Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2015]

[Osamar]

Why do not look for the average price of consoles and build PCs at x1, x2 and x3.
For example in Spain XBoxOne and PS4 are around 375€, build a low cost PC at the same Price, another at 750€ and an uber PC at 1.125€.
Then rebuild or upgrade once a year with new pc parts considering prices of consoles and parts.

 

[RDGoodla]

MGSV PS4 version uses double-buffered v-sync again? Does x1 version uses it too?

Why double-buffered again? The Witcher 3 of PS4 has bad performance (20fps) because of it.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Digital Foundry: Hands-on with Metal Gear Solid 5
Can Xbox One's 900p upgrade sustain 60fps? And how does it compare with PS4?

Spoiler

 

[Nesh]

PS4 version of GZ had a different sky from the XB1 version. Does this also apply on the final game?

 

[function]

The Xbone isn't as fast as the PS4, at least in terms of the GPU. And that isn't going to change.

You can't deny, however, that the performance gains made relative to the PS4 have been impressive. Despite the tiny amount of fast sram, the 16 ROPS, and the limited DDR3 BW the Bone is regularly pulling in ~70% of the PS4 in pixels per second, even with game series' that were not long ago running at 720 with reduced effects or frame rate issues.

The CPU evolution is interesting: it's appears that as well as the pre-launch clock bump, there have been two "CPU reserve" reductions from the 6 "game cores" to the point where they are now completely available, with a seventh core made partly available, and large reductions in driver overhead. And DX12 hasn't even landed yet.

On the gpu side, with the reduction of GPU reserve down to less than 5%, and likes of sebbbi's 1080 MSAA technique being so sram friendly, perhaps MS can hold onto that ~70% or possibly increase it a little.

 

[DrJay24]

CPU bump, additional cores, GPU reserve and DX12 all in one post, this is like secret sauce bingo. The way I see it, its been more or less 900P vs 1080P since launch and not much is going to change. The per-game details are lost in the noise. Developers are going to think of clever ways to work around both console's limitations and the games will continue to look better.

 

[djskribbles]

Yeah it has been 900p vs 1080p for most of this gen. Fox Engine in particular has seen some nice gains, but MGS/Fox Engine has been one of the very few games where XB1 was <60% of PS4 (wasn't Ghosts the only other one?). Everything else has been more or less par for the course.

 

[iroboto]

CPU bump, additional cores, GPU reserve and DX12 all in one post, this is like secret sauce bingo. The way I see it, its been more or less 900P vs 1080P since launch and not much is going to change. The per-game details are lost in the noise. Developers are going to think of clever ways to work around both console's limitations and the games will continue to look better.

It's been worse for Xbox. Lol.

But earlier in the gen many people did not believe Xbox would keep up at all. That the gap would widen.
IIRC most people thought ps4 would drop to 900p and Xbox down further to 720p. But I don't see that happening.

 

[function]

CPU bump, additional cores, GPU reserve and DX12 all in one post, this is like secret sauce bingo. The way I see it, its been more or less 900P vs 1080P since launch and not much is going to change. The per-game details are lost in the noise. Developers are going to think of clever ways to work around both console's limitations and the games will continue to look better.

Except that the opposite of 'secret sauce' is 'disclosed, measurable an tangible'. CPU bump = not secret, disclosed and comment on. Reduced reserves = not secret, disclosed and commented on. DX12 = not secret, disclosed and commented on. sebbbi's rendering paper = not secret, disclosed and discussed.

You use the phrase "secret sauce", but I do not think it means what you think it means.

Metal Gear hasn't just seen a large bump in resolution, it's also now matching the PS4 graphics effects while maintaining, at a few moments, a higher frame rate. PES has also seen a huge bump is resolution relative to the PS4

If the details of these games (and others) are details lost in the noise, then perhaps it's worth listening more closely. The combination of resolution, frame rate and effects has clearly moved to be less to the Xbox One's disadvantage over time.

