Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2011]

[jlippo]

It's two files per "area"... i.e. "wasteland.pageLines" and "wasteland.pages" (the first one seemingly being a toc of some sorts). So there's no telling what resolutions these files have inside them. The sizes for the "pages" files range from 50MB to 1.7GB (which is a file that stands out, as it has an underscore in front of it... probably npc models etc.).

If their biggest texture is 1.7GB I can understand why they do not use DXT as main compression format.

How big are those files combined?
128k x 128k texture should be huge even with high compression.
If it's only 1.7GB the compression ratio is around 1:40 and thats without normal or specular channels.

 

[ultragpu]

The impression I got was that PS3 dropped to 640x720 much more often.

Yes, but I was hoping DF could provide numbers for the percentage of staying HD res though. Also it's weird the frame buffer drops when nothing was going on, the engine seems to need more optimization.

 

[Ruskie]

Yes, but I was hoping DF could provide numbers for the percentage of staying HD res though. Also it's weird the frame buffer drops when nothing was going on, the engine seems to need more optimization.

It seems to drop when there is bigger geometry complexity, at least it seems that way. Engine surely needs more optimization, say 120 fps, something like that

 

[ultragpu]

It seems to drop when there is bigger geometry complexity, at least it seems that way. Engine surely needs more optimization, say 120 fps, something like that

Yeah It can run at 240 fps with ps1 level texture res "in fact there's quite a lot of them in the actual game", that is if increasing fps is your idea of engine optimization.

 

[Ruskie]

Yeah It can run at 240 fps with ps1 level texture res "in fact there's quite a lot of them in the actual game", that is if increasing fps is your idea of engine optimization.

We don't know how much of game runs at lower resolution, but judging by DF comparison shot section, big majority seems native 720p, at least on 360. They could gone for not dropping resolution but frames, no body would give a crap, but both of those things are trade offs. They traded resolution in some instances while other developers trade performance.

 

[dragonelite]

We don't know how much of game runs at lower resolution, but judging by DF comparison shot section, big majority seems native 720p, at least on 360. They could gone for not dropping resolution but frames, no body would give a crap, but both of those things are trade offs. They traded resolution in some instances while other developers trade performance.

If the drops arent to high for a couple of seconds dont think the average gamer or press would notice it. Probably would blame it on streaming issues.

 

[Richard]

Uh, could we possibly see some tech interviews with maybe id, Epic, DICE, or Codemasters in the near future? Haven't had those in a while. :smile:

Apart from DICE, is there anything else to ask given the current console focus?

 

[kagemaru]

We don't know how much of game runs at lower resolution, but judging by DF comparison shot section, big majority seems native 720p, at least on 360. They could gone for not dropping resolution but frames, no body would give a crap, but both of those things are trade offs. They traded resolution in some instances while other developers trade performance.

I'll take small black bars on the top and bottom of my screen over dropped frame any day. I played both console betas and while I was going back and forth, the black bars in the ps3 version never really distracted me or even caught my attention from the action on screen.

 

[Cyan]

We don't know how much of game runs at lower resolution, but judging by DF comparison shot section, big majority seems native 720p, at least on 360. They could gone for not dropping resolution but frames, no body would give a crap, but both of those things are trade offs. They traded resolution in some instances while other developers trade performance.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that I notice it when a game drops a single frame, but framerate drops are pretty noticeable for me, while resolution drops are more difficult to discern, in my view.

I really love consistent framerates. If you can play Rage at 60FPS while still maintaining it's graphical beauty, id say it really shows iD's technical prowess. -although Carmack's heyday is gone since long ago, they are still fine-.

I rather prefer 60 fps, 720p -with the odd drop here and there- than maintaining the 30fps standard, in this case.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

-although Carmack's heyday is gone since long ago, they are still fine-.

Carmack's greatest skill has always been to take existing graphics related research material, sort out the most interesting ones that can significantly enhance the current state of the art, and then implement it as efficiently as possible.

Smooth 2D scrolling on a PC. Raycasting once per column. BSP, lightmaps, client-server architecture. Normal mapping, stencil shadows. Virtual texturing. Just to name a few...

