Uncharted 4: A Thief's End [PS4]

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It's not weird, from what we've seen so far it's by far the most visually inconsistent title out there, both in terms of performance and in terms of looks (can look absolutely amazing one time and like a last gen title the next). I think people have negative views towards FFXV because of all the delays and that it's been almost 10 years since the official reveal. Of course, I do hope they sort this out but I wouldn't bet on it from what we've seen in the multiple playable demos. Would love to be wrong though.

One you have a more linear game with baked static world lighting. XV is open world and the gameplay (& story) is also heavily designed around having a dynamic time of day. In order to achieve great looking dynamic lighting, they also need great dynamic indirect lighting. U4 already has the benefit in rendering budget for other stuff based on that alone. The fact that U4 is more linear means ND can cherry pick what to polish up in front of the player. It's pretty evident where they're able to make graphical cutbacks due to it being non-open world. This is some rather low poly and low-res textures here for a game some people are clamoring to be the best graphics ever (don't get me wrong, I think it's a great looking game).

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XV also isn't complete and they're currently deep in the optimization/polishing phase... Square is just more open with their development and doesn't seem to care about which build they show off, as evident by the visual inconsistencies. I really don't like bring up other games in official topics, but as I'm not the one to bring up XV and apparently it's not silly comparison, I'll just leave this here. The confirmed PS4 Pax driving footage already exhibits their more stable AA solution, more impressive shadow draw that isn't baked compared to U4, and the quality in lighting, polygonal detail in rocky surfaces, object rendering isn't in any way less impressive on XV's open world scale.

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Oh boy you don't want me to start nitpicking with FFXV, let's stop at that :p

This isn't on-topic discussion either. And like London-boy said, locked 30fps 1080p.
FF15 runs like ass though, as far as we've seen.

Every single demo was running around 25 fps with drops to <20 in many cases. Uncharted 4 was always running at a locked 30 in every demo shown to public.

All this is coming from one of the biggest luminous apologists on the internet (me).
 
What kind of PBR do they use in UC4?

Shading on wood and metal surface in U4

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Up there with The Order. Source is 720p Ps4 video and yt compression on top, that's why it's very blurry.

Edit: Metal, ruber, leather, plastic and more, same source:
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this is weird.... PSN says my Uncharted 4 is waiting other download to finish to download...

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hmm hmm hmm! time to do some sniffing!

EDIT:

ugh now everything in PSN is encrypted except the PKG game download -___-

i guess this changes came with 3.50 FW.
 
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At least it has shadows.

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Straight up like a Ps3 game. A Ps3 game that can't even run at native res/stable framerate. Actually, i bet you there's a shitload of Ps3 games that look better and run better than FFXV at its worst.
 
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The 'pay to win' aspect can exist if the time to earn is massive. It's actually a real bugger as I find in trying to get my Footy game weightings right. If the content is so freely available through gameplay, there's no reason to buy, so that line earns no income as there's zero point to it. If you ramp up the in-game 'work' required to unlock, you price content out of player's reach without spending money.

eg. A Gun can be better in multiplayer. It can be bought for $2 or unlocked with 100 hours play. Anyone wanting to be competitive in multiplayer is pressured to make the purchase, making the 'free' in principle only - in practice you have to pay to stay competitive.

I suppose the true measure of 'Pay To Win' is whether spending money gives you an advantage. Only if it doesn't can you say your game doesn't feature 'Pay To Win'. Or at least, 'Pay To Have An Advantage'.
 
Pay to win means locked weapons behind real currency, like TLOU did with some overpowered weapons that weren't available for purchase with in-game currency. You can even argue that games like League are p2w which offer champions and runes to be bought with real currency, that in theory definitely gives you an advantage, in practice it doesn't really make any difference whatsoever (depending on how much time you want to spend in the MP).
 
One you have a more linear game with baked static world lighting. XV is open world and the gameplay (& story) is also heavily designed around having a dynamic time of day. In order to achieve great looking dynamic lighting, they also need great dynamic indirect lighting. U4 already has the benefit in rendering budget for other stuff based on that alone. The fact that U4 is more linear means ND can cherry pick what to polish up in front of the player. It's pretty evident where they're able to make graphical cutbacks due to it being non-open world. This is some rather low poly and low-res textures here for a game some people are clamoring to be the best graphics ever (don't get me wrong, I think it's a great looking game).

Nobody made a graphical comparison between Uncharted4 and FF15... our discussion was about the technical choices made by developers and their ability to make the right compromises.

In its current state, FF15 is a complete mess from this point of view : horrible IQ, horrible performances, completely inconsistent visuals, etc.

Also, you have open world games with a good IQ, good performances and consistent visuals : ISS, MG5, GTA 5, Mad Max, Syndicate, etc.

So, this is not an excuse...

This is some rather low poly and low-res textures here for a game some people are clamoring to be the best graphics ever

Feel free to name a game without any flaws... best graphics never meant perfection...
 
Just your usual problem with shadowmapping precision/resolution & having certain caster-to-receiver distance resulting in acne.

The shadow maps look pretty clean in other places. Seems to be an issue with precision from the boat movement as you said, as it looks like we're pretty close to the shadow cast.

Nobody made a graphical comparison between Uncharted4 and FF15... our discussion was about the technical choices made by developers and their ability to make the right compromises.

