Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2019]

[Shifty Geezer]

I think another argument is if you look beyond the AAA games to what the minimum quality indies and AA titles can pull off, the lowest level is far, far better every generation. Something like Rime is head and shoulder above what larger teams were pulling off on PS3 thanks to modern technologies.

 

[Mobius1aic]

....... but Uncharted 4, God of War, and Red Dead Redemption 2 are all mind blowing and impossible on the last generation. I understand the same to be true for Quantum Break and Gears of War 4 too, and there'll be a bunch more that escape me ATM.

All those games are barely any different from their previous gen iterations. Sure, the graphics may be better, and the number of physicalized objects may have increased, or a few more things might be interactive, but the general gameplay isn't different enough to be "undoable" on last gen.

Not every developer can afford to create games like those, of course, but it does still happen. And if the raw performance is there to allow smaller studios to reach RDR2 levels of fidelity, I think we'll all be pretty happy.

Raw power is good when studios can spend less time having to optimize assets beyond their polygonal raw form in Maya, etc. but simply going through all the trouble of developing and implementing good texturing, materials, etc is in itself very time consuming. But it's pretty hard for alot of games to rise out of the unoptimized swamp. They have to be very compelling, and those that can make viable early access projects where early adopters can fund extant development to a more mature stage.

Gameplay is still king.

Small studios have to think outside of the box, and in consequence tend to produce some very unique titles that are compelling even if they are unoptimized or ugly. Mount & Blade comes to mind

 

[snc]

All those games are barely any different from their previous gen iterations. Sure, the graphics may be better, and the number of physicalized objects may have increased, or a few more things might be interactive, but the general gameplay isn't different enough to be "undoable" on last gen.

Is as true as sentence that ps3 gta5 is barely different from ps2 gta vice city

 

[Mobius1aic]

Is as true as sentence that ps3 gta5 is barely different from ps2 gta vice city

All those games listed earlier build right off of their previous gen progenators, emulating, reiterating and expanding on the same gameplay systems.

Vice City and GTAV are two completely different beasts from a technical and overall gameplay perspective. GTAV features a very robust AI and physics system, AI animals, large scale terrain system, and much higher interactivity. There is a clear delination between the two even without bringing general graphics into the equation because the level of world simulation is on two different levels which does have lasting effects on the overall gameplay.

 

[snc]

All those games listed earlier build right off of their previous gen progenators, emulating, reiterating and expanding on the same gameplay systems.

Vice City and GTAV are two completely different beasts from a technical and overall gameplay perspective. GTAV features a very robust AI and physics system, AI animals, large scale terrain system, and much higher interactivity. There is a clear delination between the two even without bringing general graphics into the equation because the level of world simulation is on two different levels which does have lasting effects on the overall gameplay.

From gameplay perspective gta 5 seems really similar to vice city/san andreas for me.

 

[milk]

From gameplay perspective gta 5 seems really similar to vice city/san andreas for me.

Nope.

 

[Mobius1aic]

From gameplay perspective gta 5 seems really similar to vice city/san andreas for me.

Bringing up San Andreas would've made a better argument, but even that is built directly on Vice City and GTA3's systems: just a larger open world and a more appropriate LOD engine to handle it.

 

[Cyan]

R3 2200G could land in PS5? Seems a very capable GPU/APU.

seen the video, Rich's machine was a low end gaming machine running above expectations, a Maximum FPS Guide in itself. It was fun to watch though I am not into the last one standing genre -can't recall what the name is- at all.

This benchmark might be useful for DF to demonstrate how good it is.

https://www.userbenchmark.com/resources/download/UserBenchMark.exe

 

[milk]

From gameplay perspective gta 5 seems really similar to vice city/san andreas for me.