I'd say he's still ahead of most and we can still look forward to whatever he eventually does next. Will it be voxels or some other form of virtualized geometry, I think even he can't tell, but that's also part of what makes the man a serious force; he's open minded enough to recognize the right direction.

 

[tabs]

Technically on some level Rage is great, but what does the end-user see? A lifeless, low res painting with little to no interaction. You may look but you may not touch. It's occasionally truly beautiful, but at the expense (it seems) of gameplay.

I'm just not getting the thinking that Carmack is ahead of the curve any more.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Technically on some level Rage is great, but what does the end-user see? A lifeless, low res painting with little to no interaction. You may look but you may not touch. It's occasionally truly beautiful, but at the expense (it seems) of gameplay.

You just described like 95% of the games out there. It's unfair to criticize Rage for it... stuff like Gears of War 3 has just a tiny bit more interaction, at most.

I'm just not getting the thinking that Carmack is ahead of the curve any more.

Then you're wrong. Rage is a completely next generation game in terms of datasets and memory management.

 

[kagemaru]

Technically on some level Rage is great, but what does the end-user see? A lifeless, low res painting with little to no interaction. You may look but you may not touch. It's occasionally truly beautiful, but at the expense (it seems) of gameplay.

I'm just not getting the thinking that Carmack is ahead of the curve any more.

He's no less ahead of the curve than he was at the dawn of the current generation. With Doom 3, he was looking into stencil shadowing and normal maps before many other studios. Now with RAGE, he's been working on virtual textures for the last 4-5 years and that too looks like it'll gain in popularity. The delays in RAGE haven't helped, but this is the first time they've developed for 3 systems simultaneously.

Regardless if it's his influence or his forward thinking, many of the things he researches are also the things that become common practice in the industry.

 

[TheWretched]

Well, I think Rage is technically top notch. Running at locked 60Hz in nearly all situations is quite a feat, in my opinion. Yes, there are drawbacks, which mostly come from consolitis, like the very low res texture in a lot of cases, but the rest is just great. Just compare Rage in terms of open worlded-ness to the likes of Fallout. There's simply NO competition there, and Fallout already has 2 iterations out there (where the second one didn't look any different to the first one). And it's not just graphics either. I think the AI is pretty good, and the animation system is also one of the better ones.

And that on an engine that runs pretty well on PC too. A lot of console-targetted games currently often run like ass on PC, case in point GTA4 and Assassin's Creed, which both barely edge out the console variants in terms of performance on my PC, although with much higher settings, which don't change much graphically in AC. And my PC isn't too slow either (Phenom 2 X4 945 and a 6870 Radeon).

 

[tabs]

Perhaps I would be more impressed if I were gaming on a console. As far as a tech demo goes, on PC it is lacking. As far as a game goes, it is average. That's what I meant about being ahead of the curve. I realise he is inventing or implementing new techniques that others may choose to adopt, but from a gamer's perspective... meh.

If what he's been doing the last 5 years is so wonderful, why aren't I seeing the benefits of it? Am I just not part of the target audience?

Damn, I sound like a bitter PC gamer. I don't mean to. I appreciate the technical achievement of 60FPS with nice looking backgrounds on aged hardware, but I don't feel like pretty untouchable backgrounds are everything.

I suppose what I need to be told is:

How is this new tech relevant to me, a PC gamer who games at resolutions greatly in excess of 720p? How will others use it to make the most of the myriad of powerful rigs we have now? Are we still going to have piss-poor texture resolution unless we have games on 6 DVDs?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Couple of things to consider, which should be kinda self-explanatory IMHO

- The often criticized "low" texture resolution (2 to 5 texels per inch according to the presentation linked in one of the Rage threads, btw) is the result of a compromise; a smaller game world would be able to increase the density while staying at the 22 GB size. An everyday corridor shooter could get far more detailed textures, but id choose to display rich landscapes and include driving, too. It is not a tech related issue, and also, once we can buy 100GB sized games, even a similar game world could get another increase in texture detail (which should be about enough for 1920x1080)

- Dynamic lighting and scenery are perfectly possible with virtual textures as well, Rage is once again only one possible compromise where id felt that the superior quality of the baked lighting outweighs the loss of superficial scenery interactivity. But there's no reason why it wouldn't be possible to add complete destructability and dynamic lights to the engine. Don't forget that they went all dynamic with Doom3 and learned some pretty important lessons with that (like, customers don't actually give a damn about full dynamic lighting).

