View Full Version : PGR3 : MS's attitude towards graphics actually supports Nintendo!
Shifty Geezer
16-Nov-2005, 12:12
Since all the ruckus about Nintendo not supporting HD, I felt these comments from MS, when asked what resolution PGR3 was rendering at, poignant...
"What is going on behind the scenes in the code or the HW to get the incredible visuals for Xbox 360 is not what gamers care about.
"They just care about playing great looking and innovative games, and that is exactly what Xbox 360 and the launch lineup has provided."
From this article about PGR3's framebuffer, as mentioned already in the gaming forum.
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=61708
This both supports the view that PGR3 isn't rendering at 720p, and the view it doesn't matter. As long as games look good who cares about the resolution etc (except geeks on a 3D forum discussing tech, but who don't care about the numbers when actually playing games instead of analysing them)!
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25517
;)
Hardknock
16-Nov-2005, 12:15
Well first it's a trade off, if a dev has to slightly drop the resolution for some amazing effects I'm all for it.
But to dismiss higher resolutions completely is a whole nother ball game.
No amount of AA and effects on this world could ever make me go back to gaming at 640x480 on my PC, its that simple. For people with SD TVs it is going to be negligible, very true. But anybody with an HDTV set is instantly going to get improved IQ, a sharper, more detailed image and most likely will never want to go back to SD gaming ever again. Even if PGR3 isn't running at full 720p, its still a heck of a lot more detail than 480P does provide.
I must admit that I find it somewhat ironic though, that we've been told that every X360 game would have to be rendered at 720p, yet the first flagship title out of MSG already disregards that "requirement"...
Now it's interesing if devs of future games also dare to use this upsampling HD hack after this scrutiny or go Ridge Racer 6...
fearsomepirate
16-Nov-2005, 13:17
I know I'd definitely rather play Zelda at 480p than some non-Zelda game at 720p. And I'd rather DM in Quake 2 on a PC with a GeForce 2 than Halo 2 just for the simple reason that it controls so much better...despite the massively better-looking graphics.
;-)
valioso
16-Nov-2005, 13:18
it was obvious that corners where going to be cut in order for pgr3 to make launch.. if a year for now this is still happening then will be the time to blast MS
It's just graphics. I dont understand the focus.
Titanio
16-Nov-2005, 13:23
it was obvious that corners where going to be cut in order for pgr3 to make launch.. if a year for now this is still happening then will be the time to blast MS
It may have been obvious as the situation for launch game developers became more and more clear over time, but there was nothing necessary or inevitable about that situation.
dopefishzzz
16-Nov-2005, 13:36
No amount of AA and effects on this world could ever make me go back to gaming at 640x480 on my PC, its that simple. For people with SD TVs it is going to be negligible, very true. But anybody with an HDTV set is instantly going to get improved IQ, a sharper, more detailed image and most likely will never want to go back to SD gaming ever again. "...
so true...
that's why I think Nintendo made some big mistake not supporting HD-Def.
Gamers will see 720P as the new standard when they'll see the 360 in action, in by the time Nintendo release the revolution, we'll all be accustomed to 720P, and 640 X 480 will look SOOOOOOO 10 years old graphics.
london-boy
16-Nov-2005, 13:41
so true...
that's why I think Nintendo made some big mistake not supporting HD-Def.
Gamers will see 720P as the new standard when they'll see the 360 in action, in by the time Nintendo release the revolution, we'll all be accustomed to 720P, and 640 X 480 will look SOOOOOOO 10 years old graphics.
And next to them there will be a normal DVD of The Incredibles (just to name one we've never mentioned before!) and go "oooooh what res is that running at?!!" :wink:
it was obvious that corners where going to be cut in order for pgr3 to make launch.. if a year for now this is still happening then will be the time to blast MSBut if they did it to fit it in the eDRAM, it means they managed to obtain 30fps in the most optimal situation without tile-rendering overhead. In other words, when they begin to use tile rendering to do 720p+2xAA, it gets even more difficult to get 60fps for them.
valioso
16-Nov-2005, 13:58
But if they did it to fit it in the eDRAM, it means they managed to obtain 30fps in the most optimal situation without tile-rendering overhead. In other words, when they begin to use tile rendering to do 720p+2xAA, it gets even more difficult to get 60fps for them.
final hardware was late. They did not start developing the game on final hardware either. Remember the alpha kits were G5's
Powderkeg
16-Nov-2005, 14:08
But if they did it to fit it in the eDRAM, it means they managed to obtain 30fps in the most optimal situation
You consider being extremely rushed to make your game, to the point of having to cut some features an "optimal situation"?
