Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2021]

[Remij]

DF written Article @ https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ith-blemishes-on-ps5-and-xbox-series-consoles

Call of Duty: Vanguard - a tech marvel marred by bugs and stuttering issues
The Infinity Ward engine evolves once again.

The release of Call of Duty: Vanguard is a contentious one - but on a technological level, it's a return for the brilliant Modern Warware 2019 engine (known internally as IW8), enhanced and expanded upon to accommodate the ambitious of Sledgehammer Games' latest offering. There are engine advances designed specifically for multiplayer, but for my money, it's the campaign that is the star of the show. Telling the story of an elite squadron delivered via set-piece after set-piece, the technology shines thanks to brilliant materials work, stunning lighting and remarkable volumetrics. IW8 was always designed to scale across the generations - and the end result is a highly polished result on the new wave of machines, albeit with some oddities and blemishes that the developers should address.

Bugs? Yes, they're there. I've seen AI and animation issues that break the immersion - mostly in the Operation Tonga mission. Enemies awkwardly repeat their animations in a group. You might catch a soldier, stood motionless in a battlefield without a gun - oblivious to the carnage around him. There are bizarre rag doll reactions on major characters. However, the most glaring issue I've seen so far comes down to performance. Xbox Series consoles see the campaign play out with some egregious - albeit sporadic - stutter, while PlayStation 5 sees checkpoint save pauses of around half-a-second. For a game that delivers so much polish and panache, it's a bit of a let-down. Beyond that, if we take ourselves away from the bugs for a moment, there's also a full screen motion blur effect enabled by default. It's overkill in its intensity, turning any quick camera pan into a smear. I turned it off right away, and I suspect for many it'll be more enjoyable switched off.

...

Very interesting.. I had NO idea that those hitching and freezing issues happened on the PS5, as apparently they weren't worth mentioning in a certain other comparison/analysis video...

This is why multiple sources are a good thing.

 

[BRiT]

It's clear to me that COD Vanguard should have been delayed by months. That was never going to happen cause Bobby Kotick needs a new yacht. He knows their consumers don't care about quality and will mindlessly buy up everything they release.

Those articles about what a mess the development was in all throughout the year obviously were true. The real shame is how many studios and other IPs had to die for COD.

 

[Jay]

It's clear to me that COD Vanguard should have been delayed by months.

I don't know if it needed months based on the DF breakdown.
Apart from those hitches seems to be pretty solid.
It is surprising it got through QA, maybe a bug that was introduced late.

XSS at 1440p with what seems to be pretty much equivalent graphical settings is a surprise.
Nice to at least get a 120fps mode also, as on a VRR display that would be a nice 60+ mode.

 

[BRiT]

I don't know if it needed months based on the DF breakdown.

If they want to let their employees have Thanksgiving and Winter Holidays they'd need months. They only got to this mess by pulling in nearly all of the company and killing other efforts.

It's still a huge mess going from 60/120 fps down to 30 fps then down to 24 fps.

And then there's the end-of-chapter scenes. These are the real deal: beautifully directed, motion captured - almost movie-like in their visual quality, with heavy film grain layered on top. But curiously, they run at 24 frames per second. It's a "cinematic" 24fps - but yes, another jump in frame-rate from the 60fps of gameplay, and the 30fps in other scenes. It's all very strange.

 

[Jay]

If they want to let their employees have Thanksgiving and Winter Holidays they'd need months. They only got to this mess by pulling in nearly all of the company and killing other efforts.

Got ya, not actually the amount of effort possibly needed but time available.

It's still a huge mess going from 60/120 fps down to 30 fps then down to 24 fps.

Rightly or wrongly that seems like a design decision.

 

[Remij]

Battlefield wont be any better either. A lot of the big pubs/devs dropped the ball on quality this year.

I get that it's been a challenging development period though, and I guess as they say, shipping any kind of game is a miracle in the first place... but I'm definitely waiting for a few patches to roll out before jumping in any of them. I got Forza to keep me busy ATM. Hoping Halo Infinite doesn't follow the same fate as the other FPSes this year wrt QA.

 

[davis.anthony]

I think given the choice of the checkpoint hitching I would prefer PS5's as it's a pause for a second or two rather then stuttering.

Reminds a little of the loading pause in the first Halo.

 

[BRiT]

Rightly or wrongly that seems like a design decision.

Possibly, but I think those pre-canned 24fps videos were because they didn't have time to do them as realtime cutscenes on current-gen and PC.

 

[Jay]

Possibly, but I think those pre-canned 24fps videos were because they didn't have time to do them as realtime cutscenes on current-gen and PC.

Maybe, but why 24fps? I'm sure current gen can play 30fps videos

 

[Davros]

probably because someone realised films are 24fps and so videos at 24fps would be more cinematic
ps: I'm sure a console could play a video at 60fps

 

[Jay]

probably because someone realised films are 24fps and so videos at 24fps would be more cinematic

But without the display syncing to it, e.g. at 24fps, it's playing on 60hrz refresh display

ps: I'm sure a console could play a video at 60fps

hey let's not go crazy, these aren't 3080's

 

[dobwal]

But without the display syncing to it, e.g. at 24fps, it's playing on 60hrz refresh display
hey let's not go crazy, these aren't 3080's

24 fps won’t bother a 120hz panel. TVs at 60hz usually have tech to eliminate judder at that fps because cable boxes commonly send 24fps content at 60hz.

