Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2015]

[Clukos]

Like i said Frostbite 3 might favor the Ps4 architecture. They are similar machines but very different due to API/OS and other architectural differences(ram/ace/gpu/cpu etc.).

Worst performing COD to date? Ps4 eventually comes on top (higher res + higher framerate) but the framerate is still pretty shaky.

 

[steveOrino]

The single player campaign is pretty poor performing but the multiplayer looks pretty good on the PS4 with only air strikes killing the framerate. X1's image quality suffers and still drops a lot of frames so possibly on that platform it is. There has been a lot of CoD titles released through the years so I have no clue if its the absolute worst performing or not.

 

[Globalisateur]

Like i said Frostbite 3 might favor the Ps4 architecture. They are similar machines but very different due to API/OS and other architectural differences(ram/ace/gpu/cpu etc.).

Worst performing COD to date? Ps4 eventually comes on top (higher res + higher framerate) but the framerate is still pretty shaky.

Still no proper COD face-off 11 days after the release of the game?

Well the outcome of this poor man's face-off appears quite different than what was shown in their beta article. Advantage to PS4 in framerate during gameplay now in the MP as well. Apparently now it's the PS4 version that is quicker and faster.

Without catch, with an image clarity bonus.

 

[AlNom]

For the PS4 version, split-screen pumps the res back up to native (@30fps), so it'll be of interest to see what the XO version does.

edit:

Apparently both versions are @ 1080p for split-screen. hm.

 

[djskribbles]

Digital Foundry's Full Black Ops 3 Face Off

 

[bgroovy]

Any word on if Digital Foundry is going to take a look at the three PS2 games included with the Star Wars PS2 bundle? From reports it sounds like they still have the PS2 boot screen and use PS2 controller prompts implying they are emulated. No word on if the resolution is increased, etc. Given that these have been out since yesterday and we've yet to see any big sites investigate what should be a big story, I'm beginning to wonder if there is an NDA covering PS2 emulation on PS4 that outlets have already been briefed on.

 

[Recop]

Split-screen performances.

 

[AlNom]

Wide FOV is wide.

 

[iroboto]

Split-screen performances.

pretty neat.
So two questions I have
a) when they say they run 1080p for split screen, I'm assuming that's the resolution of both screens combined? So 1920 across for both players, but the 1080 is divided half and half for each player?
b) game related - is split screen only for the co-op missions? Can you play in a 'online battle' with it? At first I wasn't going to purchase this game, but that could be a deciding factor at times.

 

[AlNom]

pretty neat.
So two questions I have
a) when they say they run 1080p for split screen, I'm assuming that's the resolution of both screens combined? So 1920 across for both players, but the 1080 is divided half and half for each player?
b) game related - is split screen only for the co-op missions? Can you play in a 'online battle' with it? At first I wasn't going to purchase this game, but that could be a deciding factor at times.

a) yup (1920*540*2)
b) pretty sure it's offline only & only certain missions

edit:

I guess what might be interesting is how much further they could push the resolution on PS4.

i.e. Xbox goes from 720p to 1080p -> 2.25x pixels
PS4 goes from 900p to 1080p -> 1.44x pixels

Extra vertical res would be beneficial.

 

[Newguy]

Digital Foundry: Hands-on with PS4's PlayStation 2 emulation

Tl;dr: Increased resolution, faster performance, trophy support.

"All 2D artwork in every title gets the upscaling treatment - there's nothing that can be done about that, and it can look pretty ropey. However, the 3D elements are substantially improved and do get a resolution increase."

"It's still early days in our analysis, but first impressions suggest that the emulator resolves a native resolution of 1292x896. Two black lines are added top and bottom to the image, before receiving a final upscale up to full 1080p."

"The emulator is clearly running these games more smoothly, with Jedi Starfighter hitting 60fps while the game running on PS2 hardware has nothing like that level of output."

Potentially crazy news with little to no hype.

