Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2018]

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I still mostly see sharp shadows in games which should actually be diffuse. See Cyberpunk 2077 trailer. I find that very unrealistic.



Not only raytracing but also voxel effects like voxel GI, AO etc. would be important for a generational leap. But such effects do need a lot of memory and by no means there should be saved too much by Sony and Microsoft in this area.

He said shdoaing and ao.
 
The raytracing used in that Metro demo shown awhile back was utterly disappointing, I bet 99% of people wouldn't notice it if weren't told. The Star War demo was the real deal as long as you have 4 Titan Vs. I bet my soul if you used all those power on the more conventional techniques and rasterizer, the overall visual on display would be much more impressive. So even if technically or thematically it's not a generational jump in lighting but the end result more than warrants the title.
 
The raytracing used in that Metro demo shown awhile back was utterly disappointing, I bet 99% of people wouldn't notice it if weren't told. The Star War demo was the real deal as long as you have 4 Titan Vs. I bet my soul if you used all those power on the more conventional techniques and rasterizer, the overall visual on display would be much more impressive. So even if technically or thematically it's not a generational jump in lighting but the end result more than warrants the title.
Even if true, the cost to create better looking visuals using standard techniques would be higher. You'd have to develop loads of different hacks and assets to create what ray-tracing achieves through the most elegant algorithm. As Laa-Yosh explained with their transition to ray-tracing, setting up the scenes and iterating to get good results is an order of magnitude simpler and faster through ray-tracing. When the hardware can do it, development costs might go down quite a bit allowing for faster, cheaper game development. Hypothetically, if one console could offer that to devs, it may get a lot more exclusives as ROI could well be higher and lower risk.
 
The raytracing used in that Metro demo shown awhile back was utterly disappointing, I bet 99% of people wouldn't notice it if weren't told. The Star War demo was the real deal as long as you have 4 Titan Vs. I bet my soul if you used all those power on the more conventional techniques and rasterizer, the overall visual on display would be much more impressive. So even if technically or thematically it's not a generational jump in lighting but the end result more than warrants the title.

Around three of the four cards were for the reflections alone and there is no other way to get good reflections.
 
On twitter I ask to one of the guy working on the SEED demo, he told me it is maybe possible to use raytracing on next generation of console only for shadowing.
Soft lighting / shadows alone would make a huge difference. Here's a pretty good video explaining why:


Nvidia and Unity came up with a really good technique for direct area shadows:


I still mostly see sharp shadows in games which should actually be diffuse. See Cyberpunk 2077 trailer. I find that very unrealistic.
EXACTLY. Models are extremely detailed with complex shading models but analytical hard lighting/shadows just aren't good enough.

Not only raytracing but also voxel effects like voxel GI, AO etc. would be important for a generational leap. But such effects do need a lot of memory and by no means there should be saved too much by Sony and Microsoft in this area.
UE4 already supported voxel GI in 2012 but consoles turned out to be too weak:


CryEngine's voxel GI is already supported in games like The Hunt and Kingdom Come Deliverance. Also this past GDC Nvidia announced an improved version of VXGI:


I think we'll see it in many games next-gen.

The raytracing used in that Metro demo shown awhile back was utterly disappointing, I bet 99% of people wouldn't notice it if weren't told. The Star War demo was the real deal as long as you have 4 Titan Vs. I bet my soul if you used all those power on the more conventional techniques and rasterizer, the overall visual on display would be much more impressive. So even if technically or thematically it's not a generational jump in lighting but the end result more than warrants the title.
Well, Metro is only using it for AO so it's not really a good example of the benefits of raytracing.
 
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-forza-horizon-4-e3-demo-hands-on

Forza Horizon 4's E3 demo delivers a racing masterclass
Seasons to be cheerful.

We knew that Forza Horizon 4 would be coming to E3 2018, of course. After all, a new Forza game arrives without fail every year, and with Turn 10 revealing Forza Motorsport 7 at the last Microsoft E3 briefing, it would be Playground Games' turn this year. And with that came some trepidation. Forza Horizon 3 was a brilliant game and a massive step forward for the series, but could the developers deliver the same level of technical brilliant and innovations once more? After the astonishing reveal and 20 minutes of hands-on time, the signs are all looking good.

Yes, Forza Horizon 4 is a natural evolution of its predecessor, but with a slew of new visual features and gameplay ideas - and from a technical perspective, there's also the mouthwatering possibilities offered up by the fact that the game is the first in the series to have been created with Xbox One X in mind from the start. This is most evident in the announced frame-rate options. Playground's Ralph Fulton proudly announced that the Xbox One X version of the game will feature a 60fps option which is something we hoped for when Horizon 3 was patched for Xbox One X - but the dream is set to become reality. Details are thin on the ground but logic suggests it'll manifest as a lower resolution, high performance mode while the typical 30fps option goes for native 4K instead.

 
This is rubbish. Why aren't DF analysing the animation of Phil Spencer during his E3 appearances?
 
Report: AMD's next graphics architecture built for PlayStation 5
Zen CPU cores paired with next-gen Navi GPU?

This is largely a revisit the the story that broke back on Tuesday.


In Theory: Will there be more than one next-gen Xbox?

And if so, what form could the new console family take?



We've asked AMD for comment on the Forbes story, but the notion of a console project leading the development of PC graphics technology isn't entirely unprecedented. When the specs for the PlayStation 4 GPU leaked, we noted the high level of similarity between Sony's hardware and AMD's Pitcairn design that debuted in the Radeon HD 7870 and HD 7850, while PS4 Pro's hardware make-up had commonalities with AMD's Polaris GPU line.

"You may later on see something that looks very much like a console GPU as a discrete [PC] GPU, but that's then being very familiar with the design and taking inspiration from the console GPU. So the similarity, if you see one, is actually the reverse of what you're thinking," Mark Cerny told me during his briefing of the PlayStation 4 Pro hardware.

Interesting
 
Report: AMD's next graphics architecture built for PlayStation 5
Zen CPU cores paired with next-gen Navi GPU?

This is largely a revisit the the story that broke back on Tuesday.

I doubt this is the case. More believable is that AMD's next gen graphics architecture was built for console in a general sense. 2/3rds of the Engineering staff devoted to a PS5 GPU when PS4-P still hadn't been announced? It's more believable to think that 2/3rds of the Engineering staff were working on customizations for Sony and Microsoft's upcoming mid-gen consoles as well as potentially prototyping things that might work for their next gen consoles.

Or is it more believable that 1/3 of the engineering staff were working on PC related projects and 2/3rds on a Sony Project while MS just conjures stuff out of thin air with fairy dust and magic? ;)

Regards,
SB
 
If the rumour is true then Microsoft are either working with another GPU vendor or they’re late to the game and might want to launch after Sony. I can’t see them going with a lightly customized Vega and outperforming Sony without breaking the bank.
 
If the rumour is true then Microsoft are either working with another GPU vendor or they’re late to the game and might want to launch after Sony. I can’t see them going with a lightly customized Vega and outperforming Sony without breaking the bank.

Or they are not going semi custom to any great level and are going discreet chips, further closing the gap between Xbox on console and pc.
 
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