Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2019]

[Silent_Buddha]

Can't wait. Steam preorder - 2 more days.

Interesting that they don't even allow NV cards the option to try turning on Async Compute.

Other than that, a fantastic PC port. I can't wait to run it in a few days. Although I'm tempted to wait until the 10th for NV's optimized drivers.

Hmmm, then again, those NV optimized drivers are likely to break things in the other games I play. /sigh. I really hate to have to driver juggle with my 1070 if I want the best performance in the newest games. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just performance that suffered in the games I play, but it's so annoying when graphics rendering breaks in the games I play when using their newest drivers sometimes.

Regards,
SB

 

[Scott_Arm]

These new games are really killing my gtx 1060. Guess I'm not playing on high settings.

 

[Recop]

Optimizations improve with time, but even so I can't really understand how the humble Xbox One can run a game with these visuals and performance. I never imagined that it could get this far by the end of the generation, is more amazing that anything on PS4.

Visuals are subjective to a certain extent, but what you're saying is not true from a technical standpoint. The X version is technically above any Sony game though.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Visuals are subjective to a certain extent, but what you're saying is not true from a technical standpoint. The X version is technically above any Sony game though.

The base version has basically all the same IQ options as the XBO-X version except for lower framerate and resolution.

Compared to the PS4 exclusives, it just lacks resolution at that point as I believe all the PS4 exclusives are 30 FPS on the base console.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shortbread]

The X version is technically above any Sony game though.

This is actually debatable... airing more towards opinion rather than actual fact.

Yes, Gears 5 looks like a technological masterpiece across any platform... and The Coalition deserves lots of credit on making one of the best Unreal Engine 4 based games around. However, many would argue that God of War, RDR2, Forza Horizon 4, GTA V, FarCry 5, Minecraft, and the thousands of other game choices are more technology advanced than Gears 5 Unreal Engine tech. It doesn't mean they're right, or that they're necessarily wrong. Without knowing every aspect of a particular game's graphic pipeline, we can't honestly say one is more advanced than the other. Their maybe one or two aspects of one engine that outweighs all other features compared to another, the latter being considered to have the most advanced features.

Example: In my opinion, Remedy's Northlight Engine behind Control (multiplatform title), seems lightyears ahead of any other engine including the Unreal Engine, when dealing with physics and environmental destruction. Including aspects dealing with real-time scene deformation, transformation, and warping (such as the maze run) that are ungodly levels of complexity (completely unbelievable).

Point being, all engines have their strongpoints and weaknesses. So, there are points for debate on what constitutes a more advanced engine (or game) over another.

 

[chris1515]

This is actually debatable... airing more towards opinion rather than actual fact.

Yes, Gears 5 looks like a technological masterpiece across any platform... and The Coalition deserves lots of credit on making one of the best Unreal Engine 4 based games around. However, many would argue that God of War, RDR2, Forza Horizon 4, GTA V, FarCry 5, Minecraft, and the thousands of other game choices are more technology advanced than Gears 5 Unreal Engine tech. It doesn't mean they're right, or that they're necessarily wrong. Without knowing every aspect of a particular game's graphic pipeline, we can't honestly say one is more advanced than the other. Their maybe one or two aspects of one engine that outweighs all other features compared to another, the latter being considered to have the most advanced features.

Example: In my opinion, Remedy's Northlight Engine behind Control (multiplatform title), seems lightyears ahead of any other engine including the Unreal Engine, when dealing with physics and environmental destruction. Including aspects dealing with real-time scene deformation, transformation, and warping (such as the maze run) that are ungodly levels of complexity (completely unbelievable).

Point being, all engines have their strongpoints and weaknesses. So, there are points for debate on what constitutes a more advanced engine (or game) over another.

+1

And of things are linked to art direction or talent of artist or animator and budget... Control has a great GI technology with or without RTX, great particle, great FX and cool physics and I think they use post-process effect like film grain. The compromise is resolution for Control like it was the case with Quantum Break. Gears 5 is pristine very clinical image quality without heavy post-processing effect...

RDR2 has a great unified volumetric system and an 8 years development showing an unbeatable production value...

Naughty Dog is mostly define by great animation in gameplay and cutscene...

 

[Karamazov]

Fact is we've had a lot of fantastic looking games this gen and diminishing returns my a$$

 

[Jay]

Control has a great GI technology with or without RTX, great particle, great FX and cool physics and I think they use post-process effect like film grain. The compromise is resolution for Control

And performance.

On pc you can argue that you can just keep throwing money at it until it runs ok.
On console you don't have that option and that has to be taken into consideration.

 

[chris1515]

And performance.

On pc you can argue that you can just keep throwing money at it until it runs ok.
On console you don't have that option and that has to be taken into consideration.

I think performance is and will be a problem on base console for most third party game going on and control budget was AA. The reason no HDR and one reason the patch will take time to be done. Out of COD I think many third party title will suffer on base console... For example I will buy Cyberpunk 2077 on next generation console...

 

[Jay]

I think performance is and will be a problem on base console for most third party game going on and control budget was AA. The reason no HDR and one reason the patch will take time to be done. Out of COD I think many third party title will suffer on bas console... For example I will buy Cyberpunk 2077 on next generation console...

