Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2018]

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Pixel quality over pixel quantity. An offline CGI film at 720p looks better than 4k game graphics.

But you don't get CGI graphics only with ray tracing... basically, you are asking developers to waste all their ressources in a very expensive tech while they can get a similar result at a much cheaper price.

Once again, it's such a bad idea that not a single developer will ever try that...


How many computers would you need to do in real time what Pixar does offline ? While you can get an approximation that is good enough at a much cheaper price.

Smart rendering = clever choices.
 
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If you're only rendering Pixar style, sure. Have you not seen the latest raytracing demos?! They look amazeballs. Not that I agree next-gen will/should/could raytrace as long as devs stick to 720p, but comparing a Disney-style game to Disney-style movie and reckoning they're similar misses completely what raytracing brings (and partially why Hollywood swapped to raytracing).

Just noticed out the corner of my eye at 3:36 in that video how unrealistic the floor is and how raytraced lighting would properly ground all those light-sources and objects.
 
But you don't get CGI graphics only with ray tracing... basically, you are asking developers to waste all their ressources in a very expensive tech while they can get a similar result at a much cheaper price.

Once again, it's such a bad idea that not a single developer will ever try that...


How many computers would you need to do in real time what Pixar does offline ? While you can get an approximation that is good enough at a much cheaper price.

Smart rendering = clever choices.
I didn't say they should do pure raytracing. Hybrid rendering is the way to go.
 
I didn't say they should do pure raytracing. Hybrid rendering is the way to go.

I am in too, when it will be possible too. Seeing Claybook shadows it is magnificent. Imo shadow maps stinks and at least if it was a cheap rendering trick.
 
I am in too, when it will be possible too. Seeing Claybook shadows it is magnificent. Imo shadow maps stinks and at least if it was a cheap rendering trick.
Yes, even if all we get next-gen is ray-traced direct soft shadows it would still be a major upgrade over this gen.
 
Octopath Traveler: a 90s-style JPRG brought to life with cutting-edge tech
Unreal Engine 4 powers a hybrid game for a hybrid console.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...h-traveler-a-hybrid-game-for-a-hybrid-console

The Japanese RPG has travelled a long road since the early days of sprite-based 2D adventuring, but in Octopath Traveler we have a fascinating blend of old and new. Exclusive to Switch, it takes the traditional top-down style of Super NES greats like Final Fantasy 6 and blends it with the cutting-edge 3D rendering techniques of Unreal Engine 4. It's a hybrid JRPG for a hybrid console, but developers Square Enix and Acquire know exactly where to push the boat out technically and where to stick to the tried and tested 2D template. The result is a beautiful and compelling Switch exclusive that's well worth checking out.

Fundamentally, Octopath Traveler is built on sprite-based characters - but look closer and you quickly see how extensively Unreal Engine 4's features are applied to the rest. Towns, for example, are modelled in 3D, but wrapped in pixelated textures to simulate a much older game. Each texture acts like a copy-pasted tile, as if bound by the memory budget of a 16-bit era console - even if in fact, the entire scene is built on a polygonal framework.


Ultimately, Square Enix deserves kudos for trying something new - something adventurous. We've seen its teams of developers use Unreal Engine 4 for plenty of its projects this generation, including the likes of Dragon Quest 11 and Kingdom Hearts 3. The budget and brief for Octopath Traveler is clearly on an entirely different level, but smaller projects like this give the company a rare, but necessary chance to experiment - to revisit older ideas and try to reinvent them. In this case it works: the concept is brilliant - and it succeeds in framing the golden era of JRPGs through a modern lens, backed by one of the most advanced engines on the market. If you're a JRPG fan or simply want to see a Switch title doing something a little different, this is well worth checking out.
 
I have Octopath and I'm not sure I'm as happy with it as DF are, the 720p docked experience is lovely but you lose a lot with the hadheld experience. Those razor sharp pixel art details are smudged in a fashion that undermines the expressiveness of the sprites themselves, I'd have happily traded the bokeh, etc for a nice native res mobile experience.

I'm probably spoiled by having just spent ages messing around with Breath of Fire and Suikoden II on the PS Vita (OLED) but the blurriness really stood out.

Also Switch battery life is ridiculously short and I can hear the fins on the heatsink rattle if I leave vibration on in handheld mode, very odd
 
Their YouTube summary for the Xbox Forward Compatibility:

A 30fps Xbox 360 game running at 60fps on Xbox One X? Rich takes a look at Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, a game that seems to scale on newer Xbox hardware. Should developers build in open-ended options to allow for scalability on next-gen Xbox hardware? Should games be designed with forward compatibility in mind too?
 
Same engine, new results - the Lost on Mars DLC looks a world apart from the base Far Cry 5 adventure. This generation's seen some fantastic expansions, many taking advantage of different engine features to the base game. In this case, while PS4 and Xbox One systems run at the same resolutions as before, the tech succeeds in striking an entirely new aesthetic.

 
video downloaded...

One of the main candidates, and the one I want the most, to run at 60 fps is my weakness, the original Call of Juarez.

It ran at an unlocked framerate already -also have Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, but I am not sure whether the framerate was locked or not-.
 

Not 100% sure if its pc only or consoles too, but since beyond3d is only console focused it might aswell fit here? :p Impressive tech at the least, not sure if i would like the game though, never liked zombie/survival games.
 

