Dev: PS4 Has None of the “1 FPS Barrier” From Last Gen, Pleasantly Surprised With Graphics API

Head programmer for Tropico 5 talks about the process of porting the game to PS4.

[Forn]

All this blah blah blah talk about frames-per-second and resolution and whatever other miniscule crap that doesn't really matter very much in the scheme of a game as a whole is getting tiresome to say the least. It's clear that devs are happy with the hardware and are obviously already getting much more out of it than last generation's are able to provide. Whether it's far better graphics, more solid framerate, or both, or something else entirely like physics or AI. Why can't 'gamers' be happy too? There are incredible games otw to PS4 for the rest of this year and next and beyond, and I for one am very excited for those experiences.

[Christopher]

You know it's kinda that person's job to worry about the things you say we shouldn't be worried about. I mean, if you were to ask me about the benefits of new APIs for Web programming, I'd talk about it in a manner that people who just browse a site don't give a crap about. But, that stuff is important as heck to me.

[GarrusVakarian]

Guess what? People care about different things.

It's a hard concept to grasp, I know.

[n1kki6]

Apparently most people on this site care about resolution and frame rates on freaking consoles, rather than playing the games. Why the hell was this not an issue last gen. The funny part is people think that once devs get a grasp of the hardware that games will get better res and FPS. Let me break it to you morons, this isn't some crazy unknown tech like the cell processor, as games get bigger and more aggressive graphically, they will have even more trouble locking in 1080p at 60fps, not the other way around.

[logan_izer10]

Very true, for example... This guy
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[DukeOfStilwater]

Gamers have become incredibly spoilt and fail to realise it's not always about the resolution and graphics, but the gameplay, too. Of course having a really terrible looking game that has good gameplay is annoying (unless it's an Indie game) but having a game that has the optiminal resolution but not the "master-race" frame-rate of 60fps is immediately "bad" considering they can't tell the difference between 30fps and below. They also don't realise that consoles automatically upscale things that are 720p. It doesn't look amazing, but it looks a lot better than when you try to play a forced 720p game on a 1080p monitor on PC 'cos NO upscaling. It's like how GTA V was announced to be 1080p/30fps on XBOX ONE and PS4 and people said that that's terrible and stuff, but when you put it in to perspective considering the stuff they added and bumped up, that's pretty impressive, honestly. I'm one happy gamer this November.

[Tony-Red-Grave]

How long have you been gaming? Graphics/FPS has always played a big part of gaming. Why? because they increase immersion. on the N64 the 007 games looked good and ran pretty decently. On PS1 you had CDs which changed the way we play games. With the introduction of CDs we got better cutscenes and more disk memory. With that being added better hardware was needed and better hardware ment better graphics and FPS.

It was the same with cartridges as well unless you believe that cartridges received no hardware modifications and every console looked the same and played the same.

[LamerTamer]

You have no idea of what upscaling is. It is no magic that transforms 720p into 1080p. It is a matter of fact the exact same thing as playing a 720p PC game on a 1080p monitor. All it does is stretch the image to fit the screen and add a filter to blur it out. It looks bad especially in details in the distance.

[Griever]

If graphics are not important why not just keep playing Pacman, Tetris or Donkey Kong for the rest of our lives? No need for new hardware, right? Why does everybody cares about new and improved hardware each gen if gameplay in the only thing that matters? Only people with underpowered gaming machines say that graphics do not matter. First it was only the Nintendo gamers that used that argument and now Xbox gamers are joined them too. Ironically, during the N64 and Gamecube era, Nintendo gamers were so proud of its superior graphics capabilities and how their games looked better. Similarly the Xbox gamers bragged about superior performance of Xbox and Xbox 360. I still remember vividly when original Xbox games were mocking PS2 at Ninja Gaiden's release that the game's textures alone would fry the PS2. The thing is that most people are hypocrites and whatever they own is always the best regardless of facts and figures.

[AndrewLB]

There's no such thing as a PC game locked at 720p or 900p because PC games adopted 1080p as the standard HD resolution over a decade ago. This means all games at made for 1080p at the least, and each game has additional setting levels if you need to "dumb" things down a bit if you aren't getting the frame rate you want. The most recent games come with textures and other HD assets that are in 4k. The reason why things are done like this is because it's much easier to start with a high resolution texture and lower the resolution/detail/etc a bit and still keep a sharp image, as opposed to upscaling which ALWAYS creates a crap picture. Why? Because no matter how good the upscaler, you're still creating pixels that didn't exist in the lower resolution image.

[DukeOfStilwater]

I like how your comment Forn is getting downvoted when it makes complete and total sense. Gamers are way too spoilt these days.