Do you even know what optimal means?
You consider being extremely rushed to make your game, to the point of having to cut some features an "optimal situation"?
Do you even know what optimal means?As optimal as it doesn't require tile rendering. What's not optimal with this? We all know they've been developing PGR 3 for at least 3 years. By forgetting tile-rendering, they ought to be able to have transferred all the codebase to 360 without major hack if you believe J Allard et al said about the friendliness of the new XDK that enabled Rare to port Kameo from Xbox 1 to 360.
expletive
16-Nov-2005, 14:21
As optimal as it doesn't require tile rendering. What's not optimal with this? We all know they've been developing PGR 3 for at least 3 years. By forgetting tile-rendering, they ought to be able to have transferred all the codebase to 360 without major hack if you believe J Allard et al said about the friendliness of the new XDK that enabled Rare to port Kameo from Xbox 1 to 360.
You are assuming the game is xenos limited instead of xenon/multithread limited. Theres no way to know what the bottleneck here is and what could have been done with more time with the final hardware. I htink we would all like to think you just run your code on G5s one day, then final hardware the next and "Voila!" 60fps but its not that easy.
Powderkeg
16-Nov-2005, 14:22
As optimal as it doesn't require tile rendering. What's not optimal with this?
Optimal means under the best possible circumstances or situation.
So, the question is, do you consider PGR3's development and graphical output to be made under the best of circumstances?
I would be willing to bet that given an unlimited amount of time and access to final hardware from the start they could have pulled off the same graphics internally rendered at 720p and at 60 FPS. Maybe even increased the amount of AA.
They didn't go with a non-tile based solution because it's slower, they went that way because they didn't have access to the final hardware long enough learn how to make it work.
Optimal means under the best possible circumstances or situation.
So, the question is, do you consider PGR3's development and graphical output to be made under the best of circumstances?
I would be willing to bet that given an unlimited amount of time and access to final hardware from the start they could have pulled off the same graphics internally rendered at 720p and at 60 FPS. Maybe even increased the amount of AA.
They didn't go with a non-tile based solution because it's slower, they went that way because they didn't have access to the final hardware long enough learn how to make it work.Please look at my first post in this thread. I mentioned Ridge Racer 6. (Or DOA4, as Itagaki bragged about its 60fps.) Isn't it a rushed job, even more so than PGR3?
dopefishzzz
16-Nov-2005, 15:45
And next to them there will be a normal DVD of The Incredibles (just to name one we've never mentioned before!) and go "oooooh what res is that running at?!!" :wink:
If 480p movies were SO great, we wouldn't be switching to HD-DVD and Blueray like we are about to :wink:
Ever saw a 720p clip on a HDTV ? Normal DVDs don't look good anymore after you saw that !
And a movie with motion blur is not the same as a digital game without it.
scooby_dooby
16-Nov-2005, 15:47
But if they did it to fit it in the eDRAM, it means they managed to obtain 30fps in the most optimal situation without tile-rendering overhead. In other words, when they begin to use tile rendering to do 720p+2xAA, it gets even more difficult to get 60fps for them.
And didn't they also say they wanted to rebuild their entire game after getting the X360 GPU? Sometimes you gotta use a little spit and bubble-gum to patch these things up and work within tight timelines.
scooby_dooby
16-Nov-2005, 15:51
By forgetting tile-rendering, they ought to be able to have transferred all the codebase to 360 without major hack if you believe J Allard et al said about the friendliness of the new XDK that enabled Rare to port Kameo from Xbox 1 to 360.
It's not that simple, from what I understand if the engine is not built from the ground up for predicated tiling, 4xAA can take up to a 10% hit, instead of the 2-5% hit normally associated. (courtesy of an MS dev on TXB)
So they probably WERE able to add tiling but it still had a big hit on performance since it was an 11th hour addition.
Powderkeg
16-Nov-2005, 16:17
Please look at my first post in this thread. I mentioned Ridge Racer 6. (Or DOA4, as Itagaki bragged about its 60fps.) Isn't it a rushed job, even more so than PGR3?
You mean Ridge Racer 6:
http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/images/2005/313/reviews/929248_20051110_screen098.jpg
http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/images/2005/313/reviews/929248_20051110_screen097.jpg
And the DELAYED DOA4?
Let's see, one game with mediocre graphics, the other is delayed. Yeah, I would say they are rushed too. The question is, which would you have preferred? Cutting down PGR3's graphics to Ridge Racers low-detail, or delaying the game?
