Home Gaming Ratchet and Clank : A Crack in Time to be Insomniac’s Last 60fps Game

Ratchet and Clank : A Crack in Time to be Insomniac’s Last 60fps Game

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RC60fps

This generation, Insomniac games has given us some pretty good gaming. They’ve been responsible for the Resistance games, as well as the Ratchet and Clank Series; both franchises well received, graphically appealing and above all, smooth as butter.

The reason they’ve been so smooth? Insomniac have been striving to attain 60fps in all of their games; something that they’re unfortunately no longer going to be doing.

It seams, after some investigative research (in the name of science!) Insomniac have come to the conclusion that 60fps doesn’t matter; particularly when it comes to sales and reviews. Mike Acton of Insomniac relates :

“Our community team did some research into the question of framerate. And in particular they found that there was a clear correlation between graphics scores in reviews (where they are provided) and the final scores. And they found no such correlation between framerate and the graphics scores nor the final scores.”

“However it does appear that gameplay scores are also influenced by graphics scores. i.e. Better looking games appear to be more ‘fun’ to reviewers, in general,” he added.

Insomniac will, it seems, use the extra horsepower they’re afforded by not locking at 60 fps to increase the graphical fidelity – Something I’ll have to see to believe, because I already find R&C to be incredibly impressive. Although that probably stems from its locked 60fps. Catch 22, methinks.

What say you, dear readers? Which matters to you more – Sexy graphics or a sleek, smooth 60 frames per second?

Read more over at Insomniac, where they go in to the Science! of it a little more.

Last Updated: October 30, 2009

10 Comments

  1. Fred

    October 30, 2009 at 12:16

    Depends on the pace of the action , essential for Wipeout for instance , not so much for 3rd person action titles like R&C and Uncharted.

    Reply

  2. Karl

    October 30, 2009 at 12:26

    I agree with Fred. Faster paced games benefit nicely from 60FPS, while slower games like R&C dont really see any benefit.

    Im too tired to word that better.

    Reply

  3. SlippyMadFrog

    October 30, 2009 at 12:38

    What other games besides Ratchet and clank is 60 fps? Definitely not Resistance.

    Reply

  4. WitWolfyZA

    October 30, 2009 at 12:39

    I want eye candy!!!

    Reply

  5. janrik

    October 30, 2009 at 12:50

    Fast Paced games (Forza etc) needs 60 FPS.

    Shooters can be 30 or 60, depending on the pacing.

    The R&C games are allready very pretty, imagine them at 30fps?

    Reply

  6. easy

    October 30, 2009 at 15:43

    a must read!

    http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm

    and with this master stroke, the fps issue is gone… o, right, the know-it-alls of the world haven’t… 😉

    Reply

    • SlippyMadFrog

      October 30, 2009 at 16:17

      It’s depends on how good they implement the motion blur. IMO a sharp image at high FPS looks better than blurred image at lower fps. I only quickly scanned through that article though 🙂

      Reply

      • easy

        October 30, 2009 at 16:27

        in brief, it states that there is no tangible optimal frame rate.
        its purely subjective thing which anyone with an opinion will tell you that there’s is right.

        i played games at 15fps and some games upwards of 200fps, and to be honest i never noticed a massive difference. once i’m sucked into the game, i couldn’t care less.
        but a mate of mine refuses to play anything below 75fps… but he’s a pc gamer, and who listens to them anyways 😀

        Reply

        • SlippyMadFrog

          October 31, 2009 at 09:50

          I disagree a bit 🙂 In my opinion of course. I come from a PC gaming background but I’ve totally converted to console gaming. (You don’t have to listen to what I’m saying 😆 )
          If you compare 60fps to 30fps the differences are quite noticeable. I usually adjusted the display settings until I achieved a very smooth frame rate. I never would have played a game at 15fps since it will stutter quite a lot. But I guess the article is saying that it depends on the nature of what is shown on the screen. unfortunately games are rarely slow paced and motion blur isn’t advanced enough yet to hide stuttering. As it is now, I won’t be able to play a game at lower than 30fps (for me at least). I think the article should use games as examples instead of films.

          Reply

          • easy

            October 31, 2009 at 10:22

            you definitely have a point, in that games don’t strictly follow the same requirements that movies have (or tv for that matter, 24-30fps is accepted norm).
            with games you have the added factor of game type, an rts game does not need a high frame rate as opposed to a first person shooter, which i feel needs a high frame rate.
            but it all boils down to what the individual is happy to live with, hence its a fairly subjective topic.

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