Is the game *really* capped at 30 FPS, or is something else going on?

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

A lot of people tell me that 2048 can only run at 30 FPS tops, but I noticed that during Zone mode, there are a few brief instances where it manages to go at what looks like 60.


Then when I play the HD/Fury DLC, and it seems to sporadically shift between 30 and 60, and in the HD/Fury zone mode it almost consistently goes at 60.


What if the game isn't artificially capped at 30, and it just seems like it because it is pushing the Vita too hard?

So I double-check the Playstation Vita's hardware specs, and sure enough while it has a respectable 512 megabytes for System RAM, it only has a pitiful 128 megabytes for graphics memory... And that is just the RAM, I don't even know what kind of processor it has, so I have nothing to compare it to.

The point is, I think the Vita, while to make certainly is a powerful system, is not yet powerful enough for 2048 and needs a memory upgrade. What are your thoughts?

[Jonny]

You wanna tell me that a launch game is to good for it´s system?

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

From a technical standpoint, 2048 is very demanding. In some cases, even more demanding than HD (the latter running at 60 FPS consistently, and the PS3 had lower specs than the Vita outside of the specialized cell processor). Also of note is that the HD tracks in the HD/Fury DLC take nowhere near as long to load as the 2048 tracks, which implies that there is a lot more stuff packed onto the maps than in HD.

As far as everything else in 2048, it is a good game on it's own. It just doesn't hold up to the rest of the WipEout family.

But no, this is not a debate about how good a game 2048 is, this is a debate about whether or not Sony should upgrade the Vita's specs.

[Aidan]

The Vita definitely does not have better specs than a PS3, you can't even really compare the two as the technologies used in mobile and desktop components are radically different. 2048 is not as demanding than HD and from my understanding they ported the HD engine to the Vita, to get acceptable performance they would have had to make changes to get games to run on that engine on much lower hardware, the main difference seems to be texture quality. The difference in loads time is down two two different storage systems, the PS3 uses a standard HDD whereas the vita uses a propitiatory flash card which probably has slower read and write times among other things. I would say there is less stuff in a 2048 track as well as it being at a lower poly count in order to get good performance, so again less demanding. Racing games are not very technically demanding which is why they are usually some of the best looking games around, especially on consoles.

Sony aren't going to update the vita's hardware, there's a reason why companies don't update the hardware of consoles throughout its life cycle. It's expensive, and it break compatibility. See Nintendo's new 3ds, they added new buttons, a faster CPU, and have already got games that will only work on the new 3ds. Sony also don't care about the Vita enough for them to put time and money into upgrading the hardware, apart from when it saves them money. (see vita 2000s LCD screen)

2048 is also capped at 30fps, varying frame rates makes games unplayable and horrible, especially fast paced games.

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

How would doubling the clock speed of a CPU or adding slightly more RAM break compatibility with older games? And there are instances in 2048 where it seems to run at 60, even if those instances are few and far between.

Also, even in 2048, the HD tracks load a lot more quickly (between 5 and 10 seconds faster) than the 2048 tracks. How do you explain that?

[Darkdrium777]

How would doubling the clock speed of a CPUSome games have physics or even frame present code tied to the clock rate of the CPU. Double that, and the game goes twice as fast or whatever. This shouldn't be happening anymore today because there are ways to make the code independent of refresh or CPU clock rate, but it's a shortcut to do it the bad way. If the game stays on a fixed platform, there's basically no repercussions, but on a platform with varying specs it's absolutely idiotic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDA37BmvNwM#t=338).

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

I already have a solution for that, a spec system.

There will be a "Spec" flag on a game. If a game does not have the flag set (ie, all older titles), then it will default to "Spec 0." Games that are designed for faster processors will have a spec flag set higher, telling the Vita's processor to run at that speed. If the imaginary Vita that I came up with is Spec 1, and the current IRL Vita is Spec 0, then the Spec 1 processor will underclock itself to Spec 0 when running Spec 0 games. As for other hardware thingamajigs, like an increased amount of RAM, then it wouldn't really alter the game's speed.

There is also another idea I had: Make the Spec 1 CPU capable of running at a higher clock speed, but running at the Spec 0 clock speed by default until it detects a framerate drop, in which case it will overclock to the Spec 1 speed automatically and then underclock when the increased clockspeed is no longer necessary.

Also, the only thing that I actually had in mind for an upgraded Vita when I made the first post is an increased amount of RAM (2 gigabytes for system and 1 gigabyte for graphics), nothing more than that. I mean, come on. 512 megabytes is respectable for the main system, but 128 is absolutely pathetic for graphics when you are trying to play games with graphical fidelity on par with the PS3 (example: W'O 2048.)

Back to my original subject, WipEout 2048 does not appear to be locked to 30 frames per second. Want proof? Open up the HD campaign and do the Anulpha Pass zone event, that is where it was the most noticeable for me.

Now on the off-chance that it IS locked at 30, then that means my eyes are bad. However, there is nothing that officially states the game is locked at that framerate.

[Aidan]

Adding more VRAM isn't going to magically give you performance on par to a PS3, 128Mb is fine for mobile GPUs such as PowerVR as it would never be able to render high resolution textures at acceptable performance.



Chris Roberts: This decision was taken very early in the project, based on an apples-to-apples comparison. In short, based on the initial specs we received, we expected that the PS Vita should be just about able to draw the existing PS3 assets at around 30Hz. By using the existing PS3 code as a starting point, we were in a much better position to get the tech up and running whilst the art team thrashed out all the new content in parallel - WipEout 2048 is a launch title, and we needed a predictable, achievable target to aim for in a finite time, so 30Hz was always the goal.

Stuart Lovegrove: 30FPS was always the goal for development of WipEout 2048, as we wanted visual quality. However a choice of a solid 30FPS doesn't mean that it is a bad frame-rate! I don't know of many handheld racing games that run at 60FPS?

This was said during a tech interview for Eurogamer. 2048 is definitely capped at 30fps, fluctuating frame rate is one of the worst things for a game and usually makes them unplayable. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-wipeout-2048-tech-interview

[Darkdrium777]

a spec systemThis was done for the PSP. The processor originally shipped at 222MHz but was increased to 333MHz in newer titles with FW 3.50. With CFW it was possible to force older titles to 333MHz but it did change some aspects of the games (including WipEout PurE). This was only possible because the processor shipped slower than its regular frequency.

Adding more memory on the other hand does technically nothing, you can store more stuff in but you are still processor limited in the rendering process. It is useless to store too much information if it cannot be rendered properly. The GPU in the Vita isn't very powerful.

Changing the processor could be an extremely huge mess in supporting legacy code, and simply overclocking the one inside right now might not be feasible (due to thermals, battery power output, discharge time, etc).

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

I still don't think that article means that the game is capped at 30, just that it was designed with [an average of] 30 in mind. Again, much of the HD DLC plays smoother than the rest of 2048, especially in Zone Mode.

And I am absolutely certain that giving it more RAM would make a difference. Not much of a deference, but a difference none the less... And there is more to graphics memory than storing high-resolution textures. Everything adds up, since there is still going to be a lot more than just textures and shaders stored in the RAM.

[JFthebestJan]

@ amaroq: well, in my personal experience 2048 runs alot smoother than its HD/Fury DLC.
and wipeout HD on PS3 doesn't run at a constant 60fps in 1080p mode. in 720p it is more likely to achieve 60fps, but still suffers from micro stutter and major slowdowns from time to time (both metropia/moa therma last corner is a place where slowdowns appear every time. it's very noticeable in zone mode.