Activision's 360 games not running in full 720p?

[Tap In]

thanks Shifty.

I keep reading "UE3 ... no AA!" and then I look at Gears at 1080i in front of my eyes and then back at the "UE3... no AA!" and just scratch my head :smile:.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I keep reading "UE3 ... no AA!" and then I look at Gears at 1080i in front of my eyes and then back at the "UE3... no AA!" and just scratch my head :smile:.

Or rather, say 'who cares!'

I'd rather have a good looking game without AA than a bad looking game with!

 

[blakjedi]

Or rather, say 'who cares!'

I'd rather have a good looking game without AA than a bad looking game with!

Honestly... its as if people come to B3D purely for technical ammo to make themselves feel better (and others feel worse) for not supporting their platform of choice. The design of a game, the fun factor, and the overall package used to count for something in this HOBBY. A game that meets very few of the "next gen" bullet points can still be great game - even a great "next gen" game... but A game that isnt fun to play... can't hardly be called game of any generation - can it?

 

[Cal]

Have we yet to see a game with 720p and 4xAA? This is shaping up to be the biggest blunder under the "highly exaggerated tech promise" category so far.

At least our new released title is at 720p with 4xAA, and I'm the one doing it.

 

[Tap In]

At least our new released title is at 720p with 4xAA, and I'm the one doing it.

Hi, have a seat... take your coat off, stay a while. So whatcha been up to lately?

 

[Cal]

Hi, have a seat... take your coat off, stay a while. So whatcha been up to lately?

LOL. Well it's a sequel of a quite popular franchise since xbox. Actually we did 4xAA + HDR (tone mapping, bloom, reflection stuffs) at 720p. The framerate... isn't that great, 25~30 fps at most time. Fortunately it's not a fast paced game. Blame our producers who believed what microsoft told them and our leading artist who insisted 2xAA is not pretty enough. Well, it doesn't look too shabby after the release, considering the loss of framerate issue is so common on nex-gen consoles.

 

[Tap In]

:smile: ahhh

SuperCool: DontchaAgree

congrats... very nice. if i'm right

 

[Sis]

:smile: ahhh

SuperCool: DontchaAgree

congrats... very nice. if i'm right

Yeah, I agree, I think that's the--OWW, dammit! I just got a Splinter from this damn wooden keyboard--I only got the keyboard because it matched my wooden Cell phone.

Well, er, yeah, Double Agent.

(Awesomely fun game, by the way.)

 

[Dr. Nick]

LOL. Well it's a sequel of a quite popular franchise since xbox. Actually we did 4xAA + HDR (tone mapping, bloom, reflection stuffs) at 720p. The framerate... isn't that great, 25~30 fps at most time. Fortunately it's not a fast paced game. Blame our producers who believed what microsoft told them and our leading artist who insisted 2xAA is not pretty enough. Well, it doesn't look too shabby after the release, considering the loss of framerate issue is so common on nex-gen consoles.

Do you think there will be improvement in the use of tiling or do you think we are screwed for the rest of the generation?

 

[Hardknock]

I would love to hear Cal's answer to that aswell.

It's so rare that we get a 360 dev on the board, don't leave us hanging. :smile:

 

[Cal]

Do you think there will be improvement in the use of tiling or do you think we are screwed for the rest of the generation?

IMO, 4xAA isn't a big impact on the performance. I'd say a 10%~15% overhead at most time, but be careful with things requiring huge fillrate like particle system. In fact, The lags were caused more frequently on the CPU side than GPU side. Not sure why GOW doesn't render with 4xAA (really?), probably having something to do with the tiling mechanism. For GPU, slow texture fetching is the biggest issue.

 

[mrboo]

Oblivion uses 4x AA + HDR
DR uses 4x AA
Fifa 07....
Splinter Cell: Double Agent..
F.E.A.R.
PD:Z
FCI

i could continue....

1. Oblivion has'nt got 4xMSAA, maybe 2xMSAA but definately not 4x
2. PD:Z does'nt use ANY form of AA

Infact can any 360 games support 720p+4xMSAA without tiling?

Not sure why GOW doesn't render with 4xAA (really?), probably having something to do with the tiling mechanism.

Its UE3.0 itself and not 360, It has somthing to do with the way that UE3.0 renders shadows, im sure one of the more educated members can give you a detailed answear on this.

 

[Acert93]

IMO, 4xAA isn't a big impact on the performance. I'd say a 10%~15% overhead at most time, but be careful with things requiring huge fillrate like particle system. In fact, The lags were caused more frequently on the CPU side than GPU side. Not sure why GOW doesn't render with 4xAA (really?), probably having something to do with the tiling mechanism. For GPU, slow texture fetching is the biggest issue.

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=821432&postcount=6

A quick explaination by ERP, although there is more detail in another thread somewhere on the forum. Basically it is a deferred rendering technique that, when MSAA is applied, it has to be done before downsample. Hence 2xMSAA is double the cost for shadowing versus no MSAA.

Btw, nice to have you here.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

IMO, 4xAA isn't a big impact on the performance. I'd say a 10%~15% overhead at most time, but be careful with things requiring huge fillrate like particle system.

Do you mean with AA on the particles? Or combining AA on opaque scene rendering with lots of particles?

 

[zed]

surely u turn off AA when u do particles (mainly cause particles dont have edges )

 

[groper]

Do you think there will be improvement in the use of tiling or do you think we are screwed for the rest of the generation?

The game has the same (and some times worse) framerate issues when it runs in a X1900XT , so i cant see how tiling can be the limitative factor here.
IMO it has more to do with the use of UE2.0 on steroids wich is not the best solution for the console performance wise. I just hope that for their 5th game they will build a new engine who will take advantage of the overall hardware architecture.

 

[Dr. Nick]

The game has the same (and some times worse) framerate issues when it runs in a X1900XT , so i cant see how tiling can be the limitative factor here.
IMO it has more to do with the use of UE2.0 on steroids wich is not the best solution for the console performance wise. I just hope that for their 5th game they will build a new engine who will take advantage of the overall hardware architecture.

http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Unreal_Engine_Versions

This site says they are using UE3 for it.

What I asked him wasn't really directed at the game he made entirely. I just wanted to get a better idea of how things are going since the last time we heard about the addition of predicated tiling in the dev kits. Tiling to get 720p and MSAA with reasonable preformance seems to still be a problem and I wanted to find out if devs are waiting for improved tools from Microsoft for it, having problem implementing it into their engines, or is it just plain broke and we should forget about it?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

surely u turn off AA when u do particles (mainly cause particles dont have edges )

Some do. Sparks and bullet traces for example. Larger particle effects, or rather, soft particles without distinct edges, no matter what the size, don't and should probably be rendered at something like 1/4 resolution and upscaled when compositing.

 

[AlNom]

so did we scare him off by revealing his work?

 

[Tap In]

so did we scare him off by revealing his work?

woops

as others have said Cal ... very nice to have some devs that have worked on 360... please stick around. Put your feet on the coffee table if you wish.