Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2010]

[SG79]

most of not all 1st party PS3 titles that support DTS will automatically choose DTS over DD by default, I remember Bad Company 1 was also default to DTS.

I think even third parties too with a few exceptions, even with LPCM. Capcom's MT Framework games have LPCM and DD options but DD is the default.

I think Tekken 6 goes to DD instead of DTS if you uncheck LPCM. The DTS option was incidentally a 3 speaker mix mostly.

As far as fidelity and quality of editing, Uncharted 2 and Batman AA impressed me the most. The latter was a pleasant surprise all around.

 

[Gitaroo]

a lot of games dont support true DTS when you disable DD even if you force them to output DTS audio you only get 2 ch pcm I think. But some games that support true DTS like Resonance of fate and castlevania choose DD when you have all the option checked in the optical out which I find very annoying.

 

[Rangers]

I have to wonder if making the game completely effects identical on both platforms is a good idea as you would think maybe some platform optimizations could be used to help each platform out, even though it would mean they slightly diverge.

Also DF raves about the graphics and that's fine, but I fired up the demo recently and wasn't particularly impressed. The rain effect was unnatural and shiny, aliasing seemed a problem, etc. I dont doubt it's a good looking game overall though.

 

[HollovVpo1nt]

Castlevania: Lord of Shadows

I'm surprised the PS3 outperformed the 360.

 

[Rangers]

Castlevania: Lord of Shadows

I'm surprised the PS3 outperformed the 360.

Me too. How many multiplatforms can you say unquestionably PS3 is superior? Well add LOS to the list I suppose.

FF13 is the only one that leaps to mind. Oblivion back in the day, but I dont remember all the details on that and there were some tradeoffs.

Off topic but, since we now have a next gen Castlevania 3D, the one game franchise really missing in 3D imo is Contra

 

[Trejser]

Me too. How many multiplatforms can you say unquestionably PS3 is superior? Well add LOS to the list I suppose.

FF13 is the only one that leaps to mind. Oblivion back in the day, but I dont remember all the details on that and there were some tradeoffs.

Off topic but, since we now have a next gen Castlevania 3D, the one game franchise really missing in 3D imo is Contra

All Grin games (Terminator S., Wanted, Bionic Commando).

 

[assurdum]

Castlevania: Lord of Shadows

I'm surprised the PS3 outperformed the 360.

Lead platform.

 

[djskribbles]

a lot of games dont support true DTS when you disable DD even if you force them to output DTS audio you only get 2 ch pcm I think. But some games that support true DTS like Resonance of fate and castlevania choose DD when you have all the option checked in the optical out which I find very annoying.

Not sure what soundtracks are included in most games, but I have my PS3 connected via HDMI (only way to pass multi-channel PCM audio) with all of the audio formats checked in the audio settings and 90% or higher of the games I've played, my AVR displays 8ch PCM. Sometimes it's 6ch PCM and some games offer a choice. I think it's because many PS3 games include lossless PCM audio. Not sure what the PS3 does if you're using optical/spdif.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

opcorn:

Castlevania Lords of Shadows DF comparision article.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-castlevania-lords-of-shadow-face-off

Gah, Bink again? So compromise of better video quality at bloated file sizes, or smaller file sizes with crap quality?

At least they went with bloated video file size for better quality unlike FF XIII. Unfortunately that might be one of the main reasons it takes up 2 disks for the X360 version.

Would be nice if they had used a better modern codec for video compression rather than Bink. Ah well.

Still, a rather admirable accomplishment in being able to bring virtually identical IQ and performance to both platforms. With the performance edge going to PS3 due to it being the lead platform.

Likewise a horrible job of requiring a disk swap on X360 even when the material is installed on the HDD. It would have been enough to just require that Disk 1 be inserted at all times in that case. They really dropped the ball on that one.

Regards,
SB

 

[SG79]

a lot of games dont support true DTS when you disable DD even if you force them to output DTS audio you only get 2 ch pcm I think. But some games that support true DTS like Resonance of fate and castlevania choose DD when you have all the option checked in the optical out which I find very annoying.

Yeah, DTS isn't a standard requirement. Thing is, for some reason, Sony doesn't mandate publishers to list the supported formats so I end up experimenting. 90% of the time, it's LPCM 5.1 and DD 5.1. The elite typically support all formats and LPCM up to 7.1.

The mixes aren't always the same either. Referring to DR2 again, the DTS track is noticeably louder with active surrounds then either the LPCM and DD options.

Uncharted or GOW boxes don't even list DD 5.1. This goes back to the PS2 days where games outside of Japan rarely noted if they support 480p.

