Wow, that's unexpected. I wonder if it was just how unplayable it was on the base PS4, or if the "woops forgot to tell Sony about refunding the game" and the "lol you can bypass Sony's...
Wow, that's unexpected. I wonder if it was just how unplayable it was on the base PS4, or if the "woops forgot to tell Sony about refunding the game" and the "lol you can bypass Sony's certification process ez with waivers" from the investor call also played a part.
I have about 16 hours into the game on the PS4. There are occasionally frame rate issues and a few minor graphical glitches, but nothing I would consider truly unplayable about it. Only one crash...
I have about 16 hours into the game on the PS4. There are occasionally frame rate issues and a few minor graphical glitches, but nothing I would consider truly unplayable about it. Only one crash that completely broke the game, and I reloaded just fine and didn't see it when I did literally the same thing again (to see if I could replicate). In fact, given my play time, you can probably guess I've enjoyed it a bit.
I think this is definitely more about the certification process and refund policy thing.
Based on digital foundry's analysis, the base PS4 almost never achieves 30 FPS outside some indoor areas. That sounds pretty bad to me. That said, both Sony and Microsoft certified Ride to Hell:...
There are occasionally frame rate issues
Based on digital foundry's analysis, the base PS4 almost never achieves 30 FPS outside some indoor areas. That sounds pretty bad to me.
That said, both Sony and Microsoft certified Ride to Hell: Retribution, so I don't think good performance or bug-free gameplay are all that important to getting a pass. This probably has a lot more to do with CD Projekt RED telling people to ask for refunds from a service that doesn't actually offer them.
Ocarina of Time basically ran at 15fps on the N64 and nobody complained. Granted, that's not an experience you want from a modern game, but it's always a compromise between resolution, graphical...
Ocarina of Time basically ran at 15fps on the N64 and nobody complained. Granted, that's not an experience you want from a modern game, but it's always a compromise between resolution, graphical detail and framerate. Nothing in that Digital Foundry video screamed "unplayable" to me. Game stutters during combat and large scale city shots, which is not unusual for an ambitious singleplayer game. If this was some competitive esports title, sure, there would be other priorities in the resolution-graphics-framerate triangle but for a crazy ambitious singleplayer RPG, I can live with it. In fact, I live with it by skipping this until a few patches are out.
OoT actually ran at 20, but that was 22years and the technology was brand new. I don't think a game that intentionally runs at 20 FPS like that has been released since the 6th console generation...
OoT actually ran at 20, but that was 22years and the technology was brand new. I don't think a game that intentionally runs at 20 FPS like that has been released since the 6th console generation took over.
OoT came out more than two years after the N64 was released, so it wasn't really that new. Besides that it actually started development by reusing the code from Super Mario 64
OoT came out more than two years after the N64 was released, so it wasn't really that new. Besides that it actually started development by reusing the code from Super Mario 64
3D games in general were new, and a drastic paradigm shift from how games were built for the preceding 20 years. 2 years is not a long time in that context. Most games from that generation have...
3D games in general were new, and a drastic paradigm shift from how games were built for the preceding 20 years. 2 years is not a long time in that context. Most games from that generation have questionable performance by modern standards.
And regardless of how things were in the '90s, that level of performance is not expected today, and hasn't been for quite some time.
3D games were not new at that time. On the contrary, if your game wasn't in 3D at that time it would not appear to be modern. The game came out in 1998. Home consoles capable of 3D graphics came...
3D games were not new at that time. On the contrary, if your game wasn't in 3D at that time it would not appear to be modern. The game came out in 1998. Home consoles capable of 3D graphics came out as early as 1993, which was also the same year as fairly polished 3D arcade titles like Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA, and also the same year Star Fox came out.
I'm not here to argue with you about Cyberpunk or acceptable framerates, just to correct the history.
But the hardware was still "new" in the sense that it had yet to be superseded. Developers were still working within the constraints of first generation consumer grade 3D acceleration, and...
But the hardware was still "new" in the sense that it had yet to be superseded. Developers were still working within the constraints of first generation consumer grade 3D acceleration, and performance generally suffered as they tried to make games more complex and immersive than simple platformers and racing games.
3D also wasn't mainstream in home console gaming until 1995 with the PlayStation. Nintendo's offering didn't come until 1996, only two years removed from the release of Ocarina of Time. Comparing console games to arcade titles running on bespoke hardware isn't really fair.
The Nintendo 64 is not “first generation” by any relevant definition unless you ignore the rest of the video game industry. On the contrary, it had hardware much more advanced than the competition...
The Nintendo 64 is not “first generation” by any relevant definition unless you ignore the rest of the video game industry. On the contrary, it had hardware much more advanced than the competition in the home console market. If you want to think in terms of generations, Sega would be bringing in the next generation the very next year with the introduction of the Dreamcast.
I adknowlege that comparing console to arcade at this point in time is not terribly relevant, which is why I didn’t bring up how very common they were. There were 3D arcade cabinets all the way back to the mid 80s.
It was part of the first generation of 3D-capable video game consoles.. There was also a two and a half year gap between the Nintendo 64 and the Dreamcast, not one year.
The Nintendo 64 is not “first generation” by any relevant definition unless you ignore the rest of the video game industry.
The entire concept of console generations is entirely arbitrary. Look at how the Jaguar was discontinued the exact same year as the Nintendo 64 was released. And the hardware inside the Nintendo...
