Planetside 2: High Graphics or High Frames per Second?

[Noctis]

This is a warm topic among hardcore players for all FPS genre gamers.
The most recent games absolutely have astonishing graphics, just think about BF3 or PS2 itself. Even on TOP Machines you will never get more then 90 frames, in crowded battle especially. I really doubt on PS2 during a 1500 players engagement on ultra settings anyone will be able to run the game at 80 FPS.

So what matters?

Frame Per Second is the value used to recognize how many frames of single images we have per second. Since our monitors do not stream a constant flux of image but rather millions of "frames", like the old video projectors in a certain point of view.

Has been stated, proved many times that a player playing on 60 Frames has better overall awareness and hardware response then a player playing at 30.

The other bells say that the human eye is only able to perceive 30 frames, and doesn't matter if you get 100 FPS on your shooter game.

This discussion ends up with one side stating that no matter how the game looks good, but always play on lowest settings to maximize performances, because a player with 60-100 FPS has a more fluidly screen, more awareness and best hardware response.

The other side simply wants to enjoy the game fully, and doesnt care about having more then 30 FPS.

Effects:
Samething applies for weapon effects such dust explosions flashlights and all those kinds.
A distant on-going engagement filled with high-res smoke, explosions and flames will surely burden the weight of one's eyes causing distractions and loss of focus on the current objective.
In many games such things can be turned off or lowered at least. Everything at the cost of graphic approach.


So, how does this affect a game like Planetside that despite having a big tactical approach the TTK is very short, and the ranges of engagement are long sometimes?

-Whats your opinion about Frame Per Second impact on gameplay?
-Are you going to lower your settings even if the game runs smoothly? And have you ever done this before in other games?
-Do you think certain things only apply in common FPS round based games, and it will get lost among the hundreds of players fighting?


The concept of this question goes to an Italian streamer named Azoto-
http://www.youtube(.)com/user/AzotoPwny
This thread doesn't aim to advertise the above user and his channel and its written there cause I don't want to claim thoughts who don't belong to me.
If any Moderator wants to remove the link do it.


/Discuss

[AThreatToYou]

I want as many frames as I can get without sacrificing battlefield performance.

Max LOD, Max draw distance, highest quality user-interface integration.

[BlueSkies]

The graphics are very nice... but in general shooter = graphics down, view distance max

Also... no one can run this game on Ultra.. period

[Noctis]

Originally Posted by BlueSkies

The graphics are very nice... but in general shooter = graphics down, view distance max

Also... no one can run this game on Ultra.. period

The next upcoming GPU will be able to do so, "but"...

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Originally Posted by MasterMind

I will probably have my graphics on medium even though they could easily handle high. I will also tone down many effects.

All these things are distractions for the eye and will prevent your eye from focusing on an enemy and getting the drop on them. With such a low TTK getting off the first few shots means all the difference.

So in conclusion, its not about frame rate, its about distractions from shiny effects

Of course, I'll gladly add this thing in the question if you don't mind. Effects are really a mess sometimes. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[Remzsz]

I'm all for the best fps, and most clarity when playing a game, the thing I hate most is when its soo hard to see whats going on because of bloom, screenshake, and all that other useless flashy shit that I don't care about.

Its one of the reasons why I still play counterstrike is because its clean and simple, and doesnt make you feel like you need to wear sunglasses when playing, like BF3.

[Alex Forge]

I can fool.
And at 50 FPS too.
My rig is so AWESOME!!!!!

[MasterMind]

I will probably have my graphics on medium even though they could easily handle high. I will also tone down many effects.

All these things are distractions for the eye and will prevent your eye from focusing on an enemy and getting the drop on them. With such a low TTK getting off the first few shots means all the difference.

So in conclusion, its not about frame rate, its about distractions from shiny effects

[Ivam Akorahil]

Originally Posted by Noctis

The other bells say that the human eye is only able to perceive 30 frames, and doesn't matter if you get 100 FPS on your shooter game.


