Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2013]

[function]

Install one disk to HDD, one disk to SSD over USB.

BOOM.

Gamechanger.

maybe

 

[taisui]

Clearly I was referring to installing both discs on the 360 version. Whether you install disc two or not, the PS3 version has an advantage in texture filtering or texture streaming. To me, it seems like better AF on the PS3 version. That's ultimately why they gave the nod to the PS3 version, otherwise they're pretty much identical all around.

The technical reason is that on the 360 is that you can "install" all games on the hdd, the console authenticate the disc but loads from the image from the hdd. Most people do that to save the optical drive from spinning.

In few cases, like GTA V, where the loading is optimized to be from both the DVD and the hdd (the mandatory install disc, not the same as an "disc image"), by having both discs on the hdd it actually reduces the loading rate because the console is reading from 1 source instead of 2.

 

[djskribbles]

The technical reason is that on the 360 is that you can "install" all games on the hdd, the console authenticate the disc but loads from the image from the hdd. Most people do that to save the optical drive from spinning.

In few cases, like GTA V, where the loading is optimized to be from both the DVD and the hdd (the mandatory install disc, not the same as an "disc image"), by having both discs on the hdd it actually reduces the loading rate because the console is reading from 1 source instead of 2.

I understand that... Rockstar has even said that they recommend not to install disc 2. But the fact of the matter is, even if you don't install disc 2, it doesn't even things up. Whether it's a bug or the PS3 version has better filtering, DF doesn't know. To me it seems like better AF but I'm not the most technical person here.

 

[taisui]

I understand that... Rockstar has even said that they recommend not to install disc 2. But the fact of the matter is, even if you don't install disc 2, it doesn't even things up. Whether it's a bug or the PS3 version has better filtering, DF doesn't know. To me it seems like better AF but I'm not the most technical person here.

It's the filtering, not sure what DF's confused about.

 

[djskribbles]

I see. So there's two separate issues, streaming and filtering. NOT installing disc 2 fixes the texture streaming issue on the 360 version, but the PS3 version has better filtering?

 

[taisui]

I see. So NOT installing disc 2 fixes the streaming issue, but the PS3 version has better filtering?

Correct, from the slow-mo it looks like it is actually streaming in assets (3d meshes) with more detailed texture, not just the texture.

 

[DrJay24]

It's the filtering, not sure what DF's confused about.

Just look at the screenshots posted above on this page, there is clearly something wrong with the 360 textures, bad AF or over aggressive AA, but it is inferior whether DF says so or not.

 

[N_B]

Textures on 360 seem to use point filtering in the mid-distance

http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/1/6/0/0/7/360_124.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1280x-1
http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/1/6/0/0/7/PS3_124.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1280x-1

See there's a lot more noise around that brown farmland area, and there's visible shimmering in gameplay.

 

[Rangers]

Textures on 360 seem to use point filtering in the mid-distance

http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/1/6/0/0/7/360_124.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1280x-1
http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/1/6/0/0/7/PS3_124.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1280x-1

See there's a lot more noise around that brown farmland area, and there's visible shimmering in gameplay.

The ground on the far upper right over by the small dirt road looks better on 360.

It almost looks like coloring/gamma issues or lack of grass on various areas between the versions.

 

[Rangers]

Now DF says the digital version of GTA5 has serious problems on PS3 major pop in.

Weird

That's a major screw up, really. Maybe they'll patch it.

I suppose it makes sense, and I immediately wondered about it. There's no disc to dual stream from in a digital version. It's HDD stream only of course.

I also wonder if next gen consoles with their mandatory install policies should have issues with aggressive dual stream games like GTA. I suppose an exception could be made?

I saw a guy on youtube talking about a barrier popped in front of his car 2 feet away in GTA5 causing him to crash. Now that I think about it, I bet he had the PS3 digital version. Especially cause he's normally a PC gamer, as well as PlayStation fanboy, buying digital would be normal for him.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It almost looks like coloring/gamma issues or lack of grass on various areas between the versions.

The grass textures are there - they're just blurry/lacking detail. It's clearly not a gamma issue nor a colouring issue. The increase in apparent detail in the ploughed field and area you point out is an oddity, but N_B may be right about that.

I also wonder if next gen consoles with their mandatory install policies should have issues with aggressive dual stream games like GTA. I suppose an exception could be made?

