Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2013]

[Nesh]

I wasnt expecting the PS3 to outperform the PS2 version in all aspects either even though, even after considering that.
The first suspicion before the patch suggested that it was the bandwidth and VRAM limitations the likely cause. This suspicion was widely accepted. Experience also suggested the same, when we repeatedly saw PS3 versions of multiplatform games sacrificing the quality of transparencies and particle heavy effects compared to the 360 versions.
We all knew that the PS2 was a fill rate monster. The post patch results are very surprising and unexpected :smile:

 

[SlimJim]

But did you ever question the notion, "you CAN really screw up badly if you don't use the hardware properly"?

Nope, I will never question such a notion. I will thank Ubisoft for that knowledge

29-Aug-2013 12:34
Nesh
I wasnt expecting the PS3 to outperform the PS2 version in all aspects either even though, even after considering that.
The first suspicion before the patch suggested that it was the bandwidth and VRAM limitations the likely cause. This suspicion was widely accepted. Experience also suggested the same, when we repeatedly saw PS3 versions of multiplatform games sacrificing the quality of transparencies and particle heavy effects compared to the 360 versions.
We all knew that the PS2 was a fill rate monster. The post patch results are very surprising and unexpected

I fully agree!
It makes me wonder if other games could have benefitted from Hexadrives' approach as well. Even AAA PS3 exclusives are pretty light on full-res transparency buffers so there definitely has to be a trick in the case of ZOE2..

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I fully agree!
It makes me wonder if other games could have benefitted from Hexadrives' approach as well. Even AAA PS3 exclusives are pretty light on full-res transparency buffers so there definitely has to be a trick in the case of ZOE2..

ZoE2 is a simple game. Much of PS3's processing power would be redundant, so can be turned to processing special effects. In a contemporary game, there won't be many spare cycles (unless they are being grossly inefficient in use of Cell) to spend improving particle effect rendering. I always said some effects could be rendered differently on Cell using alternative methods - it's a pretty ideal solution in principle. One such modern alternative is rendering thin geometry like power cables. This was done with triangles and was prone to aliasing at the beginning of the gen. Now some games use a line drawing algorithm. This is facilitated with deferred rendering. Different algorithms can be used for different aspects of the game and the whole lot composited. Which ties in with the BF4 discussion about what constitutes resolution these days. There can be so many different buffers, there's no singular measure.

But the take-home point is devs are very clever, and given enough time and budget and freedom, they rethink old ideas and come up with incredible solutions. Opportunity to experiment and try new things is imperative. The new ZoE2 is only managing what it is because Kojima had a sense of pride and was willing to spend against probable business sense to make a better game. With no deadline of a launch window on a patch, HexaDrive clearly had time to experiment and find better solutions. If every game had that luxury, software technologies would progress at a faster rate.

 

[Nesh]

I dont think you two guys disagree. The only difference was that one of you was surprised and the other was not, while both accept the reasons why we finally saw such an improvement

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I dont think you two guys disagree. The only difference was that one of you was surprised and the other was not...

It was hesido who seemed surprised, not myself nor SlimJim.

 

[tuna]

Imagine if Hexadrive redid Bayonetta..
1080P 60fps locked PS3 version?

Don't get me hoping! I want a 360 just for Sega's games (Bayonetta, Rez, Guardian Heroes etc...)

 

[hesido]

My surprise was partly because their first release looks horrendeous next to this latest effort. I think they just managed to execute the game and called it a day on the first one But I'll be honest, I was genuinely surprised at how they managed to quadruple their performance, although I‘d never doubt the importance of optimization.

 

[patsu]

Zone of the Enders: how Konami remade its own HD remake
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-how-konami-remade-zoe-hd-remaster

Incredible effort.

This and PS2 emulation on PS3 surprised me.

