Does UnderTale NEED 60 FPS?

[Zoracs]

I heard an interesting comment stating that UnderTale NEEDS to be in 60 FPS. It intruiged me enough to beg an answer.

I'll share my knowledge with you and say, Nope, it'd be nice but totally unnecessary.
Technically no game NEEDS to be at 60 FPS, but some games do benefit from it.
UnderTale is not one of them, and even though I could just shut this down dead by saying "'it's a minimalistic art style" I'll list a few reasons.


-It's not fast paced.
Shooters and Platformers are typically 60 since they're so quick, and the extra frames just make play really smooth. The Bullet Hell sections are the only part that would benefit, and they don't get much benefit, since that comes to your SOUL moving slow rather than FrameRate (like the Ocarina of Time 3DS port not running much faster despite having a higher framerate).

-It's alot of extra work
I don't know about 3D Models, but for Sprites, the more frames there are, the more frames of animation required. All of that just amounts to time someone could spend programming or designing. Not to mention.

-Toby's spirte work...
For the most part it's pretty darn acceptable, and I have no complaints about the superb Battle Sprites, but some OverWorld sprites can be... questionable. 60 FPS would exaggerate how iffy they look, which leads into another really good point.

-Knowing your limits
I'm not sure how the development of UnderTale went, but I know Toby knows his stuff. Nothing was a mistake, taking on the project alone, going minimalistic, keeping the player in mind, and being mindful of his own limits, like budget and time. I can guarantee this game would have taken an extra 6 months for 60 FPS, and who'd want to do that?

-The Final Point.
This game is awesome anyway so who cares?


Man that was alot of words. Feel free to reply however you wish, Arrivederchi.

[BreakinBenny]

60 FPS grants smooth gameplay, and allows for easier dodging. Toby would only need to increase the speed of everything to accomodate for the increased framerate, because at lower frames the speed value doesn't need to be set very high. I know this because I understand programming and how these things work; by ramping up the framerate via Debug mode, you can see that it runs at double speed because of the increase in FPS. Need for Speed: Rivals is also locked at 30 FPS for reasons beyond knowledge, and that is why 60 frames is easy to do by just decreasing the movement speed of objects in order to retain the speed that was at 30 frames per second.

There Zoracs, I have proven you are wrong.

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

Originally posted by BreakinBenny:

60 FPS grants smooth gameplay, and allows for easier dodging. Toby would only need to increase the speed of everything to accomodate for the increased framerate, because at lower frames the speed value doesn't need to be set very high. I know this because I understand programming and how these things work; by ramping up the framerate via Debug mode, you can see that it runs at double speed because of that. Need for Speed: Rivals is also locked at 30 FPS for reasons beyond knowledge, and that is why 60 frames is easy to do by just decreasing the movement speed of objects in order to retain the speed that was at 30 frames per second.

There Zoracs, I have proven you are wrong.

From what I read, the way you build in Game Maker, you have to start with the desired frame rate and build everything around that, and this is done for every single room of the game separately. So upping or changing the frame rate would require essentially rebuilding the game from scratch.

[BreakinBenny]

Originally posted by (Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr:

Originally posted by BreakinBenny:

60 FPS grants smooth gameplay, and allows for easier dodging. Toby would only need to increase the speed of everything to accomodate for the increased framerate, because at lower frames the speed value doesn't need to be set very high. I know this because I understand programming and how these things work; by ramping up the framerate via Debug mode, you can see that it runs at double speed because of that. Need for Speed: Rivals is also locked at 30 FPS for reasons beyond knowledge, and that is why 60 frames is easy to do by just decreasing the movement speed of objects in order to retain the speed that was at 30 frames per second.

There Zoracs, I have proven you are wrong.

From what I read, the way you build in Game Maker, you have to start with the desired frame rate and build everything around that, and this is done for every single room of the game separately. So upping or changing the frame rate would require essentially rebuilding the game from scratch.

A desired framerate before beginning a project, eh? Sounds tragic. If only there was a feature for setting the framerate for all rooms simultaneously, life would be easier since one's only have to alter character and bullet movements.

