLarkos When it gets to the point where the cars are moving very smoothly, there is no reason to complain about it. This is what happens though, once they show the FPS numbers even though people were fine with how smooth it is, which is very smooth, in fact even in the gifs it doesn't look like 30fps, but much higher. Anyway, once they say the numbers, then all these people appear out of nowhere to complain about it. If it isn't frames per second, it's graphics, if it isn't graphics it's frames per second. It doesn't matter because no matter what there is always someone complaining. I tend to ignore that factor unless I feel like commenting, otherwise it's really pointless. Now, there are games that do run at 30fps which could clearly run higher, that is fine, but in the case of Driveclub, they are trying to get the best of both, so in this case while it's 30fps, it runs so smooth that it feels like the framerate is much higher.
The point is, if fps determines your enjoyment of a game, there aren't going to be that many games to enjoy and that includes the PC. It's so bad that now there are people saying, if I can't play it at a resolution of 1440 then I won't get the game. it's really getting that bad, but again though, it's a few people vs everyone else as I said before.
It looks beautiful I'm not particularly worried. When I think about the framerate vs graphics I think of COD it's got a fast framerate but graphically looks pretty crap next to battlefield or killzone
Fun > Gameplay > Framerate > Graphics
in that order for me
Well I grew up playing Atari on a little screen. When people complain about frame rate and graphics but not gameplay or story It tells me in 10-15 years the industry will be lost from what the PS1, PS2 and PS3 era where. Sorry for the bad grammar LONG day,,,
Im not worried abiut this in the slightest. Definetly the game im most looking forward to on ps4. Roll om october
I think DriveClub will handle very well being "locked" at 30FPS, when people think of 30FPS (0n console) they don't take into account last gen game's where not 30FPS, in most cases they where 17-25-20FPS etc. 30FPS on the PS4 means 30FPS and DriveClub frame rate is "locked" too, what I don't get is why is DriveClub taking all the heat when a FPS Destiny is 30FPS? Shooters benefit from higher frame rates.
I don't understand people that gripe about framerate, at 60fps you have twice faster controller input than 30fps, yea that sounds great, but it means nothing when you say 120 is twice faster controller input than 60. All of a sudden 60fps doesn't sound that great now does it? but what about animations? they take time, and it varies from game to game on how long they are, that also plays a huge role on lag. If we could play 3 generations of console gaming with most games locked at 30fps why do people all of a sudden not enjoy it? SO ps2 era was horrible because most games were 30fps? I must be drunk that I enjoyed PS2 era than.
Oh and don't tell me that it's about the smoothness that makes it appealing, I wonder how motion pictures got to be so big, I mean movies have to be 60fps+
@Mundus_Dominium My gripe is that they have proritised pretty lighting effects over frame rate. They are pleasing an audience and you can't blame them for that.
@eLarkos Look it's not like I don't enjoy higher fps it's just that I'll take optimized 30fps that looks stunning rather than 60fps just so that hard turns look smoother, the smoothness only is so ever significant is when you pan left or right quickly, so First Person Shooters are the ones that gonna benefit the most from that, even Action RPGs are more important when it comes to fps than racing genre.
Motorstorm series is locked at 30 fps, if you have played it you'd know that controller input lag is pretty much inexistent in it. However as I am a huge wipeout and unreal tournament/quake fan when it comes to fast pacing games like them 60 fps+ definitely matters.
Off topic, yet still on, destiny recieved a ton of complaints about its 30 FPS. When I played the beta, I didn't give a crap about its frames or res!! I'm thinking the same for drive club. I'm not a big racing fan, but I'm gonna give this game a go!!
Fun > FPS
Having played this game for several hours, I can confirm that this game does have significant input lag. Testing by displaylag.com showed input lag above 100ms, and it's definitely noticeable. The highly sensitive steering is hard to control when there is this much input lag. I think it turns a lot of people off from the game. Project cars, on the other hand, runs at 60fps and is very smooth and responsive. Dear Driveclub devs, if you're reading this, PLEASE target 60fps for your next racing game. 30fps games have almost double the input lag and there is no way around it. I believe graphics mean little if the game doesn't play well.
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