Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2018]

[BRiT]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...y-of-forza-horizon-4-xbox-one-x-lead-platform

Forza Horizon 4's stunning tech upgrades - and how Xbox One X shines as lead platform
DF visits Playground Games and tests the final game.

The Forza Horizon franchise has carved its own path, veering away from Turn 10's mainline series with its emphasis on arcade racing set within a massive open world. The series' evolution has been a long but often spectacular journey - a vibrant racing celebration that's given Horizon its own distinct identity and in Forza Horizon 4, Playground Games aims for something even more special from a technical perspective - a game that builds substantially on the last entry's technical strengths and focuses on Xbox One X as lead platform.

Playground Games' work on the Horizon series has improved with each release, and the UK location with impressive seasonal support gives the studio an effective showcase for their many technological upgrades. The last two years have been spent tailoring a beautiful, sometimes fantastical driving game that aims to surprise. Technically, it's a marvel to both look at and to play, and the end result is a gem in the Xbox One X lineup that deserves your attention.

 

[Recop]

What i don't understand is that they say XBX is the lead platform while the game is basically the same on XB1 at a lower resolution...

 

[BRiT]

What i don't understand is that they say XBX is the lead platform while the game is basically the same on XB1 at a lower resolution...

Sounds like when other devs said PS4 was lead platform when the game was basically the same on XB1 at a lower resolution.

 

[Ike Turner]

What i don't understand is that they say XBX is the lead platform while the game is basically the same on XB1 at a lower resolution...

Lower resolution, no SSAO, 2x lower SSR setting, 50% less foliage, no shadows casted by headlights and street pôles, lower res cubmap reflections, lower poly-count on cars, lower number of samples for motion blur... Etc

 

[ultragpu]

The X actually got a quite decent upgrade than the base this time like higher res textures, 50% more foliage, better AO, shadow casting lights, more crowd density, better LOD on car interior and that specular lens flare on the car. I think we're a bit mixed up with the "lead platform" vs "natively coded platform" comparison where the former is just Base version on steroid while the latter is a fundamental redesign in such that Base wouldn't run at all.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

The X actually got a quite decent upgrade than the base this time like higher res textures, 50% more foliage, better AO, shadow casting lights, more crowd density, better LOD on car interior and that specular lens flare on the car. I think we're a bit mixed up with the "lead platform" vs "natively coded platform" comparison where the former is just Base version on steroid while the latter is a fundamental redesign in such that Base wouldn't run at all.

X was the lead platform, it's just that by the time you go from 1080p on base to 4k on X you pretty much can't make a game that wouldn't run on the base machine. That'd only be possible if X was native 1080p30 or thereabouts. And since X is all about 4k...

Likewise on Ps4 pro you'd have to make a game at native 720p or something to keep it from running on base unless you want 480p on base

 

[Nesh]

Likewise on Ps4 pro you'd have to make a game at native 720p or something to keep it from running on base unless you want 480p on base

Using those resolutions as an example makes zero sense

 

[turkey]

What i don't understand is that they say XBX is the lead platform while the game is basically the same on XB1 at a lower resolution...

It's the same game at double the framerate.

X is lead and it's CPU needs to hit 60fps, this will happily scale back to 30 on base machine as it does not have 2 times CPU . This to me is their main focus, graphics scale far easier between the two.

 

[Recop]

Lower resolution, no SSAO, 2x lower SSR setting, 50% less foliage, no shadows casted by headlights and street pôles, lower res cubmap reflections, lower poly-count on cars, lower number of samples for motion blur... Etc

Yeah but we saw a similar situation in FH3... but 50% more foliage is nice and i didn't pay attention to that. However, i don't know where DF found this percentage because you don't really see that 50% more foliage in footage.

Also, im pretty sure we saw similar upgrade even in some third party games.

The only thing that was really visible to me was the dynamic shadows.

But i guess it's the 60fps thing, because PG is basically the only studio that achieved a stable 60fps mode on XBX.

 

[higherARC]

Yeah but we saw a similar situation in FH3... but 50% more foliage is nice and i didn't pay attention to that. However, i don't know where DF found this percentage because you don't really see that 50% more foliage in footage.

Also, im pretty sure we saw similar upgrade even in some third party games.

The only thing that was really visible to me was the dynamic shadows.

But i guess it's the 60fps thing, because PG is basically the only studio that achieved a stable 60fps mode on XBX.