It's not that simple, from what I understand if the engine is not built from the ground up for predicated tiling, 4xAA can take up to a 10% hit, instead of the 2-5% hit normally associated. (courtesy of an MS dev on TXB)
So they probably WERE able to add tiling but it still had a big hit on performance since it was an 11th hour addition.
The current theory is that they managed to fit a 1024x600 frame with 2xAA exactly in 10MB of EDRAM, so tiling was not used (see the last of page this thread http://www.bizarreonline.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=157200&highlight=#157200)
If that is the case, we could assume that at least the game is not currently bottlenecked by tiling. The current performance would be identical to a hypothetical situation where tiling has 0% overhead, as long as cpu factors remain constant.
One is proposing that if this were the case, then PGR3 would have difficulty going beyond 30fps, even if they managed to implement 100% efficient tiling for higher resolutions.
It's not that simple, from what I understand if the engine is not built from the ground up for predicated tiling, 4xAA can take up to a 10% hit, instead of the 2-5% hit normally associated. (courtesy of an MS dev on TXB)
So they probably WERE able to add tiling but it still had a big hit on performance since it was an 11th hour addition.4xAA is not at all related to the situation I described.
It's about
(no tiling + 2xAA = 30fps) or (tiling + 2xAA = X fps)
and the former is the actual non-720p PGR3 and the latter is what it was supposed to be (720p).
Powderkeg
16-Nov-2005, 16:26
The current theory is that they managed to fit a 1024x600 frame with 2xAA exactly in 10MB of EDRAM, so tiling was not used (see the last of page this thread http://www.bizarreonline.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=157200&highlight=#157200)
If that is the case, we could assume that at least the game is not currently bottlenecked by tiling. The current performance would be identical to a hypothetical situation where tiling has 0% overhead, as long as cpu factors remain constant.
One is proposing that if this were the case, then PGR3 would have difficulty going beyond 30fps, even if they managed to implement 100% efficient tiling for higher resolutions.
Only because he is ignoring the fact that the frame rate is LOCKED at 30 FPS, not limited to 30FPS.
If you were to unlock it, and find that 95% of the time the frame rate really exceeded 60FPS and only 5% did it drop noticably lower, would people still think it wouldn't be possible to fine tune the optimization and get the 60 FPS frame rate and 720p?
Somehow, I doubt it.
On'e biggest mistake is assuming that the 30 FPS is a hardware limit, rather than a restriction the developers chose to maintain a steady frame rate on a fairly unoptimized game.
expletive
16-Nov-2005, 16:29
And didn't they also say they wanted to rebuild their entire game after getting the X360 GPU? Sometimes you gotta use a little spit and bubble-gum to patch these things up and work within tight timelines.
Forgot about this, and imo it should really put an end to the speculation as to whether or not PGR3 was developed/released under 'optimal' conditions.
On'e biggest mistake is assuming that the 30 FPS is a hardware limit, rather than a restriction the developers chose to maintain a steady frame rate on a fairly unoptimized game.
That is one of two ways to look at it. I would think that if PGR3 achieved 60FPS with ease, the lock would have been at 60FPS.
The question is, which would you have preferred? Cutting down PGR3's graphics to Ridge Racers low-detail, or delaying the game?Well, that question should be directed toward MS marketing guys who advertised mandatory 720p like shooting themselves in their collective feet :razz: Anyway, can you put gamer's preference aside and just talk about the technical feasibility in future 360 games?
You gotta love that scaler chip in the Xbox 360.
If you can't do it, just scale it. :lol:
Powderkeg
16-Nov-2005, 17:54
That is one of two ways to look at it. I would think that if PGR3 achieved 60FPS with ease, the lock would have been at 60FPS.
Like I said 3 times now, it didn't have time to be fully optimized.
They had it running at a steady 50+ FPS except for a few heavy situations. A steady 60 FPS was easily achievable if they had had another 2-3 months to finish optimizing and tweaking it.
Powderkeg
16-Nov-2005, 17:56
Anyway, can you put gamer's preference aside and just talk about the technical feasibility in future 360 games?
Shouldn't you be asking yourself this?
There are 360 games running in 720p native resolution with 4X AA and at 60 FPS RIGHT NOW. What in the hell makes you think it wouldn't be feasible in the future?
Shouldn't you be asking yourself this?
There are 360 games running in 720p native resolution with 4X AA and at 60 FPS RIGHT NOW. What in the hell makes you think it wouldn't be feasible in the future?
