I think the challenge with non-DF sources is the expense of lossless capture. Most sites rely on lossy image capture techniques which are fine for YouTube but rubbish for any kind if analytical purpose. I agree it's not a great situation though particularly as we see more MP games with no easily repeatable Consistent segments to use in like for like comparisons.
Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2014]
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Let's not forget that these pieces of analysis must be quite time consuming to prepare and we don't even know what resources Eurogamer has to dedicate to Digital Foundry, in terms of people behind it and time spent.
It's a free website people, how demanding can you be?
It's a free website people, how demanding can you be?
That's because the average gamer really doesn't care.
The gamer surely likes to talk about it? The DF articles gets plenty of comments, and i would guess hits since they still bother to run them.
But articles like that isn't easy to produce, they require real work and attention to detail.
DavidGraham
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Thanks a lot for the effort, much appreciated
So After capturing a lossless footage through HDMI, they select a line of pixels, and determine the frequency of color changes in that line, then extrapolate frames per second.
If that methodology is still the same today. then I guess they are picking up the right locations and sequence of motion to avoid static scenes or environments, right?
djskribbles
Legend
Yup. I'd say the average casual gamer doesn't care, but the average gamer does. The BF4, CoD and Tomb Raider comparisons in particular were posted on pretty much every gaming site, and even some non-gaming related websites. Tomb Raider DE on PS4 sold 2x the XB1 version in the US where the PS4 only has a small lead in hardware sales.
IGN comparison videos are really well made overall --example below. I am a bit biased about IGN,
I just love them. IGN is a bit like those parents who give you all the cool stuff but don't tell you that Santa Claus exists.
Digital Foundry is like having the talk with your parents til they finally reveal you you had a childhood filled with lies.
I remember talk of a diagonal sample, but that post actual shows that a static image was still detected as different.
Looks like it to me.
well, i imagine that you'll just do a complete pixel to pixel comparison between the 1/60 and the 2/60 frames.
There are 3 outcomes:
1. no pixel difference, means no frame change or things are just static
2. has pixel changes only on top portion but no the button, separated by a scan line, you can compute the percentage of the scanline and determine the 0.x frame that's refreshed, and
3. pixel changes through out the whole frame, then it's just 1 frame.
there are probably better ways of sampling, dunno how static frames are detected.
There are 3 outcomes:
1. no pixel difference, means no frame change or things are just static
2. has pixel changes only on top portion but no the button, separated by a scan line, you can compute the percentage of the scanline and determine the 0.x frame that's refreshed, and
3. pixel changes through out the whole frame, then it's just 1 frame.
there are probably better ways of sampling, dunno how static frames are detected.
Yeah makes sense especially judging from the comments in the youtube video where many think the xb1 version has more vivid colors, that's a common perception side effect from black crush.
That's nice to know, it's a side effect I hadn't seen mentioned before when there is black crush. Many people prefer in fact the more saturated overall look of the X1's version, from what I could gather reading comments.
There's a bunch of discussion about that on Neogaf where they think IGN may have set up the Xbox wrong, with respect to RGB range. That stuff confuses me though...
There's another comparison vid from gamereactor supposed to have less black crush on Xbox, but IIRC the Xbox version was still darker that I saw.
I think a strong dedicated subset does. Look at the views their youtube channel is racking up (sorted by views)
http://www.youtube.com/user/DigitalFoundry/videos?sort=p&flow=grid&view=0
Yep, they seem to have more editors dedicated to them now (I see 3-4 different editors doing face-offs where it used to just be Leadbetter IIRC), which is cool. Again if they are the only ones doing this type of high quality analysis, i think there's a real business niche there.
I dont know if their youtube channel is partnered (gets a cut of ad revenue), but if it is they might be able to pay a whole editors salary off those type of views.
Ironically that might actually be a reason they use youtube rather than some higher quality source. Money, or at least exposure.
...or another capture bug. There's prolly a mistake in the chain somewhere because I doubt the developers would have done that only on the xb1 version. If they liked that look then they would have done it across all versions.
Well more generally speaking I honestly don't think most people care, they will simply play games on whatever box they have.
Never noticed it in BF4, but definitely noticed it in Dead Rising 3 and Killer Instinct.
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