Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2015]

[forumaccount]

Gif of the difference in lighting:

This persists even after the recent patch, both X1 and PC seem to be missing what seems to be volumetric shadows.

That outlining of the tail pipe is what happens when you clip your volumetrics against the world before particles are drawn and then additively splat them on top after the particles. A more correct implementation would take the particles into account. I'm sure other stuff can create similar artifacts, but it's one I'm used to looking at.

Probably that implementation issue is cross-platform and the primary difference in this scene is the presence of more particles in the foreground.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

1080p60 and beyond: the best PC hardware for Metal Gear Solid 5

Weirdly..

Therein lie some surprises. Model detail on PS4 and Xbox One runs at a lower quality than PC's low setting. Contrary to its labeling, this affects the draw distance for geometry and foliage across open areas - and surprisingly, the current-gen standard can't be matched on any of the PC's four preset levels here.

A fair number of peculiarities throughout but definitely a well optimised game on PC.

 

[Boxercide]

It's fascinating that it seems to be barely using the CPU at all. Maybe this is why they got such great performance on the consoles with their notably weak CPUs?

 

[Davros]

Doesnt sound like they got great performance on the consoles if you read dsoup's quote.
ps: from the screenshots on this page it looks a lot like Red Faction Guerrilla

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Doesnt sound like they got great performance on the consoles if you read dsoup's quote.

Uh what? The quote states there are things the PC experience is better at on all settings and there are things the console experience is better at regardless of the PC version's settings.

Like many games there are different trade offs between the console and PC versions and you need to read the whole article to find out which aspects differ and what configuration of PC hardware is required for the PC to match/exceed the console versions for particular features at any given resolution/framerate.

 

[nightshade]

I don't understand the quote.
If the model detail i.e. draw distance of vegetation cannot be matched on PC on any settings then how do they determine that it runs at a lower quality than PC's low?

 

[AlNom]

The same way one can see a similar difference with dying light lod?

 

[function]

There should be a mini-game where you can hack the lod. Tie it in to some meta-critique about the shifting nature of abstraction and identity in the modern, technology driven world.

 

[nightshade]

The same way one can see a similar difference with dying light lod?

The way it's written implies that there is something that console version has that PC cannot get (PC cannot match vs consoles cannot match even the low setting of PC..the latter sounds more appropriate than the former). But I was more curious about this part of DSoup's post.

Uh what? The quote states there are things the PC experience is better at on all settings and there are things the console experience is better at regardless of the PC version's settings.

Like many games there are different trade offs between the console and PC versions and you need to read the whole article to find out which aspects differ and what configuration of PC hardware is required for the PC to match/exceed the console versions for particular features at any given resolution/framerate.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I don't understand the quote.
If the model detail i.e. draw distance of vegetation cannot be matched on PC on any settings then how do they determine that it runs at a lower quality than PC's low?

That's the model detail. Ideally there should be seperate settings for model detail and distance over which objects are rendered - along with the density of objects. The low poly models really do stick out on PS4 in a lot of places. Check out the wheel on the underside of the chopper for example. I've not seen wheels that pointy since BC's Quest for Tires!

 

[nightshade]

The game is generally very low poly and I personally think some of it might have to do with the fact that it's a cross gen game. The reason why I say this is because there is zero difference between the models themselves in PS360 version and current gen/PC version. Infact even Snake himself looks considerably blocky for a main character today (outside of his face ofcourse).

Maybe that or maybe all that budget went into increasing the draw distance over PS360 (if PS4/Bone are lower than low then PS360 must be in the depths of hell )

 

[jlippo]

I really wonder why the distance in which lights are turned off is so close on XO/Ps4, they do use deferred rendering so the distant lights that cover really small amount of screen are really cheap.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The reason why I say this is because there is zero difference between the models themselves in PS360 version and current gen/PC version.

The slice of the DF article I quoted states the absolute opposite: that the models in the PS4/XBO versions are below what exists in PC version even when using the "low" setting. I.e. to keep the 60fps and desired draw distances they hugely paired back model details across the board.

 

[nightshade]

The slice of the DF article I quoted states the absolute opposite: that the models in the PS4/XBO versions are below what exists in PC version even when using the "low" setting. I.e. to keep the 60fps and desired draw distances they hugely paired back model details across the board.

I am talking about the mesh of the models themselves...not the draw distance or the LOD distance of the models. The mesh is the same across the board for all platform, Snake is still the slightly under 20,000 polygon model regardless of the platform etc etc

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I am talking about the mesh of the models themselves...not the draw distance or the LOD distance of the models. The mesh is the same across the board for all platform, Snake is still the slightly under 20,000 polygon model regardless of the platform etc etc

So I am, here is the quote again, my emphasis.

Therein lie some surprises. Model detail on PS4 and Xbox One runs at a lower quality than PC's low setting. Contrary to its labeling, this affects the draw distance for geometry and foliage across open areas - and surprisingly, the current-gen standard can't be matched on any of the PC's four preset levels here.

I read this to mean model detail is lower on current gen and that this setting [on PC] also affects draw distance which is never as good as it is on current gen consoles. They can probably fix that on PC, though.

 

[nightshade]

So I am, here is the quote again, my emphasis.



I read this to mean model detail is lower on current gen and that this setting [on PC] also affects draw distance which is never as good as it is on current gen consoles. They can probably fix that on PC, though.

I doubt that it affects anything more than LOD. I haven't seen any evidence of models being different up close. Plus this requires extra effort as they'd have to have different models (atleast for the main characters) for PC, PS360 and PS4Bone. So it makes sense that they'd go for the lowest common denominator.

DF says so that setting named "model detail" is labelled incorrectly and up close they have the same details.
From the DF article.

Contrary to its labeling, this affects the draw distance for geometry and foliage across open areas - and surprisingly, the current-gen standard can't be matched on any of the PC's four preset levels here. Up close, all details draw in at the same level of density, but on console they simply fade in at a closer range.

 

[London Geezer]

Ah! So that's what they meant. I found that particular part of the article a bit hard to decipher.

 

[AlNom]

I really wonder why the distance in which lights are turned off is so close on XO/Ps4, they do use deferred rendering so the distant lights that cover really small amount of screen are really cheap.

Light overdraw? Perhaps they are using traditional deferred shading.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I doubt that it affects anything more than LOD. I haven't seen any evidence of models being different up close.

Having read this passage a bunch more times I think you're right.

It's very badly written.

 

[Allandor]

It's fascinating that it seems to be barely using the CPU at all. Maybe this is why they got such great performance on the consoles with their notably weak CPUs?

it works with xbox 360 and PS3, too, so the engine couldn't use that much cpu power.
seems like the PS4/xb1 "ports" had a good influence on the code for the PC version. Many ports in the past weren't that optimized for x86.