Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2013]

[COPS N RAPPERS]

I see the muted/missing highlights and shadows in those shots so you're not going mad.

yes.

are they both using FXAA or MLAA on PS3?

I believe Ps3 is MLAA, and 360 is FXAA.

FXAA is a very good option at the expenses of these old consoles. even though it can be too aggressive on the overall image; it can also be tweaked if the developers chose to readjust it.

I doubt we'll see FXAA on this aggressive level with ps4 and Xbox next being at 1080p, a little usage of FXAA should do wonders.

 

[zed]

yes.

no. whats happening is xbox is exaggerating the darks and brights. eg in last shot look at the clouds in ps3 you see the subtle shading, in xb its all overbright white. with the pipe the same thing is happening. I betcha the pc version if setup correctly will look like the ps3 version. I assume the person who setup the xbox360 shots didnt have the console setup correctly or its a developer error.

 

[djskribbles]

That shot in particular is one of the few that show more 'highlights' in the 360 version, because the PC version has more reflection/glare on the pipe and the PS3 version is more muted. But that's relatively small compared to the other advantages found in the PS3 version IMO. Everything else like the clouds, richer colors etc., are just from the 360's abnormal gamma output and the same effect can be achieved on the PS3 version if you really wanted. Most of the other shots, the PS3 version looks closer to the PC version. I really don't see how anyone can call this one 50/50 unless they're really reaching. But again, to each their own.

 

[Arwin]

That shot in particular is one of the few that show more 'highlights' in the 360 version, because the PC version has more reflection/glare on the pipe and the PS3 version is more muted. But that's relatively small compared to the other advantages found in the PS3 version IMO. Everything else like the clouds, richer colors etc., are just from the 360's abnormal gamma output and the same effect can be achieved on the PS3 version if you really wanted. Most of the other shots, the PS3 version looks closer to the PC version. I really don't see how anyone can call this one 50/50 unless they're really reaching. But again, to each their own.

I tried a little bit of adjusting the image contrast and brightness in a photo editor, and yes, the lighting on the pipe is definitely something you can't bring into balance with just editing contrast and brightness. The rest easily is, and then the PS3 version looks crisper, but also to the point where the A2C shadowing becomes much more notable on PS3 than on 360 I think (although they seem to do the same).

 

[assurdum]

I'm 50/50 on both console versions tombraider.

+ Ps3 - No black crush
+ 360 - better lighting
+ Ps3 - Clearer picture quality
+ 360 - smoother edges

uh

Captured to the Face off video. With all respect, IQ on 360 it's really terrible in some moments (muddy like a subhd game) & jaggies edges are not even covered so good... better lighting it's completely unsense,tech wise; the contrast cover everything in the dark . It's just your taste, no more. The only better part is the fps, in some moments

 

[Magnus]

uh

Captured to the Face off video. With all respect, IQ on 360 it's really terrible in some moments (muddy like a subhd game) & jaggies edges are not even covered so good... better lighting it's completely unsense,tech wise; the contrast cover everything in the dark . It's just your taste, no more. The only better part is the fps, in some moments

Direct feed shots are more indicative on edges and lighting.

 

[dagamer]

I just hope that Tomb Raider sold well on PC so we can get more attention from developers. Despite being a hardcore console gamer in the past, I've recently decided to buy only exclusives on the PS4 next time around and leave most multiplatform games to the PC with a 360 (or 720) controller.

 

[assurdum]

Direct feed shots are more indicative on edges and lighting.

FXAA not cover better of MLAA, just only in the subpixels. In the rest it's quite worst must of time. But the same article said MLAA on ps3 works on edge even better of the pc MLAA solution at 720p, if I'm not wrong. If we want to talk of better part in the 360 version, it's the fps average in different situation. But the rest, it seems quite subjective.

 

[kots]

If we want to talk of better part in the 360 version, it's the fps average in different situation. But the rest, it seems quite subjective.

Also 360 has way better object blur ...

 

[Jedi2016]

Also 360 has way better object blur ...

You mean that Vaseline smeared all over the lens? 360 has blur on everything.. don't confuse that with "enhanced motion blur".

 

[kots]

You mean that Vaseline smeared all over the lens? 360 has blur on everything.. don't confuse that with "enhanced motion blur".

I don't confuse it with anything , it has better motion/object blur .