The entire concept of console generations is entirely arbitrary. Look at how the Jaguar was discontinued the exact same year as the Nintendo 64 was released. And the hardware inside the Nintendo 64 is clearly much more advanced than either the Jaguar or the 3DO. Heck, it's also more advanced than the Saturn and Playstation. Heck, if you look at that wikipedia page, that 'generation' even includes a number of consoles that did not have any 3D acceleration whatsoever.
And the 'it' I was refering to was OoT, not the N64.
I really don't understand the point you are trying to make. It doesn't matter what you think of the N64's hardware, the fact remains that games running at that level of performance were common on...
I really don't understand the point you are trying to make. It doesn't matter what you think of the N64's hardware, the fact remains that games running at that level of performance were common on the platform, and haven't been considered "acceptable" on newer platforms for nearly two decades.
I feel like you're just trying to find points in my comments you can contradict without addressing the actual arguments in them.
I already said that I wasn’t trying to disprove your point. The history and context of your comment was incorrect and that was the part that needed to be addressed. I’m not trying to argue...
I already said that I wasn’t trying to disprove your point. The history and context of your comment was incorrect and that was the part that needed to be addressed. I’m not trying to argue anything, I am just trying to correct the history.
Personally I feel as if you are the one who is trying to pick a fight with me. But looking back I can see how my comments might appear to be argumentative so I will simply leave you with my apologies if I had hurt your feelings.
Sorry, I got a little defensive there. I still think that the historical context in my comment is valid, even if it needed some additional clarity. While early 3D-capable arcade cabinets and some...
Sorry, I got a little defensive there.
I still think that the historical context in my comment is valid, even if it needed some additional clarity. While early 3D-capable arcade cabinets and some failed consoles like the Jaguar and 3DO predate the N64 and PS1, most prominent developers did not sink their teeth into 3D game development until Sony and Nintendo's consoles hit the market.
I probably should have also clarified that I think worse performance became more prevalent in games released later in a console's lifecycle, as developers tried to make ever more impressive games on the limited hardware. Titles like Majora's Mask and Perfect Dark were practically slideshows compared to Super Mario 64. Cyberpunk feels like it fell in the same trap, though the solid performance of other PS4 games this year makes it an outlier rather than the norm.
Sure, I never said anything to the contrary. But apart from a few exotic exceptions, I doubt very much there’s anyone aiming at something below 30fps, and very few gamers will find that...
Sure, I never said anything to the contrary. But apart from a few exotic exceptions, I doubt very much there’s anyone aiming at something below 30fps, and very few gamers will find that acceptable.
When it comes to next-gen, I’d say a large portion of customers already expect at least the option to play it at 60fps. I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all, in my experience 60fps is way more pleasant than 30fps. And I’m not even that much of a gamer.
I'm old enough that I actually shot student films on film, so lower than 30 fps doesn't bother me. We shot in 24 fps all the time and I like the dream-like feel that can give. In fact I shot video...
I'm old enough that I actually shot student films on film, so lower than 30 fps doesn't bother me. We shot in 24 fps all the time and I like the dream-like feel that can give. In fact I shot video at 24 fps for a long time, basically until clients started demanding bigger numbers. I can see why a lot of folks that really enjoy big frame rate numbers would be disappointed with PS4's performance, but unless it drops down into single digits, for me, I actually kind of enjoy it as long as it's still smooth (consistent) and not jumping around.
Film FPS and video game FPS are not so easily comparable. Unless video games have inter-frame post-effects like motion blur or other post-processing, lower frame rates in games can throw people...
Film FPS and video game FPS are not so easily comparable. Unless video games have inter-frame post-effects like motion blur or other post-processing, lower frame rates in games can throw people out of the illusion that you are looking into a simulated world that represents continuous motion between frames. People often talk about low frame rates turning into a "slide show". Whereas, with film, 24 fps is, for one thing, absolutely constant (no dips below that). And, there is no computer simulation, so if there is motion captured during a single exposure, the motion will be blurred across a single frame (this is why motion blur is motivated as a post-process in video games and CGI generally, though, the quality of such post-processing is considered by some to detract from gaming).
So, a game that hits 24 fps, but inconstantly and dips below that, without motion blur, may be unacceptably non-fluid given the expectation of 30, 60, or even higher frame rates. Whereas, 24 fps film is expected (in the US at least), and since it captures real, unstimulated motion, it is at least subjectively fluid and realistic.
24 FPS is great for films, but less so for interactive content. 30 FPS is generally considered "good enough" for video games because 30 is an even divisor of 60 (the refresh rate of your TV)....
24 FPS is great for films, but less so for interactive content. 30 FPS is generally considered "good enough" for video games because 30 is an even divisor of 60 (the refresh rate of your TV). Movies are able to work at 24 FPS because we have tricks when transferring film to video like 3:2 pulldown, making it cleanly fit in 60 refreshes per second, among other inherent advantages other people have mentioned.
I’m not talking about VRR, just different static refresh rates. Since HDMI 1.2, video signal can be at any resolution and frame rate, as long as it is within the bandwidth limits. Many modern TVs...
