Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2013]

[Deleted member 11852]

This was the first time I actually seen any full-res screenshots of the game. Had just seen the on-line stream from e3 conference this far. And Wow! Is this game UGLY!

Most people won't see it like this, they'll see it in movement. And when you're playing it, you're not focussing on that terrible texture just there, you're focussing on the giant mech heading your way at 60fps.

I really value the DF articles, but examining a game frame by frame, isn't how most gamers experience games. At 1280x720 at 30fps, you're being assaulted by 27.6 million pixels a second. And unlike your ears, your eyes are easily fooled.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Ears are easily fooled too.

 

[djskribbles]

This was the first time I actually seen any full-res screenshots of the game. Had just seen the on-line stream from e3 conference this far. And Wow! Is this game UGLY!

Other than the shimmering, it's really not ugly at all when you're playing it IMO. But like I said in the other thread, I don't know why they upped the resolution to 1440x1080 from 1280x1080... I would rather them target 720p.

 

[Arwin]

It's still really ugly. There are some cool effects here and there, but bits of this look decidedly on the current-gen side of things, and even then they're ugly.

But that said, gameplay is king, and this game seems to be poised to deliver that in spades. Like I said earlier, it really reminds me of Warhawk/Starhawk, and that's really not a bad thing.

 

[milk]

Most people won't see it like this, they'll see it in movement. And when you're playing it, you're not focussing on that terrible texture just there, you're focussing on the giant mech heading your way at 60fps.

I really value the DF articles, but examining a game frame by frame, isn't how most gamers experience games. At 1280x720 at 30fps, you're being assaulted by 27.6 million pixels a second. And unlike your ears, your eyes are easily fooled.

It looks ugly when analysing it's screenshots frame-by-frame vs other games' frame-by-frame screenshots. If you pick an avarage looking, not even superb looking, current gen game, and put it's screenshot next to a screenshot of this, resolution aside, a person that wouldn't know any of them would have dificulty deciding wich one is for Xbo and which is for 360. It is last geny in every department: textures, lighting, models, shading... I'm sure the ps360 port will look about the same.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It looks ugly when analysing it's screenshots frame-by-frame vs other games' frame-by-frame screenshots. If you pick an avarage looking, not even superb looking, current gen game, and put it's screenshot next to a screenshot of this, resolution aside, a person that wouldn't know any of them would have dificulty deciding wich one is for Xbo and which is for 360. It is last geny in every department: textures, lighting, models, shading... I'm sure the ps360 port will look about the same.

I think you missed my point, which is most gamers don't experience a game by analysing one frame to another. They just play the game. They don't see the ropey texture there, or compromised lighting there. They live in the 60fps world and focus on what the game does well.

And I still maintain that rendering resolution, quality of textures, quality of lighting and shadows, probably aren't perceptible to the greater majority. But things like trees that don't animate, well they look unnatural whichever way you cut it. Trees don't behave like that in the real world, nor in most games that have come out in the 360/PS3 generation. That stuff sticks out.

 

[Delta9]

They picked up on the lack of motion in the vegetation (trees, grass etc) that really stood out for me. Is this some kind of limitation in the Source engine? I remember playing Half-Life 2 immediately after Far Cry and was very disappointed that the few trees in game were rigid like they were made from iron. Almost nine years later, on nextgen hardware, and we still have metal trees

Maybe this has yet to be implemented but it sticks out like a sore thumb. Given the choice of un-animated vegetation, I'd consider removing it entirely and dropping in something else.

I think it's ridiculous it doesn't have that,even PS2 games do.

 

[GuestLV]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-watch-dogs-on-ps4-tech-analysis

"Clearly it's early days, but judging by the high-quality footage available to us, the image quality on the PS4 version of Watch Dogs does indeed look slightly less refined than in last year's PC demo."

 

[Shortbread]

Just saying...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-watch-dogs-on-ps4-tech-analysis

Ubisoft teams will be optimising right up to the last minute, not to mention moving onto newer versions of the PlayStation 4 SDK - but it was a concern nonetheless.

I'll wait for some new "direct" game feed before judging - as well as Titanfall.

