John Carmack Says Framerate Is More Important than Quality for RAGE

RAGE, the upcoming first-person shooter from developer id Software and publisher Bethesda, has been looking very good since the two companies first showed it off, but legendary developer John Carmack says that the team has been told to prioritize a smooth framerate over actual graphics quality.

Speaking to Gamasutra John Carmack, who is the leading programmer working on the id Tech 5 engine, has said, “I made the conscious decision that the user is going to get more value out of running at a higher framerate than me making the pixels pretty.”

He added, “I think I could have made the game look better at 30 hertz. We could have had some more design freedom. Most people get at least a subliminal feel about it," he says. "It's more responsive. It's crisper. It's smoother.”

Carmack is well known for his love of the scientific approach to development and he says that his team conducted a number of experiments to see which are the limits of the framerate impact.

After being shown game demos running at both 60 and 120 FPS, Carmack noticed that most players did not see any real difference, suggesting that 60 is the sweet spot that video game developers should aim for when planning their future titles.

RAGE is being powered by id Tech 5, a new game engine that will be used for future games from id Software and will also be licensed to other companies.

RAGE is being worked on for some time and is the first new intellectual property from the creator of DOOM and Quake in quite some time.

The player is the survivor of a cataclysmic event and must fight a number of factions while exploring a barren and threatening world.

The game combines first-person shooter action with vehicular combat, and a number of previews show a smooth experience, with intelligent enemies and a wide array of weapons to use.