B3D News Item: Challenge: Find Differences between Crysis 2 Console SKUs

[ultragpu]

er... you do realize, of course, that the hardware designs are over 5 years old and that developers can do more per sample if they have fewer overall pixels to render, right?

Yeah I'm well aware of that but at the same time I did expect more from Crytek though. I recall they didn't fully optimize the SPUs at the completion of crysis 2, also they mentioned developing an exclusive title would yield better result still. Maybe because it's their first time developing for PS3 so one could reasonably assume their 2nd gen title would lessen that resolution deficiency.

Regardless of the difference between 360 and ps3 version, 1024 x 720 is simply god awful by any standard especially with that weak post MSAA, the indoor section and distance objects are heavily affected even on the 360 version. For the percentage of the time when you can get away with sub hd res is really scene dependent and for me the inconsistency is simply inadequate. Folks with big TVs would suffer the most.

 

[(((interference)))]

So basically the two consoles are essentially the same?

With the PS3 is actually better than the 360 in terms of texture and shadow filtering and has higher framerate in gameplay?
And yet people are still complaining about some minor, unnoticeable without side by side comparison difference in resolution.

Just goes to show that some people will never be happy - seriously this is nothing compared to the vast difference in quality between Xbox & PS3 versions of RDR or Black Ops.

 

[Turok]

Regardless of the difference between 360 and ps3 version, 1024 x 720 is simply god awful by any standard especially with that weak post MSAA, the indoor section and distance objects are heavily affected even on the 360 version. For the percentage of the time when you can get away with sub hd res is really scene dependent and for me the inconsistency is simply inadequate. Folks with big TVs would suffer the most.

Why is it godawful? Because PS3 exclusives run at 1280x720 for the most part?

Hypothetical question: would you prefer the game run at 1280x720 with lower precision effects?

 

[ultragpu]

Why is it godawful? Because PS3 exclusives run at 1280x720 for the most part?

Hypothetical question: would you prefer the game run at 1280x720 with lower precision effects?

Yes, I would gladly trade some of the effects for a higher resolution. Sub HD game just puts me right off when you see everything is stretched, aliased, blurry and loss of color information. Yep I'm very annal about it.

 

[czekon]

So basically the two consoles are essentially the same?

With the PS3 is actually better than the 360 in terms of texture and shadow filtering and has higher framerate in gameplay?
And yet people are still complaining about some minor, unnoticeable without side by side comparison difference in resolution.

Just goes to show that some people will never be happy - seriously this is nothing compared to the vast difference in quality between Xbox & PS3 versions of RDR or Black Ops.

True and 100% agree, situation with multiplatform title has been much worse and its sad that good games due to some poor comparsions (hi lens) spread some silly statments that make only harm to those games. C2 is a after all good MP title, each verison has own strenghts and weakness but when you look at a whole package its a great game. Sure iq, res and whatever could be better but as a first game realased on consoles for crytek with new engine i say its prrety much impressive showcase of what they can do will this old HW.

 

[djskribbles]

True and 100% agree, situation with multiplatform title has been much worse and its sad that good games due to some poor comparsions (hi lens) spread some silly statments that make only harm to those games. C2 is a after all good MP title, each verison has own strenghts and weakness but when you look at a whole package its a great game. Sure iq, res and whatever could be better but as a first game realased on consoles for crytek with new engine i say its prrety much impressive showcase of what they can do will this old HW.

Ya, considering it's their first console game and that it's MP, it's pretty impressive what they've done. Even though I'm a little disappointed that it runs at 1024x720 on PS3, I still think it's one of the best looking console games. And the game itself I absolutely love.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Not to mention that about 90-95% of the customers of the game won't notice any resolution differences.
Crytek has probably made the right choice with the PS3 version, just as everyone else before.

I'm still finding people who thought COD Black Ops was running in full 720p on the PS3, where it's actually 960*540 with 2xMSAA.
I expect a lot of 1280*1080p games with the next gen consoles, too - at first to quickly fix performance problems, and later on to push the graphics to the max.

 

[BadTB25]

Not to mention that about 90-95% of the customers of the game won't notice any resolution differences.
Crytek has probably made the right choice with the PS3 version, just as everyone else before.

