Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2014]

[HTupolev]

because I only just watched the video for the thief article and the texture seems to pop in suddenly, wouldn't this been indicative of a streaming issue and not a texture filtering issue?.

Yes, and DF is claiming that in addition to texture filtering issues, the PS4 suffers from texture streaming problems.

 

[Betanumerical]

Yes, and DF is claiming that in addition to texture filtering issues, the PS4 suffers from texture streaming problems.

Interesting, I wonder if they did a full install of the game or not on the PS4. The XB1 requires games to be fully installed no?.

 

[taisui]

i think both consoles requires full install. not sure if there's any flexibility in partial install.

 

[_Enigma_]

Tiny differences were enough to DF recommend the 360 version over the PS3 one.
How things change

 

[Globalisateur]

Is it possible to have some sort of texture filtering that improves as the camera moves away from the object? because I only just watched the video for the thief article and the texture seems to pop in suddenly, wouldn't this been indicative of a streaming issue and not a texture filtering issue?.



Indeed, the person who wrote this article also thought the AO on the XB1 version of NFS was better because the HBAO on the ps4 was subtle. It was only corrected after Ghosts told them they were wrong.

All this texture filtering problem is completely overblown.

If you look at DF tools, some textures in the distance are indeed slightly blurrier that XB1. But those texture are in fact rather rare (and mostly in the shadows behind some fog) when 100% of the nearest textures (which are more visible and noticeable due to the nature of the game) are slighlty sharper on PS4 due to native resolution, not much, but still.

I find it a bit unfair to ignore the majority of the sharper textures to focus on the minority ones that are less sharp.

 

[Cjail]

DF In Theory: 1080p30 vs 720p60 - could next-gen let us choose?
DF says KZ Shadow Fall runs at 960x1080p in MP while I remember GG said it was native 1080p in MP.

 

[DavidGraham]

DF In Theory: 1080p30 vs 720p60 - could next-gen let us choose?
DF says KZ Shadow Fall runs at 960x1080p in MP while I remember GG said it was native 1080p in MP.

That's no different than running it at 1280x720, well there is a little difference (a bit better) but not really worth the mention.

 

[BRiT]

DF In Theory: 1080p30 vs 720p60 - could next-gen let us choose?
DF says KZ Shadow Fall runs at 960x1080p in MP while I remember GG said it was native 1080p in MP.

Yeah, it is horizontally interlaced using shaders in MP to present a 1920x1080 picture. A few of us here have hinted as such but those hints were ignored.

 

[Cjail]

Yeah, it is horizontally interlaced using shaders in MP to present a 1920x1080 picture. A few of us here have hinted as such but those hints were ignored.

If it was mention here then I missed it, I didn't ignore it.

 

[Globalisateur]

Yeah, it is horizontally interlaced using shaders in MP to present a 1920x1080 picture. A few of us here have hinted as such but those hints were ignored.

If true it wouldn't surprise me at all.

On the Killzone thread when I first seen some screenshots of the MultiPlayer I couldn't believe (literally) how muddy and blurry it was (for an supposed 1080p image).

I even thought there was a real blur filter applied.

 

[mosen]

DF In Theory: 1080p30 vs 720p60 - could next-gen let us choose?
DF says KZ Shadow Fall runs at 960x1080p in MP while I remember GG said it was native 1080p in MP.

It's new to me, I didn't see no one complain about this ever.

 

[BRiT]

That Killzone thread has even been tagged for an extremely long time, perhaps since release day, with the following items: horizontal interlacing and interlaced.

 

[Brad Grenz]

But there's also that GIF that shows shadows disappearing on the XB1 version, so I don't know if we can conclude that the PS4 version is worse with limited footage. But I'll give you that. Could be caused by the playgo system, or the particular HDDs used in the systems..

In the comments on the article multiple videos on YouTube have been linked showing the same red banner scene on PS4 where the texture pop does not occur. Another shows the same lighting pop in on the PS4 that the Xbox One had in the GIF. It would seem the problem is variable and could be related to what either system may be doing in the background, or even how you launch into a level. Neither system has a clear cut advantage.

All this texture filtering problem is completely overblown.

If you look at DF tools, some textures in the distance are indeed slightly blurrier that XB1. But those texture are in fact rather rare (and mostly in the shadows behind some fog) when 100% of the nearest textures (which are more visible and noticeable due to the nature of the game) are slighlty sharper on PS4 due to native resolution, not much, but still.