I’m not talking about VRR, just different static refresh rates. Since HDMI 1.2, video signal can be at any resolution and frame rate, as long as it is within the bandwidth limits. Many modern TVs will directly support 24, 25, 30, 48, 50, and 60 Hz. The good video playback devices will adapt the signal based on the frame rate of the source video. I know that the Apple TV does. I am pretty sure roku and most Blu-ray players do. I’m not sure about chrome cast.
Right, but modern console games running under 30FPS aren't running at a fixed framerate, so using a lower refresh rate would only make the problem worse.
Right, but modern console games running under 30FPS aren't running at a fixed framerate, so using a lower refresh rate would only make the problem worse.
I was only commenting on your statement about the refresh rate of TVs. It is true that TVs used to refresh at 60Hz (or 50Hz for PAL), but it is usually not true any more. Techniques like 3:2 pull...
I was only commenting on your statement about the refresh rate of TVs. It is true that TVs used to refresh at 60Hz (or 50Hz for PAL), but it is usually not true any more. Techniques like 3:2 pull down should not be needed on modern televisions.
It is true that alternative refresh rates are of little value to consoles. I can’t wait for VRR to become common and standard.
I understand that you've got 16 hours in the game on PS4 and find the performance consistent enough to be acceptable. That's good to hear. I haven't played the game to know if DF's video was...
I understand that you've got 16 hours in the game on PS4 and find the performance consistent enough to be acceptable. That's good to hear. I haven't played the game to know if DF's video was basically stress testing or representative of the average experience of actually playing the game but I suppose if most of the game isn't heavily affected with inconsistencies like they were trying to generate, it's not unplayable.
I consider myself something of a fidelity snob (I just got a 240Hz monitor) but there's nothing unplayable about a generally consistent performance, even if it's at 15 fps. It's not at all ideal but it's also not something a person can't get acclimatized too, barring any physiological barriers. I see some people claiming headaches with anything under 60 fps but then I can't imagine they would ever play games on anything but PC considering how consoles running games widely at 60 fps is a pretty recent thing.
It really feels like there's a "We've always been at war with East Asia" vibe regarding video game performance since the tail end of 2014 when the PS4 was releasing and everyone suddenly decided that 1080p/60fps had to be the new standard even though the consoles were designed with 720p/30fps in mind (thus leading to the mid-gen upgrades of the PS4 Pro and Xbox Series X). I think many people would be shocked if they went back to play many PS2 era titles only to find out how many of them ran under 30 fps consistently. The mega-popular SOCOM 2 ran at something like 15-25 fps online, and not consistently either.
I can understand demanding better but it seems misplaced to me that people claim that anything under a regular 30 fps is unplayable when many of us grew up playing games like that.
I think Cyberpunk has pretty significant motion blurring (it's one of the complaints I've heard, actually, since some people really dislike the effect), but most games running at 24fps are a very...
I think Cyberpunk has pretty significant motion blurring (it's one of the complaints I've heard, actually, since some people really dislike the effect), but most games running at 24fps are a very different experience from an otherwise equivalent film at that framerate. Instead of each frame smearing in to the one before and after, each is a perfectly precise, crisp, instantaneous snapshot of the world, and much higher framerates are typically required to avoid a hitching, jerky feeling. (I think in film terminology, this effect is similar to filming with an extremely narrow shutter angle, but that's well outside my expertise. Also, this is all obviously subjective. Some people aren't bothered by extremely low framerates; some keep finding it uncomfortable well above the typical minimum acceptable benchmark of 30fps.)
PS4 Slim (Basically the same) and can report the exact same. I am having an absolute blast and the storyline and gameplay is the most fun I've had in eons, sure there's some glitches but nothing...
PS4 Slim (Basically the same) and can report the exact same.
I am having an absolute blast and the storyline and gameplay is the most fun I've had in eons, sure there's some glitches but nothing as bad as playing a Fallout game, but still equally as funny to witness (in one scene a gun appeared out of nowhere and the main character just had a gun sticking halfway through his head, and when he went to grab a "chip" out of his head, the gun followed the hand just floating where the chip should have been — was it game breaking? No. Did it break the immersion? Yes. Was it absolutely hilarious? Oh yeah.)
I clipped through a box in one mission, couldn't move. Saved, reloaded and it spawned me out. I've had two crashes but only after about 6 hour sessions.
If you disable a few things in settings it is INCREDIBLY more graphically delicious. Disable everything but Chromatic Aberration and Lens Flare and the game will no longer look a bit smudgy.
It's a beautiful game even on lesser hardware, I get that the PS5 is way better, but it's still a fantastic and heavily immersive game.
This seems like the story with every grandiose anticipated game that is a buggy mess at launch. There’s always a bunch of people demanding refunds and a bunch of people asking what the problem is...
This seems like the story with every grandiose anticipated game that is a buggy mess at launch. There’s always a bunch of people demanding refunds and a bunch of people asking what the problem is stating they’re having the times of their lives.
I think a significant reason why we're seeing so many negative reactions is also because most of us actually enjoying the game are still too busy playing it to participate in many discussions...
I think a significant reason why we're seeing so many negative reactions is also because most of us actually enjoying the game are still too busy playing it to participate in many discussions about it, let alone create any. E.g. I am on my second playthrough now, and am at over 70 hours played since its release. It's why I haven't been around Tildes all that much the last week. :P
And personally, I also have very little desire to get into debates with anyone seemingly celebrating every bit of bad news released about the game, and/or anyone who keeps calling the game "terrible/garbage" every chance they get.