I'm still finding people who thought COD Black Ops was running in full 720p on the PS3, where it's actually 960*540 with 2xMSAA.
I expect a lot of 1280*1080p games with the next gen consoles, too - at first to quickly fix performance problems, and later on to push the graphics to the max.

Too true.

I've only played Crysis 2 on my bros PS3 and it looks and plays very well to me. I've opted to not purchase the game as I'm only really interested in SP campaign.

If I do pick it up though, it will be for the X360 as I play almost all my MP games on it and I really do not like the PS3 controller for fps games.

 

[ShadowRunner]

I dont know, it isnt straight forward to me. While im not fussed about resolution at all in terms of plain numbers, as people have said COD looks fine at sub 720, there is quite obviously some significant IQ issues in this case imo and its not always clear cut wether better graphics is more important than better IQ in everycase, same as with framerate. Playing the game on PC at full 720p (which alone made a noticable difference) and with smoother framerate made the gameplay significantly more fun to me, i was feeling the game was pretty mediocre on PS3 but as soon as i sat down with it on PC (only on advance setting) i played the whole thing in one sitting and had a total blast. If my PC wasnt as powerful i would gladly have turned down the graphics side of things further for the decent IQ and consistent framerate. Now IQ certainly isnt so important in all games but i feel like in this game just a small improvement in IQ made a big differerance to the fun i was getting from the game, improvement in framerate an even bigger factor. In other games i may feel different but with a game that relies a lot on mid-long range gunplay i feel like they made the wrong sacrifices for their game, being able to see enemys clearly at distance and being able to track them smoothly(especially the faster moving aliens) is so much more important to me than eye candy in this case.

I havent played the 360 version but from what i have seen and played of the PS3 and PC verions i see it is entirely possible that even a relatively small increase in IQ can have quite an impact on the game, depending on what game it is. While i do have a problem with people saying a game HAS to be a certain res, i do think that it is valid to find issue with it on a case by case basis.

 

[swym]

I recall they didn't fully optimize the SPUs at the completion of crysis 2, also they mentioned developing an exclusive title would yield better result still. Maybe because it's their first time developing for PS3 so one could reasonably assume their 2nd gen title would lessen that resolution deficiency.

Well, if we consider (ill attempted) Haze from the Crysis UK (formerly Free Radical) team, this is actually their second PS3 title and they had some past experience - but for the Xbox 360 this is obviously Crytek's first title.
So why should a the next title lessen the difference? Are you assuming that they will only be able to make any progress on one console but not the other?

So basically the two consoles are essentially the same?

No. According to the comparison one has a higher resolution, better framerate but also has tearing, while the other has higher maximal AF, better shadows but some lighting & shadows issues.
So they're not the same - each with its own advantages and disadvantages. These differences obviously don't cancel each other out.

 

[nightshade]

No. According to the comparison one has a higher resolution, better framerate but also has tearing, while the other has higher maximal AF, better shadows but some lighting & shadows issues.
So they're not the same - each with its own advantages and disadvantages. These differences obviously don't cancel each other out.

Its the PS3 version that runs smoother (during gameplay).

 

[2real4tv]

Not to mention that about 90-95% of the customers of the game won't notice any resolution differences.
Crytek has probably made the right choice with the PS3 version, just as everyone else before.
I'm still finding people who thought COD Black Ops was running in full 720p on the PS3, where it's actually 960*540 with 2xMSAA.
I expect a lot of 1280*1080p games with the next gen consoles, too - at first to quickly fix performance problems, and later on to push the graphics to the max.

With a statement like that it's safe to say you don't care too much of the ps3 and most likely don't game on it.

 

[BadTB25]

With a statement like that it's safe to say you don't care too much of the ps3 and most likely don't game on it.

It doesn't sound to me like he is disparaging the PS3, just that in effects versus resolution, other top selling games have done really well with lower resolution and better effects/framerate.

