Devs should add a future proof mode (or toggles)

[AppleBlade]

Backwards compatibility has left us wishing games that are locked at 30 could be unlocked or that games that are 1080/1440 could be set to 4K. Some games have been patched but many won't be.

How about we take care of this situation now and have devs include modes or toggles that allow us unlock framerates or set resolutions to variable or even have every game have an unlocked 4k mode even if it performs poorly now.

This would come in handy if we get mid-generation revisions like last gen or even just for the next systems.

Furthermore, I think it would be cool if the games were made so the platform holder could set the default mode upon installation so the average consumer doesn't need to go change settings to get the most out of their PS5 Pro or Xbox Series XL.

 

[Feep]

So you're asking devs to do the work several years in advance...for an outcome that may never come to pass? Without knowing the specs or specifics? And probably having to do the extra work required to pass certification at that time anyway? And giving current users an option that would lead to a very poor experience in the meantime?

...nah.

 

[AppleBlade]

So you're asking devs to do the work several years in advance...for an outcome that may never come to pass? Without knowing the specs or specifics? And probably having to do the extra work required to pass certification at that time anyway?

...nah.

Click to shrink...

I see you work in the games industry so you'd know more than me, but If you're already doing multiple framerate/resolution modes how much more work is it to add an unlocked 4K setting to a game? This is not snark, It is a legit question, I actually really would like to know.

 

[Feep]

I see you work in the games industry so you'd know more than me, but If you're already doing multiple framerate/resolution modes how much more work is it to add an unlocked 4K setting to a game?

Click to shrink...

In theory not much, but it is WILDLY better to optimize to a platform specifically. In addition, though I can't get into specifics, there are certification requirements on consoles that involve the game running well on all settings. Giving players a current option that messes that up would likely not be allowed, which means it would need to be *enabled* in a future patch, but if you're doing a future patch, you might as well put the work off until then.

 

[Setsune]

Feep already smacked this down, but at the least programming animations, game logic, physics, etc. as framerate and/or resolution-dependent needs to go the way of the dodo. Maybe you can't design around future unknown specs, but you can make it easier for someone in the future to retrofit your game, instead of tracking down weird sped-up animations, weapons durability, shorter jumps, etc.

 

[SteveWinwood]

buy a computer

 

[Lylo]

I'm not sure if there's much gain to devs/publishers from BC, so i think there's little incentive to "future proof" your games.

 

[RowdyReverb]

I think, OP, that you might, might, see more unlocked framerate modes now that VRR is supported on consoles. Seems like a reasonable option that could double as a benefit for future hardware

I'm not sure if there's much gain to devs/publishers from BC, so i think there's little incentive to "future proof" your games.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, better business to time an enhancement patch to coincide with DLC or a sequel.

 

[platocplx]

buy a computer

Click to shrink...

Pretty much. This will never be a thing on consoles. The optimizations done are way way way deeper on console than on pc. we even had glimpses of that when horizon zero dawn was ported and certain animations were set to only 30 fps etc.

 

[Dead Man Typing]

I wonder if any developers hid frame unlock cheats in their games.

Seems like something a smart and handsome developer would do.

 

[Deleted member 5621]

Ah yes. The future proof toggle. Just press it before going gold.

 

[Deleted member 43084]

Nothing in game development is free.

The "free" power boost from the PS4-to-PS5 likely comes at a significant QA cost with uncertain ROI for official support.

You don't want to know the QA setups for AAA PC developer studios.

 

[discotrigger]

There are some different ways to look at this.

First of all, nobody should be programming games in a way that the gameplay or visuals will break in some way with a different framerate. Luckily with both next-gen consoles supporting VRR and most games offering a performance mode so far, I think we can start putting that era behind us. This is a solved problem, there's really no excuse for framerate-dependent physics in 2020 and beyond.

