Carmack: PS3 Rage will run at 60fps

By Tom Bramwell Published 3 August, 2009

Tech guru tries to calm everyone down.

id Software has reiterated that the PS3 version of Rage will run at 60 frames-per-second when it launches.

"Everything is designed as a 60Hz game. We expect this to be 60Hz on every supported platform," id's John Carmack told Edge after an article in the latest issue observed that the PS3 version was currently lagging behind in performance terms.

Whoever writes the Rage Twitter account added: "The Edge Magazine article has caused quite a ruckus. We are committed to ensuring that gamers on all platforms have a great Rage experience."

Which isn't the same as saying that each version will perform the same, but keen observers of id's comments on id Tech 5, which powers Rage, will know that Carmack and others believe it's possible to achieve equal performance.

"Because of the way the technology works, it is really platform agnostic, which means Mac, PC, 360, PS3, so you don't have to have console hate if you're a PC player because we're focusing on the console, and if you're a console owner you don't have to wish that your version was as good as the PC because the technology does all that stuff," id boss Todd Hollenshead explained as far back as QuakeCon 2007.

At that time, Carmack also said that Rage was lagging behind on PS3, but he was confident that the team would make up the difference and apparently remains so.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (37) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • joe90 #1 3 years ago

    yes at 200x180 upscaled ;)

  • muscleblade #2 3 years ago

    Yeah right. The PS3 will easily be the inferior version as usual. Not fair i know.

  • thenastypasty #3 3 years ago

    Its good to see ID are making the effort to make the game run the same on all platforms.

    Although that means the fanboys will have nothing to moan about .

  • Zanuah #4 3 years ago

    Maybe ID should talk with CAPCOM who made an engine that runs wonderfully on 360, PS3 and the PC... :p

    But yea... it'll run at 60fps eventually, maybe a year after it was released originally. :p
    Edited by 1 at 03/08/09 @ 09:05

  • Doctor_What #5 3 years ago

    Criterion did it...

  • Dizzy #6 3 years ago

    60hz does not mean 60Fps

  • kangarootoo #7 3 years ago

    @Dizzy

    More info please :)

  • Notez #8 3 years ago

    Yes, let's flood the comments with "X did it" and "maybe they should ask help from Y". id Tech 5 seems pretty impressive from the little I've seen of it and I think they are once again trying to bring more to the table than the competitors (tech-wise at least).

  • schnide #9 3 years ago

    I read the Edge preview on Rage and there was a running sense of insecurity about two things.

    Firstly, the fact that iD aren't exactly the masters of gameplay anymore and can't bring much more than tech into their games. If the 360 version is going to be spread across four discs then there's going to have to be some seriously good action to keep me interested, and that's hardly their strongpoint.

    There was also a constant denial of "no we're not just ripping off Fallout 3, honest" when they so clearly are and think that putting vehicles (which Edge said felt weak) and a Smash TV subplot can solve.

    Borderlands is looking like the far better title to me out of the two.

  • 3william56 #10 3 years ago

    Mac vs. PC Face-off! The Next War Starts Here!

    /sigh

  • mkreku #11 3 years ago

    Why isn't 60Hz the same as 60fps? Hertz means cycles per second. FPS means frames per second. I don't see anything inherently wrong with using Hz instead of fps.

  • kestral #12 3 years ago

    PAL 60Hz is just a display option for the TV that doesn't mean the game engine churns out 60 fps, you can run a 2fps game iin PAL 60hz mode, right? Then most of the time when the tv screen refreshes no new information gets sent to the tv.
    Edited by 1 at 03/08/09 @ 10:49

  • Xerx3s #13 3 years ago

    "Why isn't 60Hz the same as 60fps? Hertz means cycles per second. FPS means frames per second. I don't see anything inherently wrong with using Hz instead of fps."

    That's because you clearly have no clue what you are talking about.

