Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2016 - 2017]

[Clukos]

Correct me if I'm wrong but regardless of the inevitable comparisons, this isn't very similar to Killzone Shadowfall right?.

Both use temporal reprojection but in a different manner from what I can observe, with QB you've got a full 720P image that is then later reconstructed using 4 frames (4x 720P is 1080P so makes sense), but is not able to maintain this in motion but only in stills.

Killzone on the other hand displays a full 1080P image all the time that is constructed using an interlaced image half of which is new data and half of which is reprojected data from the previous frame. The advantage of this would be that the game always displays a 1080P image even in motion (albiet with minor artifacting).


Both are ofcourse very different from MSAA reconstruction seen in Rainbow Six Siege/PS3 Ratchet & Clank games. So I think it'd be a bit incorrect to bunch all these techniques into one type.

Temporal reprojection != temporal reconstruction. Afaik temporal reconstruction is object agnostic, meaning that it doesn't actually track information about specific pixels within the scene while temporal reprojection does exactly that. A talk on the subject of temporal reprojection (from this years gdc): https://github.com/playdeadgames/temporal/blob/master/GDC2016_Temporal_Reprojection_AA_INSIDE.pdf

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Is there quarter pixel jitter between frames? Otherwise if rendering a static camera, you'd get the same data between frames so how couold info be reconstructed?

 

[Clukos]

Is there quarter pixel jitter between frames? Otherwise if rendering a static camera, you'd get the same data between frames so how couold info be reconstructed?

I'm sure Sebbi knows but can't talk about it, i'm also pretty certain Rainbow Six Siege is also doing something similar. The main difference between the two techniques from what i can tell from the DF footage is that temporal reconstruction is re-adjusting every time you move the camera, while temporal re-projection has an adjusting/up-sampling time only for new things in the camera, be it objects or complete camera movement.

 

[nightshade]

Rainbow six uses MsAA samples to reconstruct though, not past frames. It uses temporal data for its AA however.

Temporal reprojection != temporal reconstruction. Afaik temporal reconstruction is object agnostic, meaning that it doesn't actually track information about specific pixels within the scene while temporal reprojection does exactly that. A talk on the subject of temporal reprojection (from this years gdc): https://github.com/playdeadgames/temporal/blob/master/GDC2016_Temporal_Reprojection_AA_INSIDE.pdf

So that further differentiates shadowfall's technique to Quantum break then.

 

[HTupolev]

Is the reason we see so much more temporal AA/reconstruction techniques applied recently the relative high amount of memory the new consoles offer? If I understand it correctly, typically all consoles up to now were quite memory starved. Now, the consoles are quite low on CPU but have lots of memory...is this a new trend?

One factor is that pixels are costlier than they used to be.

Accurately reprojecting a pixel in an original Playstation game would be a lot more expensive than just rendering a new pixel.

Now that samples are expensive relative to even reasonably decent reprojection, it's worth it to try.

 

[Clukos]

Also and example of the technique used in U4 for shadows and shaders, and some guesses as to what is happening (i could be completely wrong)

Picture 1: Nate turning his head to the right -> lots of new information -> shadows/shaders that are relatively new to the scene are dithered and potentially lower res than the rest of the scene
Picture 2: Nate holds his head still in place -> dithered shaders now become clean, upsampled by info accumulation
Picture 3: Nate starts to turn his head again -> only part of the shadow becomes dithered as new information enters the scene

I guess they store some of the accumulated information in memory, although much like Remedy only ND know the details about the specific use of this technique. U4 gets away with rendering geometry at 1080p though so it doesn't look particularly blurry.

 

[Clukos]

The Bloodborne engine running on an X1, it looks bad from the first impressions...

It's inexcusable that From still haven't fixed the frame pacing. They should change the internal engine if they don't know how to use it properly...

 

[Ike Turner]

The Bloodborne engine running on an X1, it looks bad from the first impressions...

Looks as bad as the PS4 version (from what is being told by those who tried it) but at 900P instead of 1080P. This just confirms that From have shitty engine devs. They didn't even bother fixing the frame pacing issue which is also present in Bloodborne..