 

[HokutoNoKen]

Digital Foundry vs. Resogun

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-resogun

/ Ken

 

[blakjedi]

Digital Foundry vs. Resogun

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-resogun

/ Ken

So basically housemarque is saying this game is only possible on ps4

 

[Arwin]

Note that he's comparing it to PS3 partly, and partly just saying that you need to focus on the strengths of one machine if you want to do something like this.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

So basically housemarque is saying this game is only possible on ps4

No, he's only saying that it's

Resogun definitely would not be possible on this [current] generation of hardware

Meaning PS3/X360. After all just their level geometry uses 500+ MB.

And then after that they wanted to only focus on one machine, and picked the PS4. Coding for multiple platforms means you have to work with the lowest common denominator that is shared by both machines. That generally means the weaker machine is the most limiting factor, but even there the "faster" machine will also impose limits on what you can do as if the slower machine has anything that is potentially faster, you cannot take advantage of that either.

Once they did that then it would not be possible to run on any other platform without compromises as they are exploiting anything related to the PS4. Had they choses the Xbox One, then it wouldn't have been able to be run on any other platform without compromises, as they would have exploited any performance advantages available on that platform. In the second case the game would have come out differently than is currently the case due to the focus on tailoring the game around the hardware.

Regards,
SB

 

[blakjedi]

I dunno it seems explicit here:

"Remember when Mark Cerny talked about GPU compute becoming more important a few years into the PS4 lifecycle? Resogun - a launch title - is already putting the Radeon graphics hardware through its paces with a range of effects that could only be done on a system built upon a surfeit of GPU power, a console like PlayStation 4"

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I dunno it seems explicit here:

"Remember when Mark Cerny talked about GPU compute becoming more important a few years into the PS4 lifecycle? Resogun - a launch title - is already putting the Radeon graphics hardware through its paces with a range of effects that could only be done on a system built upon a surfeit of GPU power, a console like PlayStation 4"

That is Richard's view on it, not a direct quote. And obviously once they picked the PS4, they were going to exploit everything they could about the machine. If they had picked the Xbox One, for whatever reason, then you'd be hearing about whatever tricks they could pull off with the low latency access to the eSRAM pool, or perhaps they would have designed an audio extravaganza, or whatever.

The point being that once they decided to target the PS4 (or any other console), it would not be able to run on any other machine without compromises as it would exploit any unique characteristics of the targeted machine.

Regards,
SB

 

[blakjedi]

It would be interesting to see what that specific team could come up with on Xbox one and how it would differ.

 

[Billy Idol]

It would be interesting to see what that specific team could come up with on Xbox one and how it would differ.

I guess a dev team like Housemarque would try to use the cloud tec for something new and refreshing.

 

[Alucardx23]

Don't know why using a dynamic resolution hasn't become standard by now, especially as you go higher than 720P for next gen.

Inside Killzone: Mercenary

"The engine also engages the dynamic resolution modes in specific conditions where the player is less likely to notice the impact to image quality. If the camera is still, the engine maintains native resolution and frame-rate is allowed to drop - the player is not engaged with the game and visually the lower performance is not so noticeable. It's a really impressive technique, allocating system resources to what matters most at any given moment.

"It is our belief that players are less likely to notice the temporal effects of the resolution reduction when they are in motion (indeed, many of those effects are likely to be shorter-lived if one is moving through the scene). When static, compromises to image quality are likely to be much more noticeable than frame-rate drops - particularly in screenshots," Matt Porter says with a smile."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-killzone-mercenary

 

[Gitaroo]

if they can add camera based motion blur, the res drop is probably even less noticeable.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That gun is going to be mostly static (even with random idle animation) even if the rest of the scene is in motion. That should stick out like a sore thumb in theory.

Regards,
SB

 

[BoardBonobo]

That gun is going to be mostly static (even with random idle animation) even if the rest of the scene is in motion. That should stick out like a sore thumb in theory.

Regards,
SB

Doesn't seem to stand out. I haven't noticed any of the resolution changes whilst playing. It all just looks really slick and yummy, like chocolate