 

[DonaldDuck]

Taking into account the diffferent architecture of both platforms, how could we explain the really similar graphs for framerate? It´s like the engine is the bottleneck here, not the hardware, except when the XBOX version diverges and sinks, even only a bit. So, the engine is the limiting factor here (the "speed" of the engine i mean), but somehow XBOX version finds problems with some frames and the framerate decreases.

But, even in those circumstances, what kind of effect can make XBOX goind under? Fillrate? Culling? Pixel shaders problems? Postprocessing?

I´m right with these assumptions? The graphs are really strange.

Bye.

 

[Billy Idol]

The light radius/scale is lower. In the closer shot of the first statue head, it's still being lit albeit dimmer.

Why?
What could be the reason to implement such an obvious difference?

 

[DonaldDuck]

So differences exist between versions. Not a 1:1 port, some subtle effects discarded/tuned down in XBOX 360 build...

In fact, in other dirturbing sites I´ve read about subtle ligthing differences favouring PS3 version of the game. A 1:1 exact port it´s a bit of strange.

Bye.

 

[Yashamaru]

So differences exist between versions. Not a 1:1 port, some subtle effects discarded/tuned down in XBOX 360 build...

In fact, in other dirturbing sites I´ve read about subtle ligthing differences favouring PS3 version of the game. A 1:1 exact port it´s a bit of strange.

Bye.

Vanquish (demo for now) is an exact 1:1 port: Same resolution of particles, same native res, same AA, same lightning effect etc, and even same framerate (0.5 or lower difference between the two build).

 

[DonaldDuck]

Vanquish (demo for now) is an exact 1:1 port: Same resolution of particles, same native res, same AA, same lightning effect etc, and even same framerate (0.5 or lower difference between the two build).

If I recall correctly PS3 version is triple buffered v-synced and XBOX is double buffer, no v-sync, so a bit of tearing happen. But yes, the engine is ported with almost no difference.

I insist about the carbon-copied graph of framerate in Castlevania PS3 and XBOX cutscenes. Being the architectures so different is really curious a behaviour of the engine so tightly matched. You know, some effects HAVE to be arranged by the code in very different fashions (unfied vs flexible shaders, SPUs vs nothing, nothing vs EDRAM, different memory layout, etc), but the engine performs exactly the same, except in overbudget circumstances with XBOX hardware...

Why?

 

[Billy Idol]

Gah, Bink again?

That is what BlimBlim@negoaf (the guy from gamersyde) said about Bink

Bink has the gigantic advantage of being very optimized for console operations, not too cpu intensive, and more importantly very easy to use and integrate in a game.
For example all the little hand-drawn animations in Castlevania you see when when browsing the different combos are bink encoded, and can be integrated perfectly because bink supports an alpha channel, something that your usual movie codec won't.

Keep in mind that the devs already had to pay for the Bink license, and would then also have to pay for the H.264 license to the MPEG LA patent pool too. Bink costs $7500 per game, whatever the sales, MPEG LA is said to be per seat, so it would cost the dev for each game sold, which would be highly costly for a big title like this one.

source:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=409093&page=17

 

[scently]

So differences exist between versions. Not a 1:1 port, some subtle effects discarded/tuned down in XBOX 360 build...

In fact, in other dirturbing sites I´ve read about subtle ligthing differences favouring PS3 version of the game. A 1:1 exact port it´s a bit of strange.

Bye.

Link? and what exactly are these other differences, because I can't see any.

 

[Billy Idol]

Link? and what exactly are these other differences, because I can't see any.

here is a difference:

In the first comparison vid, rather at the beginning of the vid (starting at about 10 seconds), where you see the end part after the horse chase. He jumps with the horse over the cliff. The horse somehow ghostifies...in the PS3 version you see how the shining horse casts a light on both upper sides of the cliff (actually the heads of statues, nice detail), whereas in the Xbox360 version it is completely missing. I also have the feeling that the light is casted on the werewolf pack in the PS3 version, which is again missing in the Xbox version.

This does not look like absolute identical, like for like pixels...as claimed in the article??

 

[Rangers]

here is a difference:

Yet on Neogaf there's one poster who swears the lighting effect there is present on the 360 too, just that DF's video somehow didn't capture it (too dark?). And he says he played the scene just before posting to double check and is absolutely certain. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=23749686&postcount=1028

And there's some word that some Capcom guy (David Cox) said the 360 preview code, that DF had, has a lower framerate than final retail code, which is supposedly equal to PS3. Of course that could easily be PR speak.

Now I'd like to see somebody run a framerate analyzer on a storebought or otherwise certain to be retail game, basically.

 

[Trejser]

Bug: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=23750402&postcount=1057