The core gameplay concept is the same. But the gameplay loop was vastly changed by the technological and design changes from III to IV. On the GTA III's the enemies ran up to near you stood there and shoot you. On IV and V, they'd use cover appropriately, they react physivally to bullet hits, fall to the floor, get up again, sometimes crawl into cover, or get dragged by partners. Some go down shooting all over the place, or shoot from the ground before dying. The player can also use a cover system, with all modern cover functionalities such as cover swap, blind fire, etc. Vehicle physics got more nuanced, driver's AIs got more nuanced, the amount of physicalised objects increased substantially. Pretty much all aspects of the world simulation became significantly more sophisticated.
While the same can probably be said about the examples beforehand: U4, RDR2 and Dad of War, there is nothing about those games that wasn't done before in previous gen titles, with just simpler graphics. Not that all PS4BONE gen games are like that, but these specific examples happen to be precisely the ones that don't do anything that screams NEXT GEN TECH gameplay-wise. It's the presentation and production that evolved the most.
I'd say the 60fps 64 players Battlefield games on consoles, are a better representation of games that were made possible by PS4 and ONE. They were trying to get that done on PS360, but just couldn't manage. Came this gen, they were given more room to breathe.
I'd put the Battle Royale games on the same club. 60fps action multiplayer games on vast continental maps... GTA or RDR are the best old-gen examples I can think of, and their frame rate went from 30fps to lower.
It seems like this gen doesn't have that many inovations that feel outright impossible on previous consoles. Part of that is probably that game design and technology has matured enough that many extremes have already been explored. Another part of that is just that the processing power of the current gen was not dramatically ahead of the preceding one, it was mostly GPU gains that defined this gen. The incoming one is expected to be the opposite, which kind of makes it more exciting, from a game-player point of view.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

All those games are barely any different from their previous gen iterations. Sure, the graphics may be better...

That's true of many games, because the gameplay is quite simple. An FPS is an FPS. A platformer is a platformer. A racer is a racer. There's marginal variation in gameplay, mostly from ideas of how to implement games so not technologically driven, and the rest is eye-candy and scale. So either gaming really hasn't advanced at all since PS1/N64, or one shouldn't be looking for next-gen gameplay impossible on last-gen machines to define a new generation and accept that it's mostly improvements in execution - better fidelity, better lighting, better animations, better control ideas, better gameplay loop designs - rather than previously-impossible gameplay mechanics that advances generations forwards.

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

Also, there's a synergy at play. Most aspects of God of War 3 were doable on the PS2, but flying up and down Mount Olympus wouldn't have had the same audiovisual impact, and that audiovisual impact is a big part of triggering your emotional response to the scenario. That emotional response then makes the hack and slash gameplay - which was possible on the PS2 - more gratifying than it could have been on the PS2.

The core gameplay concept is the same. But the gameplay loop was vastly changed by the technological and design changes from III to IV. On the GTA III's the enemies ran up to near you stood there and shoot you. On IV and V, they'd use cover appropriately, they react physivally to bullet hits, fall to the floor, get up again, sometimes crawl into cover, or get dragged by partners. Some go down shooting all over the place, or shoot from the ground before dying. The player can also use a cover system, with all modern cover functionalities such as cover swap, blind fire, etc. Vehicle physics got more nuanced, driver's AIs got more nuanced, the amount of physicalised objects increased substantially. Pretty much all aspects of the world simulation became significantly more sophisticated.

That's a fair enough perspective, but the counter to that is the fact that most GTAIV and V missions are either races or "go here, kill some people."

The cover system was a welcome addition, and the gunplay was just generally better than GTA3(inc. VC and SA.) But KillSwitch was a PS2 cover shooter with really satisfying gunplay, so I'm not entirely convinced that it took a generational improvement from a gameplay mechanics perspective.

But the emotional impact of all of those improvements you mentioned (car physics, NPC's reacting to being shot etc) wasn't possible on the PS2. As much as GTAVC will always hold the most dear place in my heart, nothing from any GTA sticks with me like Nico screaming as we tore through a warehouse, hurling grenades, kneecapping enemies to line up a headshot, all in service of saving our stupid fucking cousin.