 

[goonergaz]

Shame Sony (probably) won't give us it

 

[Globalisateur]

So basically 4x up-res (I assume in order to minimize upscaling artefacts with possibly no upscaling at all, well hoping so) + AA + up to 2x framerate depending of game. Now if Jak & Daxter can run as good as the PS2 version (very stable 60fps)...

This could deserves its own PS4's PS2 BC using a binary translator emulation thread.

 

[Karamazov]

oh please make a pod racing game with frostbite 3, could almost look like the movie in motion.

 

[Allandor]

So basically 4x up-res (I assume in order to minimize upscaling artefacts with possibly no upscaling at all, well hoping so) + AA + up to 2x framerate depending of game. Now if Jak & Daxter can run as good as the PS2 version (very stable 60fps)...

This could deserves its own PS4's PS2 BC using a binary translator emulation thread.

Very unimpressive. PS2 emulation on PCs is working for years now, why would they try to get it out now?
They should have done this with the PS3.
The doubling in resolution (well doubling in both directions) is not to good for those old games. The "lightning" is no longer visible (like "shadows" on that beast above). Old games should be emulated in their original resolution and than upscaled. Nothing else really works. It completely destroys most of the old games atmosphere, because it doesn't look like the developer intended when the game was developed. That's why I play PS1 games only in software mode, when using an emulator. This soft look, doesn't suit those old games.
The content just wasn't made to see it this clear & sharp.

 

[Globalisateur]

Depend of tastes I think. I you like retro games with lots of visible pixels, minimum details from geometry, tons of aliasing, lots of upscaling artifacts while having a bad framerate, sure.

 

[liolio]

Very unimpressive. PS2 emulation on PCs is working for years now, why would they try to get it out now?
They should have done this with the PS3.
The doubling in resolution (well doubling in both directions) is not to good for those old games. The "lightning" is no longer visible (like "shadows" on that beast above). Old games should be emulated in their original resolution and than upscaled. Nothing else really works. It completely destroys most of the old games atmosphere, because it doesn't look like the developer intended when the game was developed. That's why I play PS1 games only in software mode, when using an emulator. This soft look, doesn't suit those old games.
The content just wasn't made to see it this clear & sharp.

you are overly negative. It is first great step toward the right direction. I do share your pov, I usually bump the res, deal with various improvement but only then I washed it with some CRT tv like blur along with exagerated scanlines.
honestly I'm surprised bybfhe amount of thing Sony does right this gen, they don't even need it, it's something Nintendo has been badly needing for a long while.

 

[HMBR]

PS2 emulation on the PC is far from ideal, you need CPUs with 3 times the performance of the PS4 CPU for some games, and it's full of bugs, missing effects for the complex games (like MGS3, give it a 4.8GHz Intel CPU and it will still have slowdowns and missing effects), obviously the PCSX2 guys are extremely clever people but don't have the resources Sony have, it just makes me wonder if they could make games like GT4 and MGS3 run this well with emulation (they have no reasons to run MGS3 since it would be simpler to port the HD remake I think, and they never care about old GT games because there is always a new one).

I think not respecting the original game resolution is good, because it was low even for CRTs, it's almost unplayable with an LCD, and the framerate on many PS2 games was horrible (thinking of Shadow of the colossus right now at 10FPS or whatever that was)

 

[steveOrino]

obviously the PCSX2 guys are extremely clever people but don't have the resources Sony have

To be more specific, they don't have the documentation Sony has. Thats usually the wall for a lot of emulators. If these emulation groups had the access to classified technical docs, hardware/software resources that the platform owners have you would see better compatibility much sooner.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Funny, considering how lousy the PS2 documentation was fabled to be and how devs were left guessing for their launch titles.

But yeah, Sony Japan able to read their PS2 docs wouldl know how the system works perfectly, and resources-wise PS4's CPU should comfortably be able to emulate the CPU. GS should be emulated by a bunch of shaders I imagine. We could possibly even get texture filtering.