However, people should be wary of expecting huge leaps in performance on future hardware just because the framerate is unlocked. Just like current-gen games are bottlenecked by pre-emptive caching, asset baking vs. individual/instanced draw calls, and other techniques suited to old-school hardware, PS5 and XSX games will surely have some restraints of their own. Yes, these machines are much better tailored to scalable rendering workloads and the migration to low-level APIs across platforms will be a boon for forward-compatibility. But there's a limit to how agnostic rendering and loading can become and games tailored specifically to a given hardware platform will always get significantly better results.

With that in mind, I'm in favor of pre-emptively unlocking framerates, and I expect most games will offer VRR modes anyway in the coming years so your dream may come true. If any developer finds this seriously prohibitive to implement, they've made some foundational mistakes.

 

[Mars People]

You've just described PC gaming lol.

 

[Edgar]

That's just pc versions of games

 

[TheMadTitan]

If you're going to do that, why not just push the game as hard as it can go on the specific hardware so it maxes out at 30 fps, but leave the framerate unlocked so forward compatibility just naturally makes the game perform better?

Unlocked framerates would be better than toggles.

 

[KDR_11k]

When PC games have quality settings that demand more computer than available today people whine that their top end machines can't run everything on Ultra and call it badly optimized.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Optimizing software for future hardware that you don't have on hand can be tricky business. While things can just work out a lot of the time the chances that a hidden bottleneck will reveal itself are high.

Also sometimes you just fail to predict how hardware will advance. Crysis is infamously still very demanding on modern CPUs because Crytek didn't predict just how hard it would be to just keep scaling up clock speeds.

 

[CupOfDoom]

There is no point developing for hardware that doesn't exist. Even on PC, developers always, with the exception of Crysis, constrain themselves to whatever the highest powered consumer hardware can handle at the time of release.

 

[Lakewell]

I was thinking about this and how to do it without having to release a patch to just implement the toggle. The best option I could think of would have the platform holder have a server that the game checks that would unlock the toggle if the game was on newer hardware. The dev or publisher could do this with their own server, but then they would be paying for it and it's possible the dev or publisher might not be around that far in the future. Better for the platform holders to responsible for the server since it helps the launch of a new console.

I'm pretty much only talking about an unlocked framerate, as increasing resolution would require work. And that in and of itself might negate the whole need for for a toggle since so many game will have a 60fps mode, although there seems to be some games that will be 4k30, so maybe that is where a toggle for an unlocked framerate would be wanted.

 

[julia crawford]

This is a zero return investment at the point of release. There is no value to spending the hours necessary to implementing it outside of potentially doing it when new hardware releases and the return of the work investment is clearer.

The only feasible way of doing this would be to have the necessary tooling and modular design to expedite changes to the product over time, but i'm not sure it's even good to plan for something that might happen sometimes two or three years down the line.

Not to mention no one even knows if humans will live that long. Have you seen the news lately??

 

[Lord Azrael]

Why do today the work you can do tomorrow

 

[Mecha]

Some of you clearly should just play on PC. I think in a way we are being spoiled by the devs that ship with more than one performance/resolution modes on consoles. It's not as easy as flipping a switch in most cases.

 

[headspawn]

Would be nice. Every game should have some way to unlock expert settings and let people do what they want with the game they bought.

It would certainly take away a lot of the @-ing developers/publishers, begging them to update their games for simple things. If someone could simply change the resolution themselves, disable some features here and there, uncap framerate etc etc... this is just basic shit and it kinda sucks a lot of dev's treat console players like morons.

Hat's off to the very few who do add these features though and I have to emphasize the FEW part, there really aren't many at all.

 

[JEH]

A lot of people are just asking for pc features lately so might as well go pc if you want this customization.

 

[porcupixel]

Sometimes it feels like some gamers think "Unlock 60FPS mode" is just a button that the devs forgot to click in the compiler before shipping and that's why we don't have it.

 

[headspawn]

A lot of people are just asking for pc features lately so might as well go pc if you want this customization.

Click to shrink...

It's not "PC features", the shit is already programmed into the games, they actually go out of their way to remove access to the stuff in most games.