Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2011]

[Npl]

if ND takes U2 and allows players to run off the path into repeating woods/building that would make it "open world" with pretty much the same quality on 1 path, just a pretty sparsely designed one in terms of story and content (off the path)... but thats pretty much the norm with open world games, lots of repeating stuff everywhere.

So there wont be more unique stuff, just the same amount repeating. you could also place your unique stuff around sparsely placed over a bigger area but then you are turning it into a different game - so thats more of a design issue/preference and not a technical limitation.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's not as simple as that. A truly open world game like GTA may have a daylight cycle that U2 doesn't, which factors into the lighting requirements. Also GTA may have distance views that incorporate many more lights or objects. Uncharted's distance views can be carefully managed - eg. you only see a long way from two buildings, so only need design multiple light sources in view for those situations. Might try baking the light info in those case. Whereas in something like Infamous of GTA you have to support a view from any building and even the potential for rapid changes in view.

If you want to discuss that further it'd be worth revisiting the original discussion. This thread could very easily be completely derailed by an attempt to compare different genres on technical merits that are hard for anyone not privvy to sourcecode and a dev kit to acutally appreciate.

 

[AlNom]

eg. you only see a long way from two buildings, so only need design multiple light sources in view for those situations.

And asset LOD that is just good enough!

 

[NRP]

Too me the 600p of MW has always sort of "canceled out" the 60 FPS in terms of what graphic quality they can bring.

That's just because you don't get it. CoD is a multiplayer game. And 60 FPS is so much more important to a MP shooter game than graphical bling.

 

[obonicus]

That's not really a technical argument, though.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

It's not as simple as that. A truly open world game like GTA may have a daylight cycle that U2 doesn't, which factors into the lighting requirements. Also GTA may have distance views that incorporate many more lights or objects. Uncharted's distance views can be carefully managed - eg. you only see a long way from two buildings, so only need design multiple light sources in view for those situations. Might try baking the light info in those case. Whereas in something like Infamous of GTA you have to support a view from any building and even the potential for rapid changes in view.

If you want to discuss that further it'd be worth revisiting the original discussion. This thread could very easily be completely derailed by an attempt to compare different genres on technical merits that are hard for anyone not privvy to sourcecode and a dev kit to acutally appreciate.

Is there any practical way we could go from speculation/hoping to actual facts, concerning U2? I would like to find out, if this is U2's case or not.

 

[Barbarian]

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.

A PS3 only, 3+ years in development, no multiplayer, fixed camera game is hardly an apple-to-apples comparison now is it?

Just because you haven't heard the COD engine using buzzword tech like SSAO and deferred rendering, does in no way mean it's outdated tech. As a matter of fact it takes a lot of engineering brilliance to have an engine run at 60fps and look comparable to all the other 30fps contenders.

The COD engine is like x86 for Intel and Win32 for Microsoft. Everyone likes to proclaim them dated and doomed every few years, while they just keep getting better and stronger.

Oh and by the way, COD:BO does use HDR and advanced physically based lighting/shading. If you want to know more about it, check out my upcoming Siggraph 2011 talk (sorry for the shameless plug).

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

A PS3 only, 3+ years in development, no multiplayer, fixed camera game is hardly an apple-to-apples comparison now is it?

Just because you haven't heard the COD engine using buzzword tech like SSAO and deferred rendering, does in no way mean it's outdated tech. As a matter of fact it takes a lot of engineering brilliance to have an engine run at 60fps and look comparable to all the other 30fps contenders.

The COD engine is like x86 for Intel and Win32 for Microsoft. Everyone likes to proclaim them dated and doomed every few years, while they just keep getting better and stronger.

Oh and by the way, COD:BO does use HDR and advanced physically based lighting/shading. If you want to know more about it, check out my upcoming Siggraph 2011 talk (sorry for the shameless plug).

Here we go with the fixed camera stuff, again. SMS already squashed that as a logical rebuttal.

 

[Barbarian]

Here we go with the fixed camera stuff, again. SMS already squashed that as a logical rebuttal.

I must have missed the "squashing". Can you provide me with a link?

 

[nightshade]

I must have missed the "squashing". Can you provide me with a link?

Here you go
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=56605

 

[L. Scofield]

Is there any practical way we could go from speculation/hoping to actual facts, concerning U2? I would like to find out, if this is U2's case or not.

Actually, those saying that an open world Uncharted would look just as good are those that need to provide facts.

The trade-offs have already been pointed out. Can you prove they're wrong?

 

[joker454]

Here we go with the fixed camera stuff, again. SMS already squashed that as a logical rebuttal.