    No offence.
    Edited by 1 at 03/08/09 @ 10:51

  • kangarootoo #14 3 years ago

    @kestral

    60hz can mean rather more than a TV refresh rate. It literally means 60 cycles per second. Cycles of WHAT depends on what you are referring to (anything that changes state 60 times in a second can be said to have a change rate of 60Hz).

    A program can have a cycle rate of 60hz (as in there are 60 opportunities in each second for the program to do something), but whether you redraw the screen content every cycle is (although common) not mandatory. I think that is what Dizzy was referring to, but I'm not a coder and I know he is, so I wondered what he was thinking.

  • kangarootoo #15 3 years ago

    @Xerx3s

    Stroppy bugger. If you DO know what you are talking about (as you do), how about you share that knowledge with the rest of us lesser fools?

  • Negotiator #16 3 years ago

    Id's tech 5 is the most advanced engine that we have seen so far, and the all powerful (if you listen to Sony) PS3 is having trouble with it. This engine is pushing the consoles to the limit, so its no good saying someone else got 60fps from the PS3 because that engine is not on the same level as Id tech 5.

  • schnide #17 3 years ago

    @Neg

    The difficulties of one engine is hardly the defining note of a console's power. Code nerd as much as Carmack is, his history lies deep in PC development of which the 360 is incredibly similar, so why wouldn't the PS3 be lagging behind in that respect?

    Besides, Carmack's said they'll all end up running the same anyway. Nice little piece of publicity for iD here, they get more coverage for caning-but-not-really the PS3 than their game itself.

  • GamesConnoisseur #18 3 years ago

    You can program anything to go 60 fps but yes question we ll want to know is if whilst doing so, is the version on PS3 exact same in contents, features, resolution and textures as on all platforms?
    If so that frakking amazing!!!!
    Cos PC, Mac, X360 and PS3 may be comparable in some areas but certainly not in all things. iD wants game to sells successfully on all platform and they won't want to talk down any of those.... at least marketing people if not the programmers!!

  • Uncle_Spanks #19 3 years ago

    The PC version will always look better no matter what. The options you have for improving the quality of the graphics on a PC just don't exist on the consoles.

  • mkreku #20 3 years ago

    Hey, Xerx3s, instead of just being a condescending dick, why don't you educate us as to why you can't say a game is aiming for a 60Hz framerate?

  • des #21 3 years ago

    Expect and will are two different words...

  • Matfink #22 3 years ago

    You don't get owt fer nowt...

  • SeesThroughAll #23 3 years ago

    Hz is the SI unit for frequency, meaning "cicles per second". Some people occasionally use Hz for "displays per second" or... horror, shock: "frames per second".

    So, yes, Hz usually is the unit used for the televisions refresh rate, but it can used to express anything that refreshes or cicles a given number of times per second... like frames.

    By all means, let us all pretend that being anal makes us insightful.

  • makeamazing #24 3 years ago

    There was also a constant denial of "no we're not just ripping off Fallout 3, honest" when they so clearly are and think that putting vehicles (which Edge said felt weak) and a Smash TV subplot can solve.

    I for one wont mind more games in the mold of Fallout :)

  • schnide #25 3 years ago

    Hey I love Fallout 3, I really do, and because of that I think people should be honest about their influences rather than just try to cash in.

  • Katsumoto #26 3 years ago

    I'm not really seeing the similarities, other than that they are both set in post-apocalyptic futures. Fallout 3 was hardly the first game to do that (see Fallout 1 and 2 for just two other examples! ;)) I thought the EDGE article really emphasised how Rage will really be a FPS with some RPG elements, quite distinct from the first-person full-on RPG that is Fallout 3. And that's a good thing, as iD will always be up there with the Kings of FPSes. Then again, I liked Doom 3 - what do I know?!

  • BobsUncle #27 3 years ago

    Hey, mkreku, why not do some research yourself before insulting people?

    So just for you.

    60hz is the speed the Tv or monitor updates the screen with the contents of the framebuffer. Whereas, 60 FPS is the speed that actual program updates the framebuffer.