If you watched the video they went to PG studios and got the info directly from them

Also such a huge upgrade over base console. Double the res for reflections and all those upgrades make for some incredible visuals at 4K. Really astonishing stuff PG has done graphically

 

[Recop]

If you watched the video they went to PG studios and got the info directly from them

Also such a huge upgrade over base console. Double the res for reflections and all those upgrades make for some incredible visuals at 4K. Really astonishing stuff PG has done graphically

Yeah the game looks very good. It's the best looking racing game to me, even on XB1.

But i wanted to mean that the upgrade is not necesseraly better than what was done before : https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-forza-horizon-3-gets-4k-update-on-xbox-one-x

So XBX being the lead platform didn't change a lot of things, except for the 60 fps mode.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

Using those resolutions as an example makes zero sense

Why? If a game is 1080p on pro you only need to reduce it to 720p on base ps4. Likewise on X if it's 4k you can reduce res to run it on xbone. But native 720p on pro and 1080p on x... You wouldn't exactly want to lower the res on the base machines at that point.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...y-of-forza-horizon-4-xbox-one-x-lead-platform

Forza Horizon 4's stunning tech upgrades - and how Xbox One X shines as lead platform
DF visits Playground Games and tests the final game.

The Forza Horizon franchise has carved its own path, veering away from Turn 10's mainline series with its emphasis on arcade racing set within a massive open world. The series' evolution has been a long but often spectacular journey - a vibrant racing celebration that's given Horizon its own distinct identity and in Forza Horizon 4, Playground Games aims for something even more special from a technical perspective - a game that builds substantially on the last entry's technical strengths and focuses on Xbox One X as lead platform.

Playground Games' work on the Horizon series has improved with each release, and the UK location with impressive seasonal support gives the studio an effective showcase for their many technological upgrades. The last two years have been spent tailoring a beautiful, sometimes fantastical driving game that aims to surprise. Technically, it's a marvel to both look at and to play, and the end result is a gem in the Xbox One X lineup that deserves your attention.

That's an almost perfect example of how to support a "rolling" generation style of console releases. Make the newer console the lead platform and backport to the older console. The older console likely still looks the same or within 90-95% of the same as it would have looked if it was the lead platform, but it allows the stronger platform to be more fully taken advantage of.

Regards,
SB

 

[ultragpu]

X was the lead platform, it's just that by the time you go from 1080p on base to 4k on X you pretty much can't make a game that wouldn't run on the base machine. That'd only be possible if X was native 1080p30 or thereabouts. And since X is all about 4k...

Likewise on Ps4 pro you'd have to make a game at native 720p or something to keep it from running on base unless you want 480p on base

Exactly, since it's all about 4k I feel like the X is always bound by what has to run on a 1.3tf console with a decent resolution while not being able to go nuts with other fancy things. I believe some settings are far more scalable than others, better LOD, higher res textures. shadows, AO, reflection are easily tweaked than adding say volumetric effects, complex shaders or bigger levels, where the base console would fall apart much quicker. On paper the X may have quite a list of enhancements but they are still not overly drastic in terms of sheer visual impact, it's just a cleaner, sharper and higher res version bar some minor night shadow effect of a 1.3tf console game.

 

[Recop]

I feel like the X is always bound by what has to run on a 1.3tf console with a decent resolution while not being able to go nuts with other fancy things.

Even if the base console was the PS4, the game would not look much different that what we have here at 4K simply because the X doesn't have the power to output 1,84 Tflops graphics at native 4K. You need a GPU that is over 7 Tflops for that.

The X uses a huge part of its power to run the game at an extremely high resolution and not expecially to fundamenlly change the graphics.

 

[iroboto]

or bigger levels

seriously? Is there a racing game with a larger playground with 4 seasons of that same playground? Drive anywhere going at 250+ km/hr and still manage to keep up its graphical fidelity nearly everywhere with spectacularly done foliage, texture details and the bit?

This type of reductionist thinking is baffling

 

[ultragpu]

seriously? Is there a racing game with a larger playground with 4 seasons of that same playground? Drive anywhere going at 250+ km/hr and still manage to keep up its graphical fidelity nearly everywhere with spectacularly done foliage, texture details and the bit?

