Dear MW3: No One Cares About Framerate
Dear Reader,
It has recently come out that “Battlefield 3″ will only run at 30 fps on the consoles, and Glen Schofield from Sledgehammer Games has taken the opportunity to make a big deal of that. Proudly pronouncing that MW3 will run at 60 fps, Schofield seems to be under the impression that anyone in the world cares, ever. Allow me to politely rectify that position: absolutely no one does.
Of course MW3 runs at 60, its engine is four years old and has the texture detail of a kindergartener’s sketch of his mommy. BF3 looks better hung over and un-showered than MW3 in his Sunday best. And besides being pretty, it also offers a revolutionary amount of destructible environments which Sledgehammer can’t touch, and which add a new layer to the experience. “Frostbite 2″ is cosmetically and functionally superior, is my point here. Yours just goes a little faster. Get over yourself. Half the people playing either game can’t even point out the difference between 30 and 60 anyway.
I’m amused by Schofield’s plucky dismissal of the millions of dollars DICE spent creating a from-the-ground-up overhaul of “Frostibite.” His answer? “You can go out and name your engine and call it whatever you want, right?” What? You think the issue here is the name? It’s called “Frostbite 2!” It’s not like DICE showed up at E3 with the “Charles Mingus 5.” The last one was called “Frostbite,” and now they put a 2 next to this version, because they made it after the other one. Not a revolutionary concept. I don’t perceive what subtle trickery you think is happening here, Glen.
To be honest, your 60 fps is almost too smooth. It gives things a glassy, half-real quality that I’m not always in love with. It’s perfect for multiplayer, where it just stays out of my way, but it’s a purely ergonomic machine, designed to reduct drag and be ignored. Even the original “Modern Warfare” wasn’t built on a new engine, just a re-tooled version of the same tech that ran “Call of Duty 2.” This stuff is really starting to show it’s age, guys, and I’m not sure you should rush to needle the deficiencies of other people’s tech, lest you simply draw attention to your shortcomings. As Christ once said, take the log from your eye before you make a move at the speck in someone else’s.
–AA
the question is vague. it doesn’t say what type of candy, whether anyone is watching…