Not 100% sure if its pc only or consoles too, but since beyond3d is only console focused it might aswell fit here? :p Impressive tech at the least, not sure if i would like the game though, never liked zombie/survival games.

It's not a survival game. At the most basic level it's basically an instanced hybrid PVE/PVP treasure hunt. Multiple people/teams enter the level, they each find clues to the treasure which is guarded by a boss. Kill the boss, get the treasure, at which point everyone on the map is notified of your location with the treasure. You then have to escape the map with the treasure...or get killed by other players wanting said treasure.

Regards,
SB
 

Not 100% sure if its pc only or consoles too, but since beyond3d is only console focused it might aswell fit here? :p Impressive tech at the least, not sure if i would like the game though, never liked zombie/survival games.

Looks good, PC at the moment but coming to Xbox and PS
 
https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/digit...-improves-resolution-but-bugs-hit-multiplayer

Three months shy of its second birthday, Electronic Arts surprised gamers with news of an Xbox One X enhanced upgrade for Battlefield 1 earlier this week, the full 5.8GB patch arriving the following day. Patch notes from the developer only mention support for "full 4K resolution" - an upgrade that is by and large delivered, though there is a sting in the tail: at the time of writing, the game's signature multiplayer mode isn't working quite the way it should be.

Quite why BF1 is getting the upgrade treatment at all is something of a mystery, bearing in mind its vintage. Perhaps DICE is gearing up for Battlefield 5 support later this year by using its predecessor for proof of concept work, but regardless, the options open to the developer with this one are mouthwatering. With PlayStation 4 Pro support, the lack of RAM and memory bandwidth saw DICE pursue a checkerboard resolution bump only - but with Xbox One X's more lavish spec, the door is open to incorporating some of the PC's more lavish features - and veering closer to PC's ultra preset would be a huge win for the console.

Similar to other Frostbite titles, the scaling compared to PlayStation 4 Pro is impressive. In matching scenes, a native 4K resolution on X goes against 2816x1584 in the same spot on Pro. In another paired gameplay scene that pushes the renderer harder, Pro's 2560x1440 gets an equivalent 3456x1944 on Microsoft's enhanced console. That's a 82 per cent increase for Xbox One - not trivial given the relative increase in GPU power next to Sony's hardware. In the most complex scene we could match up on both machines, during the tank drive in the Steel on Steel mission, it's 3456x1944 on X, next to 2304x1296 on Pro - a 2.25x increase in pixel count favouring Xbox One X.

 
https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/digit...-improves-resolution-but-bugs-hit-multiplayer

Three months shy of its second birthday, Electronic Arts surprised gamers with news of an Xbox One X enhanced upgrade for Battlefield 1 earlier this week, the full 5.8GB patch arriving the following day. Patch notes from the developer only mention support for "full 4K resolution" - an upgrade that is by and large delivered, though there is a sting in the tail: at the time of writing, the game's signature multiplayer mode isn't working quite the way it should be.

Quite why BF1 is getting the upgrade treatment at all is something of a mystery, bearing in mind its vintage. Perhaps DICE is gearing up for Battlefield 5 support later this year by using its predecessor for proof of concept work, but regardless, the options open to the developer with this one are mouthwatering. With PlayStation 4 Pro support, the lack of RAM and memory bandwidth saw DICE pursue a checkerboard resolution bump only - but with Xbox One X's more lavish spec, the door is open to incorporating some of the PC's more lavish features - and veering closer to PC's ultra preset would be a huge win for the console.

Similar to other Frostbite titles, the scaling compared to PlayStation 4 Pro is impressive. In matching scenes, a native 4K resolution on X goes against 2816x1584 in the same spot on Pro. In another paired gameplay scene that pushes the renderer harder, Pro's 2560x1440 gets an equivalent 3456x1944 on Microsoft's enhanced console. That's a 82 per cent increase for Xbox One - not trivial given the relative increase in GPU power next to Sony's hardware. In the most complex scene we could match up on both machines, during the tank drive in the Steel on Steel mission, it's 3456x1944 on X, next to 2304x1296 on Pro - a 2.25x increase in pixel count favouring Xbox One X.


Yay, an article to accompany the video. I always prefer to read an analysis rather than hear people talk about it. I do have to question one thing though.

We know from DICE's technical presentations that the Pro version is using checkerboard rendering, and bearing in mind the relative technical specs offered by the X, it stands to reason that the same technology is in place for the Microsoft console too. And indeed, checkerboard-like stippling is present on extreme screenshot close-ups. However, curiously, the exact same artefact is also present on the PC version, where the implementation of checkerboarding would be extremely unlikely, suggesting that the stippling is more likely the result of some other part of the post-processing pipeline. By extension, that may also explain its presence in the early PC build of Anthem we saw a little while ago.

I'm not sure why checkerboard rendering would be extremely unlikely on the PC. If done well, it should benefit that platform as well, making higher quality settings more accessible to less powerful hardware. This is one area where developer input would have been greatly appreciated.

Regards,
SB
 
Indeed. If checkerboarding is exclusive to PS4Pro, it may be using the ID buffer and not be possible in its current implementation on other hardware. If checkerboarding isn't exclusive to PS4Pro, whatever technique used on XB1 could also run on PC, unless I guess it's quite specific in its use of the AMD hardware. If the devs have developed the system in their engine, why not enable it on PC?
 
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