 

[Clukos]

The Ps4 version seemed to be running at 30 fps more of the time but the frame pacing is really the biggest issue here. I've platinumed bloodborne and i can't believe how they still haven't fixed this. It's very much tied to the gameplay experience and should be a priority fix. But here it is, a year later and still present. Here's hoping for an okay PC port...

Edit: Bloodborne looks better and runs better than that so there's still hope for the Ps4 version

Although frame pacing issues are a given at this point.

 

[chris1515]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-trackmania-turbo-performance-analysis

Trackmania 1080p on PS4 and better framerate

 

[iroboto]

The Ps4 version seemed to be running at 30 fps more of the time but the frame pacing is really the biggest issue here. I've platinumed bloodborne and i can't believe how they still haven't fixed this. It's very much tied to the gameplay experience and should be a priority fix. But here it is, a year later and still present. Here's hoping for an okay PC port...

Edit: Bloodborne looks better and runs better than that so there's still hope for the Ps4 version

Although frame pacing issues are a given at this point.

A shame; shit I wasn't thinking when I pre-ordered this. Ah well. I guess the realities are here that they are using a really old engine with old methods and it's clearly not jiving well with the way things work now. I'm assuming BB engine is a modified engine from their previous titles.

Perhaps it's too much to redo but they should have done it anyway, or gone with another engine if they don't want to bother with it.

 

[hesido]

Although frame pacing issues are a given at this point.

I made a remark about frame pacing issues on a PC oriented thread on GAF, and they told me there were tweaks that fix it on earlier games. A tweak on PC can fix the frame pacing but the devs can't? Why and how is this at all possible?

 

[sebbbi]

Picture 1: Nate turning his head to the right -> lots of new information -> shadows/shaders that are relatively new to the scene are dithered and potentially lower res than the rest of the scene
Picture 2: Nate holds his head still in place -> dithered shaders now become clean, upsampled by info accumulation
Picture 3: Nate starts to turn his head again -> only part of the shadow becomes dithered as new information enters the scene

I guess they store some of the accumulated information in memory, although much like Remedy only ND know the details about the specific use of this technique. U4 gets away with rendering geometry at 1080p though so it doesn't look particularly blurry.

Seems like temporal reconstruction. Hard to say whether they are piggybacking the shadows in temporal AA reprojection. The shadow dither pattern is relatively coarse, meaning that it is not optimal for neighborhood clamping (the most common TAA rejection method). But without knowing more technical details it's really hard to make any conclusions.

 

[Clukos]

Yeah, it's hard to tell what is going on exactly. Hoping ND cover this in a future presentation, Siggraph is in 4 months, maybe we'll get more info there, same for Quantum Break

Could be something similar to this: https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2007/Scherzer-2007-PCS/

 

[Egmon83]

I love Bloodborne, with the art is the only thing 'saving' the visual experience. Imagine Bioware Mass Effect-tier art, with the From software engine ...

 

[shredenvain]

I love Bloodborne, with the art is the only thing 'saving' the visual experience. Imagine Bioware Mass Effect-tier art, with the From software engine ...

The Werewolve like creatures in bloodborne look bad ass!

 

[Clukos]

The Werewolve like creatures in bloodborne look bad ass!

What impressed me the most was the real-time geometry transformation. So many games chicken out and just swap models out of view (for a good reason too), just showing shadows. Nope, The Order definitely went there. Wish the gameplay scenarios around half-breeds was more interesting though...

 

[Clukos]

Almost exactly the same

 

[ultragpu]

The jaggylicious shadow res on the Bone is quite distracting tho, also one of the gaffer has found higher samples of motion blur on the PS4.

 

[shredenvain]

The jaggylicious shadow res on the Bone is quite distracting tho, also one of the gaffer has found higher samples of motion blur on the PS4.

I thought Namco released a statement that the early release versions of DS 3 were incomplete. They said a patch with optimization would be released on the original US launch date for all platforms.

I watched a Candyland video of the PC version comparing low, medium, high and ultra that showed almost no difference between these setting. With the exception of shadow quality and DOF.

I would wait before I took anyone's analysis of the current release as concrete on any version of DS 3.