Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2013]

[assurdum]

I'm genuinelly impressed about fps average on ps3 version. I mean, isn't it suppose to be a small team compared crytek or Ubisoft? I have in mind Crysis 3 & Far Cry 3; looks what they have reached, it's incredible for this hardware. Congratulations to them.

 

[nightshade]

Does it still have shadow casting muzzle flashes and flashlights ? I have the xbox version of the first game and it had all of that .... everything casts real time shadows .

Nope. Shadow casting flashlight but quite a few things don't cast shadows (like character).

 

[chris1515]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-metro-last-light

Digital Foundry: Do you think that the relatively low-power CPUs in the next-gen consoles (compared to PC, at least) will see a more concerted push to getting more out of GPU Compute?

Oles Shishkovstov: No, you just cannot compare consoles to PC directly. Consoles could do at least 2x what a comparable PC can due to the fixed platform and low-level access to hardware

 

[chris1515]

They speak about SVGOI and tells it is too taxing even for a Geforce Titan. Other forms of real time GI approximation will be use for PC and next gen console.

 

[ultragpu]

Sounds like he likes the PS4 hardware a lot. It's interesting that he also reflects what John Carmack has been saying about console having 2x the performance of a comparable pc. I don't know if there's a clear way to quantify such a comparison say ps4 performance equals 7850 sli? But it certainly bodes well for porting Metro. I'm expecting PS4 version of Last Light close to Max setting with some level of tessellation and 1080p.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Sounds like he likes the PS4 hardware a lot. It's interesting that he also reflects what John Carmack has been saying about console having 2x the performance of a comparable pc. I don't know if there's a clear way to quantify such a comparison say ps4 performance equals 7850 sli? But it certainly bodes well for porting Metro. I'm expecting PS4 version of Last Light close to Max setting with some level of tessellation and 1080p.

His statement is in direct relation to CPU power so a comparison to 2x GPU power seems out of place.

Also note how he contradicts Carmack in saying many low power cores are more desirable than few or 1 high speed cores (Carmack said pretty much the opposite in a recent tweet).

 

[Arwin]

Yes, there's a clear difference between the two in that respect. Oles basically says he finds solving a performance problem by parallising it to be easier than spending a lot of time optimising the loop, and for JC that's the reverse.

because it's easier to simply parallelise something instead of changing core-algorithms or chasing every cycle inside critical code segment (not that we don't do that, but very often we can avoid it)

This also reflects into several comments where OS indicated for him it was easier to optimise work on the PS3 (which has been a rare thing to say in the past, and indicates that he is basically a 'modern' programmer, for whom paralellism is natural and probably built into every algorithm and workflow he thinks about):

Oles Shishkovstov: Hmm... sometimes yes, and there were different cases on 360 and PS3. To alleviate that we've improved game logic/AI and animation to ensure that all of the entities can be updated out of order in different threads. PS3 was easier - we've just moved all the animation graph processing, vision and ray-casting, sound-path tracing, IKs and several other compute-bound tasks to SPUs - and that's it.

JC on the other hand is a control freak, has algorithms he wants to use ready, and is more than happy to spend time optimising them in the 'correct' order of instructions I bet, or rethink the algorithm. And from that perspective, the 'perfect' solution is one where you don't have to spend too much time working on the paralellism aspect of an algorithm/workflow, which you could see as overhead that could be avoided.

Of course JC has no illusions that multiple cores are the future anyway, so ultimately the point is completely moot, and it is not unthinkable that in the not too distant future it will be so natural for programmers that it's a complete non-issue. But this is an important transitional phase we've gone through in the last console generation, that the next generation will benefit from (as are more foreward looking current-gen titles).

 

[Cyan]

I have read their article about Call of Duty: Ghosts and while they presented a nicely written article, I don't understand how the download links they provided could be so shabby.

One of them -Mega whatever- is just some kind of marketing platform for Google Chrome, one of my least favourite browsers (I used it for more than a year as my default web browser, until I ran into some security problems with it -they spy policies didn't help either-).

The other one is sooooo slow.

I wonder if they ever tried Google Drive or Skydrive, both of which are far superior than those two services.

