60 FPS has become one of the most important numbers when discussing the technical quality of a video game. Higher frame rates mean smoother movement, better responsiveness and, generally speaking, a more fluid experience. But Grand Theft Auto VI could be about to challenge that idea.
Rockstar's upcoming open-world blockbuster is currently targeting 30 FPS on consoles, and that decision has understandably generated plenty of debate. However, after analyzing the latest extended gameplay footage, Digital Foundry's conclusions suggest that the real story isn't that GTA 6 "only" runs at 30 FPS.
The real story is what Rockstar is managing to simulate at those 30 frames per second.
The problem isn't simply the graphics
At first glance, it would be easy to assume that GTA 6 is demanding because of its enormous environments, realistic characters and advanced lighting.
Those elements certainly play a role, but they are only part of the equation.
Vice City and the wider state of Leonida aren't designed to be static backgrounds. Rockstar is building a world filled with pedestrians, vehicles, animals, weather systems, artificial intelligence, physics, animations and countless interactions that need to operate simultaneously.
That creates a completely different kind of technical challenge.
Digital Foundry's latest analysis suggests that the game is heavily utilizing both the CPU and GPU, with Rockstar carefully balancing the workload between them. The footage analyzed on a standard PS5 appears to deliver a relatively stable 30 FPS, with only occasional frame drops.
In other words, Rockstar isn't simply rendering a beautiful picture.
It's trying to make an entire world function at the same time.
Why 60 FPS could be so difficult
Going from 30 FPS to 60 FPS isn't simply a matter of making the GPU work twice as hard.
At 30 FPS, the game has roughly 33.3 milliseconds to process each frame. At 60 FPS, that window drops to approximately 16.7 milliseconds.
That means the CPU has to process the game's simulation dramatically faster.
And this is where GTA 6 becomes particularly interesting.
Every pedestrian, vehicle, police response, animation, environmental interaction and AI behavior requires processing time. If the CPU is already being pushed close to its limits at 30 FPS, doubling the frame rate could require significant compromises.
Digital Foundry therefore considers a 60 FPS version extremely unlikely on current console hardware without reducing some of the game's complexity.
Even the PS5 Pro may not solve the problem
The PS5 Pro is considerably more powerful than the standard PS5, especially on the GPU side. So it would be reasonable to assume that GTA 6 could simply use that additional power to reach 60 FPS.
Unfortunately, things aren't that simple.
If the primary limitation comes from CPU-heavy systems such as world simulation, crowds and artificial intelligence, additional GPU power can't magically solve the bottleneck.
This is one of the reasons GTA 6 is such an interesting technical case.
A more powerful GPU can render more pixels, improve image quality and provide additional graphical effects. But if the CPU can't process the game's simulation quickly enough, the frame rate remains constrained.
Digital Foundry has specifically pointed toward the game's CPU demands as one of the biggest obstacles to reaching 60 FPS.
Rockstar appears to have chosen density over frame rate
And perhaps this is the most important point.
Rockstar could have designed GTA 6 around a 60 FPS target. But doing so would almost certainly have required compromises. (part 2 coming soon..)
