Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2013]

[stranno]

I dont know if this belongs here. I'm gessing wich was the first on-screen water effect ever.

I know it was used on Conker's Bad Fur Day, Kill·Switch, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the XBOX version of Grand Theft Auto III. Any previous games?

 

[TheWretched]

Need for Speed 2 with Glide had it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy1qfZBFEWo

 

[stranno]

Amazing, didnt know that. never had 3DFX hardware back in the days.

Thanks.

 

[Globalisateur]

For Need For Speed, Digital Foundry spectacularly missed the HBAO on the PS4, told there was no AO in PS4 but in XBoxOne version, only to be corrected by the devs later on. Actually the effect is so subtle that it is easy to miss but also quite apparent on the exhaust on one of DF's own screenshots. Curiously, the effect is most apparent on the exhaust but it could also have been easily baked right there (unless they wanted to make their lives easier if there are lots of customizations possibilities)

There's more. In fact Digital Foundry forgot to tell us that X1 versions had less details (trees) on the background and just mentionned the fact that pop-in details were different or random on the 2 versions. Well different as some trees never pop in the X1 versions on the mountains.

Also they did say that there was an exceptionnal drop in framerate to 25fps which is about right for PS4 (24fps). But ignored the fact that X1 version drops to 22fps and that when drops occured (they are indeed exceptionnal, the game is technically 99.9% 30fps locked on both), it lasted longer on X1. When was the last time DF ignored a 20fps-ish drop of framerate on a face-off?

You know, just "hit and miss" on some details in order to declare a technical draw between the 2 versions. In fact I do consider those 2 versions almost identical and it is a draw. But I would have prefered that DF didn't not invent a lack of SSAO (and miss the more refined HBAO) on PS4 and miss 2 important details on X1 in order to declare a perfect draw.

 

[hesido]

There's more. In fact Digital Foundry forgot to tell us that X1 versions had less details (trees) on the background and just mentionned the fact that pop-in details were different or random on the 2 versions. Well different as some trees never pop in the X1 versions on the mountains.

To be fair they do say:

All eyes on the hills. You have to look to the far horizon to see any difference in level-of-detail scaling, where some trees and plants aren't being rendered on Xbox One. A nit-pick.

in one of the screenshot comparisons.

Other than that, it's a draw for me as well and I find it weird that they couldn't notice the AO (while admitting it is subtle, their "job" is to notice those subtleties.)

I wish the game had a 60fps 720p with some form AA option!

 

[SlimJim]

Maybe there will be a patch like with the COD singleplayer, or the AC4 game: but instead of doubling the resolution, they can double the framerate?

Digital Foundry should really do a power output (wattage) comparison of both AC4 and COD:Ghost unpatched, and patched on singleplayer. They can compare the power output: maybe then we can learn if there was any optimisation (no difference) or unused power (a big difference).

I am guessing it's the later one for AC4. You don't optimise your rendering engine a 100% in the last week of programming before going gold, right?

 

[Gitaroo]

DF need to do a SSHD vs SSD vs 7200 rpm drive comparison for PS4.

 

[djskribbles]

Apparently the reason that the PS4 version of CoD Ghosts has 'performance issues', is because it runs at higher than 60fps fairly often, not because the framerate dips:

Taking the affected clips and running them through our performance analysis tools, we expected the results to show clear frame-rate drops and small bouts of tearing, but surprisingly this wasn't the case at all, with the results showing us a largely locked 60FPS bar one or two minor dips and a solitary torn frame. Furthermore, when seeking through the footage in performance-affected areas we were confronted with unique frames on a consistent basis, thus indicating a 60fps update that we just didn't feel when playing the game.

So just what is going on? Well, a close look at our captures reveals that Call of Duty: Ghosts actually runs at higher frame-rates than 60fps on a fairly frequent basis, despite the video output being limited to 60Hz. In scenes where we experienced judder and perceived frame-rate loss, what we are actually seeing is the appearance of skipped and incomplete frames - an effect that is arguably far more noticeable than a few prolonged drops down to 50fps or so seen the 360 version of the game.