Just to give people a sense of how these strange bugs operate, I can share a story about one I busted that surprised me. The company had a custom business application (managing sales territories)...
Just to give people a sense of how these strange bugs operate, I can share a story about one I busted that surprised me.
The company had a custom business application (managing sales territories) that was installed on a couple thousand client machines in a large corporation. It had worked fine for years. Suddenly we're getting reports that it's working fine for some users, not at all (failure to launch) with others. It works perfectly on all of our developer machines, even the testing VMs I built for them. We can't reproduce the problem at all... but the clients are definitely having issues.
The developers tried to bust this for about a week before one of my posse asked me to take a look at it and find what they were missing. I fired up a virgin VM/install of Win7 and installed the app - instant failure. It does not function on clean, fully patched windows. Works perfectly on my desktop. I'm smelling missing DLLs at this point so on a hunch I fire up some of the old powertoys that let you track in excruciating detail every single system call made by the application. These generate a ton of logs, so I spend the rest of the day digging.
Turns out the application depended upon a certain common DLL that was supposed to be bundled with the application itself and installed alongside it if it wasn't present on the system. Somehow the developers over the years had lost sight of this dependency and due to changes in their build process (mostly for the better) it wasn't being included any longer.
That same DLL was installed with Adobe Acrobat. That was the reason the machines that worked, worked. All of them (even my test VMs, me being the idiot here) had Acrobat installed because this app generates a lot of PDF reports for management. It was convenient to have Acrobat installed so one didn't have to move the PDFs off the test VMs to open them and have a look.
Some of the client machines didn't have Acrobat, and that's why it couldn't launch for those machines. Made a few simple changes to the build process to get the preprequisites included now that I actually had a master list of what the app was trying to load for itself on launch. Simple update, simple fix, but of course the client wasn't too happy about it.
This is just one example of how the complexity can get away from you, and result in apparently nonsensical errors between various systems.
There's an audience of very entitled gamers. Some people aren't satisfied to compromise when games don't meet their expectations and spread their negativity over the internet wherever they can....
There's an audience of very entitled gamers. Some people aren't satisfied to compromise when games don't meet their expectations and spread their negativity over the internet wherever they can. And because they are loud they often overwhelm the more patient and understanding ones, even though they are probably a much larger group.
For sure, the entitled crowd are not the only ones complaining; they're just the loudest and most noticeable. But frankly, I think that people are expecting stable bug-free AAA titles at launch...
For sure, the entitled crowd are not the only ones complaining; they're just the loudest and most noticeable.
But frankly, I think that people are expecting stable bug-free AAA titles at launch have unrealistic expectations given how often buggy releases like this happen. I mean, sure, we should expect it to be the standard, but the fact of the matter is that there's far too large of an audience who are willing to buy the game before it's even complete, let alone released, so companies are going to do whatever will give them the most money.
I will try this and see how I feel. Thanks for the tip!
If you disable a few things in settings it is INCREDIBLY more graphically delicious. Disable everything but Chromatic Aberration and Lens Flare and the game will no longer look a bit smudgy.
I will try this and see how I feel. Thanks for the tip!
It's gotta be the refunds. CDPR tried throwing around some weight that it turns out they don't quite have. Will be interesting to see where this develops next.
It's gotta be the refunds. CDPR tried throwing around some weight that it turns out they don't quite have. Will be interesting to see where this develops next.
This whole trainwreck is hilarious to watch, but I also had no real interest in the game. For the sake of those interested in the game, however, I hope they pull a FO76 / No Man's Sky and the game...
This whole trainwreck is hilarious to watch, but I also had no real interest in the game. For the sake of those interested in the game, however, I hope they pull a FO76 / No Man's Sky and the game ends up substantially better in the coming months/years.
It’s fucking gross that refund policies like Steam’s <1 hour of play aren’t universal yet and even Steam’s policy change felt late and is still a little wonky.
It’s fucking gross that refund policies like Steam’s <1 hour of play aren’t universal yet and even Steam’s policy change felt late and is still a little wonky.
I had no idea this policy existed, so I went to look it up. Neat! Thanks. :)
I had no idea this policy existed, so I went to look it up.
Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any title that is requested within 14 days of purchase and has been played for less than 2 hours. Even if you fall outside of the refund rules we've described, you can submit a request and we'll take a look at it. [Source]
I've really gained newfound appreciation for the EU's mandatory 14 day return policy after seeing how atrocious some of these other digital retailer's return policies are. If I go to a physical...
I've really gained newfound appreciation for the EU's mandatory 14 day return policy after seeing how atrocious some of these other digital retailer's return policies are. If I go to a physical store here, I can buy a game, play it as much as I want, and return it within 14 days with no questions asked if I feel like it (provided I did not damage the physical game in any way). And I've always defended that you should have the same kind of liberty for digital copies of games, or at least something comparable to it like "you can return if you played less than X hours". It's ridiculous that a giant like Sony doesn't even have something comparable to Steam, which is already the bare bare minimum.
I can't find any articles that talk about No Many's Sky being de-listed on the store. Do you remember the exact wording that was used by new articles covering it?
I can't find any articles that talk about No Many's Sky being de-listed on the store. Do you remember the exact wording that was used by new articles covering it?