 

[Nesh]

well the way I see it is that alhough the PS4 is theoretically 40%+ faster in GPU, the gap is being narrowed. The XB1 is getting 1080p games that match the PS4 too. But we also see exclusives that reach an amazing 1080p resolution. Forza 6 and Quantum Break are outstanding looking games that will will run at 1080p. If the latter is indeed 1080p I will be very impressed.
I dont see the gap widening, which is something that makes me vary curious about what is going on inside each platform.

 

[djskribbles]

Metal Gear hasn't just seen a large bump in resolution, it's also now matching the PS4 graphics effects while maintaining, at a few moments, a higher frame rate. PES has also seen a huge bump is resolution relative to the PS4

PES also runs on the Fox Engine. Other than that, though, what else has seen a huge bump relative to PS4?

And again, these two games were once 720p vs 1080p on PS4... they were an exception to the more or less usual 900p vs 1080p.

 

[DrJay24]

"Secret sauce" is attributing anything positive that list of publicly announced changes (instead of say, dev experience). Going from 720P to 900P isn't something to celebrate, Konami should be embarrassed they released a 720P game on a system 6x-8x more powerful than a 360.

 

[djskribbles]

On the flip side, the XB1 Black Ops 3 beta seems to be a dynamic 13-somethingx900 - 1600x900 on XB1 when AW was a "dynamic" 1380x1080 - 1920x1080 (pretty much entirely the former during gameplay) and the PS4 versions are 1920x1080. Does that mean the gap is widening? No, it just means you can't look at isolated cases and assume anything.

 

[iroboto]

"Secret sauce" is attributing anything positive that list of publicly announced changes (instead of say, dev experience). Going from 720P to 900P isn't something to celebrate, Konami should be embarrassed they released a 720P game on a system 6x-8x more powerful than a 360.

Lol. Though to be fair this comment is done in hindsight, meaning if MGSV turned out to be 720p again then we wouldn't hold their first attempt as an embarrassment - well we would, but it would be par for the course I guess. Unfortunately we have no insight as to why the game launch at 720p to begin with. Most of the time we don't for any of these games but always fun to speculate.

 

[temesgen]

If the PS4 is running at 1080P there is little to improve upon in terms of easy to identify comparisons that often get tossed around due to convenience. To say it another way if PS4 games have been consistently running at the expected resolution the developer is likely put time into optimizing the performance of the XB1 version and be satisfied with the PS4 version.


Things will get more interesting when development moves past the resolution talking points and we see newer techniques implemented which in some cases may be more heavily influenced by the CPU.

When this happens the discussion will turn in very interesting directions.

 

[Rangers]

"Secret sauce" is attributing anything positive that list of publicly announced changes (instead of say, dev experience). Going from 720P to 900P isn't something to celebrate, Konami should be embarrassed they released a 720P game on a system 6x-8x more powerful than a 360.

From what we've heard the XBO SDK was in a horrendous state at launch. I think improvement there has led to more 1080/900 splits.

Anyways to reminder from my sig the notable 720P XBO early releases (I had forgot a couple) were Dead Rising 3, Killer Instinct (well it's now 900P), COD Ghosts, and BF4. Also Titanfall and Watch Dogs were 792P.

The only recent big 720P title is Battlefield Hardline I guess, but that game only makes 900P on PS4 just like BF4, so it seems more understandable I guess such as it is.

And to throw it in there MGS: GZ and PES 15 were 720P, common to the Fox engine.

About BLOPS 3, I'd think (hope) they bump it up to at least 900 by release. From what I've seen it certainly doesn't look any better (if not worse) than AW. But I also think XBO will remain more difficult to maximize early, and more difficult to develop for in general, because of the ESRAM, so it wouldn't be too surprising to me to see some Beta's at 720 or so that later get improved (Halo 5 Beta 720P, final game yet to be determined).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

But earlier in the gen many people did not believe Xbox would keep up at all. That the gap would widen.