Please do list these games.
Please do list these games.
COD2 is one
It's just graphics. I dont understand the focus.
You posted this already quite a few times...
This is a technical forum, and by technical I mean 3D rendering technolgies, for the most part.
The word 3D is in the URL, actually. :wink:
Inane_Dork
16-Nov-2005, 19:12
Whatever is best for image quality is good for me. MS's stance seems mollified, which is good. Requiring 720p is not necessarily best for image quality.
Nintendo's stance, however, is immoveable. No HD, period. And it doesn't matter if HD would make the game look better. So no, I don't think PGR3 is evidence that MS's stance lines up with Nintendo's.
Whatever is best for image quality is good for me. MS's stance seems mollified, which is good. Requiring 720p is not necessarily best for image quality.
Nintendo's stance, however, is immoveable. No HD, period. And it doesn't matter if HD would make the game look better. So no, I don't think PGR3 is evidence that MS's stance lines up with Nintendo's.
Specially when in the beggining MS was totting...welcome to the HD era! were X360 is revolutionary because of the HD era.
PC-Engine
16-Nov-2005, 21:21
Please look at my first post in this thread. I mentioned Ridge Racer 6. (Or DOA4, as Itagaki bragged about its 60fps.) Isn't it a rushed job, even more so than PGR3?
You're comparing the development time and resources put into PGR3 to RR6? Are you serious? PGR3 has buttloads of real geometry and real textures from actual cities. That alone requires much more work and time than some generic scenery. Then you add all the extra stuff going into PGR3 and it becomes obvious RR6 requires less development time.
scooby_dooby
16-Nov-2005, 21:52
Specially when in the beggining MS was totting...welcome to the HD era! were X360 is revolutionary because of the HD era.
If i'm not mistaken, every single game I buy for my X360 next week will render on my HDTV at a beautifuly crisp 720p. So I fail to see how MS has not lived up to it's promise.
They've released ONE game at slightly lower than HD resolution, which just happens to look jaw dropping anyways. What's the big deal?
This just shows MS is being flexible, they are concentrating on image quality instead of arbitrary resolutions and that's what really counts. Gamers don't care what the resolutions are, as long as it looks good on their TV (and HDTV as well).
As an HDTV owner, the fact MS is making sure every single game looks drop dead gorgeous on my screen is enough for me.
COD2 is one
You have a link for that?
You have a link for that?
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25685
Apparently it looks better than the PC version, for it to do that it would need that 4xAA.
Gamers will see 720P as the new standard when they'll see the 360 in action, in by the time Nintendo release the revolution, we'll all be accustomed to 720P, and 640 X 480 will look SOOOOOOO 10 years old graphics.
So then what will the massive majority of those same gamers (SDTV owners) think when they get there 360 home after seeing this "new standard"? Will they think that they just wasted $370 on a 10 year old console? :)
You're comparing the development time and resources put into PGR3 to RR6? Are you serious? PGR3 has buttloads of real geometry and real textures from actual cities. That alone requires much more work and time than some generic scenery. Then you add all the extra stuff going into PGR3 and it becomes obvious RR6 requires less development time.So you suggest artists and coders can't work in parallel? That's news to me :eek:
If MS's development pipeline is as great as advertised by MS guys, artists won't need coders' intervention very often.
Powderkeg
17-Nov-2005, 16:43
So you suggest artists and coders can't work in parallel? That's news to me :eek:
I didn't get that at all from his comment. Seems to me he's simply saying there is a lot more content in PGR3, so it takes a lot longer to do.
london-boy
17-Nov-2005, 16:43
So you suggest artists and coders can't work in parallel? That's news to me :eek:
If MS's development pipeline is as great as advertised by MS guys, artists won't need coders' intervention very often.
Not too long ago, coders were the artsts!! Kind of a collective split personality syndrome, everyone fighting with themselves over performance or "that 100 polygons more just here.."
Shifty Geezer
17-Nov-2005, 16:50
I didn't get that at all from his comment. Seems to me he's simply saying there is a lot more content in PGR3, so it takes a lot longer to do.Wasn't one talking about rendering engines and game code? Art assets have no bearing on that (in theory). Given 3 years to work on PGR3 versus one year to workd on RR say, That's not 2.5 years art assets, 6 months for PGR3 and 6 months art assets, 6 months code for RR. Coding will have (should have) been going on for the whole period for PGR3. That's 3 years developing a graphics and game engine for PGR3 versus 1 year for RR. Hence given the extra time PGR3 has had, shouldn't it be way more advanced than other games? That doesn't count how many coders on the dev team though, but I assume PGR wasn't 1 guy to RR's 6 or whatever.
Powderkeg
17-Nov-2005, 16:53
Wasn't one talking about rendering engines and game code? Art assets have no bearing on that (in theory). Given 3 years to work on PGR3 versus one year to workd on RR say, That's not 2.5 years art assets, 6 months for PGR3 and 6 months art assets, 6 months code for RR. Coding will have (should have) been going on for the whole period for PGR3. That's 3 years developing a graphics and game engine for PGR3 versus 1 year for RR. Hence given the extra time PGR3 has had, shouldn't it be way more advanced than other games? That doesn't count how many coders on the dev team though, but I assume PGR wasn't 1 guy to RR's 6 or whatever.
How are you figuring 3 years for PGR3?
PGR2 launched in November 2003. That's only 2 years ago, and I can assure you they didn't start on 3 until after they finished 2 (And took a holiday vacation)
At most you are looking about a year and 10 months for PGR3.
How are you figuring 3 years for PGR3?
PGR2 launched in November 2003. That's only 2 years ago, and I can assure you they didn't start on 3 until after they finished 2 (And took a holiday vacation)
At most you are looking about a year and 10 months for PGR3.Weren't they talking about the Shinjuku course that the single course took 2 years to build? They ought to have had some plan on how big the scale of the game would be. If they were just too sloppy/speculative guys and had no idea on the next-gen engine development back then, it might be a different story.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25685
Apparently it looks better than the PC version, for it to do that it would need that 4xAA.
Can you provide a link to a site claiming it or you could tell what post count number it was mentioned in, because I have looked in that thread for 4xAA being mentioned?
Shifty Geezer
17-Nov-2005, 17:16
How are you figuring 3 years for PGR3?I've no idea about the numbers. I was just explaining one's point. Uf PGR3 has been longer in development, it should be better. The idea that it's had more effort go into the artwork doesn't take away from the amount of time that could be spent developing the engine. And if the engine has been in development longer than the rivals, shouldn't it be 'better'?
That's what one was saying. I agree with the idea, but this isn't my argument :D
Can you provide a link to a site claiming it or you could tell what post count number it was mentioned in, because I have looked in that thread for 4xAA being mentioned?
Posts 6 and 21.
For it to look better than the PC version it would have to have 4xMSAA @ 720p.
Posts 6 and 21.
For it to look better than the PC version it would have to have 4xMSAA @ 720p.
I understand your point and where you're coming from, but you still have yet to provide a link pointing to a statement about 4xAA being applied.
I understand your point and where you're coming from, but you still have yet to provide a link pointing to a statement about 4xAA being applied.
That's as definitive as I can get at the moment.
I could find a link proving it, (I do recall it being mentioned before with respect to benchmarks of X360 vs. PCs) but I'm making the assumption of 4xAA because without 4xAA the game would likely not have a better IQ than the PC version at 1280x720.
I realise it's an assumtpion but that's the best I can give you at the moment :)
That's as definitive as I can get at the moment.
I could find a link proving it, (I do recall it being mentioned before with respect to benchmarks of X360 vs. PCs) but I'm making the assumption of 4xAA because without 4xAA the game would likely not have a better IQ than the PC version at 1280x720.
I realise it's an assumtpion but that's the best I can give you at the moment :)
Its not just the 4xAA makes the game better. From what I have read, its the effects that were added to the game that makes it stand out above the PC version.
On that note, the smoke effects in Call of Duty 2 are worth the asking price of this game all by their lonesome. Whether the smoke effects are billowing from a burning building, seeping out of a freshly-fired artillery piece, erupting from an actual smoke grenade, or spewing from the frozen breath of your allied comrades, the battlefield in Call of Duty 2 is high-end particle effect heaven. You’ll understand a bit better when you walk into a cloud of dust and touch barrels with an enemy, even though you cannot see the opposing soldier at all.
Environments are given life with tons of finely-crafted scripted events and respectable texturing work all around. Life is in the details of course, and Call of Duty 2 gets much of its liveliness via the minute extras that may be naked to the untrained eye. You can see the perfect texturing of the Nazi war banners, or watch the world distort as you try and sight the enemy from behind a burning barrel. The snow falls to hamper your view. Or see how the blood splatters off of your enemy in the precise area he is shot, or the way in which the light catches the high spot on a gun barrel and gives away a hiding enemy’s position.
;)
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