The Evil Within is locked at 30 FPS on PC, by default

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Bethesda Softworks has outlined exactly what PC gamers can expect from their upcoming survival horror game, The Evil Within. According to an FAQ published by Bethesda, the game is locked at 30 frames per second and uses a fixed aspect ratio of 2.35:1, just like what console gamers will experience.

The FAQ states that The Evil Within is designed to be played at 30 FPS, saying that "the team has worked the last four years perfecting the game experience with these settings in mind". This may be all well and good on consoles with limited hardware platforms, but it's not something that will go down well with PC gamers and their powerful graphics cards.

Luckily the game's developers have included several "debug commands" that will allow you to alter the framerate and aspect ratio. Bethesda doesn't recommend that you change these settings as they aren't supported, though we imagine many people will ignore this advice to get the game running more smoothly.

The Evil Within does support 4K resolutions, and comes with several graphics options including SMAA and SSAO. Bethesda recommends a graphics card with 4 GB of VRAM to play this game, and requires 50 GB of free hard drive space.

The Evil Within launches on October 14th on PC, as well as the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/58372-evil-within-locked-30-fps-pc.html

 
Steep system requirements and 30 fps.

The previews for the game look pretty good but god damn I hate it when a game forces you into managing a stupid camera system. Japanese game developers are notorious for this. Lost Planet was a good example of this nonsense. They designed a first person shooter where you couldn't look directly up, then designed a game where all kinds of stuff flies above your head. This is my biggest gripe with japanese games in general, bad mechanics, and the evil within looks to suffer from this same stupid nonsense. You'll likely spend more time fighting the camera system than you will fighting zombies and enemies.

It's not that difficult to create camera systems and movement mechanisms. There is no point in re-inventing the wheel. Make the character and camera easy to control.
 
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Well I know I will be moding the game on PC to go beyond that. If not ill wait for someone to because I doubt this will sit for very long.
 
This is a theme that is rapidly getting old.

I understand the desire to give users a uniform experience, but the performance matching they've been doing recently for multiplatform titles is rather disrespectful to the end user. Every game consumer purchased their platform for a reason, be it convenience (console/PC), relative specs (PS4/XBO), or raw power and flexibility (PC). When you lock games to 900p or 30FPS simply because the other platforms don't perform well at higher levels, you undermine the hardware decisions of your customers by erasing the fundamental reasons for their purchase. Frankly, it's a slap in the face.
 
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Why even release for the PC? If you optimized it for consoles, release it on consoles only.

Better to optimize for PC, them dumb down the mechanics/specs for console later IMO (see Diablo 3).
 
davislane1 said:
This is a theme that is rapidly getting old.

I understand the desire to give users a uniform experience, but the performance matching they've been doing recently for multiplatform titles is rather disrespectful to the end user. Every game consumer purchased their platform for a reason, be it convenience (console/PC), relative specs (PS4/XBO), or raw power and flexibility (PC). When you lock games to 900p or 30FPS simply because the other platforms don't perform well at higher levels, you undermine the hardware decisions of your customers by erasing the fundamental reasons for their purchase. Frankly, it's a slap in the face.
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So does this mean you're not impressed? ;)
 
I've been playing at 60fps for years now. I've tried limiting games at 30fps just to see what it's like. For games like Civilization, The Sims, Total War, MS Flight Simulator, slower paced MMOs etc where the camera isn't moving around a lot, it's okay and not very noticeable. Heck, in MS Flight Simulator, it's a good day if I get 20fps. For first person shooters, combat flight sims or more twitchy MMOs it's absolutely terrible. It affects my performance and experience in such a way that I'm more than willing to dial back on the settings just so that I can get 60fps at least most of the time. I tend to notice that something is not right in those games when the fps hits 50-55. How some people can live with 30fps in shooters is beyond me. I don't even consider myself highly tuned or having fast senses in any way, shape or form. In fact, I tend to suck at very twitchy games. I'm 41 afterall, so I'm not at where I used to be. Guess who gets owned by the teens and preteens when I decide to take a shot at CoD? Yeah, good old me. But I still love being a PC gamer and I doubt I'll feel any different when I'm 61!
 
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davislane1 said:
This is a theme that is rapidly getting old.