[XtraTrstrL]

No, gamers are way too suckered into overpriced and underperforming crap these days. You could pay $50-$60 back in the day and get a top quality complete game with little to no bugs and with all the bonuses included on disc. Nowadays you have to pre-order the Special Super Duper Combo Gold Platinum Edition for $150 along with a $50 Season Pass, and still get a broken game at launch that needs day-1/month-1/year-1 patches just to fix the main game and won't get all the content you use to get for $50-$60.

[denawayne]

I payed $50 for NES games in 1988. Be happy inflation hasn't caught up to the new systems.

[TheStrokes]

Well, that escalated quickly.

[smellslikeralph]

I love the fact that previous gen like nintendo, sega, playstation 1 and even xbox original had crap graphics but the games were fun and amazing and gamers enjoyed the games with out the constant crying but now that is no more.

All gamers care about now is fps, resolution, fps, resolution, playstaion 4 is god, xbox sucks.

Pathetic that its no longer about games anymore.

[Ka7be]

What about xbox introducing pay to play online?
That crap made gamers wallet a hole lot worse.

[Tony-Red-Grave]

You think the PS1 and dreamcast weren't considered extremely advanced? Let me eemind you that up until then we were still playing cartridges. It was the same back then as it is now. FPS gives a smooth experience and resolution grants immersion. Improving these areas has always been a goal for developers.

P.S don't even mention the console because that's ALWAYS been a thing. Need proof? look at dreamcast vs PS1, PS2 vs xbox, nintendo vs atari, nintendo vs sega etc etc.

[SoapShoes]

You realize the PS1 was very advanced for the time and had graphics that were close to top notch? Using that logic you could say the best PC games today have shitty graphics because in ten years they will be so much better.

[AndrewLB]

The thing is... when PS3 and 360 were released, BOTH consoles were quite powerful for their day. I don't care if your a M$ or $ony fanboy, the fact is that both those consoles were a huge value for the retail price tag. The PS3's blu-ray player alone was worth almost twice the cost of the entire console.

The same does not apply this generation. PS3/360 were quite close to PC performance, but this generation is 3-4x slower than the top graphics cards. Everything about both consoles appears as if they were made simply to make money off consumers, with little regard whether or not the consumer felt like he/she got a good deal. To make things more annoying, you have to pay $60/yr for online gaming, more and more games are being broken up for the sole purpose of charging you additional money for DLC, and many more ways for them to milk consumers.

[IGiveHugs2NakedWomen]

Isn't resolution, frames per second, and graphics among the things that developers are concerned about? Yes the main priorities are gameplay mechanics, story, controls and the user interface, but even though resolution, frame rates, and graphics are on the bottom of the totem pole, they are still relevant during the development of any game.

[Kornholic]

Yeah we should stop talking about fps and resolution to better suit your Xbone sensibilities!

[Forn]

I don't even have an Xbone lol, so funny. I am a Playstation fan always and forever. I wasn't saying that resolution and framerate focus is necessarily bad, but there is far more that goes into games than just that, so it kind of sickens me that a lot of people are just focused on that alone. Resolution absolutely doesn't make up a games visuals, and framerate definitely doesn't make up a games gameplay. 30+fps is always a win by the way, games absolutely don't have to be 60+fps. Many games have proved that and many more will continue to prove that.

[XanderZane]

I'm not sure why the devs are so surprised though. There are more power CPU/GPU, memory etc in these new game consoles. So it's obvious the games are going to run faster and look better. If they were able to do that, then I would be surprised. I have yet to play a Tropico game, but I would be interested and giving it a try. Then need to give us release dates for the PS4 & XB1 versions.

[MRMagoo123]

Are they making an xbone version? I wasnt aware of it if so.

[XanderZane]

It's already on the XBox 360, so I'd say it's a given. It's not exclusive anywhere. They probably just haven't announced it yet, but I'm pretty sure it will be on the XB1 as well.

[Bathyj]

Well you complain about it but youre part of the same problem.

The real issue is all this gamer negativity. People read the title and go on about devs carrying on about resolutions and what not because people immediately see it as either flag waving, or a knock against the competition, but I read the article and I saw none of that.

It was a dev (who was asked a direct question by the way) talking about the process of porting a PC game to the PS4 which theve never worked on before. Something some people might be interested to hear about.

Youre the one who turned it into some sort of graphics vs gameplay crusade and hijacked this whole thread as everyone bit at your lure. Whether that was intentional or not, I dont know and I'm prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt and say it wasnt, but I'm just highlighting how quick gamers are to jump on every headline like everything has to be a provocative statement.

Not everything has to be scrutinized to the nth degree. Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Cigar.

[Tapani]

@Forn, I completely agree with you.

Can't we just think about the experiences? Who cares about a few pixels here or there...Oh wait! All the adolescent "gamers" who weren't even born when gaming was born.