Assuming you have played both games, then you should know that the camera control on both games simply aren't comparable. Also Cod, unlike most claimed 60fps console games, actually does run at 60fps. Gow3 and many other claimed 60fps games frequently run at much lower frame rate, even going as low as 15 to 20fps. Finally I'd add that running true 60fps is more than twice as hard to achieve as 30fps or occaisional 60fps games. These items make Cod actually quite impressive considering what they accomplish on such old hardware. I joke with friends that console 60fps actually means that the game runs at 60fps 51% of the time, but Cod keeps the frame rate high fairly consistently.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

Assuming you have played both games, then you should know that the camera control on both games simply aren't comparable. Also Cod, unlike most claimed 60fps console games, actually does run at 60fps. Gow3 and many other claimed 60fps games frequently run at much lower frame rate, even going as low as 15 to 20fps. Finally I'd add that running true 60fps is more than twice as hard to achieve as 30fps or occaisional 60fps games. These items make Cod actually quite impressive considering what they accomplish on such old hardware. I joke with friends that console 60fps actually means that the game runs at 60fps 51% of the time, but Cod keeps the frame rate high fairly consistently.

PS360's tests revealed that COD is not a solid 60fps game.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

Actually, those saying that an open world Uncharted would look just as good are those that need to provide facts.

The trade-offs have already been pointed out. Can you prove they're wrong?

Possible trade-offs have been listed. Whether or not those all apply to U2 is undetermined (hence the use of the words "may have" and "can be").

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Possible trade-offs have been listed. Whether or not those all apply to U2 is undetermined (hence the use of the words "may have" and "can be").

My last post here as this is way too OT. The reason I list possible trade-offs is because I don't know exactly which ones are in effect. A simple logical look at the finite resources of these consoles shows that you can't do everything, and that same simple logic will show that, if you want to make your game look the best it can, you will fine tune what it is doing to fit the resources available. Forza 4 can render photorealistic cities, but Saint's Row could never afford those resources. Ergo if the U2 engine is capable of rendering that quality in a GTA clone, then ND were stupid and spent resources where they weren't needed and the game could have looked better!

You cannot look at two 3rd person games and make technical observations about underlying efficiency. To understand which games are doing what better, you need to know what they are doing under the hood. None of us know that. Obviously we can make general observations between good code and not-so-good, and also about the improvement of software engineering through the analysis of games, so we can look at the BF3 and see they are doing some very good things with Frostbite. What we cannot do is the side-by-side comparisons that many try. Different games with different requirements, some of which you can't see, need to use the resources in different ways. Hence why comparisons are typically frowned upon here, because they tend to be argued on both sides by people who don't really know what they're talking about (me included because I don't know everything that U2, COD and GTA4 are doing to produce their graphics and games)!

Anyway, the comparison of different game tech belongs in the Game Tech thread if people want to take it there.

 

[dragonelite]

Here you go
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=56605

Can't you consider highly scripted as a fixed camera.
Atleast i thought the definition of a fixed camera was that the player can't control it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Can't you consider highly scripted as a fixed camera.
Atleast i thought the definition of a fixed camera was that the player can't control it.

That topic has its own thread! Don't restart that debate here, please.

 

[nightshade]

Assuming you have played both games, then you should know that the camera control on both games simply aren't comparable. Also Cod, unlike most claimed 60fps console games, actually does run at 60fps. Gow3 and many other claimed 60fps games frequently run at much lower frame rate, even going as low as 15 to 20fps. Finally I'd add that running true 60fps is more than twice as hard to achieve as 30fps or occaisional 60fps games. These items make Cod actually quite impressive considering what they accomplish on such old hardware. I joke with friends that console 60fps actually means that the game runs at 60fps 51% of the time, but Cod keeps the frame rate high fairly consistently.

I don't recall a moment while playing or in any of the DF framerate analysis where the FPS went as low as 15-20FPS in GOW3.
Also from what it seems GOW3's performance is fairly close to Blops on PS3.

 

[joker454]

PS360's tests revealed that COD is not a solid 60fps game.

I only saw the 360 version of Cod MW2 tests and they ran fairly consistently > 50fps, usually > 55fps. Everyone claimed both versions of the game ran identically so I presume PS3 version framerate is identical.

I don't recall a moment while playing or in any of the DF framerate analysis where the FPS went as low as 15-20FPS in GOW3.

The first pedestal you come across in the game, when you use it the frame rate dipped into the sub 30fps range. Also the game itself often does not play as 60fps and frequently does not feel 60fps except when the camera positioning is favorable to framerate, a luxury the Cod games don't have. This is easy to spot because I pc game on the same tv so a true 60fps game is patently obvious when compared to one that isn't, and console 60fps games rarely actually are hence my 51% joke. Cod on the other hand was one of the few console 60fps games I played that actually was 60fps most of the time, which made it really impressive considering what they do, and it made it more playable than most games in multiplayer because of that.

 

[Heinrich4]

Thats very interesting ... Duke Nuken using FXAA in ps3:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-duke-nukem-forever-face-off