Hardware Turning 3D off doubles FPS

[Law]

Obligatory "Zelda 64 runs at 15FPS".

Really? only 15.......Doesn't smash run at 50-60?

Yup.

I wonder how different it'll feel playing the remake at 30/60 on the 3DS.

 

[notmeanymore]

seems like 3d is only graphics to everyone and doesn't count in gameplay
well, i still remember miyamoto talking about the biggest problem i had with 3d mario games:
you didn't exactly know where you'll land or if u get the coin or not, jump on the enemy or not, jamp af a kliff or not
according to him, with 3d, it's much easier to see the distance and feel it, making 3d games more enjoyable

This will be a major thing for platformers, but since I haven't seen a decent Non-Mario 3D platformer in a while, idk how much I'd appreciate it.

But personally, most of my favorite DS games (Phoenix Wright, Professor Layton, Pokemon) can only be enhanced by 3D. The extra FPS are literally useless in those games.

 

[tijntje_7]

Err..
Aren't our eyes limited to around 24-25 fps anyway? >.>
30 FPS is good, because it is stable, and higher than 24-25.
60 FPS is useless -.-
15 FPS is great for 'slower' games.
(this does explain why zelda runs well on my iPod touch

)

 

[Arm73]

I wonder what kind of miracle has Sony in store for us once their 3D games for PS3 will be in full swing as right now most regular PS3 games already run at 30fps at the most....
Divide that by 2 ( 15fps!) or downgrade the quality of the graphic and resolution.......
That my friends is a fail...
The 3DS is built from scratch to be stereoscopic 3D, it'll be fine.

 

[qlum]

Obligatory "Zelda 64 runs at 15FPS".

Really? only 15.......Doesn't smash run at 50-60?

Yup.

I wonder how different it'll feel playing the remake at 30/60 on the 3DS.

the gamecube version also ran on 60 I think

 

[Law]

I wonder what kind of miracle has Sony in store for us once their 3D games for PS3 will be in full swing as right now most regular PS3 games already run at 30fps at the most....
Divide that by 2 ( 15fps!) or downgrade the quality of the graphic and resolution.......
That my friends is a fail...
The 3DS is built from scratch to be stereoscopic 3D, it'll be fine.

Don't they just make the game run in 720p instead of 1080p to preserve the framerate? I think that was what happened when they released the 3D patch for Wipeout

edit: and that was running at 60fps at 1080p if the description in the PSN store is to be believed.

 

[Midna]

You guys seem to think 3D is graphical fluff, and just designed to sell systems as a gimmick. Well David Turnbull from nintendo3dsblog.com disagrees with you, and he took the plane to Japan to attend Nintendo World 2011. From his review of the Kid Icarus demo:

After battling your way through the aerial assault Pit hits the ground and you begin the off-rails portion of the game. Aside from this variety being great I think the ground-based combat is where a lot of the advantages of 3D come to light. As enemies fire projectiles as you there’s something marvellous you realise: you know exactly when they’ll reach you. Now, you can often soon work out how long it takes for projectiles to reach you in most games, but this was instant. You could judge the distance accurately, and easily dive out of the way by pushing the slide pad all the way to the left or right. Effortlessly avoiding differently-timed balls of death-bringing light makes you feel quite awesome.

The thing is, 3D adds a Z axis to games, and allows you to see exactly how far away things are from you. That's not useless, and something to be turned off. We'll see.

 

[Rydian]

Err..
Aren't our eyes limited to around 24-25 fps anyway? >.>

The limit depends on the content. There's lots of tricks that can be used depending on the content to display a lower framerate and still have it look smooth, such as motion blur, interlacing, and more. For FPS games the generally-accepted limit is about 60-80FPS (monitors don't display higher than that anyways) because it involves lots of quick turning where the scene from one frame to another differs greatly, but for something like a turn-based RPG the scene from one frame to another isn't much different, so framerates of down to 25FPS are acceptable.

 

[jak66]

This will be a major thing for platformers, but since I haven't seen a decent Non-Mario 3D platformer in a while, idk how much I'd appreciate it.

But personally, most of my favorite DS games (Phoenix Wright, Professor Layton, Pokemon) can only be enhanced by 3D. The extra FPS are literally useless in those games.

I agree, except I'd have to turn it off in Phoenix Wright for fear of him poking my eyes out

 

[granville]

@qlum

Both Zelda Wind Waker and Twilight Princess ran at 30fps max. You can see it if your eyes are good enough, but i double checked using the GC/Wii emulator Dolphin (it has an accurate FPS display). No 3D Zelda has ever gone past that mark yet (including the DS ones). I'll be interested to see what rate both OOT3D and Skyward Sword run at. It's hard to tell from online videos due to the fact that most videos are capped at 25-30fps (so even if a game is really running at 60fps, you can't always tell from videos).