They never pulled the game down, just offered refunds for it. https://www.ibtimes.com/no-mans-sky-ps4-refunds-slammed-former-sony-director-calls-those-return-game-robbers-2409470...
They never pulled the game down, just offered refunds for it.
Gotcha. Yeah, that I remember and could find. I thought @JXM was saying that No Man's Sky was removed from the Playstation store, but I guess I read his comment wrong.
Gotcha. Yeah, that I remember and could find. I thought @JXM was saying that No Man's Sky was removed from the Playstation store, but I guess I read his comment wrong.
Although the launch was flawed as one can be, this feels like disproportionate retribution. Sucks for anyone who wants to get the game now but cannot due to this.
Although the launch was flawed as one can be, this feels like disproportionate retribution. Sucks for anyone who wants to get the game now but cannot due to this.
It's really not. CDPR told people to get refunds. Sony's not going to refund a game that's not broken. They're not going to sell a broken game. To issue refunds, they either have to change their...
It's really not. CDPR told people to get refunds. Sony's not going to refund a game that's not broken. They're not going to sell a broken game. To issue refunds, they either have to change their refund policy (not happening for one game) or declare the game broken. So they called it broken and yanked it off the storefront. Now they can issue refunds and do right by their customer while respecting their own refund policy. Their cert process takes a reputation hit, but you can bet the re-certification of Cyberpunk on Playstation is going to be exceptionally thorough.
Maybe. But I can’t fail to see the hypothetical positives of punishing companies for knowingly shipping broken or incomplete products. Maybe if retributions like that where commonplace, game...
Maybe. But I can’t fail to see the hypothetical positives of punishing companies for knowingly shipping broken or incomplete products. Maybe if retributions like that where commonplace, game studios would take their commitment with the consumer a little more seriously.
They might, but even then never around Christmas. Everyone becomes a rabid idiot ready to ship pre-alphas if there's the slightest chance they can get it out around the holidays.
They might, but even then never around Christmas. Everyone becomes a rabid idiot ready to ship pre-alphas if there's the slightest chance they can get it out around the holidays.
Hopefully this shakes up the whole “preorder” debacle. It may be our fault as the consumers that they thought they could get away with this in the first place. Is it on us to hold them accountable...
Hopefully this shakes up the whole “preorder” debacle. It may be our fault as the consumers that they thought they could get away with this in the first place. Is it on us to hold them accountable or should we expect game devs to carry the same morals and values that we expect or like?
Xbox Update: https://twitter.com/XboxSupport/status/1339983446865801224 Doesn't sound like they're going to pull it from the store though, just allow refunds.
Cyberpunk 2077: To ensure that every player can get the experience they expect on Xbox, we will be expanding our existing refund policy to offer full refunds to anyone who purchased Cyberpunk 2077 digitally from the Microsoft Store, until further notice.
Doesn't sound like they're going to pull it from the store though, just allow refunds.
CDPR tweeted an official statement about this: https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1339846154176126976 Sounds like they're not intending to do anything similar with the Xbox version:
Kicinski said in an emailed statement that CD Projekt was not in talks with Microsoft about a possible withdrawal of the console version of the game from the Xbox platform.
Wow, that's unexpected. I wonder if it was just how unplayable it was on the base PS4, or if the "woops forgot to tell Sony about refunding the game" and the "lol you can bypass Sony's certification process ez with waivers" from the investor call also played a part.
I have about 16 hours into the game on the PS4. There are occasionally frame rate issues and a few minor graphical glitches, but nothing I would consider truly unplayable about it. Only one crash that completely broke the game, and I reloaded just fine and didn't see it when I did literally the same thing again (to see if I could replicate). In fact, given my play time, you can probably guess I've enjoyed it a bit.
I think this is definitely more about the certification process and refund policy thing.
Based on digital foundry's analysis, the base PS4 almost never achieves 30 FPS outside some indoor areas. That sounds pretty bad to me.
That said, both Sony and Microsoft certified Ride to Hell: Retribution, so I don't think good performance or bug-free gameplay are all that important to getting a pass. This probably has a lot more to do with CD Projekt RED telling people to ask for refunds from a service that doesn't actually offer them.
Ocarina of Time basically ran at 15fps on the N64 and nobody complained. Granted, that's not an experience you want from a modern game, but it's always a compromise between resolution, graphical detail and framerate. Nothing in that Digital Foundry video screamed "unplayable" to me. Game stutters during combat and large scale city shots, which is not unusual for an ambitious singleplayer game. If this was some competitive esports title, sure, there would be other priorities in the resolution-graphics-framerate triangle but for a crazy ambitious singleplayer RPG, I can live with it. In fact, I live with it by skipping this until a few patches are out.
OoT actually ran at 20, but that was 22years and the technology was brand new. I don't think a game that intentionally runs at 20 FPS like that has been released since the 6th console generation took over.
OoT came out more than two years after the N64 was released, so it wasn't really that new. Besides that it actually started development by reusing the code from Super Mario 64
3D games in general were new, and a drastic paradigm shift from how games were built for the preceding 20 years. 2 years is not a long time in that context. Most games from that generation have questionable performance by modern standards.
And regardless of how things were in the '90s, that level of performance is not expected today, and hasn't been for quite some time.
3D games were not new at that time. On the contrary, if your game wasn't in 3D at that time it would not appear to be modern. The game came out in 1998. Home consoles capable of 3D graphics came out as early as 1993, which was also the same year as fairly polished 3D arcade titles like Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA, and also the same year Star Fox came out.
