Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2015]

[nightshade]

Rigid body physics is usually done on CPU, which is why games like Just Cause 3 suffer due to the weak CPUs.

This is bugging me. Shouldn't it be 4x MSAA?

Yea makes sense since it uses MSAA to reconstruct a 1080P image. What I am curious to know is that if this is the same technique that was used in the 60FPS Ratchet and Clank PS3 games ?

In Rainbow Six when MSAA reconstruction is used, the image looks native (atleast when not in motion), while R&C always looked like it ran at a resolution lower than 720P.
In motion the technique causes some artifacting which can actually be fixed with the post process AA, although this results in an incredibly soft image (PPAA in Rainbow Six looks softer than other games).

 

[Sigfried1977]

Digital Foundry: Fallout 4 patch 1.02 boosts PS4 performance
Bethesda brings us closer to 30fps - but is it stable?

As things stand, the improvement is clearly tangible, even if the frame-rate still isn't 100 per cent ideal. A flat reading at around 20fps creeps in once we trigger explosives in the sewers, while the high-rises of the factory plant still take a toll on PS4's frame-rate.​

Fire and explosions are by far the most prevalent reasons for the frame rate nose dives on PS4. No matter what you are doing, if you add an explosion and sometimes just a little fire, the frame rate will drop. This is only observational evidence but I'm glad I'm not playing a heavily explosive focused build!

Oddly enough, the places where FO4 struggles the most are still mostly interiors. I got caught up in plenty of larger scale battles on the outside without any performance issues to speak of, only to come acrosss this one particular vault in which basically nothing happened, and it completely wrecked the framerate. (much more so than the Corvega interior ever did)

 

[tuna]

I don't disagree but have an interest and woulkd like to know the source for this. My experience is that there is an awful lot of 25Hz 1080p programming but very little 50Hz 1080i prorgramming these days.

I do not know what you mean here. The HD channels I have broadcast either in 720p50 or 1080i50. If you want to know what frame rate the actual content is recorded in you would probably need to do a DF style analysis. It would also likely differ from program to program.

 

[dobwal]

When referring to interlaced at 50hz is that the number of frames per second or the number of fields per sec?

 

[HTupolev]

When referring to interlaced at 50hz is that the number of frames per second or the number of fields per sec?

Fields. What that corresponds to in frames depends on a combination of semantics and how the signal is being used.

 

[TheWretched]

I don't disagree but have an interest and woulkd like to know the source for this. My experience is that there is an awful lot of 25Hz 1080p programming but very little 50Hz 1080i prorgramming these days.

All german public television stations (ARD, ZDF...) broadcast at 720P50Hz... they chose this for the added bonus of better temporal resolution, instead of going interlaced.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I do not know what you mean here. The HD channels I have broadcast either in 720p50 or 1080i50. If you want to know what frame rate the actual content is recorded in you would probably need to do a DF style analysis. It would also likely differ from program to program.

In the UK it's different then. While there are still some 720p programming, we were lucky in that BBC HD largely set the standard and they settled on 50Hz 1080i and 25Hz 1080p. Of course, some channels will be more compromised because they a more limited spectrum to work within in terms of transmission. Satellite is far more compromised than terrestrial but that's down to Sky and the way they sublease.

 

[London Geezer]

It would be nice if they bothered to broadcast what they call HD at a decent enough compression level so as not to actually kill the H in HD. Sometimes it's just ridiculous.

 

[bgroovy]

Yes it's a bummer how bad your average cable or sat channel looks in HD. Shows often look ten times better streaming on Netflix than they do during their original broadcast. I've literally given up watching some darkly shot shows like Arrow since the compression is so ruinous.

 

[Gubbi]

Yes it's a bummer how bad your average cable or sat channel looks in HD. Shows often look ten times better streaming on Netflix than they do during their original broadcast.

I have the complete opposite experience. Netflix streams are around 5mbit/s for HD content, satellite are usually well over 10mbit/s

Cheers

 

[Lalaland]

Yeah the dark future of low bit rate streaming is one reason I hope 4K BD takes off, 4k at 15Mb/s <shudder>

 

[Phil]

This might be rather daft to ask, but is that 10mbps of satellite stream onscreen information; e.g. 1 audio channel and 1 video channel? Or are there multiple audio channels sent along with it adding to that 10mbps?

I would think netflix only streams what is active - e.g. select english, and it's only streaming that audio channel together with the picture.

 

[bgroovy]

I think the Netflix super HD feeds are 8mbps. It must help that they are authored encodes and not the result of multiple real-time constant bit rate compressions.

 

[Clukos]

 

[djskribbles]

Beat me to it. Full article HERE.

PS4 benefits from the patch far more than the XB1...huge improvements to the PS4 version while the XB1 version remains mostly the same. Kind of backs up my theory that the XB1/PC were the lead platforms and the PS4 wasn't worked on as much up to release.

 

[DrJay24]

It was the same for Witcher 3, thank those marketing agreements.

 

[Shoujoboy]

Xenoblade Chronicles X looks like a perfect example of a game that is developed with a clear understanding of the compromises that need to be made to hit the target performance. The developer did an excellent job of managing its resources and coming up with a product that not only offers the largest open world game on any console, but also has great art direction that helps mask the hardware's limitations.

I've spent about 80 hours with the game, it's great but I feel they should've played until they got
their skells/mechs because they move significantly faster than the player character does and because of this, the
framerate can take some pretty big hits especially if you're in areas like Noctillum.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I was at the Parsons State Insane Asylum (PS4 patch 1.02) yesterday and there were plenty of drops - and I'm not particularly sensitive to frame rate.

It was never bad but it was noticeable.

 

[Goodtwin]

I've spent about 80 hours with the game, it's great but I feel they should've played until they got
their skells/mechs because they move significantly faster than the player character does and because of this, the
framerate can take some pretty big hits especially if you're in areas like Noctillum.

I can believe that. I don't have a Skell yet, but when sprinting on foot, there are some stutters here and there, most likely from trying to load assets on the fly. Overall, my experience has been really smooth, but I wont be shocked to notice more stutter later when I am flying around in my Skell.

 

[liolio]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-vs-fast-racing-neo
I'm surprised that article did not make the cut to get into that thread I actually enjoyed it a lot. It raised a lot of question into my mind, not that I'm questioning the validity of DF analysis but about where console game development and experience stands nowadays.
I miss real consoles and what use to be the console experience, next to no loading plug and play. Patchings is great, I mean how many games remained broken in the past? but nowadays it is out of control.