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Dante’s Inferno developer Visceral Games has weighed in on the graphics versus framerate debate, saying it “can’t decouple the two”.
Late last month Ratchet & Clank developer Insomniac Games revealed PS3-exclusive action platformer Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time “will probably be Insomniac’s last 60fps game”.
In the blog update, Insomniac engine director Mike Acton said research had revealed that “framerate is important, but not critically so. When there is a clear choice between framerate and improved graphics, graphics should win. The correlation with review scores is clear”.
However, speaking to VideoGamer.com, Dante’s Inferno executive producer Jonathan Knight said a high framerate and great graphics go hand in hand.
“They’re [Insomniac Games] basically making the argument that people care more about graphics than framerate. But I can’t decouple the two.
“For our game, we’re getting high marks for graphics. People come up and they look at the game and they play the game and they’re like, wow, this game is beautiful. It looks great. A lot of what they’re responding to is the framerate, because it is so smooth and it’s so engaging and it’s mesmerising because of the smoothness of it.
“Obviously because it’s fast-paced, you want a framerate that keeps up with the pace of gameplay. You never want to be going, I tried to pull off that move but somehow the rendering felt it was lagging behind my controls. That’s why we strove for 60 and hit 60, because we wanted the screen to be as responsive as the controls. The effect has been our graphics are better because of the framerate. So in that sense they’re hard to decouple.”
Dante’s Inferno, a third person action game loosely based on 700 year-old Italian poem The Divine Comedy, will run at 60 fps. However, Knight insisted that the game’s graphics haven’t suffered as a result.
“I do agree that in reviews and in customer satisfaction, graphics are a big deal, as they should be. People spend a lot of money on games and consoles. They want to show off the power of their machine. But 60fps does just that. And you don’t have to compromise. You can have great graphics and 60 frames.
“Maybe people don’t know exactly the right technical way to talk about something but they appreciate the result,” said Knight. “With framerate, people absolutely appreciate the results of it, and they don’t quite know why it looks so good, or why it looks so crisp, but they do appreciate and value it.”
What’s your take on the graphics versus framerate debate? Let us know in the comments section below.