- Virtualizing textures is a revolutionary step for two reasons: the entire memory and background storage management system can be completely reworked, with many former constrains removed (especially as we get faster media, HDD or SSD). And also, just as importantly, art content creation is drastically changed once again (after the introduction of normal mapping), assuming that other studios will implement it as well - which Lionhead already did.

 

[tabs]

I see that I have more of a problem with this game than the technology behind it then. I was assigning some of my crits of its failings to megatexture, rather than the choice of 60FPS on consoles. Well props to Carmack if this really is the start of a new big thing that brings the graphical lovelies up a few notches for the rest of us. Bring on Doom 4.

Lionhead have already used megatexture? What games? I've played Fable 3 and it was pants.

I'm not saying this to be disagreeable, but I really do care about dynamic lighting. Makes a world of difference to me. The problem with Doom 3 was that there weren't enough lights that you could affect (i.e. move physically or shoot out).

 

[TheWretched]

No, they haven't released a game with it yet... Lionhead only showed tech demos for now.

But in any case. For an old school gamer like me, I actually quite liked the gameplay in Rage. I usually pretty much hate most FPS games today, but Rage I did like. I can't really qualify why this is, though.

There's some stuff that should've been more fleshed out, like the exploration within the wasteland, which was pretty much nonexistant in most parts. But absolutely LOVED the Wingstick and Sentry Bots. It was really FUN to use them.

About dynamic lighting... I am not sure. Why would I want to shoot them out in Rage? It isn't a sneaking game like Deus Ex or Splinter Cell. And day/night transitions didn't really matter either. I'd rather have GOOD shadowing (though a lot of baked shadows looked like ass) than jaggy shadows with dynamic lights. In most cases Rage wasn't a dark game at all, so a flashlight etc. wouldn't make sense. And given that this game actually runs at 60Hz on all consoles and most PCs, if they aren't too old, I think it was the right choice to make. Adding dynamic lights in this game, you'd lose your 60Hz and gain pretty much nothing in return, at least if the game stayed the same from start to finish.

 

[tabs]

I wasn't talking about the applicability of dynamic lighting in Rage, I tend to agree with you, just the statement that 'Nobody cares about dynamic lighting'.

I love Painkiller, probably more than any other SP shooter and that's old school. I just don't get the same vibe out of Rage as I do with that. I guess I like the guns to do something, and the physical response of enemies has never felt right with me in Doom 3 or Rage. It seems like theres a quick animation then perfect stillness.

I don't like the animations in general, they seem very wooden. Maybe there's not enough keyframes? Poses seem to go quickly from A>B, then quickly from B>C without much regard for the overall flow between the 3 points. That combined with the lack of moveable anything just makes it feel like ... well the very upset Ars reviewer said it best, a museum, and one with a few moving exhibits when you push the button.

Laa-Yosh mentioned Gears of War, but I didn't like that game very much for it's lack of interaction and terrible lighting, though the animations were pretty good IIRC. I understand GoW3 has better lighting, but I doubt it's coming to PC.

I suppose massive interactivity is my thing. That's why I love Fear, Painkiller, BF3, Crysis etc. and not so much COD, GoW and Rage. I want stuff to do stuff, or at least give me enough enemies and/or things to think about so I don't notice, like BF2, Serious Sam etc.

 

[joker454]

- The often criticized "low" texture resolution (2 to 5 texels per inch according to the presentation linked in one of the Rage threads, btw) is the result of a compromise; a smaller game world would be able to increase the density while staying at the 22 GB size.

Hmm, you know the above tidbit makes me wonder if iD is banking more on future consoles and not on future pc's. To eliminate the low res texture look means they would need > 5x the megatexture data which becomes a problem on pc due to dvd/download still being the primary game delivery methods now and for the foreseable future, whereas that likely won't be a problem on next gen consoles that could easily ship standard with 100gb optical media. So if a fully sharp megatexture game needs 200gb total them no big deal on the next consoles, ship two 100gb discs whereas on pc downloading 200gb becomes problematic, and 200gb on dvd's could get icky.