    So, even if your game drops to 30 FPS your TV still displays at 60hz, it just shows the same frame twice.

  • kangarootoo #28 3 years ago

    @BobsUncle

    You seem to have become confused.

    mkreku raised a reasonable (if slightly n00bish, but hardly a crime) question over the difference between hertz and fps. Xerx3s then gave him shit for asking a question. So then mkreku understandably told him to *(&^ off.

    Clearer now?

  • kangarootoo #29 3 years ago

    @Zero_Cool

    How very adult of you to notice.

  • AphoticCosmos #30 3 years ago

    As long as the PC version runs comfortably at 60fps+ I'd be a happy chappy.

  • BobsUncle #31 3 years ago

    Oh, well I do apologise Mr. kangarootoo.

    To me it looked like mkreku asked a fairly stupid question to which Xerx3s jokingly took the piss out of a bit. And the response was to call Xerx3s a dick. A bit rude if you ask me.

    I then give a perfectly adequate explanation of the difference (as unlike yourself I'm a professional graphics programmer) to which you also seemed to take offence.

    It seems you also clearly have no clue what you are talking about.

    No offence.

  • peak_performance #32 3 years ago

    Good job, this is the first coverage of this news that didn't swallow CVGs misquoting of the right now 20-30fps PS3 version.

    I don't see anything Fallout 3 in Rage except the PA setting and "arks" btw. It's a PA FPS - of course there will be similarities, but get your shit straight, yo
    Edited by 1 at 03/08/09 @ 16:54

  • Sharzam #33 3 years ago

    Regardless if you like the gameplay in id games. the one thing which is highly regarded in the industry is the engines that id can produce. Recently epic may have stole the thunder with there unreal 3 engine, but just think of all the years the quake 3 engine ruled.

    Then not to mention that the doom 3 engine (game itself debatble) , was amazing and years ahead of its time but because of that was not used alot due to the power it needed.

    edit: my point was iam sure they know what there doing on a technical level :)
    Edited by 1 at 03/08/09 @ 17:59

  • des #34 3 years ago

    "Simply they havent been exposed as much to the PS3 architecture, so they aren't up to speed on it yet."

    Id started working on PS3 in 2005,so 3-4 years=20-30fps,that is on par with Killzone and Uncharted, he is pretty much on speed with it,even without massive funding from Sony.He just wants to have a 60 fps game...

    But what i find funny is that there are plenty of videos form 2007- Carmack or someone from id showing Rage running at 60Hz on "4" platforms,PC,360,Mac and PS3...lol
    The question is what caused massive PS3 performance downgrade?Someone should ask Carmack about that at upcoming quakecon.

    And last but not least,
    Its very impressive that 360(4.5 years old tech) is running new super-advanced 2010 id tech 5 at 60fps,MS sure made very smart hardware choices this gen.

    About Fallout comparisons,Fallout 3 is a great game,if something from Fallout 3 needs to be ripped to make Rage a better game,do it.
    Besides Bethesda bought id,so who cares.






  • Ryze #35 3 years ago

    ^ If they started in 2005, then it'd be the REAL PS3 specs.

    The GPU, the bus speeds, the RAM vs. streaming required, and the BD transfer rate that would affect performance. They can run the visuals at 60fps, but they've probably realised by now what can't be displayed at that frame rate, and how they can make it look pretty with the resources they have at their disposal.

    Edited by 1 at 03/08/09 @ 23:49

  • Skurmedel #36 3 years ago

    I think Capcom would ask id rather. id has quite a record when it comes to computer graphics.

  • des #37 3 years ago

    ^So now we have to wait for Doom 4 to make comparisons?2015 it is then...lol

    Rage doesn't even have a solid(confirmed) release year,maybe 2010...Next-gen platforms are going be released sooner than Doom 4

    Also Carmack said in latest Edge that PS3 an 360 cpu are "about the same"...and that tells us what?
    The problem is that he needs a practical headroom not some mythical theoretical headroom... theory and practice are two different worlds