I'm for the experience, the rest of you can debate about your parity, resolution and frame-rate issues. At least I'm playing games for the artistic experiences they are and deciding what to play by the means of content.

[edqe]

I tried to play with gamepad (you can enable it from menus) but unfortunately it was quite painful experience.

The accuracy and speed of mouse and keyboard (hotkeys) are totally must if one wants play it seriously. I recommend to buy mouse+keyboard for PS4.

It is great to see these type of games coming for consoles too.

[ifrit_caress]

For me, all that matters is it must run at 60 frames per second and the graphics must be better than PS3 graphics. That's not too much to ask for the PS4 to deliver on the graphics and frame rate department.

[RyujiDanma]

i dunno why people are disagreeing, this was a debate where the xbox one would get trashed because i couldn't keep up with the resolution and framerate, now that the ps4 has run into some barriers PS4 users seem the need to trash their own system. You guys brought this upon yourselfs

[Forn]

What barriers? Haha, oh goodness you guys. Resolution/framerate debates were because of descrepancies between the X1 and PS4 version of the same game. Smh.

[SilentNegotiator]

Because most Ps4 gamers don't care about 60fps...they just don't want to see 50% of their games be sub-1080p (unlike a certain other system that starts with an "X"; ~90% of Ps4 games are 1080p) and don't want to see forced parity with a weaker system.

[thezeldadoth]

Devs are really banking off this ridiculous resolution/fps argument. It seems like they aren't even concerned with pushing gaming forward as far as gameplay goes because all they see is people arguing over framerates. Hopefully the pathetic discussion goes away soon.
Features on back of the box
- 1080p/60 fps
- some other stuff

[Christopher]

Just FYI, this is a ported game, not a new game for the PS4/XBO...

So... yeah, not much here for them to do to push gaming forward with a port.

[SoapShoes]

Tropico 5 isn't even being released on Xbox One.

[Christopher]

@SoapShoes: Really?!? I thought it was going to both? That's lame :(

[DukeOfStilwater]

And this is the reason I'm tired of the stupid arguments about frame-rate and resolution, yet they complain about the quality of games but don't realise their negative petty feedback is the reason games suck 'cos all devs are seeing is 1080p/60fps 1080p/30fps and not things that matter like the fact games REALLY NEED quality testing, but of course frame-rate and resolution is more important than a game that works, right? Am I right? Frame-rate and resolution are important, but not as important as people make it out to be. A bad game that runs at 60fps/1080p is STILL a bad game, nonetheless.

[MRMagoo123]

A bad game that runs at 900p is a bad game still to like ryse, a bad game is a bad game no matter if its 400p or 1080p or 30fps or 120fps. I think people just want as high a performance as they can get, so thats why people care about fps and res. Its not the most important and no one said it was, but if you have 2 games that are identical gameplay wise but one is full hd and 60fps and one is not full hd such as 900p or 720p and 30fps or 60fps, most people will want the 1080p version. Take the new COD game in MP the ps4 version is 1080p and 60fps , the xbone version is pretty much 900p and 60fps, most will go for the ps4 version for that 1080p because they know the gameplay is the same.

[SilentNegotiator]

They were asked a question. Are they supposed to not answer questions in interviews just to save you some tears?

[nosferatuzodd]

sweet

[elweon]

Lol a shitty pc

[lemoncake]

Since according to n4g users every ps4 player also has a high end PC, I don't expect this game to sell any copies on the ps4. /s

[MRMagoo123]

I wouldnt buy it on PS4 and I am a PS4 owner, my pc is a gtx 750ti oc and an amd fx8350 , not the best pc in the world but I would rather play this game on a PC where it fits but if you dont have a pc that will run it well enough such as 1080p at 30fps plus then I would recommend the PS4 version.

I dont think I have ever seen every PS4 user ever say they have a high end PC and me not having a high end pc proves that fact. So I dont need to buy another console as well. Only the WiiU left to buy now but not till the price drops.

Luckily for me I can play the majority of the xbone "exclusives" on my low/mid end pc and at a better performance.

[SilentNegotiator]

Not sure where you got that idea. I've seen plenty of PS gamers with PCs fit for gaming (including myself), but I don't see all of them (or even many of them) claiming to have "high end" PCs.

[DivineAssault]

Mark Cerny designed a fantastic system & after a a few firmware updates adding folders & some other little things can make them stay on top & be as popular as the PS2 era with complete domination..

[ScaryMonkey]

I'm just waiting for Uncharted 4 so all developers, on all consoles, can see what it looks like to be a top tier developer who knows how to used the new hardware. I'm so happy I have PS4 cause its clear having Naughty Dog we have the hands down absolute best development studio period, I feel sorry for the blind fanboys that will miss out.

[Spenok]

Always a good thing seeing a developer likes the new hardware. Though at this point it's kind of a moot point, as just about every one has talked it up.