Vote for many "Driver Related" things in here :)

Was removing content worth the 60FPS in DSF?

Yes! Absolutely!
1
10%
Nope! The game felt broken!
7
70%
Content was removed?!
2
20%
#46703
We all know DSF was forced to run at 60FPS, but only because of console limitations. Lots of features were removed from the game in order to keep the game running at a smooth 60FPS, such as trams, proper traffic intersections, being able to select the colors on your vehicle, vehicle upgrades (from DPL), the ability to actually go off-road...was it really worth it?

DSF had lots of potential, but any chances of it being a truly amazing game were shattered when the goal of keeping the game running at 60FPS were put into place. I wonder what hardware out today isn't upgradeable and uses 7-year old technology? Surely not any computer I know of. Speaking of computers, the PC/Mac versions of the game were just poorly made console ports. No extra attention was paid to the game, and the last update to the game was over a year ago (with no updates in sight). Reflections can't even speak about anything related to DSF, so I guess DSF was forgotten about.

You decide.
#46707
Well I never really noticed the difference until I started recording gameplay. I do notice single player has such a nice flow whereas multiplayer is more "rough" it seems. During gameplay I'm not sure if I really care.

BTW the things you mentioned were not removed because of the 60 FPS, the trams were removed to have another set of cars / more cars in the traffic, and so were the "proper" traffic intersections as far as I know. Stuff that "suffered" under the 60 FPS were: no weather / rain / night time, and no reflections (like, the reflections in the chrome that you see on a car is nothing else but a 3rd person view of what you see. To be honest I don't really care. BUT this also includes the mirrors that look to the front instead of looking to the back). Some others things were not made / removed because of this, don't remember what.

What do you mean with "go off-road", you mean no invisible walls? I don't think that's related :P Also where did you hear we could change the colours of our cars? I know for a fact there wasn't even garages before (which I found way more interesting because it would actually take you lot of time to find your favourite car, in your favourite COLOUR!).

Traffic definitely suffered the most. It's not because of the 60 FPS but we lost some nice things, some of which we already mentioned, such as:

- Trams
- All traffic
- Proper traffic intersections
- Police cars have their own areas (normal cars in the city, Corvette's on the highways, Monaco's in rural areas / marin county)
- Cars driving "off-road" (like small streets etc., only thing left are delivery vans)
- Cars not disappearing in multiplayer
- Cars stopping and putting their hazard lights when you hit them (as seen in multiplayer)
- Parked Vehicles
- Maybe random ambulance and fire fighter missions spawning?
- Maybe cars changing lanes?


BUT Driver: San Francisco stays for me personally the best Driver game ever so far. :) It's just excellent. I just hope they fix those small mistakes in Driver 4, and that we see a "Driver: San Francisco 2" basically.
#46722
I understand where they were going for with the 60fps thing and all, but... was it really worth it? I respect the dev teams decision but personally, I don't agree with it. If I could have whatever fps, and things what both Coyote and Carluver mentioned, no. Definitely not worth over scrapping that stuff.
#46742
I've never had a problem with car games being 30fps, I play a lot of car games look fast at this framerate including Split Second and Dirt 2/3, and I don't notice 'that much' difference between 30fps and 60fps. Does anyone know if this causes some of the traffic to lag a bit? For example, an AI bus travels along at normal speed, then suddenly (even sometimes when it goes round a corner) picks up a hell of a lot of speed, then just slows down really quickly again. I see it quite often and it happens with any vehicle.
#46744
Yeah that is true. Even though the game took 5 years to make, it's still a bit (when I mean a bit I actually mean very) rusty, especially the AI. Good job I like the car chases, the cars themselves and the music in it otherwise I wouldn't be playing it! Hopefully for the next game they'll focus on polishing it up before release...even though that's what they were meant to be doing at the point the game got delayed...
#46762
max.thunder wrote:
[youtube size=560X315]
[/youtube]
I remember posting this on my site back in 2008 :) Although I had the feeling that we were able to see the green car better, and also had a better view of the character. I'm trying to find the pictures I had saved but they're on another computer I believe.

Ok I found some of the pictures with web archive, and yes it seems to be a different video as we see the sports car in a green colour which we don't in the video you posted (only red and blue). So I got it confused with the old green muscle car or whatever it is.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image


I remember at the time we were thinking there would be 2 eras again, like in Parallel Lines. Well actually DSF kind of does have 2 eras… :)

That other video I didn't know however, really interesting :)

PostalDude wrote:
CarLuver69 wrote:This is what Driver: SF looked like in September 2008...

http://ptoponline.com/?p=582
Hey, it had drivable ASYMS, at least. :lol:
Actually all the Asyms (and the Monaco police car) were meant to be selectable from the garage earlier :)

Edit: What's funny is how back then there were no proper intersections either :P They left some of them but removed the rest again it seems.
#46766
Coyote wrote:
max.thunder wrote:
[youtube size=560X315]
[/youtube]
I remember posting this on my site back in 2008 :) Although I had the feeling that we were able to see the green car better, and also had a better view of the character. I'm trying to find the pictures I had saved but they're on another computer I believe.