 

[hesido]

Watch dogs could sure use some screen space reflections, to fix those gloss bleeding. It's not an immediately noticeable IQ increase, but in motion, when objects block the specular highlights, the whole scene comes together.

 

[Gitaroo]

I like DF articles but that watch dog one is a bit silly without a real demo to test on any system. Like Farcry 3, pc version of WD may not even look as good as it was initially shown. Ubi is kind of known for their bs demo.

 

[Rangers]

I like DF articles but that watch dog one is a bit silly without a real demo to test on any system. Like Farcry 3, pc version of WD may not even look as good as it was initially shown. Ubi is kind of known for their bs demo.

except on pc where there is practically unlimited power if you are willing to pay for it, why would they remove anything they went to the trouble to code up?

just throw a geforce titan at it worst case, it'll run.

 

[Gitaroo]

except on pc where there is practically unlimited power if you are willing to pay for it, why would they remove anything they went to the trouble to code up?

just throw a geforce titan at it worst case, it'll run.

I am talking about this

http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=504792

they beefed up a particular scene just for show, final game never look as good. What hardware you got won't matter.

 

[Rangers]

I am talking about this

http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=504792

they beefed up a particular scene just for show, final game never look as good. What hardware you got won't matter.

Some of those pics look shady, I'm skeptical. Example, bottom two right look really bad, I'm sure PC doesn't look like that. Only top left-right looks like a definitive difference.

It's too easy to lie with pictures...I prefer video.

Edit: there is video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mqnAbRpyqfI#at=117 but I'm still kind of skeptical. Reason those PC pics I mentioned looked so bad is cause the PC video it's taken from looks that bad. It seems much more compressed than the left side video.

It does seem PC retail was lower perhaps, but I dont see why, it must have been dumbed down towards consoles? Still dont see why...

 

[Gitaroo]

there are videos on youtube in that link, nothing shady about the comparison. Only thing that is shady is Ubi, everything they showed was BS. I played the game to death on PC with max setting, most of the assets don't even look as good as the first trailer. Not the first time from UBI, I don't think this will be the last.

 

[Rangers]

sure, the right side of the video quality is terrible. you can tell by the stills. biased comparison.

Edit: Actually the video is lo Q on both sides, it's more the gaffer used PR pics vs LQ video stills I think.

I think the PC retail side of the video looks about as good to me. I see some differences but they seem more like art differences than tech ones. The foliage looks about the same quality.

 

[ultragpu]

This doesn't bode well for The Division judging from Ubi's track record. I wonder how much would get toned down for the console versions. I'll be god damned if it was actually running on the PS4 hardware though.

 

[Strange]

This doesn't bode well for The Division judging from Ubi's track record. I wonder how much would get toned down for the console versions. I'll be god damned if it was actually running on the PS4 hardware though.

I'm pretty sure they are running on PS4 hardware. If they were going to cheat their way out, we'd be sure to see it in the form of perfect fps (which didn't exactly happen, it was just very smooth between 29~30fps with imperfections) or some sort of obvious problems that we saw from things such as the BF4 showing.

It seems to me that developers aren't that good at hiding what their code is running on when they don't run them at what everybody expects them to run on.

 

[ultragpu]

I'm pretty sure they are running on PS4 hardware. If they were going to cheat their way out, we'd be sure to see it in the form of perfect fps (which didn't exactly happen, it was just very smooth between 29~30fps with imperfections) or some sort of obvious problems that we saw from things such as the BF4 showing.

It seems to me that developers aren't that good at hiding what their code is running on when they don't run them at what everybody expects them to run on.

Interesting they could get The Division running at that quality yet struggled to match WD's initial showing. Snow Drop engine might have some real potential if that's the case.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

This doesn't bode well for The Division judging from Ubi's track record. I wonder how much would get toned down for the console versions. I'll be god damned if it was actually running on the PS4 hardware though.

The only versions announced are console versions: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but the the official twitter count for the game did tweet the following on 12 June:

@Schanihbg We are optimizing the experience for next gen consoles. However, we are not ruling out any platforms for the future.

The game was certainly seen running on platforms connected a Dual Shock 4 with yellow LED at E3. Not that this necessarily means it was an actual PS4 or a PS4 devkit.