Surprised that it runs at 2.25x the pixels of the X1 version and it actually runs at higher than 60fps a lot of the time... I was not expecting the differences to be this big.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...xed-and-whats-not-in-the-cod-ghosts-ps4-patch

Visual differences before (720p) and after patch (1080p) are also pretty significant, both in screens and in motion.

 

[babybumb]

There was a patch last night. I dont know if this is before or after..

 

[Billy Idol]

Apparently the reason that the PS4 version of CoD Ghosts has 'performance issues', is because it runs at higher than 60fps fairly often, not because the framerate dips:

Surprised that it runs at 2.25x the pixels of the X1 version and it actually runs at higher than 60fps a lot of the time... I was not expecting the differences to be this big.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-whats-fixed-and-whats-not-in-the-cod-ghosts-ps4-patch

Visual differences before (720p) and after patch (1080p) are also pretty significant, both in screens and in motion.

That is crazy! Why not cap the fps to 60??

 

[DrJay24]

That is crazy! Why not cap the fps to 60??

They spent to little time on the Ps4 version, it was running 60fps 1080P with no effort, why test it or send it to QA? All their devs were trying to figure out eSRAM.

 

[JB9861]

Surprised that it runs at 2.25x the pixels of the X1 version and it actually runs at higher than 60fps a lot of the time... I was not expecting the differences to be this big.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...xed-and-whats-not-in-the-cod-ghosts-ps4-patch

Should not happen on a console. I wonder why it shipped.

 

[Gitaroo]

Should not happen on a console. I wonder why it shipped.

probably goes into large scale printing months ahead.

 

[Arwin]

Should not happen on a console. I wonder why it shipped.

Developers aren't used to having excess power on consoles? And of course, the whole 720p thing in the first place was apparently a simple last-minute tickbox mistake for generating the print master.

 

[patsu]

Apparently the reason that the PS4 version of CoD Ghosts has 'performance issues', is because it runs at higher than 60fps fairly often, not because the framerate dips:



Surprised that it runs at 2.25x the pixels of the X1 version and it actually runs at higher than 60fps a lot of the time... I was not expecting the differences to be this big.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...xed-and-whats-not-in-the-cod-ghosts-ps4-patch

Visual differences before (720p) and after patch (1080p) are also pretty significant, both in screens and in motion.

Well that was weird. They really didn't have time to polish the PS4 version *at all* ? Why the blur in the lower res unpatched version ? Just upscaling ?

 

[Inuhanyou]

^ An overly aggressive FXAA solution, same as BF4. At higher resolutions, its apparently more noticeable in comparison to the PC version.

BTW, that's still there in the 1080p version, which is why the PS4 version still looks slightly more blurry than the PC version even while running at the same resolution. Or so DF says. Of course its a world away from the XB1 version and on another planet compared to current gen

 

[Desert]

Apparently the reason that the PS4 version of CoD Ghosts has 'performance issues', is because it runs at higher than 60fps fairly often, not because the framerate dips:



Surprised that it runs at 2.25x the pixels of the X1 version and it actually runs at higher than 60fps a lot of the time... I was not expecting the differences to be this big.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...xed-and-whats-not-in-the-cod-ghosts-ps4-patch

Visual differences before (720p) and after patch (1080p) are also pretty significant, both in screens and in motion.

Is it really that big the difference between them and not just launch games when it comes to Xboxone?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Apparently the reason that the PS4 version of CoD Ghosts has 'performance issues', is because it runs at higher than 60fps fairly often, not because the framerate dips:

Surprised that it runs at 2.25x the pixels of the X1 version and it actually runs at higher than 60fps a lot of the time... I was not expecting the differences to be this big.

You've slightly misread. It ran over 60 fps at 720p which caused the issues. These are reduced with the patch to 1080p -

Since the patch restores the correct 1080p rendering mode, you would assume that these performance issues caused by the game running fasted than 60fps would be resolved, if not heavily reduced due to the additional per-pixel workload undertaken by the GPU - there's simply far less opportunity for the engine to be able to render frames faster than the targeted refresh rate. The good news is that the issue of skipped frames is reduced to a noticeable degree, particularly in some of the opening moments of the game, although the problem hasn't been completely eliminated.

 

[babybumb]

It shouldnt be that hard to put max fps..

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It shouldn't be that hard to put "Framebuffer res == 1080p" but they still messed that one up...