I understand the desire to give users a uniform experience, but the performance matching they've been doing recently for multiplatform titles is rather disrespectful to the end user. Every game consumer purchased their platform for a reason, be it convenience (console/PC), relative specs (PS4/XBO), or raw power and flexibility (PC). When you lock games to 900p or 30FPS simply because the other platforms don't perform well at higher levels, you undermine the hardware decisions of your customers by erasing the fundamental reasons for their purchase. Frankly, it's a slap in the face.
Click to expand...

Indeed. A recent hubbub on the consoles is that Ubisoft "allegedly" lowered the resolution for Assassins Creed Unity to 900p so that one console doesn't have an edge over the other. I have "allegedly" in quotes because Ubisoft states that whatever Ubisoft programmer said that was the reason for the lowered resolution is incorrect, but there is no reason to believe that isn't correct. After all, everyone knows that when it comes to performance the Xbone underperforms the PS4.

Games shouldn't be dumbed down, or locked, or weakened in any way because of certain performance issues. Bethesda and Ubisoft are both large enough to have separate studios work on different coding for the same game. Cutting costs shouldn't get in the way of delivering a great product.
 
Why the hell does anymore need 4GB to play a game at 30 frames? That's just stupid. I am assuming that is for the 4k resolution and not all resolutions as that does not make sense. 4GB video card for 30 frames, damn are they getting high when creating games, that is ridiculous. PC gamers will have this modded rather quick, these things have been done before. Some game companies even will fix/make changes when some user shows them how to properly make a game.

Gotta love how consoles ruin games because they will NEVER have enough power/graphics as a PC. But it's all about the mighty dollar, forget about game quality or the users, they don't mean anything to any company anymore. So sad.
 
"The Evil Within is designed to be played at 30 FPS"
IMHO, 30 FPS is not a design choice, it is a flaw. And if you can't deliver 60 fps, you have no business making pc games in 2014.
 
Darkshadoe said:
I have no problem with this if they can guarantee no bugs at release.
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Really? You have no problems with them artificially limiting a game's performance so that the experience is the same across all platforms, despite PC users having paid for the extra power?

This is 2014. PCs can now play games at 4k at >60fps. The fact that the failed console generation can't keep up should not be a punishment to those who have chosen the superior platform.
 
thelatestmodel said:
Really? You have no problems with them artificially limiting a game's performance so that the experience is the same across all platforms, despite PC users having paid for the extra power?

This is 2014. PCs can now play games at 4k at >60fps. The fact that the failed console generation can't keep up should not be a punishment to those who have chosen the superior platform.
Click to expand...

I guess I have simple needs. I'd rather play a game at 30 FPS and is 100% bug free than have one that plays at 100fps and is 30% buggy. (yes I know that a game will never be 100% bug free at release, but you get my point)
 
They say it was designed to be played at 30 fps, sounds an excuse for me, perhaps they failed to make it run less buggy at above 30 fps :D
 
While it is stupid to have intentionally capped the FPS of a PC game.....

I will say, and I'm sure that I will receive hatred for this, that people tend to overreact about 30 FPS. as long as it consistantly stays at 30 FPS its quite a playable experience and arguably more cinematic.
(I personally tend to prefer 30 for CERTAIN games.)

As I said though its stupid to limit FPS to PC gamers...
 
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Sure - I will agree that it's playable at 30 fps, but it's not nearly as pleasing to the eye as 60 or more. Getting used to high framerates (100+) has been both good and bad for me. Even 60 fps can look just okay after I've been playing a game at 100+ and how fluid the game is kind of messes with your head at those high frame/refresh rates. If I have the muscle to pump out more frames the engine should not limit me just for the sake of a consistently "okay" experience. Let my machine give me a better than okay experience.
 
One of the few games I was looking forward to but there is zero chance of me buying it now.
I have been running a 144hz screen for the last 3 or 4 months and after getting used to running BF4 and other games maxed out at this refresh rate I would find it impossible to play at 30fps.
I booted up my other pc a few weeks after using the 144hz screen and for a minute thought that something was badly wrong with it, only realising that it was the 60hz refresh rate difference that I was noticing, and this was only the desktop!
Bethesda can make all the bullshit statements they want about the reasons why but I wont be buying any game that does not allow 144hz plus.
 
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