[Zoracs]

Originally posted by BreakinBenny:

60 FPS grants smooth gameplay, and allows for easier dodging. Toby would only need to increase the speed of everything to accomodate for the increased framerate, because at lower frames the speed value doesn't need to be set very high.

Are you familiar with Ace Attorney?
A higher framerate doesn't make a game run faster, it just makes things looks more crisp. That's why its called "Frames Per Second", take note of the "Second" part, whether it's 30 or 60.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSCnGLWs1QM

Here's an example. The Switch version of My Hero runs at 30, while the PS4 ver hits 60, but they both move at the same exact speed, one just looks at bit nicer.

HOWEVER

You make a (semi) good point with doubling the game's speed. That was a mechanic in the NA release of EarthBound Beginnings, and it was definetely a welcome one.
But doubling Speed doesn't double framerate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7lSrUdpz78

This is NOT 60FPS, anyone can see that.


You really just killed your argument by contradicting yourself. I'm not saying you don't understand programming, but it's clearly a pathetic amount (you can't increase framerate via debug mode lol, no programmer does that, debug modes just contains easy access content for bug testing.)

You also ignored my point on needing extra animation frames, for EVERYTHING, which again, makes you look bad. You actually ignored alot of my points too.

I know you're a troll with nothing better to do, but I thought that bit about doubling the game's speed was worth discussing.

[BreakinBenny]

Originally posted by Zoracs:

Are you familiar with Ace Attorney?
A higher framerate doesn't make a game run faster, it just makes things looks more crisp. That's why its called "Frames Per Second", take note of the "Second" part, whether it's 30 or 60.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSCnGLWs1QM

Here's an example. The Switch version of My Hero runs at 30, while the PS4 ver hits 60, but they both move at the same exact speed, one just looks at bit nicer.

HOWEVER

You make a (semi) good point with doubling the game's speed. That was a mechanic in the NA release of EarthBound Beginnings, and it was definetely a welcome one.
But doubling Speed doesn't double framerate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7lSrUdpz78

This is NOT 60FPS, anyone can see that.


You really just killed your argument by contradicting yourself. I'm not saying you don't understand programming, but it's clearly a pathetic amount (you can't increase framerate via debug mode lol, no programmer does that, debug modes just contains easy access content for bug testing.)

You also ignored my point on needing extra animation frames, for EVERYTHING, which again, makes you look bad. You actually ignored alot of my points too.

I know you're a troll with nothing better to do, but I thought that bit about doubling the game's speed was worth discussing.

A game that's been set to run at 30 FPS or lower will run at a faster speed if forced to run above that, and here's my evidence. The F key in Undertale's debug mode sets the game speed to double that of the normal, and since 30 FPS times two becomes 60, it runs at 60 frames and in turn the stuff happening onscreen is also sped up since this game was set to be run at 30 FPS in the first place. (Why doesn't Undertale have a Run feature in the overworld when you're not running debug mode? The Shift key allows for slower movement during bullet time, so that should in turn be used for faster movement on the world without needing Debug.)

The only place where I could see the need for extra sprite frames is Frisk's walking cycle when moving on the horizontal plane. As for the animation cycles overall, my trick is to tweak the values for their cycles to accomodate for the increased framerate; that is increasing them appropriately. Look at how Papyrus moves when he moves quickly; his and Frisk's sprite don't pause so much in order to give the illusion of semi-jogging, One would only need to alter the parameters for their movement cycle to ensure they walk normally like in 30 FPS mode... Last note, Frisk does have two movement sprites for each direction BUT horizontally with nothing in their hands. They have two sprites for moving north and south (always), and whenever Toriel leads them. But as I wrote, Frisk only has ONE sprite for sideways movement. They could use an extra sprite for that part, so their free hand(s) can gracefully sway when they're either empty or one is busy.[www.spriters-resource.com]

Your accusation of me trolling is unfounded, and I am rubber while you are glue. May my knowledge be of use to you, and teach you to know better than to hastily call names like you did when you said I was contradictive. We can continue talking if you wish, either on the Steam Chat where people must add each other as friends, or on Discord. You can find me as BreakinBenny#4659

[Zoracs]

Hey. BreakinBenny.
I saw your offer to DM you so I decided to take you up on it. (But I'm leaving my message here until you friend me.)