 

[patsu]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-metro-last-light

That was a fun article to read.

 

[milk]

This also reflects into several comments where OS indicated for him it was easier to optimise work on the PS3 (which has been a rare thing to say in the past, and indicates that he is basically a 'modern' programmer, for whom paralellism is natural and probably built into every algorithm and workflow he thinks about):
JC on the other hand is a control freak, has algorithms he wants to use ready, and is more than happy to spend time optimising them in the 'correct' order of instructions I bet, or rethink the algorithm. And from that perspective, the 'perfect' solution is one where you don't have to spend too much time working on the paralellism aspect of an algorithm/workflow, which you could see as overhead that could be avoided.
Of course JC has no illusions that multiple cores are the future anyway, so ultimately the point is completely moot, and it is not unthinkable that in the not too distant future it will be so natural for programmers that it's a complete non-issue. But this is an important transitional phase we've gone through in the last console generation, that the next generation will benefit from (as are more foreward looking current-gen titles).

Very well put. I wonder if Carmak still thinks a lot of paralellism is not preferable with nowadays software. I remember him making this coment about one very powerfull core being better than multiple weak ones, but has he said anything of that nature recently? Would he rather have had the ps4 be a quad core with befier cores maybe?

 

[jonabbey]

Very well put. I wonder if Carmak still thinks a lot of paralellism is not preferable with nowadays software. I remember him making this coment about one very powerfull core being better than multiple weak ones, but has he said anything of that nature recently? Would he rather have had the ps4 be a quad core with befier cores maybe?

One infinitely fast core would indeed be preferable, but it's a question of what is feasible with real silicon, real clocks, real heat dissipation, and a real budget.

He's said that Sony 'made wise technical decisions' with PS4, so he's at least not complaining.

 

[Rangers]

That was a fun article to read.

Yes good stuff!

Digital Foundry: Let's talk about next-gen console. What's your take on the general design in terms of CPU and graphics processing power?

Oles Shishkovstov: We are talking PS4, right? I am very excited about both CPU and GPU. Jaguar is a pretty well-balanced out-of-order core and there are eight of them inside. I always wanted a lot of relatively-low-power cores instead of single super-high-performance one, because it's easier to simply parallelise something instead of changing core-algorithms or chasing every cycle inside critical code segment (not that we don't do that, but very often we can avoid it).

Many beefier cores would be even better, but then we'll be left without a GPU! With regards the graphics core, it's great, simply great. It's a modern-age high-performance compute device with unified memory and multiple compute-contexts. The possibilities of CPU-GPU-CPU communication are endless, we can easily expect games doing, for example, AI pathfinding/route planning executing on GPU to become a common thing.

Oles Shishkovstov: No, you just cannot compare consoles to PC directly. Consoles could do at least 2x what a comparable PC can due to the fixed platform and low-level access to hardware.

Back to the question - yes, yes and yes. There are some things which are just more efficient to do on massively parallel machines like GPUs are. I think that at least initially, with launch titles, the GPU-Compute will be underutilised, but during console's lifetime we'll see more and more unbelievable and innovative things purely thanks to GPUs.

That's just one example. The whole industry was held back with current-gen consoles, because they are a very important source of revenue. Now the lowest common denominator will be 10x higher, and that's incredible. We can expect some form of GI to become common, it will be rare stuff to see a shadow without umbra/penumbra, every model will be properly tessellated and displaced, the OIT will be commonplace (for games who needs it badly), we will forget forever about smoke not casting shadow onto itself, etc, etc - great times really.

I am not saying that we'll solve all the problems at once and the result will be available in every game onto every console, but a 10x more powerful baseline will spawn all types of research and resulting advancements will translate into many games, [and] not only console ones - the PC graphics will get a huge improvement as a result as well.

Very positive stuff about next gen. Seems like GPU compute could be the biggest game changer in time.

They speak about SVGOI and tells it is too taxing even for a Geforce Titan. Other forms of real time GI approximation will be use for PC and next gen console.

This jives with Epic removing it from UE4.

 

[patsu]

I would expect immediate GPU-Compute use nextgen, at least earlier than the cloud compute stuff (for cross platform development). People would want to calibrate the relative console performance as early as possible.