I'm not here to argue with you about Cyberpunk or acceptable framerates, just to correct the history.
But the hardware was still "new" in the sense that it had yet to be superseded. Developers were still working within the constraints of first generation consumer grade 3D acceleration, and performance generally suffered as they tried to make games more complex and immersive than simple platformers and racing games.
3D also wasn't mainstream in home console gaming until 1995 with the PlayStation. Nintendo's offering didn't come until 1996, only two years removed from the release of Ocarina of Time. Comparing console games to arcade titles running on bespoke hardware isn't really fair.
The Nintendo 64 is not “first generation” by any relevant definition unless you ignore the rest of the video game industry. On the contrary, it had hardware much more advanced than the competition in the home console market. If you want to think in terms of generations, Sega would be bringing in the next generation the very next year with the introduction of the Dreamcast.
I adknowlege that comparing console to arcade at this point in time is not terribly relevant, which is why I didn’t bring up how very common they were. There were 3D arcade cabinets all the way back to the mid 80s.
It was part of the first generation of 3D-capable video game consoles..
There was also a two and a half year gap between the Nintendo 64 and the Dreamcast, not one year.
The entire concept of console generations is entirely arbitrary. Look at how the Jaguar was discontinued the exact same year as the Nintendo 64 was released. And the hardware inside the Nintendo 64 is clearly much more advanced than either the Jaguar or the 3DO. Heck, it's also more advanced than the Saturn and Playstation. Heck, if you look at that wikipedia page, that 'generation' even includes a number of consoles that did not have any 3D acceleration whatsoever.
And the 'it' I was refering to was OoT, not the N64.
I really don't understand the point you are trying to make. It doesn't matter what you think of the N64's hardware, the fact remains that games running at that level of performance were common on the platform, and haven't been considered "acceptable" on newer platforms for nearly two decades.
I feel like you're just trying to find points in my comments you can contradict without addressing the actual arguments in them.
I already said that I wasn’t trying to disprove your point. The history and context of your comment was incorrect and that was the part that needed to be addressed. I’m not trying to argue anything, I am just trying to correct the history.
Personally I feel as if you are the one who is trying to pick a fight with me. But looking back I can see how my comments might appear to be argumentative so I will simply leave you with my apologies if I had hurt your feelings.
Sorry, I got a little defensive there.
I still think that the historical context in my comment is valid, even if it needed some additional clarity. While early 3D-capable arcade cabinets and some failed consoles like the Jaguar and 3DO predate the N64 and PS1, most prominent developers did not sink their teeth into 3D game development until Sony and Nintendo's consoles hit the market.
I probably should have also clarified that I think worse performance became more prevalent in games released later in a console's lifecycle, as developers tried to make ever more impressive games on the limited hardware. Titles like Majora's Mask and Perfect Dark were practically slideshows compared to Super Mario 64. Cyberpunk feels like it fell in the same trap, though the solid performance of other PS4 games this year makes it an outlier rather than the norm.
That was a long time ago. Things change.
Sure, people's belief that a maximum frame rate is more important than a consistent one.
Not exactly. The games themselves were entirely different, and developed with a different frame rate in mind.
And present games aren't developed with 60fps in mind despite gamers' belief if in it being the standard.
Sure, I never said anything to the contrary. But apart from a few exotic exceptions, I doubt very much there’s anyone aiming at something below 30fps, and very few gamers will find that acceptable.
When it comes to next-gen, I’d say a large portion of customers already expect at least the option to play it at 60fps. I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all, in my experience 60fps is way more pleasant than 30fps. And I’m not even that much of a gamer.
I'm old enough that I actually shot student films on film, so lower than 30 fps doesn't bother me. We shot in 24 fps all the time and I like the dream-like feel that can give. In fact I shot video at 24 fps for a long time, basically until clients started demanding bigger numbers. I can see why a lot of folks that really enjoy big frame rate numbers would be disappointed with PS4's performance, but unless it drops down into single digits, for me, I actually kind of enjoy it as long as it's still smooth (consistent) and not jumping around.
Film FPS and video game FPS are not so easily comparable. Unless video games have inter-frame post-effects like motion blur or other post-processing, lower frame rates in games can throw people out of the illusion that you are looking into a simulated world that represents continuous motion between frames. People often talk about low frame rates turning into a "slide show". Whereas, with film, 24 fps is, for one thing, absolutely constant (no dips below that). And, there is no computer simulation, so if there is motion captured during a single exposure, the motion will be blurred across a single frame (this is why motion blur is motivated as a post-process in video games and CGI generally, though, the quality of such post-processing is considered by some to detract from gaming).
So, a game that hits 24 fps, but inconstantly and dips below that, without motion blur, may be unacceptably non-fluid given the expectation of 30, 60, or even higher frame rates. Whereas, 24 fps film is expected (in the US at least), and since it captures real, unstimulated motion, it is at least subjectively fluid and realistic.
24 FPS is great for films, but less so for interactive content. 30 FPS is generally considered "good enough" for video games because 30 is an even divisor of 60 (the refresh rate of your TV). Movies are able to work at 24 FPS because we have tricks when transferring film to video like 3:2 pulldown, making it cleanly fit in 60 refreshes per second, among other inherent advantages other people have mentioned.
