Confronting the Hype Around High Game Refresh Rates

Video games and specs come hand in hand, with most gamers holding high-spec and high-performance gaming experiences on a pedestal. So you wouldn’t be wrong if you were to take the age-old argument for 60FPS over 30FPS gaming at face value and favor the faster frame rate.

However, when it comes to console gaming, there are some reasons you may find 30FPS to be acceptable and more applicable to your gaming experience. But what factors can align console gaming with 30FPS over 60FPS? Let’s find out.

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1. 30FPS Can Benefit Games That Focus on High Visual Fidelity

One of the biggest benefits you’ll find with games that utilize 30FPS over 60FPS is how the lower frame rate enables your game to run at a higher fidelity.

For most current-gen PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S games, visuals are paramount. And with the number of effects, resources, and rendering required for games increasing, console games benefit from having more time to process and portray visuals in high fidelity.

And this is where frames per second become imperative to your visual experience. Simply put, 60FPS games will render and provide you with 60 frames to observe per second. But 30FPS shows half the number of images per second and provides double the time to render each image.

For games reliant on their visuals being as high fidelity as possible, having twice the amount of time to ensure visuals look as good as possible can be essential. So for some console experiences, you’ll find that a set 30FPS will actually benefit your visual gaming experience.

As with anything, 30FPS is a trade-off. If you enjoy fast-paced games that require split-second decisions, 60FPS provides more information per second and would be more essential than 30FPS. So while 30FPS benefits visuals, there are many arguments for and against each type of frame rate.

2. Choosing 30FPS Over 60FPS Can Improve Console Stability

Another way you may find 30FPS more applicable to your console gaming experience is through the balancing act that goes into a console game’s performance pool on a certain platform.

Specifically, a console title needs to balance elements like frame rate, game complexity, and resolution against the performance limitations of the platform in question. This represents a triangle of needs that often has to shift and change to meet performance demands.

There are manyreasons to play PlayStation 5 titles in performance mode , where 60FPS may be reachable, but this can often only be achieved by reducing other elements of your game. Commonly, games will be locked to 30FPS to reduce the strain on performance and increase console stability.

30FPS is regarded as a reliable compromise when balancing performance and stability on consoles. Most console games are fine utilizing 30FPS unless 60FPS is essential to the experience.

So as a way to guarantee stability and prevent issues, 30FPS represents a great compromise that provides you with a consistently reliable way to game on a console.

3. 30FPS Is More Consistent on Gaming Consoles

Another reason you may prefer 30FPS on consoles, especially over 60FPS, is because of how well-optimized 30FPS is on console platforms like PlayStation and Xbox.

Other forms of gaming, like PC gaming, face completely different levels of complexity when it comes to optimization. PCs have countless amounts of specs and potential devices a game can be played on. For this reason, 30FPS can feel worse on PC than on consoles.

Even using a keyboard and mouse, which can allow you to react faster in games than a controller, will highlight flaws in frame rate as the game races to catch up to your inputs. And this is before you attempt things likeoptimizing Windows for PC gaming or any other operating system you’re playing a 30FPS game with.

But on consoles, all games are optimized to the universal specifications of a platform, as opposed to the unique factors of individual PC setups. The result is a smoother, more consistent experience of 30FPS gaming.

So while PC 30FPS gaming may leave you desperate for a boost up to 60FPS, on consoles, 30FPS feels intuitive and less likely to leave you wanting more.

30FPS Console Gaming Is an Acceptable Way to Play

30FPS sometimes feels like a neglected element of modern gaming, and if you play primarily on PC, that may be justifiable. But for consoles, there are plenty of reasons 30FPS is more than satisfactory and even complementary to the overall gaming experience.

However, there is still an argument that specific games will always be better with higher frame rates like first-person shooters. But story-led visual experiences may naturally lend themselves to 30FPS. In the end, there will always be exceptions to a preference for 60FPS or 30FPS gaming.

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