Mon, Aug 22, 2011 | 02:41 BST

DOOM 4 single player to have half frame rate of multiplayer

Among the slim and scanty details we have on DOOM 4 so far is the news the single-player campaign will run at 30 frames per second.

“In the Doom 4 project, we decided the multiplayer is 60 frames per second, but the single player is 30 frames per second, so you can have twice as many demons coming at you,” id’s lead engineer John Carmack told Gamasutra while discussing the pros and cons of frame rate and hertz levels.

Although Carmack pushed to have RAGE run at 60 fps, he feels the game’s racing sections require it, while DOOM 4 won’t.

“They’re valid decisions to go each way, and part of it also was because in a driving environment, you notice 60 frames per second a lot more than you do when you’re just walking around. So, that was also part of the deal.”

In the full interview, Carmack goes into greater details on the motivations for the decision, including trading off smoothness for “pretty pixels” and balancing frame rate with greater hertz levels – so maybe go have a read before you start composing your angry retorts.

Carmack also revealed the Doom 4 team includes a dozen programmers, as opposed to RAGE, which had up to 18.

“As soon as Rage ships, the core tech team is going over to help the Doom 4 team,” he added later.

Thanks, Blue.

9 comments

LOLshock94
22/08/11, 3:31 am

im sure i saw this on wikipedia like..2 years ago

deathgaze
22/08/11, 3:59 am

It does sound familiar. In any case, I thought Doom 3 was awesome and I can’t wait to see what they’ll do for the next one.

Telepathic.Geometry
22/08/11, 4:40 am

Weird that they would put the entire Rage game at 60FPS just because of a few racing sections. Worries me a little actually, as I’m not really interested in driving in Rage at all. Hope it’s not too pervasive.

Dr.Ghettoblaster
22/08/11, 4:45 am

The game hasn’t even been revealed yet and they’re talking about it’s FPS? Very tacky in my opinion…surprising for id

Phoenixblight
22/08/11, 7:00 am

Actually it isn’t if you follow Carmack’s twitter you would get a glimpse on how he works. Its very technical, the man practically sees in code. SO It wouldn’t be surprising on setting the limitations within the game then working from there.

Read the interview like he said 30 FPS on racing parts would be very noticeable so they started with 60 to be smooth.

minxamo
22/08/11, 8:15 am

Yes! I’ve always thought that more games should do this, allowing for pretty grafficks in the single player, and faster response time in multiplayer.

silkvg247
22/08/11, 12:10 pm

I do hope they mean the console versions, and if they mean PC then it’s just an option which we can instantly turn off (yeah sure I’ll cap my GF580 at 30fps.. hurp durp).

tontsa91
22/08/11, 8:07 pm

Why are they making these stupid headlines?

Because I can obviously run the single-player at 200fps with my PC if I want to.

Big_Boss
23/08/11, 3:21 am

Play it on PC, problem solved.