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TIL the original Majoras Mask only ran at 20 FPS.
- Thread starter It’s Time To Go
- Start date
It and OoT were so good at everything else that the frame rate was irrelevant, a lot of people wouldn't have noticed or cared
The games have a 16.67fps cap in PAL regions bro.
I have MM on Virtual Console and on 3DS, but I can't imagine I'll actually finish the game until the decompilation project is completed and I can play a native PC port.
I have MM on Virtual Console and on 3DS, but I can't imagine I'll actually finish the game until the decompilation project is completed and I can play a native PC port.
I think CRTs handled odd framerates better than modern TVs do. Definitely still prefer the original, rough framerate and all, to the butchered 3DS remake. Just fix the framerate and up the resolution of the N64 version and give me that.
Yeah, both N64 Zelda titles had 20fps caps.
Peace Walker on PSP was capped at 20fps, too. They were all critical darlings regardless!
There's gotta be more examples, right? I thought I remembered PS1 Tony Hawk being capped at 20fps, but I checked and it's actually capped at 30fps ... it just can't get there most of the time 😂
Peace Walker on PSP was capped at 20fps, too. They were all critical darlings regardless!
There's gotta be more examples, right? I thought I remembered PS1 Tony Hawk being capped at 20fps, but I checked and it's actually capped at 30fps ... it just can't get there most of the time 😂
I had high end PCs growing up in the 90s so I experienced high frame rates with 3D games.
Of course I only realized this in retrospect. At the time, frame rates never even crossed my mind and didn't bother me in the slightest. It just felt like some games on PC were "faster", but I never made the connection it was a performance thing.
The only time I really took note was playing Star Fox on SNES and then going to N64.
Of course I only realized this in retrospect. At the time, frame rates never even crossed my mind and didn't bother me in the slightest. It just felt like some games on PC were "faster", but I never made the connection it was a performance thing.
The only time I really took note was playing Star Fox on SNES and then going to N64.
I noticed… the game is amazing, and I beat it eventually but the frame rate made it difficult to enjoy as a kid. It was easier as an adult for me.
The frame rate was really bad. The only reason it wasn't a complete disaster is because the gameplay rarely requires split second reactions.
It looks like an amateur unreal demo with stupid design changes. Stable fps isnt worth that
Lots of people who loved the game noticed back then. The early 3D consoles were a transition to compromised gameplay on a technical level, and it led to a major "2D is inherently better than 3D" thing for years.
If you were online you would've seen it. The language wasn't in Digital Foundry terms but it was there. Especially for arcade and PC gamers.
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you literally cant even get far in the game without pausing to get into the menu, so yea not buying this
Standard definition television tends to look bad on modern TVs because modern TVs suck and aren't able to handle interlaced video among many, many other things. They didn't actually look like that on TVs of their era.
lol no it wasn't. But there certainly were a lot of games on it that were truly terrible, as contradictory as that sounds. I've been watching a streamer play through all 350+ N64 games lately and there are so many that are just inconceivably bad.
It's weird to see Majora's Mask singled out when this was true for Ocarina of Time as well. Majora's Mask did dip more, but they shared the 20fps limit.
Obviously CRTs helped smooth things out.
I did find one claim that it switches to 480i when you open the Bomber's notebook so they could fit more readable text on screen at once. I don't know for sure if that's true.
I don't think there's Switch games capped to 20fps though.
Obviously CRTs helped smooth things out.
240p on Nintendo 64, 480i in all emulated rereleases (including the GameCube version OP played). No idea if it's different for PAL. I believe it can run at 480p on GameCube and Virtual Console as well with the right cables.
I did find one claim that it switches to 480i when you open the Bomber's notebook so they could fit more readable text on screen at once. I don't know for sure if that's true.
Lol
I don't think there's Switch games capped to 20fps though.
I loathe pop-in of any kind. I can't believe it still exists (LOD, shadows, filtering, etc...). If you had told me in 1997 it would still be a thing in 2021 I wouldn't have believed you.
More on topic, yeah, low framerates were basically just accepted during that gen. I certainly noticed it and understood why it was happening, but it was so common that I didn't give it much thought.
Deadly Premonition 2 isn't capped at that but if it ever reaches 30fps it's a miracle
Wave Race 64 is also 20 FPS and it blew my mind when I found out. It always felt so incredibly smooth to me, even now, to be honest it's a joy to play.
There's a whole patch out there that undoes quite a lot of the changes made in Majora's Mask 3D that ruin it for you all. It's not overtly complicated to setup / use either.
I actually prefer the remake, even with the changes. Please feel free to flame me because of this.
I actually prefer the remake, even with the changes. Please feel free to flame me because of this.
If no one would have ever pointed out the difference and "significance" of frame rate, I probably never would have cared to this day. I don't remember this game running poorly.
Thanks for reminding me that I installed this and didn't play much of it. I've gotta play that all the way through one of these days.
For those unaware: https://github.com/leoetlino/project-restoration
Edit: Oh wow, it improves the Elegy of Emptiness during the Stone Tower portion too. That's awesome.
You never noticed or cared.
I remember desperately wanting an N64 as a kid that would never have been able to get one - especially when reading previews of Ocarina of Time in magazines.
I then saw Ocarina of Time at a friend's place, running at 16.67 FPS (50/3) since I lived in a PAL region, and thought it looked like SHIT.
I remember watching friends playing Star Fox 64 multiplayer and getting extremely motion sick from it. I couldn't play it at all. Golden Eye/Perfect Dark were unwatchable.
