Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2020]

[PSman1700]

No offence to you, but I am not going to spend the time on the weekend to make a 30 Minute Video disecting every Single Thing wrong in the demo. That would, for one, be unprecedented for DF to go so Hard into a Trailer, and two, be a waste of time and beyond nitpicky. I also cannot give as eloquent logical deductions to explain why other aspects are the way they are, lighting is much more easily explained from a how and why stand point. Beyond saying that the LOD distance and Art decisions were questionable, what more can I really say that is informative and gives context to them? I already sacraficed my saturday and Friday after working last weekend and covered the topic I personally viewed as most egregious.
If me spending 18 minutes to explain why a Trailer looks poor (which df has literally never done, we have never done a video about a Trailer that only describes all of it's faults) comes off as sucking up to MS or going easy on it, then I am not sure what I can say. The fact that people think this video is about excusing something boggles my mind, it is one of the most negative and sobering things I think I have ever produced.

Yes well said. I tried to explain before that a 18 minute video can't cover all the aspects as to why it looks underwhelming. Lighting is one of the biggest reasons and it was a good choice to cover that one as it has such a big impact. You even noted clearly that lighting is not the sole problem.
What should you have done then, a 18 minute rant and complain video that it looks dull? No, its better to try explain why it looks flat, and hope for improvements, which are certainly not impossible and bound to happen down the road.

Some people say very un-nice things, but that comes with the job, its the internets It's only a small goup of people disliking your content.
Your a great addition to the DF team, expanding PC gaming and excellent coverage on tech, in special when ray tracing came about, what we could expect, and SSD performance in SC. I think they applied nicely to the next gen hardware.

Hope you dont take it personal when people say you dont belong to DF and the damage control claims, B3D is a quite serious place otherwise.

 

[JoeJ]

Heres a screenshot from my game

SS does not work, but i looked at your webpage.
And i'm shocked!
A good looking female, even in a bit daring clothing?... in a 2020 game??? You serious?????
Obviously you know nothing about modern artstyle and should not complain!

hehehe but personally, i'm in!

 

[Lalaland]

I was unaware how much ambient light effects material shaders as for me one of the biggest issues were the flat plasticy look to the non Master Chief characters and it was interesting to learn that they may not be meant to look like that. My other issue was the the fairly low res looking textures on the Brute at the end.

It's not a technical point but I wonder how many of these issues are exacerbated by the gap between the extra detail our minds projected onto low res textures and low vertex models when we were younger and the choices the artists made while creating these modern higher quality models. These aren't really an issue for games with a "realistic" aesthetic as our brains know and accept what a higher detail wooden shield should look like but a better Brute face is only going to look stranger to a person as human skin style sub-surface scattering is applied when in their head they were unconsciously expecting a reptile skin like quality

 

[Deleted member 11852]

And you think Microsoft would choose those times( the worst times to showcase there game ) to show there game? I just can't wrap my head around that. Surely they have picked the best possible situation to showcase there game at the current build used.

The video wasn't great and some of the official screenshots defy belief. But you don't know under what circumstances Halo Infinite had to be shown. Perhaps 343 were expecting to show it later and had to pull something together really quickly. It could be a very old build.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[chris1515]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/df...the-graphics-really-flat.255411/post-40805355

@Quaz51 the guy who discover Halo 3 resolution strike again and find some strange VRS usage in Halo Infinite.

 

[Jay]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/df...the-graphics-really-flat.255411/post-40805355

@Quaz51 the guy who discover Halo 3 resolution strike again and find some strange VRS usage in Halo Infinite.

Just read the post.
The fact is native has meant very little for a long time now, and is only going to mean even less as time goes on.
Example, alpha effects haven't been native resolution for years now for many games.

So when using the word native, can only really mean the framebuffer now.
Going forward that isn't even going to be a good measure of anything, maybe sharpness, but even that isn't always going to be the case.

Used to be a decent indicator, not anymore

 

[Xbat]

The video wasn't great and some of the official screenshots defy belief. But you don't know under what circumstances Halo Infinite had to be shown. Perhaps 343 were expecting to show it later and had to pull something together really quickly. It could be a very old build.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I very much believe it's an old build because of the big spanner that is fucking covid. I just don't see why they wouldn't say it up front but instead lead with something like it's built for Series X from the ground up and then show that video,
it boggles my mind.

I very much believe the biggest culprit though is it's a cross gen game that probably was meant to come out last year or earlier even and then got shoehorned into being a Series X launch game because of all the delays.

 

[Dictator]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/df...the-graphics-really-flat.255411/post-40805355

@Quaz51 the guy who discover Halo 3 resolution strike again and find some strange VRS usage in Halo Infinite.

I typed it on ResetERA but might as well type it here - no GPU on PC or XSX Support 3x3 modes. So I think what ever they see is not what they describe, what ever it is. Compression is a big one, as we are talking about compressed assets here and every where. Lokking for VRS in compressed Screenshots or compressed Video is an effort in futility as any compression, even amazing semilosses cineform, can have compression blocks when a 5 Minute Video is 20 gigabytes.

 

[BitByte]

No offence to you, but I am not going to spend the time on the weekend to make a 30 Minute Video disecting every Single Thing wrong in the demo. That would, for one, be unprecedented for DF to go so Hard into a Trailer, and two, be a waste of time and beyond nitpicky. I also cannot give as eloquent logical deductions to explain why other aspects are the way they are, lighting is much more easily explained from a how and why stand point. Beyond saying that the LOD distance and Art decisions were questionable, what more can I really say that is informative and gives context to them? I already sacraficed my saturday and Friday after working last weekend and covered the topic I personally viewed as most egregious.
If me spending 18 minutes to explain why a Trailer looks poor (which df has literally never done, we have never done a video about a Trailer that only describes all of it's faults) comes off as sucking up to MS or going easy on it, then I am not sure what I can say. The fact that people think this video is about excusing something boggles my mind, it is one of the most negative and sobering things I think I have ever produced.

