The Game Technology discussion thread *Read first post before posting*

I don't like the low contrast... Also, it reminds me of the first Uncharted's first movies...
That's all art, and easily changeable. The forest certainly looked lush, although we didn't get to see much at all. Way too early to tell if this engine does anything impressive or not, although at this point, compared to what Frostbite 2 is doing, Kojima's intention to have the most powerful engine doesn't seem to be approaching reality yet.
 
I disagree, the underlying tech is a very important factor. Frostbite 2 for example offers way more possibilities compared to Rage or KZ3's engine.
 
I disagree, the underlying tech is a very important factor.
:???: I didn't say otherwise. Your complaints could be made of a Frostbite 2 or UE3 game if they went with the same muted colour scheme. This little clip of this engine tells us nothing about it's underlying possibilities and limits.
 
Interesting painterly artstyle, very noticeable on the boy's shading. I wonder if that's a post effect or part of the art assets/shaders? Would be good to have switchable art-styles that could be plugged in over a game's general look. eg. Cell shaded, painted, Okami style, conventional, realistic.
Looks like regular phong shading to me.
 
What doesn't make sense is that if Direct X is such a resource hog, wouldn't the Xbox 360 be underperforming since it runs on a modified version of DX9?

Can you go past the Open GL API on PS3 and code directly to the RSX?

Yes you can code directly to the RSX on the PS3. I think you can bypass DirectX on the 360 also, though not 100% sure.
 
DirectX 9 has performance issues on Windows XP because of the User Mode<->Kernel Mode transitions that need to be done. The Xbox doesn't have that issue and things were improved with Windows Vista.
 
DirectX 9 has performance issues on Windows XP because of the User Mode<->Kernel Mode transitions that need to be done. The Xbox doesn't have that issue and things were improved with Windows Vista.

That's not nearly everything though - there are limits to what you can access and when in pure DirectX9. But such limits do not necessarily exist in console land. That's probably getting off-topic though.
 
Yes you can code directly to the RSX on the PS3. I think you can bypass DirectX on the 360 also, though not 100% sure.

Thank you beat me;)

(((((Interference)))
And yes there many talks and papers about 30% or even more performance gain if codding "on the metal".. and i see recently presentation(pdf) on Frostbite 2 engine says almost same thing.
 
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I prefer the overhead if it means better compatibility with future consoles. I don't want to have to buy the same games over and over again.
 
That's not nearly everything though - there are limits to what you can access and when in pure DirectX9. But such limits do not necessarily exist in console land. That's probably getting off-topic though.
DirectX9 render/sampler state setting API is inefficient, because you have to call a D3D API function for each separate state you want to change. There are hundreds of different states, so this can become a bottleneck if you want to perform thousands of draw calls per frame. DX10 introduced state blocks, for setting states more efficiently, and the consoles have similar APIs for this. Also DirectX9 didn't have command buffer (display list) record/playback features, or constant buffers (a way to store constants in GPU memory, and set them quickly by one API call) like DX10/11 have. You can of course access these features on consoles as well.
 
(((((Interference)))
And yes there many talks and papers about 30% or even more performance gain if codding "on the metal".. and i see recently presentation(pdf) on Frostbite 2 engine says almost same thing.

30%! So the Xbox 360 is the most powerful console after all :p

Microsoft has just hampered it with Direct X!
 
uh?! I don't understood...

I guess what he is saying is that judging by the fact that they have been coding on the metal for the PS3 and not for the 360 while both are getting similar results on screen then the 360 might have been getting much better results if they could get that additional performance
 
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