Why do people care so much about framerate?

[MikeRox]

Wiped said:

I'm being serious. It may seem a stupid question, but I see people bringing it up left, right and centre in every thread. But....why? I've been gaming for almost 20 years now, and I'm a fussy person. I can see a clear difference between 720p and 1080p even on my 42" TV. I love tech and want things to be the best spec possible.

However, I just don't get people complaining about framerate. I play games with 60fps. They look great. I play games with 30fps. They look great. I play games which drop frames sometimes. But I honestly don't notice, and if I do, it lasts about a second. A second! Who cares? As long as it's not so constantly chugging by so much that it's unplayable, I really can't see an issue.

Is it just me? Or is it because I mainly play racing games and platformers, as opposed to FPS?

Enlighten me.

These are 2 of the genres frame rate is most important in. Mario would feel horribly floaty at 30fps and you would not be able to jump the platforms anywhere near as precisely. Frame drops on top of that would just be a nightmare.

Racing games you can get away with 30fps, but 60fps is just so much smoother for everything.

The difference between games and other entertainment mediums is that you interact with it. The faster/smoother that interaction is fed back to you, the greater the connection with the game.

I couldn't see it until Dreamcast with games like Metropolis Street Racer and F355 Challenge as I couldn't work out why F355 looks so much... smoother than MSR which always seemed to have a "double vision" effect in comparison when turning corners etc.

Prior to this games such as F-Zero X were also noted for how fast and fluid they ran, even before people really knew much about frame rates on home consoles because for the most part, N64 games in particular ran at sub 30fps. Many hovering around 15-20fps.

You might not see the difference, but you can probably still feel it. I don't doubt it's the reason Call of Duty became the top dog of FPS games. Gran Turismo and Forza since the early 2000s have always gunned for 60fps over visuals.

Don't get me wrong, I can make do with 30fps, but it's always a let down. 720p I can live with, it has far less impact on the way a game plays than frame rate and a 720p 60fps will always look better than a 1080p 30fps game.