Since I was one of the first ones to directly call out DF for this video, I'll go ahead and respond directly to this comment. This is going to sound asshole-ish and I'm sorry but, nobody forced Digital Foundry to make this video. The video was made for the benefit of Digital Foundry because, I presume it's a way to garner views/traffic on a hotly debated topic. I know you put in a lot of work into the video which is fine and I guess I failed to take that into account in my initial post. Had I taken the human aspect into it, I believe I would have been less critical. That being said, there is no denying the change in tone in Digital Foundry videos. When I initially stumbled onto Digital Foundry in the PS360 era, they had a well established modus operandi. DF gathered data, presented the data and allowed the viewers to arrive at their own conclusions. At some point, Digital Foundry decided to include talking heads to the videos and it was positively received. The staff at DF provided contextual information the data being presented. Over time though, the discussions have shifted from contextual factual information to opinion based speculation. This in my opinion has negatively impacted the quality of the content as it serves to influence the users interpretation of the data being presented. This in turn influences the conclusion the user arrives at. For me, the DF videos I enjoy now are the deep dives into retro content and analysis videos that have an abundance of supporting data. The rest is just poor in my opinion and I find myself being drawn to other channels like VGTech for the exact same reason I was drawn to Digital Foundry. They gather data, present the data and allow the viewers to arrive at their own conclusions.

 

[chris1515]

I typed it on ResetERA but might as well type it here - no GPU on PC or XSX Support 3x3 modes. So I think what ever they see is not what they describe, what ever it is. Compression is a big one, as we are talking about compressed assets here and every where. Lokking for VRS in compressed Screenshots or compressed Video is an effort in futility as any compression, even amazing semilosses cineform, can have compression blocks when a 5 Minute Video is 20 gigabytes.

This is coming from some direct-feed screenshot of Halo Infinite. The guy did not give the full message because Quaz51 is french and he was surprised because he knows GPU doesn't support VRS 3x3.

He will never do the error to count on non-direct feed, he does pixel count resolution before DigitalFoundry or any sites do pixel count because he was the one to find the Halo3 resolution and you can ask to Richard Leadbetter who knows him he knows about what he is speaking.

EDIT: This is probably something else but this is on directfeed screenshot.

 

[Scott_Arm]

@BitByte The guy makes a video about the technical drawbacks of dynamic lighting and gets criticized for it. This is why devs rarely post here anymore.

 

[manux]

I have not seen DF being biased. They call things as they count it. DLSS1.0 got a lot of shit for good reason, dlss2.0 is getting some shit and some love. Nothing rarely is perfect and it's great there are people who break down things and provide it in format that is understandable to more people. If microsoft get's their act together I have no doubt the technical analysis would provide different output.

 

[RecessionCone]

I find myself being drawn to other channels like VGTech for the exact same reason I was drawn to Digital Foundry. They gather data, present the data and allow the viewers to arrive at their own conclusions.

VGTech just does FPS benchmarking right? I’ve never seen an analysis as in-depth or insightful as DF anywhere else. FPS benchmarks aren’t a dime a dozen but don’t inform about the broader issues.

 

[AlNom]

Source for the Halo shots:
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...20/be564010-250c-47c9-af39-ebb9c7f27f18/posts

Weird.

The warthog shot has severe texture aliasing issues.

 

[chris1515]

Source for the Halo shots:
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/...20/be564010-250c-47c9-af39-ebb9c7f27f18/posts

Weird.

The warthog shot has severe texture aliasing issues.

This is where he found the direct feed screenshot.

 

[AlNom]

Almost wondering if it's a reconstruction issue. The in-surface aliasing is just so bizarre though (if it's not VRS).


The tree texture LODs are pretty bad in the warthog shot too.

 

[chris1515]

But I don't understand why Halo would use vrs on XSX and especially 3x3 when 2x2 would be a more logical step (that said there may be all the intermediate steps of vrs but that I haven't seen). In addition in current directX the vrs 3x3 does not exist, it's 2x2, 1x2, 2x1, 2x4, 4x2, 4x4 so it's still weird. But yet what we see really looks like 3x3 vrs, we can clearly see that it is in the screen space (and not in the UV space) and at the same time we also see that the edges of the polygons are full as one would expect in this case.
I would have liked an analysis on it. Find out if it's vrs or some other technique.

 

[BRiT]

What about some mix of VRS with reconstruction techniques?

 

[jlippo]

What about some mix of VRS with reconstruction techniques?

Perhaps this technique is from Xbox one and passed to new generation so not really a VRS, but a version of old good MSAA trick and reconstruction..

3x3 is very curious though..
8xMSAA and one sample done with hole filling?

 

[function]

Okay, so I've been looking at the 4K images that AISparkStrong linked to, I've noticed some more oddities that align with the others noticed. This time it's a grunt and the rock behind him.

Some element of the rendering appears to be .... upscaled. As far as I, in my ignorance, can tell:

- Geometry seems to be rendered at 4K.
- At least one element of lighting is done at 4K - there are small changes within the larger, very similarly grouped blocks.
- It's not related to a rectangular area of screen space (full res objects can overlap these partially lower res ones)
- Due to the regular nature of the patterns (3x3, and perhaps others) it seems to be aligned to screen spac
- As a grunt is involved, it's definitely not just related just to static environmental scenery
- It may be happening on a per object basis, be it a rock or a tree or a grunt.
- Lower resolution elements seem (to me) to include model specular or gloss, so maybe it's some kind of weird LOD issue?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the finely crafted, professional image I constructed in MS Paint (not Paint 3D, I'm a holdout).