CRTs took the edge off, and game speed used to be locked to the frame rate.
So if the frame rate dipped the game slowed down, rather than the game logic running at full speed with the graphics dropping frames, as they do today.
But that's also the reason why a game can run at 30 FPS on console and have the frame rate unlocked on PC, rather than running at 4× speed when you try to play it at 120 FPS.
- With a CRT, the amount of motion blur you see is determined by the screen itself, since the image is flashed once per refresh. You might have 0.5–2.0ms of motion blur depending on the phosphors used, regardless of the frame rate.
- LCD/OLED draws the image differently. They hold the image until the next one is drawn. That means the amount of motion blur you see is directly linked to the frame rate. 60 FPS will have 16.67ms of motion blur (1000/60). 30 FPS will have 33.33ms motion blur (1000/60). The PAL version of Ocarina of Time would have 60ms of motion blur. To achieve 0.5ms with a sample-and-hold OLED, you would need a 2000Hz display, and a game running at 2000 FPS.
Rather than holding the frame until the next is drawn, inserting black frames in-between each image reduces the amount of motion blur you will see, without requiring higher frame rates; but it does cause the screen to flicker.
Nothing is quite like a CRT, though. With OLED, BFI works well to reduce motion blur, but not by as much as a CRT, and the flicker is much worse than a CRT.
120Hz on a CRT is relatively flicker-free, while there is still obvious flicker on an OLED in brighter images (but not much in darker ones).
I believe this plays a big role in why so many people here say that the old Sonic games are bad, for example.
- On a CRT you had near-zero latency, and no motion blur at all.
- On a typical LCD, or even OLED, you have higher latency, and a ton of motion blur in comparison. Even extended to 16:9 it's almost like you can see less ahead of you and have less time to react, due to the motion blur and input lag (though latency is very good on OLED now).
Since game speed is tied to frame rate, when things slowed down you wouldn't get the same stuttering that you do today.
And they were built differently. Everything was v-sync locked - so 60 FPS games had to hold 60 FPS or else they'd drop to 30.
Today, that's not the case.
A game can run at 59 FPS at 60Hz, rather than instantly dropping from 60 FPS to 30 FPS - so it's not something critical for a developer to fix, like it used to be.
59 FPS at 60Hz is a minor but constant stutter in a modern game. Perhaps not a bad one, depending on how you feel about it, but it's always there.
And 60 FPS on a CRT was so smooth and clear.
Smoother than 60 FPS looks on your modern flat-panel TV. Even OLED.
However modern displays and systems do have one advantage: Variable Refresh Rate.
If you have a VRR display, dropping to 59 FPS is no big deal any more.
The display will update at 59Hz rather than 60Hz and you'll never see it - it will look no different than a game running at a constant 60 FPS.
VRR adds quite some leeway, and enables frame rates above 60 FPS too.
One great thing about most CRT televisions back then was that RGB inputs would essentially bypass all the internal picture controls - so the picture was perfect* without doing anything.
And before you say "yeah, but who knew about RGB back then?" nearly everyone that I knew with a PSX had it hooked up via RGB SCART.
And this was not some videophile thing. It's because many televisions wouldn't display composite images from that generation of consoles correctly and you'd get a black and white image - especially with imported games.
I was using RGB back on the SNES as a kid, too. I had no idea what it was, I just knew that it looked better.
* The exception is that white balance controls were non-existent for televisions back then, at least outside of a service menu or physical controls inside the chassis.
I never owned a Gen 5 console.
I went from SNES to PC to Dreamcast (while also having PC around).
I think the 3DS versions of both games look pretty ugly, to be honest. Especially the Link character model in OOT.
And I hear there are a lot of gameplay changes in Majora's Mask that people dislike - though there is a fan patch to fix some of them.
It's why I'm hopeful that we'll eventually see a decompiled Ocarina of Time port, similar to Mario 64. I want to play the original game, but at a higher frame rate.
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I'm just glad we got a superior remaster. Now, if only it got ported to switch.
I hope we'll be able to play this at 60fps someday. :(
I honestly didn't notice or care back then, or cared about framerate in general. Maybe the 50Hz European thing had something to do with it?
Are the Wii shop versions of OOT and MM also 20FPS or did they boost the framerate for those? I don't remember being too bothered by those versions either.
Are the Wii shop versions of OOT and MM also 20FPS or did they boost the framerate for those? I don't remember being too bothered by those versions either.
No no, see, due to the proximity of the moon, there was a massive amount of gravity leading to time dialation.
Still locked to 20, but the emulator runs fast enough that most of the slowdown is eliminated.
I was like that at the time. And the first time I played Gears of War on the PC, it felt too fast at 60. Now, I vastly prefer 60, and the 64 stuff feels like a crime against humanity.
I'm afraid to get into 120fps. 60 might feel bad then.
Very well said. CRT's were just a different breed when it came to playing games. I still try and snag one from a pawn shop every once in a while to hook up something and play with the zero input latency and beautiful scanlines. No post processing scanline filter applied on an LCD gets close to the natural occurrence in the CRT, which so many designers were very aware of when creating the art and designing the games. Plus so many were crazy hard because they relied on you having 0 latency and being able to get really tight inputs. Something that feels off on an LCD compared to the original experience.
So many people revisit games from the past and wonder why it feels so flat and boring now. It's the display!
Because a lot of 3D games on console back then had terrible framerates, so we were all cool with it.
