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

[Gitaroo]

The ground in this scene shows lower resolution textures on PS3. Also note the absent lighting on the hand and gun.
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a/3/0/8/2/4/1/CoD5_PS3_018.jpg.jpg
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a/3/0/8/2/4/1/CoD5_360_018.jpg.jpg

texture are the exact same, just 360 version looks like it has better AF which probably due to the camera angle and the usual stronger color in most multi platform game. Also for the lighting, if you look at the tip of the thumb in the PS3 pic you can clearly see a difference between the rest of the hand which has a shadow map covered it which is not in the 360 version. If you look at the bottom left of the PS3 shots you will also see some shadow that cast by the wire or pole or something but not in the 360 version. These 2 are not the very good pic for comparison since they are both taken from a difference angle.

 

[AlNom]

There's something a bit amiss in that first clip

It's almost as if they've implemented two different lighting/shadowing methods there. On the 360, the left interior appears correct, but there is no light coming in through the window on the right side. On the PS3, the light is prematurely appearing on the left, but the light shining through the window is correct. Even the shadowing post-explosion is slightly different on the left. :s

 

[Mintmaster]

It's almost as if they've implemented two different lighting/shadowing methods there. On the 360, the left interior appears correct, but there is no light coming in through the window on the right side. On the PS3, the light is prematurely appearing on the left, but the light shining through the window is correct. Even the shadowing post-explosion is slightly different on the left. :s

We can't tell if the 360 is missing light from the window. Look at the angle of the shadows later in the clip. If there was light coming through, it would be on the right wall.

The PS3 is basically just excluding the house when drawing the shadow map. Probably just a bug.

 

[Nesh]

Textures on splicers and the Big Daddy's are definitely improved. Havent noticed any difference in the framerate though. Then again it is hard for me to notice how it was before with how it is now since I finished it with the framerate unlocked. I tried the locked frame feature with the patch and the framerate seemed very stable. Not sure how it was comparatively before the patch

There was one correction I wanted to see and I reported it in their forums but it seems it is still not addressed. Hitting the corpses in the PC and 360 versions resulted to splattered blood on the hit parts. This is absent in the PS3 version still. You would see the blood effect spraying, but no blood on the dead body's surface would be applied

 

[assurdum]

Textures on splicers and the Big Daddy's are definitely improved. Havent noticed any difference in the framerate though. Then again it is hard for me to notice how it was before with how it is now since I finished it with the framerate unlocked. I tried the locked frame feature with the patch and the framerate seemed very stable. Not sure how it was comparatively before the patch

There was one correction I wanted to see and I reported it in their forums but it seems it is still not addressed. Hitting the corpses in the PC and 360 versions resulted to splattered blood on the hit parts. This is absent in the PS3 version still. You would see the blood effect spraying, but no blood on the dead body's surface would be applied

In the demo the splattered effect on the hit body parts there was...do you try to say they eliminated in the final game ? Forgive me but it's sound like really absurd to me....

 

[Nesh]

In the demo the splattered effect on the hit body parts there was...do you try to say they eliminated in the final game ? Forgive me but it's sound like really absurd to me....

The blood splatter is the same in both the demo and the final game. Almost non-existent

edit: mind you I am not talking about the blood spray when you hit or shoot like in this pic

http://www.tweakguides.com/images/Bioshock_5.jpg

 

[Rotmm]

To me, it seems like the more pronounced bumps are because of heavier compression of the normal map.

 

[Mintmaster]

Looks like a negative mipmap bias on at least the normal texture for the PS3. There's going to be lots of sparkling due to aliasing there.

 

[AlNom]

Probably just a bug.

hm... perhaps an incorrect flag where the building geometry gets removed (such that the wall is not occluding light despite being present before the explosion) ?

 

[T.B.]

Looks like a negative mipmap bias on at least the normal texture for the PS3. There's going to be lots of sparkling due to aliasing there.

Did you see mips on the normal-maps at all? Maybe they just saved a bit of VRAM.

 

[Richard]

To me, it seems like the more pronounced bumps are because of heavier compression of the normal map.

To me that looks like surface aliasing introduced by high-frequency normals which compression tends to destroy.

 

[chambers]

The new face-off is up on Eurogamer with Mirror's Edge, Brothers in Arms, Quantum of Solace, and others http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=318609
Thanks to Grandmaster for all your hard work on these.

 

[dah145]

Question about Killzone 2:
On the published PDF by GG regarding KZ2 engine tech they mentioned that they were going to add ambient occlusion, I am not an expert on this topic but it seems that they added it after seeing videos from the beta, for example these:

(high quality videos, direct feed) around 20 meg each:

http://cdn.wipido.com/stream1/SHzK8vjrfUnp_mq.mp4

http://cdn.wipido.com/stream1/PdFNBVJ7R8E3_mq.mp4


now my doubt is what method do they used for this ambient occlusion, SSAO? or another?

 

[drohne]

in some of grandmaster's mirror's edge shots there's a difference in character lighting that isn't mentioned in the text:

360: http://xs233.xs.to/xs233/08481/g872.jpg
ps3: http://xs233.xs.to/xs233/08481/g444.jpg

360: http://xs433.xs.to/xs433/08482/g324.jpg
ps3: http://xs433.xs.to/xs433/08482/g964.jpg

is this perhaps ambient occlusion in the 360 version?

 

[Nesh]

Thats some noticeable difference especially in the second set

 

[AlNom]

is this perhaps ambient occlusion in the 360 version?

It's not an issue of AO. The difference is in source lighting and self shadowing. In the second shot, for some reason there's the absence of sun light on the character. In the first set, the position of the source light is different for some reason as well.

 

[assen]

Shadowmap-based self-shadowing is temperamental as hell, and depends on GPU-specific biases to be finely tweaked per-environment and/or per-character basis.

 

[warb]

I'd guess it's because of the 10MB of eDram, if you don't tile then you won't be fitting 720p 2x in it and it seems they chose 576p 2x AA over 720p 0xAA.

I wonder why other games aren't using the variable MSAA seen in Capcom games and Crackdown?
Whenever the load is too high AA is reduced or dropped and there's no tiling.

 

[thambos]

Does the PS3 version of Tomb Raider Underworld lack motion blur or is it just the timing of these screenshots?

360

PS3

 

[AlNom]

Does the PS3 version of Tomb Raider Underworld lack motion blur or is it just the timing of these screenshots?

360 version appears to be the only version with the motion blur, going by reports from both PS3 and PC users.