Driveclub Director Defends 30 FPS Framerate

Evolution Studios’ state-of-the art, flagship PlayStation 4 racing game Driveclub will not run at 60 frames-per-second (FPS). That much has been known for a while.

Can Driveclub Game Director Paul Rustchynsky sell you on the idea that 30 FPS is better for the game? Probably not, but he sure gave it his best shot in a recent interview with Red Bull.

“I can see why players assume that a higher frame rate means better quality, because in pretty much every other technical statistic the higher numbers directly translate to better performance and more detail. With high frame rates though, you’ve got to sacrifice a lot of detail, and ultimately we’re really satisfied that we’ve got a great balance of a racing game that looks stunning and plays beautifully. The real acid test for us was when we let thousands of gamers play our demo at E3 in Los Angeles this year, because everyone who cares about frame rate came away surprised and pleased with how fluid and responsive it feels when you’re driving. I’d encourage any sleptics to give it a go, because we’ve spent a lot of time and effort making sure that the game never drops a frame and that your inputs have no noticeable input latency, which even some of the games running at 60fps can’t guarantee,” Rustchynsky said.

Rustchynsky also gave some details about the mobile app that will launch with Driveclub.

“You can keep up to speed with your friends and your club, see what challenges are going on and check out your latest results and races,” said Rustchynsky. “The only thing you can’t do is actually race, but you can watch live races when a player is broadcasting a live stream.”

And he dropped some tantalizing hints that although we won’t see Sony’s virtual reality headset Project Morpheus used with Driveclub, we might see if with future Evolution Studios games.

“Project Morpheus is a fantastic piece of hardware and it’s something that really excites me as a gamer. Evolution has a dedicated team who have been working on it from day one, so we have a keen eye on it – but it’s not something we’re looking at for Driveclub just now,” he said.