It depends what happens on the GPU side. The latest Siggraph gave us our first taste of the real fundamental changes in game engines. When the GPU is handling all the graphics as per Sebbbi's talk, for example, and new lighting models and everything else, will the GPU disparity magnify? The visual difference won't be horrific - no worse than PS2 versus XB - but it's certainly too early to say XB1 has settled to a lower resolution parity. And the 900p vs 720p in four years time is definitely a possibility as devs push the envelope. That's always been the case with every 3D machine, hacking off res over the years to use better per-pixel features. Although separating out the buffers will allow reductions in less obvious ways, like Quantum Break's half-res screen-space lighting. So in terms of aggregate resolution across buffers, I expect resolutions to be dropped for more stuff to be added. Res or framerate.

 

[Phil]

well the way I see it is that alhough the PS4 is theoretically 40%+ faster in GPU, the gap is being narrowed. The XB1 is getting 1080p games that match the PS4 too. But we also see exclusives that reach an amazing 1080p resolution. Forza 6 and Quantum Break are outstanding looking games that will will run at 1080p. If the latter is indeed 1080p I will be very impressed.
I dont see the gap widening, which is something that makes me vary curious about what is going on inside each platform.

It certainly isn't magic. I think its actually much simpler. Multi platform games take the lowest common denominator and build the game around it. Then depending on how much time is left, some improvements can be made with that 40% "headroom". If the game in question is running inconsistent as it is, that headroom is simply there to make it more stable, so the end result is perhaps simply a resolution bump and perhaps (if GPU bound) a more consistent framerate. If the game easily hits its targets on both platform and there is time to spend that on, getting a bit more out of it, I'm sure the 40% could be used to make it a slightly nicer looking game.

Lets face it though; what good is there to do that if you know your game and your port will be scrutinized? You run the risk of upsetting one of your partners (in this case Microsoft, who is a partner none-the-less) and you possibly upset the public too for those playing on the 'weaker' console, having to come up with excuses on why your port is supposedly sloppy etc. If the game however runs nigh on identical except for the accepted resolution difference as it appears to be with MGSV, Fusion Trials or other games, well, you are going to be under the radar and there will be less to justify.

Lets not kid ourselves though; 40% is a reality - the question is, how many developers actually get to target it in a meaningful way besides a simple resolution gain? My guess: not many, especially considering using that 40% in a multi game project isn't free. It needs time and resources too.

 

[goonergaz]

The way I see it is that PCs are already 'much more powerful' and using extra features - in a couple years the XBO will be holding devs back and some of the extra PC 'advantages' will find their way onto PS4 (at least watered down)...I certainly hope so anyway, I'm sure Sony will try and encourage devs utilise the extra power.

 

[Jay]

And the 900p vs 720p in four years time is definitely a possibility as devs push the envelope. That's always been the case with every 3D machine, hacking off res over the years to use better per-pixel features.

That is the question really, lets say 4 years is a reasonable figure, would the next gen be out or about to come out by then? Depends how long this gen lasts, but then in that context you could argue that the XO has "kept up" as long as was needed.
If it takes 2 years for games to really start to push the envelope then it's possible that only at the very tail end of this gen that there are more than res differences, and by then people may be happy to play with it until the next gen.
Also just to note I agree with everything you said in your post. Was just adding my thoughts onto the end.

Lets not kid ourselves though; 40% is a reality - the question is, how many developers actually get to target it in a meaningful way besides a simple resolution gain? My guess: not many, especially considering using that 40% in a multi game project isn't free. It needs time and resources too.

Something I've said in the past is how much more can the 40% do, especially if rendering at a higher resolution.
40% may not be enough to actually do anything significant at all.
You have to remember that you have a lot more pixels to actually process.
Would people be happy with both versions of the game running at 900p but the ps4 having better effects? I have a feeling that's actually harder to sell than the bullet point of 1080p. (Personally I would rather the better effects)
Even both at 1080p, will 40% be enough to do more/a lot better effects across all those pixels? And then they may just drop the XO down to 900p to maintain pixel quality parity.

So yes the power difference is real, but it's not that simple.
All my comments obviously only apply to mutli-platform games.