whats the deal with 30 fps?

[Glue Man]

For multiplayer games (where most of this discussion takes place), tick rate is a lot more important than framerate. Granted, it seems a lot easier to have a high tick rate so it's not complained about often.

[longliveprose]

With a handful of games, I get about 5-15 FPS. So 30 is a breath of fresh air.

 

So 60 would be an orgasm?

Yes. The most I've ever got was 147 on Minecraft, and it was great, but that was with someone else's PC.

[Alyxx Thorne]

It depends on the context. If it's a shooter, the input is incredibly difficult to manage on just 30 fps. It's a lot more than a "minor inconvenience"

I love GTA 4 for example, but aiming is incredibly difficult in that game because it's not very well optimized for PC and I only get a framerate of about 30.

I've never had that issue honestly. Or at least haven't noticed it.

 

30 fps or lower also actually makes me nauseous. Like legit motion sickness.

Glad that doesn't happen with me.

[ThatDarnOwl]

The only reason why 30 fps is done in games is either for FMVs, the game is 2D (a puzzle game or an adventure game where precise movement isn't necessary and the framerate isn't noticeable) or due to technical limitations. In recent decades the majority of the time a game is locked to 30 is because their target platform is a console that cannot run the game above 30 frames per second.

 

The only reason a PC port ships with a 30 fps lock is because the devs don't have time to fix how everything is tied to the framerate (a notoriously bad programming habit). We know this because there are really good examples of console games that were ported to PC after the fact that were once 30, that became 60 on PC. A good example is Dead Rising's recent PC port allows for 60 FPS play, something the original 360 version from 2007 did not.

 

However there are exceptions even I can't explain. Like how Singularity on PC's singleplayer played at 60, but the multiplayer played at 30.