They won't have dual stream. The discs are just a media to distribute the game with no live content that can be streamed (or at least they shouldn't have because you want the same unified install package as the download rather than copying files spread across a disk. It does point to there being less streaming BW for next-gen though, especially with the HDD sharing duties, but the RAM increase may be enough to offset that.

 

[jlippo]

Textures on 360 seem to use point filtering in the mid-distance

http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/1/6/0/0/7/360_124.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1280x-1
http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/1/6/0/0/7/PS3_124.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1280x-1

See there's a lot more noise around that brown farmland area, and there's visible shimmering in gameplay.

Bilinear filtering is there, most likely they do not use full trilinear filtering with anisotropic filtering.
Quite common on x360 as GPU has a quite small texture cache. (32KB)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=1166

 

[-tkf-]

It does point to there being less streaming BW for next-gen though

I think we have to many examples that shows the general harddrive speed on the current consoles to be to slow. I find it strange that a Dual speed Blu-Ray drive can boost the streaming so much that is shows in the PSN version. That can only be caused by a general slow I/O on the current consoles.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-why-we-cant-recommend-GTA5-PSN

 

[The Perculator]

Textures on 360 seem to use point filtering in the mid-distance

http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/1/6/0/0/7/360_124.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1280x-1
http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/1/6/0/0/7/PS3_124.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1280x-1

See there's a lot more noise around that brown farmland area, and there's visible shimmering in gameplay.

it is true! sometimes in mid distance is better on 360 but in general it is much better on ps3, from close and long distance (see the mountains). AF seems to be selective / adaptive anyway

http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/1/6/0/0/7/PS3_130.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1280x-1


http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/1/6/0/0/7/360_130.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1280x-1

 

[Arwin]

It does point to there being less streaming BW for next-gen though, especially with the HDD sharing duties, but the RAM increase may be enough to offset that.

Only relative. HDD speeds should be around 100MB/s on the next-gen consoles, which is probably 5 times or more faster than the current HDD speeds. Apart from this, there's only a fraction of games that makes good use of dual source streaming on consoles.

Still, relative speed could be lower, if you factor in that games will be bigger (but then the size increase of games is likely also not 5x ...)

 

[sebbbi]

HDD speeds should be around 100MB/s on the next-gen consoles, which is probably 5 times or more faster than the current HDD speeds.

Any link to the source?

 

[betan]

Only relative. HDD speeds should be around 100MB/s on the next-gen consoles, which is probably 5 times or more faster than the current HDD speeds. Apart from this, there's only a fraction of games that makes good use of dual source streaming on consoles.

Still, relative speed could be lower, if you factor in that games will be bigger (but then the size increase of games is likely also not 5x ...)

It's not the game size, it's the asset size in memory that counts though.
If GTAV cannot fill the memory fast enough during streaming, I highly doubt GTAVI can, with relatively similar mem alocation but for 5+GB total and with only 5 times better hdd speed.

Also, FWIW my _sequential_ read tests on PS3 Linux were at around 40MB/s.
Personally I feel 100MB/s is terribly low for both loading screens and streaming.

 

[warb]

Now DF says the digital version of GTA5 has serious problems on PS3 major pop in.

Weird

That's a major screw up, really. Maybe they'll patch it.

I suppose it makes sense, and I immediately wondered about it. There's no disc to dual stream from in a digital version. It's HDD stream only of course.

I also wonder if next gen consoles with their mandatory install policies should have issues with aggressive dual stream games like GTA. I suppose an exception could be made?

I saw a guy on youtube talking about a barrier popped in front of his car 2 feet away in GTA5 causing him to crash. Now that I think about it, I bet he had the PS3 digital version. Especially cause he's normally a PC gamer, as well as PlayStation fanboy, buying digital would be normal for him.

Yep. I doubt this is patchable. It seems the HDD plus BD/DVD is essential for reduced pop-in on consoles. So don't get the DD version (or install both discs on 360) if you don't want so much of it.

 

[hesido]

Yep. I doubt this is patchable. It seems the HDD plus BD/DVD is essential for reduced pop-in on consoles. So don't get the DD version (or install both discs on 360) if you don't want so much of it.

If Sony allows streaming data from USB, portions of the game could be transferred to USB sticks / drives, although with non-standard performance, it could help a great deal (my USB 2.0 Harddisk works@about 25MB/sec, not shabby)

 

[joker454]

Now DF says the digital version of GTA5 has serious problems on PS3 major pop in.

Anyone here have a ps3 with an ssd drive to compare with? I'm curious if that solves the pop-in, or if the issue isn't just due to read speeds but some other overhead.