It will be interesting to see if other games see improvements from 3D being turned off.

They do actually. Capcom confirmed that Resident Evil Revelations enables some extra graphical effects when you run without the 3D effect on. In 2D mode, you get anti aliasing, motion blur, and some other graphical effects i forget. They also stated it ran at 30fps when the 3D effect is on, meaning it may run at 60 with the effect off (not confirmed though).

I would imagine a lot of other games will have similar such differences between 2D and 3D modes. To be honest, i'm not interested in the system due to the 3D effect. I like the game lineup. Heck, i'm more interested in the enhanced visuals than the 3D effect (and i'm as far from a graphics whore as you can imagine). And i may want to sacrifice the effect for a superior framerate. If a game isn't very smooth, i find myself disoriented at times. Less so when it's just a fixed low framerate. But it's horrible when a game can't keep a steady framerate and skips around all the time (like Rayman DS and the DS port of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory). It's dizzying to me.

 

[Rydian]

Isn't there an issue with 3D and traditional AA?

 

[granville]

An issue? Not that i've ever heard. Anti aliasing is an intensive effect to pull off, i'm sure that's why it's disabled in 3D mode. I'm sure more knowledgeable people can better answer, but that's the first i've ever heard anyone say the two things can cause some sort of conflict

 

[Rydian]

Old-style FSAA that was no more than rendering at double resolution and downsampling was heavy, but nowadays we have edge-detection multisampling to where it's not much of a hit at all.

With the 3D every other pixel is on a different screen and different things are at different depths visually, and I've read that doesn't work well with AA.

 

[Midna]

Well apparently, the Pica200 has native 2x2 anti aliasing. I'm not sure how much that takes out of the chip, though, and whether it can do that while rendering the game screen twice.

 

[Wintrale]

If it doubles framerate with 3D off then it's not downclocking, so no battery saved from the clock rate.

Since the 3DS supposedly has a 3-5 hour battery life, I think that turning the 3D off will give you almost twice as much battery life as leaving it on. I can't see any other contributing factor to a two hour difference unless you can turn the wireless off.

 

[Presto99]

If it doubles framerate with 3D off then it's not downclocking, so no battery saved from the clock rate.

Since the 3DS supposedly has a 3-5 hour battery life, I think that turning the 3D off will give you almost twice as much battery life as leaving it on. I can't see any other contributing factor to a two hour difference unless you can turn the wireless off.

At least for some games, 3D off won't necessarily save battery life. If you play a game, 30 FPS, 3D on, that uses power. If you turn the 3D off and the FPS goes up to 60, the power that was used for 3D starts being used to up the framerate. So power isn't really saved by turning 3D off.

 

[RupeeClock]

Obligatory "Zelda 64 runs at 15FPS".

It's more like 20 FPS, at least that's the reading I get when I emulate Ocarina of Time bonus disc on Dolphin emulator.
I know, redundant right?

Anyhow, the change from 30FPS to 60FPS is often not noticeable.
Twilight Princess and Wind Waker are also 30FPS, whilst Sonic Colours is 60FPS in menus, but 30FPS in levels, and you probably NEVER noticed that change in framerate.

Framerate changes are usually only ever noticeable if performance suddenly degrades.

 

[Deleted User]

Obligatory "Zelda 64 runs at 15FPS".

It's more like 20 FPS, at least that's the reading I get when I emulate Ocarina of Time bonus disc on Dolphin emulator.
I know, redundant right?

Anyhow, the change from 30FPS to 60FPS is often not noticeable.
Twilight Princess and Wind Waker are also 30FPS, whilst Sonic Colours is 60FPS in menus, but 30FPS in levels, and you probably NEVER noticed that change in framerate.

Framerate changes are usually only ever noticeable if performance suddenly degrades.

I really want to punch people in the head that say that.

http://www.boallen.com/fps-compare.html

 

[RupeeClock]

Obligatory "Zelda 64 runs at 15FPS".

It's more like 20 FPS, at least that's the reading I get when I emulate Ocarina of Time bonus disc on Dolphin emulator.
I know, redundant right?

Anyhow, the change from 30FPS to 60FPS is often not noticeable.
Twilight Princess and Wind Waker are also 30FPS, whilst Sonic Colours is 60FPS in menus, but 30FPS in levels, and you probably NEVER noticed that change in framerate.

Framerate changes are usually only ever noticeable if performance suddenly degrades.

I really want to punch people in the head that say that.

http://www.boallen.com/fps-compare.html

When you can actually compare 30FPS and 60FPS side by side, THEN you notice it.
But 30FPS is acceptably smooth in gaming, there are plenty of 30FPS games you've played and never known better.

 

[ChuckBartowski]

another good game that runs at a terrible framerate: SOTC. It ran at 20 FPS.