It's the proprietary stuff -- like PS4's tweaks -- that may take time to explore.

 

[RDGoodla]

Yes good stuff!


Very positive stuff about next gen. Seems like GPU compute could be the biggest game changer in time.


This jives with Epic removing it from UE4.

How much resource does PS4 have for GPU compute? Even every idle CU is fully utilized for GPU compute, can we have 200 Gflops or more? Ok even we have hunderds of Gflops for GPU compute, why these recource (less than 1/5 of one GTX 680) can make graphic quite different as many developers claims? THX

 

[Betanumerical]

How much resource does PS4 have for GPU compute? Even every idle CU is fully utilized for GPU compute, can we have 200 Gflops or more? Ok even we have hunderds of Gflops for GPU compute, why these recource (less than 1/5 of one GTX 680) can make graphic quite different as many developers claims? THX

You can partition it however you feel like, so out of the 1.8TFLOPs you can have any amount as compute as you want, just like with the 1.2TFLOPs of the XBONE

 

[Arwin]

New DF article, on the controllers this time:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-next-gen-joypads-a-true-evolution

My reaction: the Xbox One controller: basic controller aspects tweaked. Which remain very basic. Just added extra rumble to the triggers, which is nice I suppose, but ... well. It's rumble.

The PS4 controller: basic controller aspects tweaked. Had some more ground to cover to be more serious in the FPS area, but seemed to have done just that, without sacrificing anything but analog buttons, which the lack of support for which the Xbox controller had already made redundant. Whereas we could pass longer or shorter distances and shoot harder or softer depending on how we pressed the analog x and square, or used those for braking and accelleration in games like Gran Turismo (which some of the best drivers did), the lack of support from 360 killed it in multiplatform games, and now it's almost entirely superfluous (but some Gran Turismo players will still curse). Rumble has been improved, two identical more precise rumble motors at more extreme sides giving more clear 'stereo' rumble, where you can feel something move from left to right (discussed in video below)

However, the PS4 controller has a whole lot of extra features:

- LED (NEW), that can give feedback in various ways (health low, player identification, etc.) and can be tracked by Eye 2.0)
- Gyro, one that is of the level of Move and Vita, so actually really useful (good enhancement of a feature that Xbox ontroller doesn't have and never had, and far more relevant in this age of gyro-enabled smartphones and tablets). I also hope it will go along with support for Oculus Rift style decoupling options for vision and gun aiming, or controlling your view into the turn in a driving game, flying game, etc. which I think could be superior to head-tracking because you can keep looking at the screen
- Touch pad (NEW), with two-point capacitive multitouch and clickable, allowing for easier browsing of menus, using webpages, etc., with the same important intuitive crossover from smartphones and tablets, albeit this time without touching the visible screen at the same time, so not as effective as it is on those smarthpones/tabs
- Built-in speaker (NEW): nice to have feature, that the Wii-Mote made some amusing features for

Many of the new controller features are shown working together (and you can see their precision) in this rather amazing demo that also uses the PS Eye 2.0:

EDIT: this one is better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvpCdtjTrAo

http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/12/ps4-playroom-tech-demo-shows-playstation-eye-at-work/

All in all, looking at the controllers side-by-side, the Xbox One controller feels to me rather archaic and limited in potential. That's not to say that the Xbox can't compensate some of these features through a combination of Smartglass and Kinect, but for smart-glass I don't think normal play will benefit a lot from switching input methods all the time, dropping your controller for your tablet and back, etc. Will you keep having to unlock your phone? Will it kill the battery? Tonnes of questions. And I have yet to be convinced that Kinect 2.0 can track your wrists while holding a controller efficiently and lag-free enough to compensate for gyro controls, or that moving your arms is an efficient substitute for the touchpad for menu selection and, say, RTS style controls.

If, from what it looks like, the PS4 controller is as good at anything the Xbox One controller does for the most basic functionality, but it has all these added features that are offset on the Xbox One's side only by a bit of rumble in the triggers, then I feel the DS4 controller is the best and most forward looking controller by a rather huge margin.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

LED feedback is pretty moot. You're not supposed to be able to see it from behind the controller, and if you can, it'll be very distracting. AFAIK the real purpose of the LED is camera tracking.

