Frame pacing is a big thing. At 30 FPS you need to deliver a frame to the screen every 33.3333 MS. If the game is doing that consistently it will feel significantly better than a game displaying frames randomly at 30 ms, 33 ms, 36 ms. That could still average out to 30 fps but it will feel bad.

I imagine most console games probably use vsync or some kind of buffering to avoid screen tearing as well. If you’re not delivering your frames on time before that 33ms, it will get delayed to the next screen refresh and that’s when thing start to feel really bad.

[–] zippoz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, the frame pacing must be rock-steady

[–] chilidoghedgehog@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I feel like Tears of the Kingdom does this well. It's usually consistent at 30fps, but feels incredible responsive. Even when I can force the game down to sub 20 fps (I like explosive constructs) it doesn't feel unplayable at all, and I'm usually an FPS snob for my PC games.