Metro 2033 [X360]

Not comparing like that, but i think that a tessellated character on 360 would be at least as detailed as they are on Pc without tessellation.

You are right about geometry detail being better even without DX11 tesselation.

*The geometric detail is somewhat better, because of different LOD selection, not even counting DX11 tessellation.


New tech interview from Digital Foundry about Metro 2033.

Click on link to read the whole interview.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-interview-metro-2033?page=1


Digital Foundry: Halo 3 famously adopts what's been described as an overkill approach to HDR lighting - creating two sub-HD framebuffers and merging them to the detriment of resolution and AA. What is your approach here?

Oles Shishkovstov: When your rendering engine employs deferred shading you have a lot more flexibility to do this. From the start you have several LDR buffers in different colour-spaces that are not yet shaded. That's only at the end of the pipeline (the shading itself) where you have the HDR output. And yes, at that point we split the HDR data into two 10-bit per-channel buffers, and then run post-processing on them producing the single 10-bit per channel image which is sent to display.

The PS3 uses the same approach except that buffers are 8-bit per channel. The buffers are full 720p by the way. The PC-side is slightly different: we don't split the output before post-processing, running everything in a single FP16 buffer

Digital Foundry: How does your approach differ from that of Guerrilla Games with Killzone 2? They used a fully deferred rendering engine and a traditional forward renderer, in part to include hardware AA...

Oles Shishkovstov: Their implementation seems to be badly optimised. Otherwise why do they have pre-calculated light-mapping? Why do they light dynamic stuff differently to the rest of the world with light-probe similar stuff?

From our experience you need at least 150 full-fledged light-sources per frame to have indoor environments look good and natural, and many more to highlight such things like eyes, etc. It seems they just missed that performance target.


PC related bits: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1399008&postcount=96
 
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I dont get it, the devs said game is locked to 30fps but has vsync off. And then they say it mostly runs at "40-50fps" then why have vsync off like seen in those 2 videos above with massive tearing when aiming and shooting?
 
Lol that DF interview sure conflicts the new released Required Specs on sites.

Oles Shishkovsto: Chief technical officer at 4A Games.

The PC side definitely became more and more optimised as a side effect. For example we don't need as much system memory as other PC-only games. Anything above 512MB RAM with DX10/DX11 code-path on Windows 7 would be enough.



Specs released on the web... probably made by the publisher or similar???
Optimum System Requirements:
Core i7 CPU
NVIDIA DirectX 11 compliant graphics card (GeForce GTX 480 and 470)
As much RAM as possible (8GB+)
Fast HDD or SSD


I realise that thats for the "optimum requirements" and theres a minimum and recommended versions to... just thought it was funny thats all.:p
 
Thats a stark contradiction unless they want to preload the whole leves with max detail which makes no sense since the game got streaming system. :oops:
 
Here's the requirements on PC. :p http://www.gamerzines.com/pc/news/metro-2033-pc-specs.html

Someone's picking the Optimum = uses all system resources available for comedic value (I'm hoping that's why he used that. :p)

Minimum is 1 gig with Dx9, oddly enouogh they don't use Dx10/11 for minimum otherwise it'd probably be 512 or 768. But that makes sense since Dx9 is lower.

Recommended is 2 gig.

Nebula, if I were to guess. Optimum will use all memory available in the system to preload as much game assests as possible in the background while you play. That way, in theory when you go to the next level it loads instantly.

I can already see this game playing havok with people's systems who have overclocked too far and/or have some questionable memory... As this game will be accessing memory that isn't normally used in their systems. :)

Regards,
SB
 
I dont get it, the devs said game is locked to 30fps but has vsync off. And then they say it mostly runs at "40-50fps" then why have vsync off like seen in those 2 videos above with massive tearing when aiming and shooting?
30fps and vsync locked.
 
Well, he does mention dropping sync if the FPS drops.... 30fps locked otherwise. Same as other games on 360.
 
Read the review in my favorite mag: 86/100 not bad actually (they gave GOW 3 a 93/100 for reference).

They put this game in the genre of Bioshock (2), which is basically a bad thing for me, as I cannot stand Bioshock at all. I have to wait and I am curious to learn if in the game the ammo is limited (i.e. you are always starving ammo, which I ultimately hate) ... if they follow the book, it should be...as in the original story, ammo is even somthing like "money" used to buy other stuff.
 
Read the review in my favorite mag: 86/100 not bad actually (they gave GOW 3 a 93/100 for reference).

They put this game in the genre of Bioshock (2), which is basically a bad thing for me, as I cannot stand Bioshock at all. I have to wait and I am curious to learn if in the game the ammo is limited (i.e. you are always starving ammo, which I ultimately hate) ... if they follow the book, it should be...as in the original story, ammo is even somthing like "money" used to buy other stuff.
That's what it is in the game.
 