I have been saying for a while that base XO has been in a serious downward spiral.
But control is even arguably worse on base PS4, regardless of the reason.
So to say that control is technically better/equal to gears 5 on console (even 1X where gears runs at 60) is a stretch in my eyes.
Perfomance and framerate is just as important when comparing.

I said it when I posted the control DF video, I think control would have been an amazing next gen only game, as it is its not.
So don't think I'm down playing what they technically was trying to achieve.

 

[milk]

The fact the game can run the whole campaign at 3 player split-screen on base XBONE and still have the campaign be up there with the best of the best in presentation, technical complexity and polish is the biggest highlight for me.
Coallition had their priorities in place. Gameplay and functionality FIRST. Set the functionality the game PLAYER will want to have in place, and work from there. There is enough room nowadays for good graphics AND robust engines at the same time. It depends more on dev culture than technology these days.
Kudos to the Coalition. I hope the other AAA devs take note.

 

[AlNom]

Should have given the biggest splitscreen to player 3 for gameplay & psychological reasons.

 

[chris1515]

I have been saying for a while that base XO has been in a serious downward spiral.
But control is even arguably worse on base PS4, regardless of the reason.
So to say that control is technically better/equal to gears 5 on console (even 1X where gears runs at 60) is a stretch in my eyes.
Perfomance and framerate is just as important when comparing.

I said it when I posted the control DF video, I think control would have been an amazing next gen only game, as it is its not.
So don't think I'm down playing what they technically was trying to achieve.

The budget of Control is 20 to 30 million euros, this is less than a Quantic Dreams game this is probably 5 to 6 times less than Gears 5 or any AAA... I think Microsoft or Sony games are mostly done for reaching the performance target on consoles... I am sure Halo Infinite will run good on Xbox One next time.

For Remedy, it was their first game on PS console and it seems they receive some little help from Guerrilla games but they are no miracle when you try to launch a game with AAA quality with a AA budget on PC, PS4, Xbox One and adding an RTX version... They chew too much probably or/and the game was a bit ambitious for this generation like many third party game releasing this year and mostly next year... Like the last generation, the last year before releasing next-generation console will be difficult for third party game performance and game sales...

I think Remedy will be not independent soon this is very difficult for this AA/AAA developer to work like this... Don't know who will buy them a third party publisher, Sony or Microsoft, Google...

 

[AlNom]

Somewhat of a nitpick, but budgets will be partly a reflection of the local cost of labour/operational costs, which muddies the waters a bit between countries.

 

[chris1515]

Somewhat of a nitpick, but budgets will be partly a reflection of the local cost of labour/operational costs, which muddies the waters a bit between countries.

The budget for Quantum Break was much bigger and the CEO told they have much less pressure on sales of the title because of this...

 

[AlNom]

Sure, comparing within a company's portfolio makes some sense. Mind you, there could be a good chunk of the budget for QB dedicated to the live-action stuff, somewhat unrelated to an extent to the core game development.

 

[chris1515]

Sure, comparing within a company's portfolio makes some sense. Mind you, there could be a good chunk of the budget for QB dedicated to the live-action stuff, somewhat unrelated to an extent to the core game development.

There is not only live-action stuff. For example, realtime cutscenes had a much bigger budget and doing the game only in one building is a good idea when you work on a tiny budget ... This is PS3/360 AAA budget and like Concrete Genie, they have no HDR because they needed to do a choice... They worked with a tiny team and they give everyone holidays after releasing the title and this is the reason patch takes time to arrive...

Now a game with a 100 peoples team is at the limit between AA and AAA and they were less than 100 peoples... For example, Death Stranding or Days Gone are tiny AAA in term of team size(100 to 130 peoples)... But actors are not cheap on Death Stranding... 80/100 million dollars begin to be "comfortable" to create a AAA game...

 

[AlNom]

Fair enough. Just saying there's more to it than the dollar figure alone.

 

[Recop]

Compared to the PS4 exclusives, it just lacks resolution at that point as I believe all the PS4 exclusives are 30 FPS on the base console.

It's not only that... Gears 5 is a very linear game with limited physics for instance. I mean, there's no magic. There's no way the developers suddenly figured out what all other third party developers failed to do during the whole gen.

At this point, there's no debate anymore. The gen is finished and we have all the data we want.

I agree that exlusive games tend to be more polished, but there's a difference between a more polished game and something like closing a gap with a 40% stronger GPU.

This is actually debatable... airing more towards opinion rather than actual fact.

It's an indisputable fact if we consider the resolution and the framerate. The Pro could not run Gears 5 in the same conditions.

We can argue that some games might have more advanced engines on Sony consoles, but they do it at the expense of the resolution/framerate.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Fair enough. Just saying there's more to it than the dollar figure alone.

Yes. Just an example in North America. A title created in the bay area in California will cost roughly 3x the same title created in Montreal, CA.

So a title in the bay area at 30 million would be roughly the same as a title at 10 million in Montreal in terms of work done for money spent.

IE - comparing monetary budget across countries or even regions within a country (Houston is cheaper WRT development costs than San Francisco, for example) is not terribly accurate when trying to figure out how much of a budget X dev team had versus Y dev team in a different location.

Things get even more muddled when you start outsourcing parts of the development to countries like say China, the Ukraine, etc. where development costs are really low.

Regards,
SB