It’s also worth noting that most modern TVs can change their frame rate to something that divides into 24hz, so these techniques aren’t needed.
Your output device needs to support it too. Currently only Xboxes and PC graphics cards support VRR.
I’m not talking about VRR, just different static refresh rates. Since HDMI 1.2, video signal can be at any resolution and frame rate, as long as it is within the bandwidth limits. Many modern TVs will directly support 24, 25, 30, 48, 50, and 60 Hz. The good video playback devices will adapt the signal based on the frame rate of the source video. I know that the Apple TV does. I am pretty sure roku and most Blu-ray players do. I’m not sure about chrome cast.
Right, but modern console games running under 30FPS aren't running at a fixed framerate, so using a lower refresh rate would only make the problem worse.
I was only commenting on your statement about the refresh rate of TVs. It is true that TVs used to refresh at 60Hz (or 50Hz for PAL), but it is usually not true any more. Techniques like 3:2 pull down should not be needed on modern televisions.
It is true that alternative refresh rates are of little value to consoles. I can’t wait for VRR to become common and standard.
I understand that you've got 16 hours in the game on PS4 and find the performance consistent enough to be acceptable. That's good to hear. I haven't played the game to know if DF's video was basically stress testing or representative of the average experience of actually playing the game but I suppose if most of the game isn't heavily affected with inconsistencies like they were trying to generate, it's not unplayable.
I consider myself something of a fidelity snob (I just got a 240Hz monitor) but there's nothing unplayable about a generally consistent performance, even if it's at 15 fps. It's not at all ideal but it's also not something a person can't get acclimatized too, barring any physiological barriers. I see some people claiming headaches with anything under 60 fps but then I can't imagine they would ever play games on anything but PC considering how consoles running games widely at 60 fps is a pretty recent thing.
It really feels like there's a "We've always been at war with East Asia" vibe regarding video game performance since the tail end of 2014 when the PS4 was releasing and everyone suddenly decided that 1080p/60fps had to be the new standard even though the consoles were designed with 720p/30fps in mind (thus leading to the mid-gen upgrades of the PS4 Pro and Xbox Series X). I think many people would be shocked if they went back to play many PS2 era titles only to find out how many of them ran under 30 fps consistently. The mega-popular SOCOM 2 ran at something like 15-25 fps online, and not consistently either.
I can understand demanding better but it seems misplaced to me that people claim that anything under a regular 30 fps is unplayable when many of us grew up playing games like that.
I think Cyberpunk has pretty significant motion blurring (it's one of the complaints I've heard, actually, since some people really dislike the effect), but most games running at 24fps are a very different experience from an otherwise equivalent film at that framerate. Instead of each frame smearing in to the one before and after, each is a perfectly precise, crisp, instantaneous snapshot of the world, and much higher framerates are typically required to avoid a hitching, jerky feeling. (I think in film terminology, this effect is similar to filming with an extremely narrow shutter angle, but that's well outside my expertise. Also, this is all obviously subjective. Some people aren't bothered by extremely low framerates; some keep finding it uncomfortable well above the typical minimum acceptable benchmark of 30fps.)
Well, for once, film and gaming are actually pretty different.
PS4 Slim (Basically the same) and can report the exact same.
I am having an absolute blast and the storyline and gameplay is the most fun I've had in eons, sure there's some glitches but nothing as bad as playing a Fallout game, but still equally as funny to witness (in one scene a gun appeared out of nowhere and the main character just had a gun sticking halfway through his head, and when he went to grab a "chip" out of his head, the gun followed the hand just floating where the chip should have been — was it game breaking? No. Did it break the immersion? Yes. Was it absolutely hilarious? Oh yeah.)
I clipped through a box in one mission, couldn't move. Saved, reloaded and it spawned me out. I've had two crashes but only after about 6 hour sessions.
If you disable a few things in settings it is INCREDIBLY more graphically delicious. Disable everything but Chromatic Aberration and Lens Flare and the game will no longer look a bit smudgy.
It's a beautiful game even on lesser hardware, I get that the PS5 is way better, but it's still a fantastic and heavily immersive game.
This seems like the story with every grandiose anticipated game that is a buggy mess at launch. There’s always a bunch of people demanding refunds and a bunch of people asking what the problem is stating they’re having the times of their lives.
I think a significant reason why we're seeing so many negative reactions is also because most of us actually enjoying the game are still too busy playing it to participate in many discussions about it, let alone create any. E.g. I am on my second playthrough now, and am at over 70 hours played since its release. It's why I haven't been around Tildes all that much the last week. :P
And personally, I also have very little desire to get into debates with anyone seemingly celebrating every bit of bad news released about the game, and/or anyone who keeps calling the game "terrible/garbage" every chance they get.
Just to give people a sense of how these strange bugs operate, I can share a story about one I busted that surprised me.
The company had a custom business application (managing sales territories) that was installed on a couple thousand client machines in a large corporation. It had worked fine for years. Suddenly we're getting reports that it's working fine for some users, not at all (failure to launch) with others. It works perfectly on all of our developer machines, even the testing VMs I built for them. We can't reproduce the problem at all... but the clients are definitely having issues.
