fps_d0minat0r said:
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With they you mean DF? Well, for H1 they had a big part of the article especially about 30hz and 60hz so I would be surprised if they would forget it in the successor (or do some people not want them to?):
From 60Hz to 30Hz: the pros and cons
To make up the shortfall somewhat, Playground implements its own form of motion blur in order to reduce the judder imposed by halving the amount of discrete frames that end up on your HDTV. While it can't hope to match the "full-fat" 60Hz experience, it's actually a really impressive piece of tech, seemingly more than just the simple camera blur you may expect. Looking at game captures frame-by-frame, the tech appears capable of picking out specific objects and blurring them individually according to distance from the camera and velocity - an object-based implementation in other words. Combined with the consistent frame-rate it works especially well in chase-cam mode where the camera is drawn back from the action, but its effects in mitigating judder aren't quite as pronounced in first person views where the difference between one frame and the next is that much more pronounced.
Over and above the fluidity of the screen update, the biggest challenge facing Playground in making Horizon feel like a Forza game was in retaining the signature physics and precision response. Forza Motorsport, famously, operates a 360 update per second system to ensure the authenticity of its physics, which ties in directly with the fast response from the 60Hz screen update. You can feel those calculations through the pad: input lag is very low indeed at 66ms - up to twice as responsive as many other racers we've played. Dropping down to 30Hz can have a fundamental impact on that low latency response. Up until now, only Criterion has managed to get close to giving that precision feel in a 30Hz title - famously, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit cuts frame-rate in half compared to Burnout Paradise (and indeed, Forza Motorsport) but only adds 16.67ms - or one single frame - of additional latency.
Our input lag tests - measured with a combination of a Ben Heck latency controller monitor board and a high speed camera - suggests that Horizon adds two additional frames of latency to that found in Forza Motorsport 4, giving a total of 100ms. This isn't quite the same level of achievement as Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (which based on the games we've measured is the most responsive 30Hz game ever made) but it's damn close. Indeed, prior to the release of NFS, many believed that 100ms was the lowest input latency possible on a 30Hz current-gen title.
1/7 Motion blur is the primary visual tool Playground Games uses to eliminate the judder typically associated with 30Hz gaming. This gallery of selected in-game shots demonstrates the effect in motion. Use the View All button to access full resolution shots.
Side-by-side with Forza 4, the difference can definitely be felt, but the move to 30Hz pays off in many other regards. Processing time per frame is doubled, opening up a whole new world of possibilities to the Playground developers. Key Forza 4 engine systems could be adapted, enhanced and improved with the additional time available. The most dramatic change is in the lighting. The existing Forza engine is no slouch here - the image-based lighting of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (a technique that "wraps" the environment around the cars) was impressive running at 30Hz, but it becomes a thing of beauty at twice the frame-rate. Gamma correct HDR is also implemented, ensuring that detail stands out in all lighting conditions.
Forza Horizon adds to that: a full time of day lighting system has been implemented, meaning that lighting conditions change radically as we move from day to night and back to day. Horizon offers dynamic shadows rendered according to the position of the sun, and these are implemented on both environments and vehicles. There are still compromises though - headlights don't seem to be the fully dynamic light sources you'd hope them to be, with limited illumination of cars up ahead and no additional brightness to the lighting when multiple beams intersect. In addition, there are no real-time reflections from the other cars, just from the environment. That 33.33ms rendering time can only go so far and it's case of Playground picking the trade-offs it felt were best. [Updated: small clarification on night-time lighted added.]