 

[snc]

The core gameplay concept is the same. But the gameplay loop was vastly changed by the technological and design changes from III to IV. On the GTA III's the enemies ran up to near you stood there and shoot you. On IV and V, they'd use cover appropriately, they react physivally to bullet hits, fall to the floor, get up again, sometimes crawl into cover, or get dragged by partners. Some go down shooting all over the place, or shoot from the ground before dying. The player can also use a cover system, with all modern cover functionalities such as cover swap, blind fire, etc. Vehicle physics got more nuanced, driver's AIs got more nuanced, the amount of physicalised objects increased substantially. Pretty much all aspects of the world simulation became significantly more sophisticated.
While the same can probably be said about the examples beforehand: U4, RDR2 and Dad of War, there is nothing about those games that wasn't done before in previous gen titles, with just simpler graphics. Not that all PS4BONE gen games are like that, but these specific examples happen to be precisely the ones that don't do anything that screams NEXT GEN TECH gameplay-wise. It's the presentation and production that evolved the most.
I'd say the 60fps 64 players Battlefield games on consoles, are a better representation of games that were made possible by PS4 and ONE. They were trying to get that done on PS360, but just couldn't manage. Came this gen, they were given more room to breathe.
I'd put the Battle Royale games on the same club. 60fps action multiplayer games on vast continental maps... GTA or RDR are the best examples I can think of, and their frame rate went from 30fps to lower.
It seems like this gen doesn't have that many inovations that feel outright impossible on previous consoles. Part of that is probably that game design and technology has matured enough that many extremes have already been explored. Another part of that is just that the processing power of the current gen was not dramatically ahead of the preceding one, it was mostly GPU gains that defined this gen. The incoming one is expected to be the opposite, which kind of makes it more exciting, from a game-player point of view.

For me when comparing rdr2 and gta5(especially ps3 version) I see generation leap (graphics, interaction with npc, details). Gta5 vs gta san adreas seems larger gap because its harder to make large gap from game that already looks as good as gta5 (2007 crysis in 4k still looks quite good today).

 

[Cyan]

semi off-topic, but Eurogamer, also DF, related. Why a message telling me that I am using an Ad Blocker appears when I am navigating Eurogamer and that they would be thankful if I disable it? It happened twice since yesterday. Never happened to me before. It annoys me!

The ads are shown just normally on the screen. I never used an Ad Block, and never will 'cos I don't mind them. I was using Edge when this happened, but whatever, what the message says is simply not true.

 

[AlNom]

 

[iroboto]

i think they could have used some better examples. But I agree. It's the sync that matters. Hard to sync so much destruction happening all at once on all the clients in the game.

This would be one hell of a diablo lol

 

[Dictator]

semi off-topic, but Eurogamer, also DF, related. Why a message telling me that I am using an Ad Blocker appears when I am navigating Eurogamer and that they would be thankful if I disable it? It happened twice since yesterday. Never happened to me before. It annoys me!

The ads are shown just normally on the screen. I never used an Ad Block, and never will 'cos I don't mind them. I was using Edge when this happened, but whatever, what the message says is simply not true.

I will forward that to IT - odd

 

[Nesh]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...-zone-what-happened-to-the-power-of-the-cloud

 

[vipa899]

30fps with dips for a fighting game. Like many on YT commented il get it for pc, if anything.

 

[Nesh]

30fps with dips for a fighting game. Like many on YT commented il get it for pc, if anything.

The sound of this game......is....terrible last time I checked. I hope they fixed it. But I like the graphics minus some of the animations.
The game sometimes suffers from identity crisis since not all characters fit to every environment. But of course it is not necessarily their fault considering the amount of universes.
It doesnt have the luxury of adapting each character model to every universe like Kingdom Hearts does

 

[Cyan]

I will forward that to IT - odd

The issue continues. Screengrabs taken minutes ago.