Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2011]

[Squilliam]

wow Grandmaster has been busy!!

 

[KKRT]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-e3-microsoft
Richard why did You skipped RYSE on Your Microsoft press conference preview? :>
I was blown away by Crytek's trailer, that was probably PC based, or just rendered offline, but still in-engine.

 

[L. Scofield]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-e3-microsoft
Richard why did You skipped RYSE on Your Microsoft press conference preview? :>
I was blown away by Crytek's trailer, that was probably PC based, or just rendered offline, but still in-engine.

Didn't seem in-engine to me.

Non-blurry footage would help.

 

[AlNom]

It didn't seem real-time to me. Some of the assets looked like game-quality, but the lack of aliasing was pretty apparent throughout.

 

[KKRT]

I can agree that fighting scene is CG, but those scenes are clearly in-engine

Bad textures, shadow and low res reflection.
http://strony.aster.pl/kakarotto/ryse_1.jpg

Bad textures and geometry, but good shaders.
http://strony.aster.pl/kakarotto/ryse_2.jpg
http://strony.aster.pl/kakarotto/ryse_3.jpg
http://strony.aster.pl/kakarotto/ryse_4.jpg

 

[L. Scofield]

They could have used game assets and render them off-line.

 

[AlNom]

That's what I meant by game-quality, but anti-aliased beyond real-time. Just look at all the edges.

 

[AlNom]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-modern-warfare-3-performance-analysis

Promising... I was quite impressed during the presentation towards the end as it did seem quite smooth during the speed boat section.

 

[Ruskie]

Yap!Other than that intro section(with submarine water splashes) everything seemed to be pretty damn smooth.I was kinda impressed by how good MW3 looked,especially indoor lighting,character and weapon models(IMO best in bizz).Still...dunno why all the hate about it looking outdated

 

[dragonelite]

Yap!Other than that intro section(with submarine water splashes) everything seemed to be pretty damn smooth.I was kinda impressed by how good MW3 looked,especially indoor lighting,character and weapon models(IMO best in bizz).Still...dunno why all the hate about it looking outdated

The whole bf3 vs cod mw3 thing that is going on the bizz.
With bf3 using high specced pc and cod being on consoles.
Then you have the 30 fps vs 60 fps most of the people on other site forget.

Still dont understand kinda like what kojima said cod being a action blockbuster movie and bf3 being more of a documentary and i like both forms of filming if done right like i do with my games. And it is cool to hate popular things im sure if bf3 sold 15 million and bf4 also does it people will start to hate it.

 

[ultragpu]

Yap!Other than that intro section(with submarine water splashes) everything seemed to be pretty damn smooth.I was kinda impressed by how good MW3 looked,especially indoor lighting,character and weapon models(IMO best in bizz).Still...dunno why all the hate about it looking outdated

Well technically aside from being 60fps, there's really not much to praise about it is there? It's really lacking the blim blim such as HDR, Deferred Rendering, SSAO, MLAA, advanced physics, shaders etc, the engine just reeks grandpa tech to my eyes. Oh and the 600p res on consoles isn't helping either.

 

[AlNom]

The lighting indoors is quite good, and the water tech appears quite good on the sea there.

But anyways, the whole point is that they've more or less pulled off 16ms frame time. It may be sub-HD and lacking in some other technical checkpoints, but they do have some awesome character modeling & shaders to go along with them (skin & animation).

 

[Ruskie]

Well technically aside from being 60fps, there's really not much to praise about it is there? It's really lacking the blim blim such as HDR, Deferred Rendering, SSAO, MLAA, advanced physics, shaders etc, the engine just reeks grandpa tech to my eyes. Oh and the 600p res on consoles isn't helping either.

No,its obvious that IW created and updated their engine in the ways that its best suited for 60fps.Can you imagine any other engine(CE3,UE3 etc.) pulling out those visuals at twice the frame rate their games run now?

I think that majority of players don't have problems with COD graphics,I bet alot of them wouldn't even notice the difference between MW3 and other high profile FPS games because of quality that IW puts in the game.From art to assets,everything is really high quality.Character models,weapon models(best in business IMO),facial models and shaders and indoor lighting,its all very very good for 60fps(their DOF is also very nice).The fact that its missing HDR,SSAO and motion blur tells nothing since KZ3 for example misses both,HDR and SSAO and it runs at twice less frames,but who cares?

