Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2013]

[Arwin]

Battlefield 4 faceoff:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-battlefield-4-next-gen-face-off

 

[djskribbles]

Battlefield 4 faceoff:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-battlefield-4-next-gen-face-off

If I were an Xbox One owner, I'd be happy that they removed the sharpen filter. Also proves that the PS4 version doesn't have any 'blur filter'... the game looked sharp when I played it.

Pretty much what I was expecting after seeing proper comparisons of the retail builds (ie anandtech)... they look pretty similar, except there's a bit more aliasing on the X1 version (though it has been reduced thanks to the removal of the sharpen filter) and the PS4 version is a bit sharper. Adding HBAO to the X1 version seemed to have lowered the framerate... they were pretty close in the preview builds IIRC.

 

[Cyan]

If I were an Xbox One owner, I'd be happy that they removed the sharpen filter. Also proves that the PS4 version doesn't have any 'blur filter'... the game looked sharp when I played it.

Pretty much what I was expecting after seeing proper comparisons of the retail builds (ie anandtech)... they look pretty similar, except there's a bit more aliasing on the X1 version (though it has been reduced thanks to the removal of the sharpen filter) and the PS4 version is a bit sharper. Adding HBAO to the X1 version seemed to have lowered the framerate... they were pretty close in the preview builds IIRC.

I think they should use SSAO instead of HBAO, I'd be happy with that. HBAO can cost up to 10 fps.

I have the game and it's a very solid BF, although I hope the next BF game is more optimised. Not bad for a launch title though, my hats off to Dice in that sense, but I always expect a pure solid experience on a console and that the framerate drops go away.

I think that this generation the PS4 can be potentially unbeaten, 3rd party titles wise.

Additionally, I wouldn't mind having another BF running at 720p on the Xbox One in the future, as long as the framerate is *perfect* and they add great AA and AF, and some other things the tech of the console permits.

 

[zed]

PS4 higher resolution and higher FPS.
Another game where the gap >50%. Im betting the DDR5 vs DDR3 is the clincher

 

[Cyan]

Not a Digital Foundry article per se, but there are some interesting -unexpectedly so- comments on both consoles in this article by Eurogamer.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-19-the-witcher-3-what-is-a-next-gen-rpg

The new consoles

"On the PS4 it's very good to have the fast memory," said Balázs Török, "everyone is really happy about that - but the problem is the game has to function on everything.

"No we are not holding it back," he added, "it's just we are not at the stage right now to go in and optimise on each platform specifically. We want to make the game and the whole engine run on everything, with all the features and bells and whistles, and then just optimise, optimise, optimise.

"I don't see a major power difference. The memory is very different but I already said that before. Pure computation power, if you just measure that, there's no major difference."

Both new consoles are like PCs anyway, he added. It won't be until teams really delve into low-level optimisations that the true grunt of each will come out.

"The Xbox One is pretty easy to understand because not just the hardware is similar to the PC, but everything like the SDK, the API is really similar to what you would find on a PC. On PS4 this is a little bit more complicated, but I personally worked on PS3 before.

"For PS3 it was very important to have a community, to share the information in some ways, but for now it's much easier and everyone will use their PC knowledge and possible previous console knowledge to reach the limit."

Balázs Török did flag up one unusual thing about the Xbox 360 from around 2007/2008, though.

"I saw how Microsoft opened up certain parts that they hid before from developers," he said. "They opened them up, like, 'OK now you can have this back door, and it's risky but you can do this and that...' This is how developers learned a little bit more and more every step. From Microsoft it was a good way to do it to always let the developers do a little bit more."

Does he think Microsoft will do the same with Xbox One?

"I don't know because we are not at the stage where they would open up something new," he answered. "We have what we have right now, and maybe we will have some more low-level access in the future.

"It's not like they would open up new hardware or anything - there's nothing new in there. It's new ways to do something. Both companies are already using all the knowledge they have from previous products to make the API tailored to games ... so I expect that they will do something like, 'OK now you can do this; it's extremely risky - only do this if you know what you're doing! But you can do this.'

"It will happen, eventually, but right now we are preparing for it."

I thought that the PS4 was more similar to a PC than the Xbox One, in fact it seemed a common occurrence judging by everyone's words, until now.

CPU-GPU aside, the only similarity I can see between the PC and the Xbox One might be that it has DDR3 memory and a "soundcard".

 

[pjbliverpool]

Not a Digital Foundry article per se, but there are some interesting -unexpectedly so- comments on both consoles in this article by Eurogamer.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-19-the-witcher-3-what-is-a-next-gen-rpg

I thought that the PS4 was more similar to a PC than the Xbox One, in fact it seemed a common occurrence judging by everyone's words, until now.

CPU-GPU aside, the only similarity I can see between the PC and the Xbox One might be that it has DDR3 memory and a "soundcard".

You could argue that the two memory pools are more PC like. Like the PC the XBO has one big, but slow pool of memory and one smaller but much faster pool of memory. The balance of the two memory pools is very different between the two systems though.

Obviously OS4 is far more like a standard APU based PC than the XBO though. However I think the article was talking more about the API and devleoper tools than than the hardware.

 

[Scott_Arm]

...
Obviously OS4 is far more like a standard APU based PC than the XBO though. However I think the article was talking more about the API and devleoper tools than than the hardware.

This is what I understood to be the meaning as well. PS4 is low-level API, which is inherently more difficult to use. Xbox One has a similar (or same) API as a Windows PC, which is meant to make things easier while sacrificing some performance.