 

[Jay]

24 fps won’t bother a 120hz panel. TVs at 60hz usually have tech to eliminate judder at that fps because cable boxes commonly send 24fps content at 60hz.

Still not smooth though, and as I said it would need to sync to 24 to take advantage of it I suspect. Like when tv needs to change mode and goes blank for a second.
So why introduce possible judder when could just do 30?
It has 24, 30 and 60. Makes no sense to me.
Obviously a design decision, just one I don't get.

 

[dobwal]

Still not smooth though, and as I said it would need to sync to 24 to take advantage of it I suspect. Like when tv needs to change mode and goes blank for a second.
So why introduce possible judder when could just do 30?
It has 24, 30 and 60. Makes no sense to me.
Obviously a design decision, just one I don't get.

Not really. While a lot of film content is shot at 24fps. It’s common for commercials to be shot at 30hz (and 60hz in HD). The 24 fps content is transcoded into 60hz.

High end TVs (most that support 120hz) are able to detect 24 fps content delivered at 60hz. To prevent judder they either drop the refresh rate to 48hz or speed up to 72hz.

For TVs that can’t do it, the tv owners will get judder. But they experiencing judder anyway when looking at films.

 

[see colon]

Still not smooth though, and as I said it would need to sync to 24 to take advantage of it I suspect. Like when tv needs to change mode and goes blank for a second.
So why introduce possible judder when could just do 30?
It has 24, 30 and 60. Makes no sense to me.
Obviously a design decision, just one I don't get.

Not at 120hz. 24fps is 5 refreshes per frame at 120hz. The frames would be paced evenly. The problem is at 60hz because you get a non integer when you divide 60 by 24.

 

[Jay]

Not really. While a lot of film content is shot at 24fps. It’s common for commercials to be shot at 30hz (and 60hz in HD). The 24 fps content is transcoded into 60hz.

High end TVs (most that support 120hz) are able to detect 24 fps content delivered at 60hz. To prevent judder they either drop the refresh rate to 48hz or speed up to 72hz.

For TVs that can’t do it, the tv owners will get judder. But they experiencing judder anyway when looking at films.

And yet it being encoded at 30/60 would support every display not just high end without judder.
30 would keep it in line with the RT cut scenes.

As I said I don't see any overall benefit only negatives.

Also as I said, sure there's ways to not have judder but for 60hrz displays you will. So for videos especially when you also have RT cut scenes I don't see why you would want mix of 3 fps's.

Edit: I didn't think tv's would transcode when in game mode, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

[dobwal]

And yet it being encoded at 30/60 would support every display not just high end without judder.
30 would keep it in line with the RT cut scenes.

As I said I don't see any overall benefit only negatives.

Also as I said, sure there's ways to not have judder but for 60hrz displays you will. So for videos especially when you also have RT cut scenes I don't see why you would want mix of 3 fps's.

Edit: I didn't think tv's would transcode when in game mode, but maybe I'm wrong.

And yet that would be true for film content too. But somehow despite everything else loving multiples of 30 from content to hardware, film loves 24.

Maybe (idk) it’s because with or without judder, anything outside 24 fps breaks the “cinematic” feel. 24 fps may hold no technical advantages. But decades of being the standard has ingrained in most of us what “cinematic” looks like and we can subconsciously tell the difference.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

And yet that would be true for film content too. But somehow despite everything else loving multiples of 30 from content to hardware, film loves 24.

Maybe (idk) it’s because with or without judder, anything outside 24 fps breaks the “cinematic” feel. 24 fps may hold no technical advantages. But decades of being the standard has ingrained in most of us what “cinematic” looks like and we can subconsciously tell the difference.

24 FPS was a cost concession for film. When film is actually filmed on film stock it is expensive as heck, especially if you have to do multiple takes of a scene. 24 FPS offered a compromise between cost and a believable illusion of motion. Additionally in the early days of film, 24 FPS made the camera's and projectors less complex with less precision required. Heck, it's also partly due to the need to hand-crank the cameras and projectors in the very earliest days of film (thus film was anywhere from 14-26 FPS).

So yeah, unfortunately that stuttery experience of 24 FPS cinema is now associated with cinema, unfortunately. One of the reasons I never go to the cinema anymore and rarely ever watch a movie. It's just too horrible of an experience. When I do bother, I'll re-encode it to 60 FPS with high quality interpolation.

Regards,
SB

 

[tuna]

So yeah, unfortunately that stuttery experience of 24 FPS cinema is now associated with cinema, unfortunately. One of the reasons I never go to the cinema anymore and rarely ever watch a movie. It's just too horrible of an experience. When I do bother, I'll re-encode it to 60 FPS with high quality interpolation.

Regards,
SB

Then you just get more blur and judder in your video file.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Then you just get more blur and judder in your video file.

That's the opposite of my experience with a good interpolator and encoder. There's far more detail in motion without the annoying stutter/judder. The only drawback was that a good quality interpolated encode would take multiple hours. But I'd just set it to do its thing overnight and watch it at some later date.

I haven't done this in a while, so I can only imagine it must be even better now that there are AI trained interpolators that I didn't have access to when I was still watching films frequently enough to bother.

Regards,
SB