This type of reductionist thinking is baffling

I don't mean to diminish PG's achievement on Forza Horizon 4 of course, the point being how the base console will be much less equipped to deal with massive graphics changes if not being downported suitably.

 

[higherARC]

Exactly, since it's all about 4k I feel like the X is always bound by what has to run on a 1.3tf console with a decent resolution while not being able to go nuts with other fancy things. I believe some settings are far more scalable than others, better LOD, higher res textures. shadows, AO, reflection are easily tweaked than adding say volumetric effects, complex shaders or bigger levels, where the base console would fall apart much quicker. On paper the X may have quite a list of enhancements but they are still not overly drastic in terms of sheer visual impact, it's just a cleaner, sharper and higher res version bar some minor night shadow effect of a 1.3tf console game.

The X does allow game devs to use graphical effects not possible on base console. This has been shown in many games. Gears 4 has dynamic shadows on the entire map while base console uses static baked shadows elsewhere. PG has an impressive SSAO, 10x deformable surface details, higher res textures, etc over base console while outputting at 4k. There's nothing they can add that the base console would hold it back. That's not how these things work. A dev makes a engine with graphical capabilities, then they scale the engine to whatever machine needs to run it so each machine only runs what graphical effect is needed. This is why a game like Shadow of the Tomb Raider runs on base console, while having RTX ray tracing features for 2080 gpus. A dev can add volumetric effects, more shaders, etc and have the base console not use it. Games have done that. It's all up to the devs what they want to do with the power. Now bigger levels isn't really something that is limited by either systems. It's about streaming and X does push out further LODs but having a bigger level is primarily a game design not limited by what system it's running in. There's games on the OG xbox that have larger levels than current games

Yeah the game looks very good. It's the best looking racing game to me, even on XB1.

But i wanted to mean that the upgrade is not necesseraly better than what was done before : https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-forza-horizon-3-gets-4k-update-on-xbox-one-x

So XBX being the lead platform didn't change a lot of things, except for the 60 fps mode.

But it did. The Forza Horizon 4 is using a whole new per pixel lighting engine, significant better LODs, light color bounce of cars in real time, etc over FH3 while keeping the same performance at native 4k 30fps and have 60fps model. This has been explained by many devs even in DF PG mentioned to them how it impacted the engine development being a whole lot better

 

[Mobius1aic]

The XBX doesn't have a revolutionary increase in memory to make truly bigger and more detailed worlds possible. The added memory was the result of the more important bandwidth, but I also wonder how budgets are going to make "revolutionary" things possible when the next console round comes along. 5 years later, I'm still super impressed by what R* pulled off with GTAV on the 360 and PS3 not just in terms of visuals, but with such an excellent fascimile of the real world and all the internal systems that made it work. RDR2 definitely is going all out in these aspects, but these are insanely expensive games to make. I really wonder how much further things can go..........

Obviously small time devs and indies can make some impressive games. The ability to spend less time optimizing and just letting brute force do the work is attractive from a "time is money" point of view *AHEM*pubg*AHEM*. I mean, in a way, that's how the PC platform has sort of operated from the beginning as better hardware could provide tangible benefits moving into the future.

 

[higherARC]

The XBX doesn't have a revolutionary increase in memory to make truly bigger and more detailed worlds possible. The added memory was the result of the more important bandwidth, but I also wonder how budgets are going to make "revolutionary" things possible when the next console round comes along. 5 years later, I'm still super impressed by what R* pulled off with GTAV on the 360 and PS3 not just in terms of visuals, but with such an excellent fascimile of the real world and all the internal systems that made it work. RDR2 definitely is going all out in these aspects, but these are insanely expensive games to make. I really wonder how much further things can go..........

Obviously small time devs and indies can make some impressive games. The ability to spend less time optimizing and just letting brute force do the work is attractive from a "time is money" point of view *AHEM*pubg*AHEM*. I mean, in a way, that's how the PC platform has sort of operated from the beginning as better hardware could provide tangible benefits moving into the future.

RDR2 looks amazing at how many interactive items are in it. It really shows what devs can do if they spend the time and money to add it. There's things they're doing in RDR2 that many would thought of impossible due to cpu in consoles but it really has shown it isn't a limited factor for them. Of course next gen cpu can do more but games like FH4 and RDR2 are showing devs can do a lot if they have the man power and time to implement them. Can't wait believe I'll be playing FH4 and RDR2 at the same time this fall. So much so little time