 

[orangpelupa]

hmm, the DF screenshot about NFS MW vita vs ps3 interesting.

the game looks more natural on vita. The HDR works well (no overexposure, detail on bright area still can be seen), dry asphalt looks dry, it have nice color, and the game camera have clear lense (on ps3 it looks like someone forgot to clean the lens)

 

[Sigfried1977]

The dirty lense contributed a great deal to the game's visual make up. I guess you could spin the missing effects into something positive, but you'd be really stretching if you did.

 

[FATBOT]

Face-Off: BioShock Infinite

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-bioshock-infinite-face-off

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Face-Off: BioShock Infinite

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-bioshock-infinite-face-off

It would have been interesting to see screenshot comparisons for the following...

On our mid-range gaming rig powered by an Intel Core i5 processor and Radeon HD 7870 graphics card, we had little problems running the game at max settings in 720p while maintaining a consistently solid 60FPS, providing us with much smoother gameplay than found in the 360 and PS3 versions of the game. Frame-rates are occasionally impacted during situations where the screen becomes filled with elements and pyrotechnics, but the end result is a mostly solid 60FPS experience. Achieving the same level of performance at 1080p is more difficult without making some graphical tweaks in order to reduce the overall rendering load. Some settings - such as the alternate depth-of-field and higher-quality screen-space ambient occlusion (SSAO) modes - had to be reduced to more closely hit the desired frame-rate.

As well as a total list of what they had to disable or reduce. Then I could reproduce it at home to see in person. With the upcoming console generation things like this become increasingly interesting. Almost enough that I'm tempted to buy a 7850/7870 just to experiment.

Regards,
SB

 

[patsu]

Inside PS4:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-playstation-4

Better than the ArsTechnica article.

Regrettably, did not explain the Onion+ and cache stuff mentioned in WatchImpress.

 

[pjbliverpool]

It really bugs me how the article keeps talking about the low level API as if this is something new. This has been a feature of consoles since... forever. PS4 is bringing nothing new to the table in that regard so why keep harping on about it as if it's something brand new?

 

[Gradthrawn]

Inside PS4:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-playstation-4

Better than the ArsTechnica article.

Regrettably, did not explain the Onion+ and cache stuff mentioned in WatchImpress.

Nice, they seem to have clarified quite a few details other articles apparently got wrong or didn't fully understand. The controllers' dual motors, the controller's audio frequency (others seemed to have mixed up the output frequency with the mic frequency, along with the frequency drop with more than 2 players), along with more detail about the switch from analog to digital face buttons.

EDIT

Didn't notice this earlier, but the DF article's side bar has more details. Namely, a few interesting remote Play tidbits I haven't seen fully expounded upon elsewhere.

 

[Cyan]

It really bugs me how the article keeps talking about the low level API as if this is something new. This has been a feature of consoles since... forever. PS4 is bringing nothing new to the table in that regard so why keep harping on about it as if it's something brand new?

Nothing new, for sure, but I think it's a pretty big deal because if Sony provides a real-time OS with libGCM v2 to use with GCN, also providing low level access to the hardware, I can see how one or two years out, 1st party developers & Sony's internal teams will have had long enough experience to build up interesting tech to actually leverage the console.

Microsoft on the other hand won't provide low level access to the platform, and it might be a disadvantage in the long run. Perhaps it is not essential tbh, but it is a nice possibility to have.

 

[patsu]

It really bugs me how the article keeps talking about the low level API as if this is something new. This has been a feature of consoles since... forever. PS4 is bringing nothing new to the table in that regard so why keep harping on about it as if it's something brand new?

Probably to differentiate from PC-style game development since they share some hardware parts now. ^_^

Sony has been very enthusiastic about developers exploiting their hardware (to the metal) anyway.

Nice, they seem to have clarified quite a few details other articles apparently got wrong or didn't fully understand. The controllers' dual motors, the controller's audio frequency (others seemed to have mixed up the output frequency with the mic frequency, along with the frequency drop with more than 2 players), along with more detail about the switch from analog to digital face buttons.

EDIT

Didn't notice this earlier, but the DF article's side bar has more details. Namely, a few interesting remote Play tidbits I haven't seen fully expounded upon elsewhere.

Yes, some more details. Was hoping they could also clarify the WatchImpress article.
In any case, the DF article looks to be the definitive one so far. Now waiting for gamasutra's.