The developers tried to bust this for about a week before one of my posse asked me to take a look at it and find what they were missing. I fired up a virgin VM/install of Win7 and installed the app - instant failure. It does not function on clean, fully patched windows. Works perfectly on my desktop. I'm smelling missing DLLs at this point so on a hunch I fire up some of the old powertoys that let you track in excruciating detail every single system call made by the application. These generate a ton of logs, so I spend the rest of the day digging.
Turns out the application depended upon a certain common DLL that was supposed to be bundled with the application itself and installed alongside it if it wasn't present on the system. Somehow the developers over the years had lost sight of this dependency and due to changes in their build process (mostly for the better) it wasn't being included any longer.
That same DLL was installed with Adobe Acrobat. That was the reason the machines that worked, worked. All of them (even my test VMs, me being the idiot here) had Acrobat installed because this app generates a lot of PDF reports for management. It was convenient to have Acrobat installed so one didn't have to move the PDFs off the test VMs to open them and have a look.
Some of the client machines didn't have Acrobat, and that's why it couldn't launch for those machines. Made a few simple changes to the build process to get the preprequisites included now that I actually had a master list of what the app was trying to load for itself on launch. Simple update, simple fix, but of course the client wasn't too happy about it.
This is just one example of how the complexity can get away from you, and result in apparently nonsensical errors between various systems.
There's an audience of very entitled gamers. Some people aren't satisfied to compromise when games don't meet their expectations and spread their negativity over the internet wherever they can. And because they are loud they often overwhelm the more patient and understanding ones, even though they are probably a much larger group.
For sure, the entitled crowd are not the only ones complaining; they're just the loudest and most noticeable.
But frankly, I think that people are expecting stable bug-free AAA titles at launch have unrealistic expectations given how often buggy releases like this happen. I mean, sure, we should expect it to be the standard, but the fact of the matter is that there's far too large of an audience who are willing to buy the game before it's even complete, let alone released, so companies are going to do whatever will give them the most money.
I will try this and see how I feel. Thanks for the tip!
It's gotta be the refunds. CDPR tried throwing around some weight that it turns out they don't quite have. Will be interesting to see where this develops next.
I can't be the only one who finds this hilarious. :)
This whole trainwreck is hilarious to watch, but I also had no real interest in the game. For the sake of those interested in the game, however, I hope they pull a FO76 / No Man's Sky and the game ends up substantially better in the coming months/years.
It’s fucking gross that refund policies like Steam’s <1 hour of play aren’t universal yet and even Steam’s policy change felt late and is still a little wonky.
I had no idea this policy existed, so I went to look it up.
Neat! Thanks. :)
I've really gained newfound appreciation for the EU's mandatory 14 day return policy after seeing how atrocious some of these other digital retailer's return policies are. If I go to a physical store here, I can buy a game, play it as much as I want, and return it within 14 days with no questions asked if I feel like it (provided I did not damage the physical game in any way). And I've always defended that you should have the same kind of liberty for digital copies of games, or at least something comparable to it like "you can return if you played less than X hours". It's ridiculous that a giant like Sony doesn't even have something comparable to Steam, which is already the bare bare minimum.
I can only remember one other time that Sony willingly offered refunds to customers - with No Man's Sky. Are there any other examples?
I can't find any articles that talk about No Many's Sky being de-listed on the store. Do you remember the exact wording that was used by new articles covering it?
They never pulled the game down, just offered refunds for it.
https://www.ibtimes.com/no-mans-sky-ps4-refunds-slammed-former-sony-director-calls-those-return-game-robbers-2409470
https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/gaming/704623/No-Man-s-Sky-refund-PS4-Steam-No-Man-s-Sky-Reddit-Mods
https://www.destructoid.com/stories/sony-s-refund-policy-under-scrutiny-after-no-man-s-sky-launch-381520.phtml
Gotcha. Yeah, that I remember and could find. I thought @JXM was saying that No Man's Sky was removed from the Playstation store, but I guess I read his comment wrong.
I was referring to the part about giving refunds but my comment wasn't clear about that.
Although the launch was flawed as one can be, this feels like disproportionate retribution. Sucks for anyone who wants to get the game now but cannot due to this.
It's really not. CDPR told people to get refunds. Sony's not going to refund a game that's not broken. They're not going to sell a broken game. To issue refunds, they either have to change their refund policy (not happening for one game) or declare the game broken. So they called it broken and yanked it off the storefront. Now they can issue refunds and do right by their customer while respecting their own refund policy. Their cert process takes a reputation hit, but you can bet the re-certification of Cyberpunk on Playstation is going to be exceptionally thorough.
Maybe. But I can’t fail to see the hypothetical positives of punishing companies for knowingly shipping broken or incomplete products. Maybe if retributions like that where commonplace, game studios would take their commitment with the consumer a little more seriously.
They might, but even then never around Christmas. Everyone becomes a rabid idiot ready to ship pre-alphas if there's the slightest chance they can get it out around the holidays.
Retail copies are still available.
Hopefully this shakes up the whole “preorder” debacle. It may be our fault as the consumers that they thought they could get away with this in the first place. Is it on us to hold them accountable or should we expect game devs to carry the same morals and values that we expect or like?
Xbox Update: https://twitter.com/XboxSupport/status/1339983446865801224
Doesn't sound like they're going to pull it from the store though, just allow refunds.
CDPR tweeted an official statement about this: https://twitter.com/CyberpunkGame/status/1339846154176126976
Sounds like they're not intending to do anything similar with the Xbox version: