The Technology of GTA IV/RDR *Rage Engine*

[joker454]

... which is why I was comparing GTA4 and GTA4 DLC ?

The rest are just asking innocent questions, like turning on MLAA. And they get slapped by IMHO, overly defensive 'lazy dev', 'bias' arguments.

And what's wrong with hoping for better performance in The Agency ?

MLAA is an interesting one, they probably didn't have time to add it but one has to wonder if any devs nowadays have 20ms spu time to spare on AAA games. Seems like a bit of a long shot to me in 2010, but who knows I guess.

With Agent, they are already loosing millions by going PS3 only. It stands to reason to me that they won't go to the trouble of spending even more money to write all new PS3 tech from scratch, and instead would just take the GTA engine and work with that. So I wouldn't personally expect a technical revolution with Agent, but we'll see.

 

[patsu]

They will only need to worry about one platform. The cost is lower.

 

[joker454]

They will only need to worry about one platform. The cost is lower.

They have already spent the money to make the engine they currently have. Going forwards, using that same multi platform engine for Agent and tweaking it is cheaper than making an all new PS3 specific engine. An all new PS3 only engine which would mean new code, new tools, and two engines to maintain for years since it's not like the multi platform engine will go away. Additionally, any performance improvements made to the multi platform engine while working on Agent will reap benefits on all future 360/PC products as well. Finally, in case the PS3 version of Agent doesn't sell well, using their multi platform engine would let them shoot out a 360 version once the exclusivity window expired.

 

[patsu]

Sure, but after doing 3-4 titles with the current limitations, in my experience, a good team would want to change something. I do not think that the team is weak, but I am curious what they will come up with.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I love it when irony goes completely unnoticed.

 

[Tap In]

...
... and why spend memory on custom music *if* the game is screaming for more memory ?

I really think they wanted to make it feature for feature EQUAL to 360 version (sans the Res or performance argument) since MOST people will never know about that

 

[SG79]

Looking at RDR, from what I read on the net the framerate takes a hit in the detailed city areas as well on the PS3 version.

So it's possible that it's a fill rate issue then? Interestingly, the frame rate issues in the 360 version I've heard of are in the same areas, but it doesn't drop as much as the PS3 version.

Now, the question remains of the texture filtering. Guess we won't know the difference until we see some uncompressed shots.

 

[Headshot81]

I finished playing a couple of missions of RDR on my friends ps3(i'll stop buy his house again so i can bring my capture card and take some HD(sub) screenshots for you guys). I always prefer the optimal performance over resolution, but from what i've played, the resolution really hits RDR hard. I'll have to say im disappointed since TBOGT seemed to improved, yet RDR is overly blurry, like playing through a glass bottle even at close range. The higher textures "in town" seem a little off from what i've seen online, and jaggies stand out quiet a bit. Im starting to think thats the reason why Rockstar gave the ps3 exclusive content, since they seemed to have a hard time getting it in par with the 360 version(i really dont know since i haven't played the 360 version myself). Im not sure if it makes a difference, but we were playing on a Dell sp2309w Monitor, native resolution of 2048x1152(hdmi), and has a 16:9 ratio . The monitor scales really well to 1080p/720p, so i dont know exactly how that plays into affect since the monitor has a higher native resolution. Can anybody Clarify? ...sorry for the long read

ps. if theres certain screenshots you want me to take, just ask

 

[joker454]

Im not sure if it makes a difference, but we were playing on a Dell sp2309w Monitor, native resolution of 2048x1152(hdmi), and has a 16:9 ratio . The monitor scales really well to 1080p/720p, so i dont know exactly how that plays into affect since the monitor has a higher native resolution.

Can you try disabling 1080p mode on your PS3, then see if it's still that blurry? It's been a while, but way back I remember reading a post from one of the GTA4 programmers on the PS3 dev forum where he said if 1080p mode was detected as available, they would then do a quick software upscale for the final buffer, but that affected both performance and image quality. Maybe they are still doing that with RDR?

So it's possible that it's a fill rate issue then? Interestingly, the frame rate issues in the 360 version I've heard of are in the same areas, but it doesn't drop as much as the PS3 version.

Could be. Could be shadows as well, I presume the cascade shadow maps are getting heavily worked in the city areas with lots of stuff casting shadows in the closer shadow maps. Could be good old fashion pixel shader load, since presumably in the city areas there are more expensive shaders being used to render building details and such when close up, compared to the open areas that are less demanding on pixel load. For example, if they have shader lod's, then in the open areas presumably it will be mostly cheaper shaders being run in the distance, whereas in the cities with lots of stuff up close it might be mostly more expensive shaders being run. Poor overdraw control perhaps? I don't know if transparencies would be a big issue for this particular game since presumably they are all mostly dust and smoke, which are so low detail they can just be rendered 1/4 or 1/16th resolution. Will be interested to see Digital Foundry do their dance on this one. Shame we can't get a gpad grab right where it slows down, that would answer everything The bad part is that we don't really know if it's a pixel issue at all. Perhaps dropping to sub-hd keeps pixel load at consistent 30+fps, but in the cities it's vertex load that causes the stuttering. It's really hard to know for sure what's up.

 

[joker454]

Sure. The PS3 architecture has myriad problems. This is practically established fact, NDAs notwithstanding. But all I'm seeing is the blame being put on the hardware architecture, rather than fairly distributed between software design and hardware architecture, as if the R* had no choice but to design the engine the way they did. And in 2008 I think that's a lot more credible argument, very very few devs could figure out multiplat titles on PS3, but we're in 2010 and we're seeing parity far more often.

I think what you and others see as blame, I see as praise. Think about it, here you have a machine with rsx, which more or less is a 2003/2004 gpu design. Under normal PC circumstances it would be considered a $10 relic of a part that is hopelessly out of date. Yet here it is in 2010 being able to almost keep pace with the 360 which has a gpu that is a full generation ahead, a hunk of fast edram, and specialized msaa hardware that can do clever things beyond just msaa for free. Yet to people here what Rockstar has pulled off on the PS3 in 2010 is somehow disappointing. I find that completely bizarre. To me what they have done with RDR on PS3 is hugely impressive. It shows how important the spu's have been, and more importantly how powerful they really are to be able to pick up a lot of the slack of rsx and help it to keep pace with modern graphics. It shows how flexible the spu's really are and what can be done with them given enough time. It's quite an achievement when you think about how much specialized hand optimized PS3 spu code had to be written to make that a possibility. I'd have though you guys would have been really impressed with that but instead people are somehow disappointed! I really don't get it.

 

[assurdum]

I think what you and others see as blame, I see as praise. Think about it, here you have a machine with rsx, which more or less is a 2003/2004 gpu design. Under normal PC circumstances it would be considered a $10 relic of a part that is hopelessly out of date. Yet here it is in 2010 being able to almost keep pace with the 360 which has a gpu that is a full generation ahead, a hunk of fast edram, and specialized msaa hardware that can do clever things beyond just msaa for free. Yet to people here what Rockstar has pulled off on the PS3 in 2010 is somehow disappointing. I find that completely bizarre. To me what they have done with RDR on PS3 is hugely impressive. It shows how important the spu's have been, and more importantly how powerful they really are to be able to pick up a lot of the slack of rsx and help it to keep pace with modern graphics. It shows how flexible the spu's really are and what can be done with them given enough time. It's quite an achievement when you think about how much specialized hand optimized PS3 spu code had to be written to make that a possibility. I'd have though you guys would have been really impressed with that but instead people are somehow disappointed! I really don't get it.

I never understand the point of a generation ahead of 360 gpu. It's simply more refined & updating gpu in some specs, RSX is more raw but not a whole generation back. If it was so there wouldn't be nothings which RSX can does better (indeed pixels shader, HDR, shadows rendering). But I'm not interesting in this argue & everytime when we talking of multi it's the same story. And again the point which R is suddenly so smart to manipulate a code, nothing could done better with the ps3...based on what? I'm not so sure RDR is at the better in the ps3 hardware simply knowing the R approaches in the developing. R it's interesting more to create a simulate life, a real world, to final result not set a new standard of graphic engine or to push an hardware. R it hasn't never been a good example how to approach with an hardware specs why now is it? Everyone has forgotten how terrible is GTA to the pc? Surely I'm not try to said it isn't the more smart company in to create a simulate life in a game or the developers are idiots or not capable. Another thing: Infamous is real a bad bad example how a free roaming can maximize in a ps3 hardware; even the developers said not long time ago the engine is pretty dated and limited compared to what effectively we can done on the hardware. And it has different 'purposes' to a GTA game, visually talking.

 

[patsu]

No doubt PS3 developers are working hard to make games for us. As I said, I am glad they continue to improve their engine in the follow-up DLCs.

That doesn't mean we can't expect more if for example, IMHO, I feel that the memory for custom music is wasted. It also doesn't mean we can't hope for more if new techniques are uncovered. It is also unclear how much project and money issues, and how many mistakes got in the way since they could improve the engine in DLC later.

It is also not wrong to wonder how much SPU resources are still left behind in their current work. Those kinds of questions get asked all the time.

There is no need to accuse people with 'lazy developer' argument. It is good that joker454 feels contended, but not everyone stops wondering here ([strike]Who the hell[/strike] Which idiot thought of landing a man on the moon ? [start pointing finger]).

 

[N_B]

But we've been led to believe by a lot of other devs that the PS3 and 360 are roughly equal in what they can produce. With comments like that and games like Uncharted 2 and God of War 3 coming out you can't really be blamed for expecting platform parity, even if the capacity for it isn't there. Unless more devs decide to tell everyone that the consoles are not equal and first parties stop pushing the tech, that's the way it will remain.

EDIT: Is there are reason they couldn't go with the same approach as Just Cause 2? Seems like very similar environments and tech.. Would whatever method JC2 uses when it appears to blur strangely be a better choice than a permanent drop. There's also the issue of sticking with QAA in spite of being sub HD..

And about Infamous, wasn't that built with a multiplatform engine, and not optimised that well for PS3?

 

[nightshade]

I am still wondering over the question I raised yesterday.
What could be the reason for the bottleneck in RDR (PS3) which results in it running at the same resolution (and maybe same framerate too) as the much more dense, tightly packed, lively,transparency and lighting happy city of GTA4/Episodes.

 

[assurdum]

I am still wondering over the question I raised yesterday.
What could be the reason for the bottleneck in RDR (PS3) which results in it running at the same resolution (and maybe same framerate too) as the much more dense, tightly packed, lively,transparency and lighting happy city of GTA4/Episodes.

Bandwith is my bet. Low buffer could to help a lot. And Rage engine use water reflections and explotions, and transparencies in general with high buffer more times. But probably a different approach to the hardware in general. Tecmo gives a great example to me how to personalize an engine to the hardware specs. And I thing is a company with limited resources compared to R. Try to maximize is pro & not try to do the same things of 360 hardware, because is useless and almost 'destructive', at least without a good use of the alternartive 'resources' on the ps3 hardware.

 

[nightshade]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=21355476&postcount=704

MazingerDUDE did some direct screenshot comparison & gave his verdict at the end, I'm definitely going to switch my order to 360 ver. now. Its more than just worse resolution (which is actually the least of my concern as 640p is very close to 720p), it was fine till the 3rd comparison....after that things got real ugly.

Low buffer could to help a lot.

And its already doing that but still doesn't (allegedly) keeps up in framerate.

 

[joker454]

It is also not wrong to wonder how much SPU resources are still left behind in their current work. Those kinds of questions get asked all the time.

Sure, so here's a clue as to how much the spu's are being used. Forget that the 360 exists, and remove the spu's from the PS3. Just stick with me here for a second. You now have a single core 3.2ghz machine with 256mb of ram, and an NVidia 7 series gpu with 256mb of ram as well. Now think back to how games looked back in the heyday of the NVidia 7 series card, back to around 2005. Here's a pic from Call of Duty to refresh y'alls memory:

That's what games looked like on NVidia 7 series cards on PC's back in 2005, and those PC's arguably had more memory and probably more cpu power than the non spu version of the PS3 even back in 2005. Now add those 6 spu's back to the PS3 and look at how RDR looks today in 2010. There's your clue as to how much of a role the spu's play on the PS3 today. Pretty damn impressive if you ask me!

 

[N_B]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=21355476&postcount=704

MazingerDUDE did some direct screenshot comparison & gave his verdict at the end, I'm definitely going to switch my order to 360 ver. now. Its more than just worse resolution (which is actually the least of my concern as 640p is very close to 720p), it was fine till the 3rd comparison....after that things got real ugly.


And its already doing that but still doesn't (allegedly) keeps up in framerate.

Oh dear

Perhaps it is a transparency issue after all! That's what the removal of grass would suggest...very disappointing overall

 

[Headshot81]

Can you try disabling 1080p mode on your PS3, then see if it's still that blurry? It's been a while, but way back I remember reading a post from one of the GTA4 programmers on the PS3 dev forum where he said if 1080p mode was detected as available, they would then do a quick software upscale for the final buffer, but that affected both performance and image quality. Maybe they are still doing that with RDR?

.

Thanks for the response. Its weird since i went through with your suggestion and i noticed that the frame rate improved, i noticed this in the city areas where theres a heavy population. Before i would get dips when mounting and looking around "town". By only selecting 720p the gameplay seems steady. Unfortunately the jagged edges are still visible. Some of the buildings still look horrendous at a reasonable distance because of the AA. i suppose an open world is suppose to be costly. Thanks again!

 

[nightshade]

In the 6th shot, the PS3 ver actually has almost the same amount of foliage onscreen as the 360 ver. yet on other areas visible on other screenshots its noticeably worse....even with the PS3 ver being alpha test compared to alpha blended 360 ver. It also seems that the PS3 ver is having a lower res buffer for alpha. (all these compromises, but still the volume is cut back considerably)

http://pds18.egloos.com/pds/201005/19/09/a0037809_4bf3577e5f1bd.jpg
http://pds20.egloos.com/pds/201005/19/09/a0037809_4bf35789b545d.jpg