I am surprised: what happend to the game.
I still think that it has superb and excellent graphics.
But the fact that ammo is ultra limited (as pointed out in the Eurogamer review) is a down bringer for me (I hate low ammo!!).
Some of the flaws mentioned in the reviews are really surprising: shooting feels not good (not the best sign for a FPS), AI ultra low, ...
Maybe I skipp or wait until the game is a cheap buy (70 Euros seems to be a little bit much for this...although I want to see the graphics live...)
 
The complaining about the ammo by those review sites is stupid because ammo is scarce to begin with and the ammo is also used as currency in the game to make trades, etc... The shooting is fine because there is bullet deviation just like there is in real life and also you must understand that alot of the weapons are makeshift weapons made out of remaining items.So of course, dispatching enemies with those makeshift guns will take a bit more to bring them down..There are shotguns in the game but you need to look for it as the game rewards you for doing some exploration as their is some light rpg elements in the game with an economy system in place..

I also love how there's no hud and it really lends itself to the fact that you must do whatever it takes too survive..The game is really well done
 
After playing this game for roughly 3 hours I've come to the conclusion that Metro 2033 is both impressively rad and fun despite its shortcomings (more on that in a minute).

See, I assumed this game would be a spiritual successor to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and more open-world considering the team working on it is comprised of people who worked on the original game, but to my surprise it's actually turning out to be a well crafted, linear S.T.A.L.K.E.R. type FPS that's been well steeped in a Valve-like design philosophy. I dont mean to imply that it's anywhere near the likes of Half-Life 2, but it does seem to borrow the heavily scripted first-person sequences rather than play CGI cutscenes or pull the camera out to show a 3rd-person cutscene. It consistently stays in the same perspective, at least so far it has. These sequences are top notch and usually take place in action sequences.

Initially the shooting in the game felt a little off, or perhaps 'floaty' in some cases. I suppose I haven’t determined if this is the direct cause of the Metro underground's makeshift weaponry system or if it's just lame game design by the developers. I'm leaning more towards intentional design since it does seem to fit well with the narrative and serves a purpose for immersion. When pulling the trigger the guns (that I have) do pull a lot to the sides, but I do always seem to be able to eventually hit the things that are trying to kill me. Also, there are a host of upgrades and weapons that I have yet to try so things will probably change in this regard with the better weapons. It's worth mentioning that there is no inventory management.

The graphics and atmosphere are fittingly melancholy, disparaging and filthy. It's very well suited for a decrepit Metro system which hosts the lives of 40,000 people who migrated there after the bomb dropped. Easily--for me that is--the weakest parts of the graphics came front-and-center when the game began--the mediocre facial constructions. Though they're not necessarily horrible, they just look slightly out of place from the otherwise well constructed surrounds and characters in the game. Plus the animations can be, at times, a little stiff. Some of the creatures in the game are more in line with the mediocre faces than the rest of the game and just come across as generic monster A from a build-your-own-game construction set. Surprisingly they’re not annoyingly bad, but you won’t stop to look at them either.

There doesn’t seem to be any 'save anywhere' save system in place as it just lies heavily on a fairly solid checkpoint system. To be clear, you actually can save anywhere, but it will start you back at a checkpoint (with your gear) which never seems to be too far away.

Something I wasn’t suspecting--this game can be really creepy and at times! At the risk of mildly spoiling something for you guys about the game--there are ghosts! Last night I was slowly working my way through a creaky old building. The howling of mutated creatures from outside echoed the halls along with my breathing (you must wear a mask when you go outside), totally putting me on edge. Suddenly the room I was in got a little warmer in color and something quickly moved in the darkness. I looked around and wasn’t sure if I was seeing smoke, or a ghost or something else when suddenly something whispered in my ear, "save us" and I flipped the F out! I ran ran ran towards the nearest door, turn a corner, bolted down a nearby stairway that lead me down stairs. At the bottom I found an open door and rush through it hoping to find a nice corner to hunker down in and, lo-and-behold, one of the mutated creatures from outside worked its way in to greet me. I fired off some shots but it wasn’t enough to stop him from pouncing on me. He tore into me but I shoved my knife into his neck a few times killing him. My mask was now shattered making it very difficult to see some of my surroundings clearly. I wandered around the floor eventually finding another mask to wear.

This game is wicked cool; check it out if you're on the fence.
 
Read the review in my favorite mag: 86/100 not bad actually (they gave GOW 3 a 93/100 for reference).

They put this game in the genre of Bioshock (2), which is basically a bad thing for me, as I cannot stand Bioshock at all. I have to wait and I am curious to learn if in the game the ammo is limited (i.e. you are always starving ammo, which I ultimately hate) ... if they follow the book, it should be...as in the original story, ammo is even somthing like "money" used to buy other stuff.
well as I understand it, the "good" pre-apocalypse ammo is higher quality and is traded as currency but you still can use regular bullets too. The regular bullets do less damage and jam more frequently though. I think most of the comparisons to Bioshock had to do with the game's atmospehre rather then it's gameplay though.
 
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