 

[patsu]

Not a Digital Foundry article per se, but there are some interesting -unexpectedly so- comments on both consoles in this article by Eurogamer.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-19-the-witcher-3-what-is-a-next-gen-rpg

I thought that the PS4 was more similar to a PC than the Xbox One, in fact it seemed a common occurrence judging by everyone's words, until now.

CPU-GPU aside, the only similarity I can see between the PC and the Xbox One might be that it has DDR3 memory and a "soundcard".

It seems that he's just getting everything to run and the team have not started to optimize for performance yet. At that level, he may only need to deal with high level stuff.

 

[function]

We need dynamic resolution so that games can maintain optimal frame rates. Both Xbone and PS4 would benefit from this, although with Xbone it might allow partially main ram resident buffers to be used more - you simply shrink the framebuffer and retreat into the esram when the performance hit is too great.

I would like to see DF talking to a range of developers and ask them about their approaches to maintaining stable frame rates and load balancing.

 

[HTupolev]

We need dynamic resolution so that games can maintain optimal frame rates. Both Xbone and PS4 would benefit from this, although with Xbone it might allow partially main ram resident buffers to be used more - you simply shrink the framebuffer and retreat into the esram when the performance hit is too great.

I would like to see DF talking to a range of developers and ask them about their approaches to maintaining stable frame rates and load balancing.

I'm extremely curious right now as to the extent to which 32+MB framebuffers are actually causing the XBO resolution problems. I would have thought that some of these games would be having no trouble with simply fitting the backbuffering into 32MB.

Like Ghosts. Judging by resolutions on 360, I would have thought that Call of Duty uses 128bpp for combined depth and backbuffer once 2xMSAA is accounted for, which would easily allow for 900p even if 1080p is a squeeze. (Unless they're using much higher colour/HDR depth on XBO than on 360...)

EDIT: Since the slight follow-up got moved:

Whoops, it's not using 2xMSAA on XBO/PS4. So the framebuffer along is certainly not bumping into the eSRAM size right now.

 

[AlNom]

Image Quality Debate moved to existing thread.

 

[Ketto]

Digital Foundry did a NFS:R comparison
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-need-for-speed-rivals-next-gen-face-off

Slight differences, XBO version drops HBAO for SSAO and Bokeh based DOF for a simpler blur filter. I'm more curious about this.

I'm not sure what's going on there, but it's present in a few screens, didn't look at all of them, but it seems when it's doing that camera angle when you switch cars and it applies the blur filter, filter seems to be low resolution; but it's effecting parts of the car it shouldn't (the back should be in focus)

 

[Shortbread]

Something is way off with the second picture. The actual car model quality seems quite low compared to the first picture. Actually, the car model mesh seems lower (reduced). Looking at the second picture, you can see the environmental reflection is more subdued, especially when looking at the rear-wheel housing and taillight area, compared to the first picture. The LEDs in the taillight are very muddy (including emblems) in the second picture. Lastly, the first picture car model looks to have a better anti-aliasing solution... the chrome around the windows in the second picture seems jagged or less refined. ​

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Car aside, I much prefer the clarity of distance rendering of the Xbox One version over PS4. Look at the three barricades down the track, they are far too obscured on PS4 compared to One.

In this case, less is more.

 

[Arwin]

Car aside, I much prefer the clarity of distance rendering of the Xbox One version over PS4. Look at the three barricades down the track, they are far too obscured on PS4 compared to One.

In this case, less is more.

It's a cool camera focus effect that goes from what the One shows to this and is over before you know it.

 

[Shortbread]

Yeah, the PS4 and PC version have the HBAO and specialized DOF compared to the XB1. PS4/PC look more film like in style (Ryse like), while XB1 seems quite standard in that regard.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Yet another game that comes sporting higher quality effects in the PC version. Despite the power difference in the platforms I'm honestly surprised that so many games are doing this. I expected parity with the new consoles for at least a year or two before PC versions started to add better graphics. And 60fps on a 270X (a midrange GPU)... nice!

 

[Shortbread]

Although I own a PS4 (possibly an XB1 depending on future games), the PC will always be my lead platform/choice for multi-platform titles, since I own two monster builds. As far as 1st party in-house wares, I'll stick with PS4/PS3/XB360 for those needs. So titles like COD, BF4, Crysis, etc will forever be PC driven for me. Anyhow, back on topic...

 

[Mianca]

Even apart from the obvious differences with respect to effects, PQ differences are pretty big in those XBO vs. PS4 NFS comparison pics.

Certainly NOT the same native resolution, too.

Just look at these 200% crops:

Spoiler

 

[Rangers]

Yet another game that comes sporting higher quality effects in the PC version. Despite the power difference in the platforms I'm honestly surprised that so many games are doing this. I expected parity with the new consoles for at least a year or two before PC versions started to add better graphics. And 60fps on a 270X (a midrange GPU)... nice!

Yeah, I'm a little surprised to see PC initially exceeding essentially a 8GB HD 7850 that is PS4.

I guess I thought unified 8GB would provide more benefits. Most enthusiast video cards on PC probably are still around 2GB VRAM.

But then you remember the next gen consoles are "really" only 5GB machines, which has to be divided between CPU and GPU, for one thing.

The PS4, the console that shot "high" this gen, is still really quite low, as evidenced by it's 140 watt max power draw.