In its current state, FF15 is a complete mess from this point of view : horrible IQ, horrible performances, completely inconsistent visuals, etc.

Also, you have open world games with a good IQ, good performances and consistent visuals : ISS, MG5, GTA 5, Mad Max, Syndicate, etc.

So, this is not an excuse...



Feel free to name a game without any flaws... best graphics never meant perfection...

Doesn't change the fact that you're comparing completed games to an unreleased game that still has almost half a year before release. It's a bit dismissive to say the XV devs already made the "wrong" technical choices and compromises. They've been open about showing their game at various states and different builds regardless of quality (which I admit is a mistake in PR terms), and they have a massive amount of content they need to polish instead of the 15-20 hour game we're seeing here. Why do you think we've barely seen anything from Horizon, and absolutely nothing from Mass Effect Andromeda in years, both of which began development around the same time as XV reboot (all began full production in 2013, with pre-production work starting around 2011-2012). Their marketing is completely different and they aren't as open as Square in showing their WIP games at various states of graphical quality and performance. I admit XV looks rough in parts, but every game is while in development. We just don't get to see it that often.
 
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How the hell is this even possible ? how ?!!!!!!!!!!
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this is the best and most technically impressive game i've ever seen on any platfrom in every possible way!!!! damn u Naughty Dog, you're goddam wizards !
 
Doesn't change the fact that you're comparing completed games to an unreleased game that still has almost half a year before release. It's a bit dismissive to say the XV devs already made the "wrong" technical choices and compromises. They've been open about showing their game at various states and different builds regardless of quality (which I admit is a mistake in PR terms), and they have a massive amount of content they need to polish instead of the 15-20 hour game we're seeing here. Why do you think we've barely seen anything from Horizon, and absolutely nothing from Mass Effect Andromeda in years, both of which began development around the same time as XV reboot (all began full production in 2013, with pre-production work starting around 2011-2012). Their marketing is completely different and they aren't as open as Square in showing their WIP games at various states of graphical quality and performance. I admit XV looks rough in parts, but every game is while in development. We just don't get to see it that often.

We are not comparing alpha footage, we are comparing a publicly available demo released by Sqenix along with 2 versions of a previous demo (Duscae). They didn't have to release a demo, they chose to. If the demo is inconsistent and has terrible performance, what makes you think that it's salvageable in 5 months? Logically and from what we've seen so far we have more of a reason to suspect the final product rather than be sure of its quality, even if it does deliver in the end. Uncharted 4 on the other hand was always rock solid both from a presentation stand point but also from a performance one as well. You can argue all you want about linearity and baked lighting, the end result is all that matters to 99.9% of the user base who is actually paying for the game. If FFXV ships and is running lower than native res with terrible lod and performance nobody is going to care if they are running the most complex hair animation system in a game.
 
Doesn't change the fact that you're comparing completed games to an unreleased game that still has almost half a year before release. It's a bit dismissive to say the XV devs already made the "wrong" technical choices and compromises. They've been open about showing their game at various states and different builds regardless of quality (which I admit is a mistake in PR terms), and they have a massive amount of content they need to polish instead of the 15-20 hour game we're seeing here. Why do you think we've barely seen anything from Horizon, and absolutely nothing from Mass Effect Andromeda in years, both of which began development around the same time as XV reboot (all began full production in 2013, with pre-production work starting around 2011-2012). Their marketing is completely different and they aren't as open as Square in showing their WIP games at various states of graphical quality and performance.

15/20 hours is pretty big for an action game... you're not spending a big part of your time traveling empty areas while making questionable side quests.

But i agree with some of your points though and we can't make a definitive judgment on FF15 even if i think that many issues will remain on the final game.

I admit XV looks rough in parts, but every game is while in development. We just don't get to see it that often.

(Start at 8min49)


 
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15/20 hours is pretty big for an action game... you're not spending a big part of your time traveling empty areas while making questionable side quests.

But i agree with some of your points though and we can't make a definitive judgment on FF15 even if i think that many issues will remain on the final game.



(Start at 8min49)



Different devs approach development differently though. Some will polish certain levels to near completion in order to show it off at events and then go quiet for months. The director of XV openly stated their approach was to avoid polishing individual levels to the fullest, instead they work on all areas concurrently and slowly build up the quality for all areas at the same time, as they've found it works quicker for them.

We are not comparing alpha footage, we are comparing a publicly available demo released by Sqenix along with 2 versions of a previous demo (Duscae). They didn't have to release a demo, they chose to. If the demo is inconsistent and has terrible performance, what makes you think that it's salvageable in 5 months? Logically and from what we've seen so far we have more of a reason to suspect the final product rather than be sure of its quality, even if it does deliver in the end. Uncharted 4 on the other hand was always rock solid both from a presentation stand point but also from a performance one as well. You can argue all you want about linearity and baked lighting, the end result is all that matters to 99.9% of the user base who is actually paying for the game. If FFXV ships and is running lower than native res with terrible lod and performance nobody is going to care if they are running the most complex hair animation system in a game.

ND showed you what they wanted you to see, and didn't release stuff they knew wouldn't be ready to show. Square is doing the complete opposite and showing you stuff you typically wouldn't see from an PR standpoint. The scale of the games aren't even on the same level. You do realize Duscae was released as a vertical slice to gather feedback right? It wasn't supposed to be representative of the final graphics and performance, neither is Platinum.
 
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