Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2015]

[Deleted member 11852]

Digital Foundry: Project Cars boosts visuals - and runs faster (patch 1.04)

Needless to say we're still impressed by the progress this game has made since launch. As with its day one state, it's not a locked 60fps experience on either PS4 or Xbox One when really pushing the engine, but it is a step forward for the optimisation effort on console and there's a sense of genuine progression on what was already an impressive title.​

 

[Boxercide]

Speaking of motion blurs, what does the Frostbite engine do? It looks terrible in action. I've been revisiting Hardline and BF4 and it looks like a weird smear effect. It's not very pleasing to the eye.

 

[AlNom]

Speaking of motion blurs, what does the Frostbite engine do? It looks terrible in action. I've been revisiting Hardline and BF4 and it looks like a weird smear effect. It's not very pleasing to the eye.

Got any screenshots?

 

[nightshade]

Speaking of motion blurs, what does the Frostbite engine do? It looks terrible in action. I've been revisiting Hardline and BF4 and it looks like a weird smear effect. It's not very pleasing to the eye.

I know what you mean, I observed it first since BF3. It's difficult for me to explain as I've learned to more or less overlook it and hence haven't noticed it all that much recently. But it's like there aren't enough samples but at the same time it seems to be very smudgy looking as if they smudge the effect to make it look like it has lot higher samples. (Don't know if that's a thing, might not even be a thing...just an observation)

 

[Cyan]

Digital Foundry vs Xbox One backwards compatibility
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-vs-backwards-compatibility-on-xbox-one

+ forces v-sync
- inconsistent perf (dropping to 10fps in places on ME1)

So it's not miraculous but it's still close, to me this suggests the titles that pushed the x360 to the limits will be a significant challenge

(cross posted in XB1 b/c thread)

This post of @Dave Baumann in the backwards compatibility thread makes me think about why they didn't include in the article the most complex games -Mass Effect wasn't, and unlike ME3, didn't run well on the PC ether- of the initial BC list, like Viva Pinata and Banjo and Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. I am very curious about those.

I guess that, since they are reporting issues and stuff, maybe they will do something similar in a future article.

XBOX 360 was DX9+ with one of the primary differences being Tessellation capabilities on Xenos that didn't make it into DX until DX11 (with a whole bunch of shader stages wrapped around it). Ironically Viva Pinata is one of the few known titles to use XBOX 360 tessellation and its also one that's already been ported.

 

[Boxercide]

Got any screenshots?

You know I haven't done it because usually when it happens I'm in a fire fight. I have tried to find a pic online but haven't found the exact issue. To describe it, I'd say it almost looks like The Picard Maneuver. The gun I'm holding appears to jump to a new position and there's a trailing effect so it appears to be in 2 positions at once. It honestly pulls me out of the immersion because the BF games are very pretty, otherwise.

 

[Cyan]

Basically the same happens to me with Far Cry 4 (X1 version=, in my case I just can't play that game. Something is wrong with it and it's difficult to describe. The framerate is "jumpy", I can notice the little jumps in the framerate, but that's a lesser evil, typical of 30 fps games for me. But once you add that strange motion blur that smears all the image, then that's it...I can't play...

 

[pjbliverpool]

To describe it, I'd say it almost looks like The Picard Maneuver.

Lol, awesome description

 

[Globalisateur]

The combat sections have a solid 30fps on XB1 with very rare drops in Batman (XB1). But lots of tearing (with regular ~25fps drops) in the batmobile sections, gamersyde have now a new plugin that can detect it.

This new version of my framerate analysis plugin adds the much needed tearing detection functionality, which was mandatory considering how tearing-happy the Batmobile sequences can be on Xbox One.

http://www.gamersyde.com/news_our_xb1_videos_of_batman_ak-16773_en.html

 

[Shortbread]

Face-Off: Payday 2: Crimewave Edition

Texture resolution is reasonably high across all platforms, but the lack of anisotropic filtering lets the PS4 game down (trilinear filtering is used instead), resulting in a clear loss of fine details across flat surfaces a few feet away from the camera.

Sony really needs to figure out why certain developers are having trouble in this area. Or force the minimal level of AF by default - within the SDK environment.

 

[Shortbread]

Well the whole situation doesn't add up. When filtering gets up'ed there is never a performance hit for PS4.

IMHO, Sony just needs to fix/patch the SDK on forcing AF... rather than being developer dependent (choice). This way, there is no oversight by Sony, nor the developer.

 

[Cyan]

Face-Off: Payday 2: Crimewave Edition



Sony really needs to figure out why certain developers are having trouble in this area. Or force the minimal level of AF by default - within the SDK environment.

I guess they are going to correct that with a patch. They should also patch the netcode of the X1 version asap.

 

[Globalisateur]

Face-Off: Payday 2: Crimewave Edition



Sony really needs to figure out why certain developers are having trouble in this area. Or force the minimal level of AF by default - within the SDK environment.

From what I have finally learned from my long investigation (that is now completely done), compared to PC and XB1, on PS4 there is only one simple additional step in order to specify the AF level that is not needed on PC & XB1. If you don't do this, the default AF will be set to 2xAF or Trilinear depending of the SDK build used.

Sony guys told us several times, like a mantra. Their SDK is fine, It's up to the developers.

 

[AlNom]

From what I have finally learned from my long investigation (that is now completely done), compared to PC and XB1, on PS4 there is only one simple additional step in order to specify the AF level that is not needed on PC & XB1.

"Aren't you really unsure if you don't want to disable AF?"

 

[Scott_Arm]

"Aren't you really unsure if you don't want to disable AF?"

"Aren't you really unsure if you don't not want to disenable AF? (yes/no/maybe)"

 

[3dilettante]

"Simon says"

 

[AlNom]

"Ship it"

 

[Scott_Arm]

"The military use of children takes three distinct forms: children can take direct part in hostilities (child soldiers); they can be used in support roles such as porters, spies, messengers, lookouts; or they can be used for political advantage [either] as human shields and/or in propaganda. Do you support enabling AF? (yes/no)"

 

[hesido]

If it's one additional step, how hard is it to take that step? This is getting ridiculous. Even if it's a bit convoluted to set AF flags, aren't the devs at all bothered by the smudgy textures? Or is there still some weird thing we don't know due the NDA's?

 

[Billy Idol]

Yeah, this is more than curious.

Or it is a testament of the current QA in the gaming industry (see recent Batman PC release)...