 

[Cyan]

Shifty, but as Arwin said perhaps it could give you hints at how your health is, using the colour's depth to tell you if your health is low or high.

New DF article, on the controllers this time:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-next-gen-joypads-a-true-evolution

My reaction: the Xbox One controller: basic controller aspects tweaked. Which remain very basic. Just added extra rumble to the triggers, which is nice I suppose, but ... well. It's rumble.

The PS4 controller: basic controller aspects tweaked. Had some more ground to cover to be more serious in the FPS area, but seemed to have done just that, without sacrificing anything but analog buttons, which the lack of support for which the Xbox controller had already made redundant. Whereas we could pass longer or shorter distances and shoot harder or softer depending on how we pressed the analog x and square, or used those for braking and accelleration in games like Gran Turismo (which some of the best drivers did), the lack of support from 360 killed it in multiplatform games, and now it's almost entirely superfluous (but some Gran Turismo players will still curse). Rumble has been improved, two identical more precise rumble motors at more extreme sides giving more clear 'stereo' rumble, where you can feel something move from left to right (discussed in video below)

However, the PS4 controller has a whole lot of extra features:

- LED (NEW), that can give feedback in various ways (health low, player identification, etc.) and can be tracked by Eye 2.0)
- Gyro, one that is of the level of Move and Vita, so actually really useful (good enhancement of a feature that Xbox ontroller doesn't have and never had, and far more relevant in this age of gyro-enabled smartphones and tablets). I also hope it will go along with support for Oculus Rift style decoupling options for vision and gun aiming, or controlling your view into the turn in a driving game, flying game, etc. which I think could be superior to head-tracking because you can keep looking at the screen
- Touch pad (NEW), with two-point capacitive multitouch and clickable, allowing for easier browsing of menus, using webpages, etc., with the same important intuitive crossover from smartphones and tablets, albeit this time without touching the visible screen at the same time, so not as effective as it is on those smarthpones/tabs
- Built-in speaker (NEW): nice to have feature, that the Wii-Mote made some amusing features for

Many of the new controller features are shown working together (and you can see their precision) in this rather amazing demo that also uses the PS Eye 2.0:

EDIT: this one is better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvpCdtjTrAo

http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/12/ps4-playroom-tech-demo-shows-playstation-eye-at-work/

All in all, looking at the controllers side-by-side, the Xbox One controller feels to me rather archaic and limited in potential. That's not to say that the Xbox can't compensate some of these features through a combination of Smartglass and Kinect, but for smart-glass I don't think normal play will benefit a lot from switching input methods all the time, dropping your controller for your tablet and back, etc. Will you keep having to unlock your phone? Will it kill the battery? Tonnes of questions. And I have yet to be convinced that Kinect 2.0 can track your wrists while holding a controller efficiently and lag-free enough to compensate for gyro controls, or that moving your arms is an efficient substitute for the touchpad for menu selection and, say, RTS style controls.

If, from what it looks like, the PS4 controller is as good at anything the Xbox One controller does for the most basic functionality, but it has all these added features that are offset on the Xbox One's side only by a bit of rumble in the triggers, then I feel the DS4 controller is the best and most forward looking controller by a rather huge margin.

I shall give it a read. I was about to post an idea on this thread already and I found these new replies...

The idea I wanted to share is that I would love to see a DF section focused on classics, how the games of my innocence like Project Gotham Racing 2, Forza, and the like performed on the actual hardware.

A section of Digital Foundry indubitably called Digital Foundry Classics, or something like that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Shifty, but as Arwin said perhaps it could give you hints at how your health is, using the colour's depth to tell you if your health is low or high.

But the LED is on the front of the controller, out of view.

 

[Arwin]

But the LED is on the front of the controller, out of view.

But your fingers will light up. It's not a small light, and it emits some ... . And besides that, if you're at all confused which player/controller you are, color coding is a lot easier at seeing which controller matches what side of the screen than four tiny leds that basically represent binary numbers.