I find it a bit unfair to ignore the majority of the sharper textures to focus on the minority ones that are less sharp.

Yes, the most troubling part is the argument that the resolution difference isn't as noticeable because of how dark and blurry the game is can just as easily be applied to the filtering discrepancy.

 

[Jedi2016]

I find it interesting that their XB1 captures didn't have the black crush that IGN's captures did. Something that's very detrimental in a game like this, with so much of it taking place in such dark environments. Otherwise IGN's system is just configured wrong, or somebody screwed up the gamma adjustment when the game started (I assume the game has one, dark games like this typically do).

Anyway, DF needs two things in my opinion:

1) They need to stop naming a definitive "winner". In this case, it's definitely come back to bite them in the ass, and they need to stop it. Just stick to the facts. Give us a pro/con breakdown, maybe in a table or something easy to read, and let us make up our own minds. PS4 does this better, XB1 does that better, pick the one you want.

And really, these face-offs are more about dick-waving our favorite console than anything else. I don't think anyone is waiting around for DF to decide which version of the game they should buy... most of us aren't in the position to pick and choose, we're limited by what we own.

2) DF needs competition. They can't be the only game in town, because you get situations like this... everything we talk about comes from just one source. Some other website needs to step up and start doing the same thing, an in-depth technical analysis of new games. If the results are the same, then it lends credence to the conclusions of both sites. If they're different, well... we're back to making up our own damn minds.

 

[DrJay24]

I am assuming DF spent hours testing and comparing the different platforms, given 1 GIF doesn't really show the whole picture, neither are the vids and imgs on DF. It could be just bugs that'll get patched, could be coding skills, could be time constraints. Fro example, the red hanging banner show the PS4 has horrible texture, but from the video it gets loaded when the camera moved further back, and the former image doesn't show the whole picture, is what i am saying.

So they spent hours collecting video and then post a video that show the opposite of what they say? Is it incompetence or malice? Funny to see all the anecdotal evidence piling up at Gaf, no one can reproduce the PS4 streaming issues. Maybe DF should take a bit more time for quality control reasons.

 

[Rangers]

PS4:
+Better framerate

Very marginal, not enough to matter. Both dip.

+Better use of POM?

That looks actually worse...which is the problem with bullet pointing things instead of taking a wholistic view.

I've yet to see proof X1 suffers from the same streaming issues either. GAF is very big on seizing anecdotes and making gifs that favor one platform, but they are not looking for the truth or the big picture. Only "rah rah my console wins".

 

[temesgen]

I seem to recall a few times last gen PS3 won despite lower res (I want to say GTA 4?). This was typically greeted with cheering rather than controversy.



Looking at the vids the games are basically identical anyway. 900P doesn't matter.

I seem to recall similar outrage when DF sound test showed XB1 and PS4 fan noise to be roughly equal. And speaking of GTA4, there was plenty of outrage that the lower res version was deemed better by some equally vocal commentators. Nothing new here or unique to one platforms fans....

 

[djskribbles]

Very marginal, not enough to matter. Both dip.

They both dip, but the PS4 version holds a 3-5fps advantage for a big chunk of the gameplay footage, especially during CQC. That's not marginal in a 30fps game IMO. You could argue that the performance difference alone is enough to wash out the XB1's texture filtering advantage (which could probably be added to the PS4 version without much trouble).

As for the texture streaming, every PS4 owner at GAF has said that they didn't notice the late texture streaming issue in that particular scene (red banner). It may or may not be worse on PS4 in general, but it seems like all platforms have some sort of streaming issues. It's most likely just a bug.

That looks actually worse...which is the problem with bullet pointing things instead of taking a wholistic view.

That's a first...

This is a technical discussion, not to debate your personal preference.

 

[DrJay24]

Why would you need to stream with such small levels and last gen assets? Isn't 4-5GB enough to hold it all? Sounds like a symptom of lsat gen UE being shoe horned into next gen consoles.

 

[Jedi2016]

Sounds like a symptom of last gen UE being shoe horned into next gen consoles.

I think that's exactly it. Three or four years from now, we're going to look back on Thief and wonder how in the hell a game so ugly ran so poorly compared to current (a la 2017) games.