Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2015]

[jlippo]

Do any games use a half-exposure blur rather than a full exposure blur? That'd be more cinematic but less smooth.

Some do.
It's quite visible if 30fps game has full lenght blur, looks very bad with fast camera movement. (FF type-0 comes to mind.)

 

[AlNom]

What is 343i doing with their motion blur.

 

[Boxercide]

What is Dice doing because the blur in Battlefront is still awful?

 

[AlNom]

What is Dice doing because the blur in Battlefront is still awful?

The vader cape? Looks reminiscent of Crysis 1/Lost Planet motion blur. Relatively inexpensive. Velocity mask.

Maybe it was bugged due to object vs screen-space velocity? Didn't really look too closely.

 

[chris1515]

Transformer Devastation better shadows, AA and framerate on PS4

 

[pjbliverpool]

No frame rate test on the PC which is strange. PC comes ahead in shadows and AA but falls behind in LoD transition, at least with the mechanical HDD DF were using.

 

[chris1515]

No frame rate test on the PC which is strange. PC comes ahead in shadows and AA but falls behind in LoD transition, at least with the mechanical HDD DF were using.

It is not face off, only preliminary comparison.

 

[Shortbread]

It is not face off, only preliminary comparison.

Guess what? There is one now...

Face-Off: Transformers: Devastation

When it comes to performance, we also see a marked difference between the console platforms. 1080p60 is the ideal experience Platinum Games is targeting here, but it's clear that only Sony's console fully delivers that level of stability. Indeed, the PS4 puts in a faultless 60fps showing with consistent controls and smooth motion that perfectly accompanies the developer's expert eye for visual flair and entertaining gameplay. The only interruptions come in the form of an unusual screen distortion effect that strongly resembles screen-tear (it isn't), combined with chromatic aberration. This produces an occasion wobble during combat, but the effect is intentional and is perhaps designed to simulate artefacts seen via the digital eyes of the Transformers. But otherwise, from a pure performance perspective, PS4 provides a true, locked 1080p60 experience.

In relaxed scenes in less detailed locations, Xbox One hits the desired 60fps target, but as soon as the action starts to ramp up we see the game frequently operating between 50-60fps during action scenes, where alpha transparency effects put the engine under stress. While there is a mild reduction in how crisp the controls feel, gameplay isn't adversely affected here, and it's still possible to easily string together combos and counters without any problems. This doesn't hold true for the entire game, and some situations see the action hit the mid-40s, causing increased judder and a momentary jump in controller latency, though only for a brief moment before frame-rates go back up to their usual 50-60fps rate. Perhaps a resolution drop may have provided the same 60fps lock as on the PS4, albeit at the further expense of image quality.

 

[Recop]

I think it's pretty clear now that the gap isn't narrowing... we will have the same usual differences until the end of the gen.

 

[Nesh]

I think it's pretty clear now that the gap isn't narrowing... we will have the same usual differences until the end of the gen.

Why would you say that? The difference isnt that huge to my understanding. Both games run at 1080p while maintaining almost the exact same visual quality. Both games reach 60fps with some dips in the XB1 version. To me thats closer than what we used to get a year ago. Its probably even closer than the performance differences we used to get the previous gen, where the PS3 versions usually had either some of the following issues or a combination of them: often less stable performance, QAA or missing AA, missing foliage, lower res transparencies or missing transparent effects, lower resolution, blurrier textures etc
There is not a 40% observed difference regarding this game

 

[chris1515]

Why would you say that? The difference isnt that huge to my understanding. Both games run at 1080p while maintaining almost the exact same visual quality. Both games reach 60fps with some dips in the XB1 version. To me thats closer than what we used to get a year ago. Its probably even closer than the performance differences we used to get the previous gen, where the PS3 versions usually had either some of the following issues or a combination of them: often less stable performance, QAA or missing AA, missing foliage, lower res transparencies or missing transparent effects, lower resolution, blurrier textures etc
There is not a 40% observed difference regarding this game

Is this games push the PS4? I doubt it. It is not like every developer push the console to the limit...

 

[chris1515]

And the framerate is capped to 60 fps maybe the average difference is 15 to 20 frame per second.... We will never know...

 

[Arwin]

It is OBVIOUSLY not pushing the PS4, or the Xbox One version would have been 900p. Tssk.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Is this games push the PS4? I doubt it. It is not like every developer push the console to the limit...

Is it completely optimized for XB1's memory architecture? Ideal use case of the ESRAM suggests alpha fill shouldn't be a weak point of XB1.

 

[Clukos]

No framerate capped game is ever "pushing" any console to "the limit". A capped framerate (no dips) pretty much means there is perf overhead that is not being used, be it at 30 or 60hz. Games running at 60hz without dips whatsoever might very well run between 70-80 if uncapped.

And that's why games running at a capped 60 are very impressive technically (Forza 6, Halo 5, Uncharted collection from the top of my head) even though they might not be pushing boundaries with rendering tech.

 

[Recop]

Why would you say that? The difference isnt that huge to my understanding. Both games run at 1080p while maintaining almost the exact same visual quality. Both games reach 60fps with some dips in the XB1 version. To me thats closer than what we used to get a year ago. Its probably even closer than the performance differences we used to get the previous gen, where the PS3 versions usually had either some of the following issues or a combination of them: often less stable performance, QAA or missing AA, missing foliage, lower res transparencies or missing transparent effects, lower resolution, blurrier textures etc
There is not a 40% observed difference regarding this game

This game doesn't appear to be especially demanding on the GPU side, yet we still find the same old bandwidth limitation on XB1... even after the most recent SDK updates.

 

[Shortbread]

Is it completely optimized for XB1's memory architecture? Ideal use case of the ESRAM suggests alpha fill shouldn't be a weak point of XB1.

Does that apply to Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat X as well? Both are 900p/60fps fighters on XB1... and Killer Instinct being a first party title at that. Rare spent plenty of time upgrading/patching KI (720p to 900p), only to achieve its current results.

I believe XB1 is going to get hammered in the fighter department when it comes to fighters with lots of particles and alpha effects being displayed... especially at 1080p/60fps. It's seems more of an ROP issue (lack of), than an optimization issue. So, DF suggestion on dropping the resolution seems like the more reasonable fix...

 

[Nesh]

Is this games push the PS4? I doubt it. It is not like every developer push the console to the limit...

Whatever the case this is not a game that is supposed to push any of the two consoles. This game example is no indication at all that the gap is widening at all

 

[Nesh]

This game doesn't appear to be especially demanding on the GPU side, yet we still find the same old bandwidth limitation on XB1... even after the most recent SDK updates.

And yet they perform extremely close in this game's case

 

[chris1515]

And yet they perform extremely close in this game's case

The framerate is capped we don't know if the game perform closely like I said we could have a 20 fps average difference on framerate but we will never know because the framerate is capped .

No software will change harware advantage of PS4. COD difference is now 900p against 1080p it was 720p against 1080p and it was the same things for MGS 5 Ground zeroes and the Phantom Pain.