/Discuss

first of all they are biologicaly wrong i dare them to play a game at 30 and one at 60 you do see a major difference, the difference from 60 upwards is negligbile however.

biological : the human eye recognizes about 18 to 20 fps, 60 in absolute panic situations. The reason that we still notice a game beeing slighly influent at something like 30 fps is however that the game does not substitute for motion blur in a form like the human eye does. Technicaly if you would take the motion blur effect off the human eye the car outside your window would lag like crysis on a bad computer.

but the games cannot fully substitute for it so they feel laggy unless there are so many pictures per second that it appears as fluid motion, for the human eye the fluid motion is created by unsharpness of picture or motion blur.

long text short info

i prefer to play (if i had to) at to border to beeing influent to squeeze the last bit of gfx eyecandy out. but i dont have to, coz i got an awsome pc

[Noctis]

Originally Posted by Ivam Akorahil

first of all they are biologicaly wrong i dare them to play a game at 30 and one at 60 you do see a major difference, the difference from 60 upwards is negligbile however.

biological : the human eye recognizes about 18 to 20 fps, 60 in absolute panic situations. The reason that we still notice a game beeing slighly influent at something like 30 fps is however that the game does not substitute for motion blur in a form like the human eye does. Technicaly if you would take the motion blur effect off the human eye the car outside your window would lag like crysis on a bad computer.

but the games cannot fully substitute for it so they feel laggy unless there are so many pictures per second that it appears as fluid motion, for the human eye the fluid motion is created by unsharpness of picture or motion blur.

long text short info

i prefer to play (if i had to) at to border to beeing influent to squeeze the last bit of gfx eyecandy out. but i dont have to, coz i got an awsome pc

Still with an awesome pc I'd low the settings during big crowds, personal preference, don't like staring the grass moving under the wind blows

Originally Posted by Tatwi

I prefer a mix of both. If a game looks like crap, I won't like playing it. But at the same time, I accept the technical limitations of products as well, so I generally draw the line at the following "must haves":

1. No forced FXAA/Bloom/Ambient Occlsion/Other Post Processing Effect, because I like the world to not look like washed out garbage.

2. 4x AA / 8x AF / VSync ON at no less than 30FPS

3. Flora ON, so must be optimized (WoW and SWG flora is/was great, Everquest II flora is awful, as far as performance goes).

4. Shadows OFF, as they don't add much to a game except a performance hit. Character shadows are fine and in WoW I keep them set to Medium (which makes them look like people rather than a grey circle)

For Planetside, I still like to make it look nice even though I know I am taking a performance hit when I do. Anti Aliasing is a must for me, because the shimmering effect on objects is distracting/annoying without it. In a fire fight I have between 40-60 FPS, which is acceptable. I did turn off the bullet hole decals, because I found that granted a huge FPS increase, despite how I liked the look of them. So, really in the end FPS does always win out.

I like to play games with horrible graphics if the game is good
@Quake 3 Arena

[Tatwi]

Originally Posted by Noctis

I like to play games with horrible graphics if the game is good
@Quake 3 Arena

Totally, I agree on a case by case basis. Some of the textures in Quake 3 may be low resolution, but with AA/AF on it doesn't look offensive. The original Everquest on the other hand, it's just a bit too dated for me to get into now, even though some of the game play is enjoyable. Perhaps I am fickle and if so, I am OK with that.

[Noctis]

Added.

[Tatwi]

I prefer a mix of both. If a game looks like crap, I won't like playing it. But at the same time, I accept the technical limitations of products as well, so I generally draw the line at the following "must haves":

1. No forced FXAA/Bloom/Ambient Occlsion/Other Post Processing Effect, because I like the world to not look like washed out garbage.

2. 4x AA / 8x AF / VSync ON at no less than 30FPS

3. Flora ON, so must be optimized (WoW and SWG flora is/was great, Everquest II flora is awful, as far as performance goes).

4. Shadows OFF, as they don't add much to a game except a performance hit. Character shadows are fine and in WoW I keep them set to Medium (which makes them look like people rather than a grey circle)

For Planetside, I still like to make it look nice even though I know I am taking a performance hit when I do. Anti Aliasing is a must for me, because the shimmering effect on objects is distracting/annoying without it. In a fire fight I have between 40-60 FPS, which is acceptable. I did turn off the bullet hole decals, because I found that granted a huge FPS increase, despite how I liked the look of them. So, really in the end FPS does always win out.

[Ivam Akorahil]

Originally Posted by Tatwi

4. Shadows OFF, as they don't add much to a game except a performance hit. Character shadows are fine and in WoW I keep them set to Medium (which makes them look like people rather than a grey circle)

i personaly like to strain my system to the max with shadows, they add SO MUCH depth to a scenery its worth the loss of performance for me

Originally Posted by fod

i play on low settings (except textures on high so stuff still looks crisp) on just about every game even with a kickass PC

but but! its unhealthy! you might get eye cancer!

[Sledgecrushr]

Lol I really hope I get 30 fps.

[Noctis]

I'll turn everything off 1 second after logging in, then activate the must-have things.

Must have things are the ones that not having them would be an handicap.