First up, I just wanted to apologize for calling you a troll and generally being unprofessional. I kinda just assumed you were trolling because of your comments about "calming these kids down" and thinking slowing down UnderTale was a good solution. I just don't see slowing the pace of any game to ever be a good thing, ever.
Welp, that's what I get for assuming I suppose, and well...
8:36 https://youtu.be/leJ1YF3Tvzc?list=PLF00C64B86BD75D79&t=516

But anyway, thanks for being so cool about this, and for giving me another chance at a real discussion, I think we can both learn something from each other.

So, thanks for giving evidence for your points, it gives me alot more to go off of.

I totally understand why you think doubling framerate doubles game speed, and to be fair, I have no idea how framerate works, but something about doubling framerate doubling speed doesn't seem, normal?

For example, MarioKart 8 Deluxe, while playing solo you get 60FPS, but on 3 / 4player SplitScreen, the game runs at 30, yet both games speed to have the same speed regardless.
[3:34 - 3:59] https://youtu.be/NDTNNjWbYoo?t=215

Now I'm not sure if the 30FPS MK8D is slower than 60 by any means, but I do have 2 theories as to why the GameSpeed for Need for Speed: Rivals doubles with the framerate.
1. Something about racing games I don't understand, maybe MK8D is just an exception.
2. That Need for Speed game is locked at 30, meaning there's no "normal" option for 60. John Bain said he used a "Command-line perameter", which I won't even bother pretending I know what that is, but the game just seems really off when he does change it.

https://youtu.be/eDA37BmvNwM?t=404

Animations play way too fast [Compare the Speed of the police lights at 6:43 where the game is at 30, to the ludicrous blinking at 6:51. Also, the blinking gets *even faster* when he bumps it up to 100FPS on 8:20], and John noted himself that unlocking the framerate seems to screw with the physics [6:16], so something here just doesn't seem right to me.

So after noting all of this, I'm uncertain if just doubling the game speed would double the framerate, some further optimization would likely be required (although I do agree UT should have a run button.)



As for your fix for the extra sprites, well, you also implied using the same "Command-Line parameter" fix John used for the framerate, and after saying what I've said about that...
Actually, even if that would work, Edgy Asriel said GameMaker only uses 1 set FrameRate, so I suppose that could work as a hotfix, but an official patch doing that is questionable I'd say.



On a side note, I think I get why you so passionately think UnderTale needs 60FPS. You probably play alot on PC, and based on that Need for Speed video you sent me, I think you think very highly of John Bain, who also advocates heavily for 60FPS all the time.

I'm with you, I'd prefer 60 over 30, but I've been a mostly Nintendo but all Console player my entire life, so I can't see framerate differences all that much, wheras you're probably super accustomed to it. Honestly, as long as a game isn't constantly and massively changing FPS, or locked super low at 20 or less, I couldn't care less, but at this point we've just gone full circle. Does UnderTale NEED 60FPS?

[Kirby]

can you people stop saying UnderTale and say Undertale please?cause Undertale is the correct way

[Casual Amateur]

You know. Its hard for me to notice the difference between 30 fps to 60 fps or even higher.

[BreakinBenny]

Originally posted by Kirby:

can you people stop saying UnderTale and say Undertale please?cause Undertale is the correct way

UnderTale and Undertale are both correct ways of writing the title of this game. Just so you know.

Oh and Zoracs, it should read "I couldn't care less"; when someone says they could care less, it implies they do in fact care but could consider caring less. In comparison, not being able to care less shows that practically no Fs are given.

[c-lava]

Is there a way to force 60 fps to test?

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

Originally posted by c-lava:

Is there a way to force 60 fps to test?

There’s a way to double the speed of the application. That’s about as close to 60 FPS you can get. It’ll make the game harder, though since you’ll have less time to react.

Having the game actually be 60 FPS would require rebuilding the game from scratch, adding more sprites for animations, recalibrating character and npc movement, and playtesting to adjust the difficulty.