 

[Rangers]

Too me the 600p of MW has always sort of "canceled out" the 60 FPS in terms of what graphic quality they can bring. EG, it's amazing they pull these graphics at 60, but OTOH they correspondingly "cheat" by rendering 1/3 less pixels. So it kind of evens out to a 720P 30 FPS game, is the way I look at it.

Then again I doubt it's an even trade, I think in laymens terms it might be "2x" as hard to render at 60 frames, whereas it's only "one third easier" to render at 600p, if that makes sense So I think overall it's still perhaps one third more difficult to render 60/600 than 720/30.

Anyway, I've always preferred better graphics over 60 FPS, and thought MW should drop to 30 FPS. However since MW sells so well I thought it would be crazy to change. HOWEVER, I think BF3 is getting a lot of attention based mostly of it's graphics, so IF it actually ends up cutting into MW 3's sales, then I think MW could look at a change. I think they should try 30 FPS for the campaign perhaps with increasing the graphics correspondingly, and maybe keep 60/lesser graphics for the MP where it counts? Just an idea.

 

[Boxercide]

I think the "best in class/business" weapon models are highly subjective.

The IW is pretty long in the tooth. I'd point out God of War III as another game that has comparable 'perceptual 60 fps' that has a whole lot more advanced tech.

There's nothing wrong with an engine aging. I'd saw the IW engine has aged rather gracefully, but its end seems to be near. I'd be surprised if they used it beyond the current console cycle.

 

[L. Scofield]

Too me the 600p of MW has always sort of "canceled out" the 60 FPS in terms of what graphic quality they can bring. EG, it's amazing they pull these graphics at 60, but OTOH they correspondingly "cheat" by rendering 1/3 less pixels. So it kind of evens out to a 720P 30 FPS game, is the way I look at it.

Then again I doubt it's an even trade, I think in laymens terms it might be "2x" as hard to render at 60 frames, whereas it's only "one third easier" to render at 600p, if that makes sense So I think overall it's still perhaps one third more difficult to render 60/600 than 720/30.

Anyway, I've always preferred better graphics over 60 FPS, and thought MW should drop to 30 FPS. However since MW sells so well I thought it would be crazy to change. HOWEVER, I think BF3 is getting a lot of attention based mostly of it's graphics, so IF it actually ends up cutting into MW 3's sales, then I think MW could look at a change. I think they should try 30 FPS for the campaign perhaps with increasing the graphics correspondingly, and maybe keep 60/lesser graphics for the MP where it counts? Just an idea.

That's like saying anything Naughty Dog has achieved this gen is canceled out by the linear nature of their games

 

[Nesh]

That's like saying anything Naughty Dog has achieved this gen is canceled out by the linear nature of their games

The "cut backs" in COD games are far more than any kind of linearity that is in Uncharted or any other top of the line game. So no it is not the same.
Personally I find COD games overrated in the graphical department compared to other games and in the design of the single player campaign. The multiplayer is what keeps it strong. I certainly dont put it the league of extraordinary visual achievements. Not including the unreleased COD since I havent seen it yet

 

[ct03]

That's like saying anything Naughty Dog has achieved this gen is canceled out by the linear nature of their games

Technologically speaking that's not too far from the truth, is it? They could not do what they do if their games were set in open world environments.

 

[Npl]

Technologically speaking that's not too far from the truth, is it? They could not do what they do if their games were set in open world environments.

I dont think there are much limitations that would make UC2 look worse on a technical level. Its not as levels are as confined as say GoW or isometric games, they are linear but pretty "wide".
From gameplay and pacing it would certainly impact the game (negatively) or just turn it into something completely different, but thats not the point.

Just look at their PS2 efforts which were open world and still looked better than pretty much every game on that console.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I dont think there are much limitations that would make UC2 look worse on a technical level.

Previous discussion, spearheaded mostly by Laa-Yosh at the time, identified that the controlled flow of the game meant assets could be very tightly controlled for streaming, adding more artistry than a more open world game could accommodate. ND are technical masterminds, but there is a difference between what is fundamentally possible in terms of how a game looks in a game like GTA compared to a story-driven progressive game like Uncharted that leads the player from one area to another. Should ND make a GTA clone, it wouldn't look as rich and detailed as Uncharted, and possibly would have to make cutbacks in other areas like AA and post effects.

This is true of every game, that compromises are made in one area or other to enable what is wanted. 60fps @ 600p is a trade off of resolution, as 30fps @ 720p is a trade off of framerate, and somewhat linear environment with more controlled streaming is a trade off to enable richer graphics, while a cur back in visuals enables more open, changeable environments.