 

[czekon]

Its the PS3 version that runs smoother (during gameplay).

ps3
Clip 1:
Length of clip: 2384 frames
Average FPS of clip: 26.52
Percent of torn frames: 0.0
Clip 2:
Length of clip: 2571frames
Average FPS of clip: 25.18
Percent of torn frames: 0.0
Clip 3:
Length of clip: 5166 frames
Average FPS of clip: 25.54
Percent of torn frames: o.o

Clip 4:
Length of clip: 4681 frames
Average FPS of clip: 26.03
Percent of torn frames: 0.0
Clip 5:
Length of clip: 2872 frames
Average FPS of clip: 30.42
Percent of torn frames: 0.0

Global percent of torn frames: 0.0
Global average FPS: 26.54

x360

Clip 1:
Length of clip: 2384 frames
Average FPS of clip: 30.0
Percent of torn frames: 1.88
Clip 2:
Length of clip: 2571 frames
Average FPS of clip: 28.99
Percent of torn frames: 0.89
Clip 3:
Length of clip: 5166 frames
Average FPS of clip: 28.07
Percent of torn frames: 0.76
Clip 4:
Length of clip: 4681 frames
Average FPS of clip: 28.00
Percent of torn frames: 0.74
Clip 5:
Length of clip: 2872 frames
Average FPS of clip: 31.56
Percent of torn frames: 0.33
Global percent of torn frames: 1.93
Global average FPS: 29.11

mmmm not
edit: after all its not like those 3 fps make a huuuuge difference

 

[2real4tv]

It doesn't sound to me like he is disparaging the PS3, just that in effects versus resolution, other top selling games have done really well with lower resolution and better effects/framerate.

I probably took it out of context but I also hope that applies to 360 that might suffer in res, rare that might be.

 

[ultragpu]

Well, if we consider (ill attempted) Haze from the Crysis UK (formerly Free Radical) team, this is actually their second PS3 title and they had some past experience - but for the Xbox 360 this is obviously Crytek's first title.
So why should a the next title lessen the difference? Are you assuming that they will only be able to make any progress on one console but not the other?

The Haze dev team only did the MP section while the main Frankfurt studio who has never had any experience on PS3 development worked on all the porting etc. So yeah, it's their first attempt.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Forgive me, but I continue to miss your point... isn't normal prefer more pixel than less?

The point is this.

If noone had ever said what the resolution of each version was... Would you even know that the PS3 version is running at a lower resolution than the X360 version?

So, if as you said before, you cannot see a noticeable difference between the PS3 and X360 version, then you would never even think they were running at different resolutions if someone hadn't told you that they were.

Hence, it doesn't really matter. The ONLY drawback I can see is that Crytek used RSX to upscale the image and thus the HUD had to be upscaled also. Then again by using RSX to do virtually free upscaling, it likely freed up more resources to allow the PS3 version to run nearly identically to the X360 version.

Considering how most wouldn't be able to tell which version was which if the HUD was hidden, I'd say PS3 running at 1024x720 was a good decision. After all it appears to be the game that does the best at keeping both versions nearly identical to each other.

Regards,
SB

 

[Love_In_Rio]

ps3
Clip 1:
Length of clip: 2384 frames
Average FPS of clip: 26.52
Percent of torn frames: 0.0
Clip 2:
Length of clip: 2571frames
Average FPS of clip: 25.18
Percent of torn frames: 0.0
Clip 3:
Length of clip: 5166 frames
Average FPS of clip: 25.54
Percent of torn frames: o.o

Clip 4:
Length of clip: 4681 frames
Average FPS of clip: 26.03
Percent of torn frames: 0.0
Clip 5:
Length of clip: 2872 frames
Average FPS of clip: 30.42
Percent of torn frames: 0.0

Global percent of torn frames: 0.0
Global average FPS: 26.54

x360

Clip 1:
Length of clip: 2384 frames
Average FPS of clip: 30.0
Percent of torn frames: 1.88
Clip 2:
Length of clip: 2571 frames
Average FPS of clip: 28.99
Percent of torn frames: 0.89
Clip 3:
Length of clip: 5166 frames
Average FPS of clip: 28.07
Percent of torn frames: 0.76
Clip 4:
Length of clip: 4681 frames
Average FPS of clip: 28.00
Percent of torn frames: 0.74
Clip 5:
Length of clip: 2872 frames
Average FPS of clip: 31.56
Percent of torn frames: 0.33
Global percent of torn frames: 1.93
Global average FPS: 29.11

mmmm not
edit: after all its not like those 3 fps make a huuuuge difference

I think you should take account minimun frame rates.

 

[djskribbles]

DF mentions that the PS3 framerate holds up a little better during battles.

Regardless, both versions don't have a great framerate. Depending how you play, it can get really bad. It does get better later on, though.

 

[czekon]

thats what i mean when game drops badly around 20 fps what difference make 1 or 2 fps