Ok I found some of the pictures with web archive, and yes it seems to be a different video as we see the sports car in a green colour which we don't in the video you posted (only red and blue). So I got it confused with the old green muscle car or whatever it is.
You must pay more attention, the green car appears in 1:42. There's no other vid.
#46834
CarLuver69 wrote:We all know DSF was forced to run at 60FPS, but only because of console limitations. Lots of features were removed from the game in order to keep the game running at a smooth 60FPS, such as trams, proper traffic intersections, being able to select the colors on your vehicle, vehicle upgrades (from DPL), the ability to actually go off-road...was it really worth it?

DSF had lots of potential, but any chances of it being a truly amazing game were shattered when the goal of keeping the game running at 60FPS were put into place. I wonder what hardware out today isn't upgradeable and uses 7-year old technology? Surely not any computer I know of. Speaking of computers, the PC/Mac versions of the game were just poorly made console ports. No extra attention was paid to the game, and the last update to the game was over a year ago (with no updates in sight). Reflections can't even speak about anything related to DSF, so I guess DSF was forgotten about.

You decide.
I don't know a lot about building a game but does a thing like a Tram or a parked car really affect the fps that much? :| I'm surprised that they would have a thing like that over that reason. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
#46836
Badnick24 wrote:
CarLuver69 wrote:We all know DSF was forced to run at 60FPS, but only because of console limitations. Lots of features were removed from the game in order to keep the game running at a smooth 60FPS, such as trams, proper traffic intersections, being able to select the colors on your vehicle, vehicle upgrades (from DPL), the ability to actually go off-road...was it really worth it?

DSF had lots of potential, but any chances of it being a truly amazing game were shattered when the goal of keeping the game running at 60FPS were put into place. I wonder what hardware out today isn't upgradeable and uses 7-year old technology? Surely not any computer I know of. Speaking of computers, the PC/Mac versions of the game were just poorly made console ports. No extra attention was paid to the game, and the last update to the game was over a year ago (with no updates in sight). Reflections can't even speak about anything related to DSF, so I guess DSF was forgotten about.

You decide.
I don't know a lot about building a game but does a thing like a Tram or a parked car really affect the fps that much? :| I'm surprised that they would have a thing like that over that reason. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
It all has to do with memory. Released version sometime does take a hit on the fps when your on the highway.
#46843
Yep, it sure does. Trams and parked cars add more "draw calls" to the game, or basically something that needs to be rendered by the game engine. The more draw calls, the more stress is put on the game engine, the lower the FPS gets. Obviously the more stuff to render, including the scripts to control these new objects, will eventually put strain on the game engine and make it drop below 60FPS. Seriously though, the game looks too fast paced at 60FPS...I think 40FPS would've been perfectly fine, and that in itself would be an accomplishment.
#46851
The 60 FPS have nothing to do with the fact trams and such were removed :P I explained the reason in my first post in this thread. Reflections said that the trams were removed for another set of cars, so instead of having a few dozens of trams driving around the city, you'd have more cars.

There isn't really stuff that was "removed" in order to get 60 FPS, there's just things that were never made in order to get 60 FPS. That includes mirrors that actually work (and real reflections), different time settings like dawn, night, dusk etc… and also the weather, especially rain.
#46877
RacingFreak wrote:DSF Wii does have the parked cars and trams, why didnt they made them in DSF.
It was based on DPL as far as I know? I'm wondering what the trams would have looked like in DSF. Would people be sitting inside? Would they be indestructible / with infinite mass, like other trains in previous Driver games? I'm especially curious what the interior would have looked like. Imagine we could find another video of very early gameplay :)

And it seriously sucks, just imagine all the trailblazer matches that take place where the tram lines are. The matches would have been even more massacre than they already are with the trams smashing against all the player cars and sending them in the air :cry: You could push other players into trams, that really makes me sad that they removed them…
#46878
Coyote wrote:And it seriously sucks, just imagine all the trailblazer matches that take place where the tram lines are. The matches would have been even more massacre than they already are with the trams smashing against all the player cars and sending them in the air :cry: You could push other players into trams, that really makes me sad that they removed them…
Agree
#46893
I still think that the tram could have been included though. I mean isn't it basically just a car only indestructible?
#46895
Yeah, indestructible + infinite mass I believe. I think it would have looked very similar to the one in the Wii version. That games used stuff from DPL but also from DSF, such as the vehicles that the player can drive. (the traffic ones are those from DPL) So probably it uses the tram from the other versions as well, but less detailed.

The thing that sucks is that I believe they don't want to make something that isn't available on consoles, it's always the other way around. I mean even with DSF, there's stuff we don't have like the split screen multiplayer for example. Point is, their consoles are too weak. My Mac could run everything, including games that will come out on the Playstation 9. They could just make the *perfect* game and then adapt it to every platform / or have settings to make it playable for everyone, for example if your computer isn't that powerful, you'd have settings for less traffic, or no weather etc. The consoles are the problem. :?
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