Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2016 - 2017]

[dah145]

I just find baffling they just ditched their Dark Souls 2 engine, in some ways it offers superior effects, bokeh DOF for example and its performance was spectacularly optimized and and looked pretty damn clean because it was obviously modeled after FXAA support, it had its moments where it looked bad but all around I would have preferred that engine to be their basis for their new Dark Souls 3.
From Bloodborne, the advantages of this new engine I can tell are a huge amount of geometry they added, it really surprised me, there was no trickery needed, no parallax occlusion mapping, every single brick on a road or a wall had its geometry, I suspect they also delved deep into tessellation and/or displacement maps. Their engine became too taxing for 60 fps on consoles and image quality took a huge hit, Bloodborne for the most part is shimmering city, the AA pass is completely ineffective in some parts, they cheaped out on the DOF effects and the light shafts resolution too. This engine is all about geometry and textures, they went a little too insane I think. I don't even think they have PBR model going on? At times it looked like it does. I don't know, this new engine feels like a mixed bag... especially on consoles.

 

[Globalisateur]

I just find baffling they just ditched their Dark Souls 2 engine, in some ways it offers superior effects, bokeh DOF for example and its performance was spectacularly optimized and and looked pretty damn clean because it was obviously modeled after FXAA support, it had its moments where it looked bad but all around I would have preferred that engine to be their basis for their new Dark Souls 3.
From Bloodborne, the advantages of this new engine I can tell are a huge amount of geometry they added, it really surprised me, there was no trickery needed, no parallax occlusion mapping, every single brick on a road or a wall had its geometry, I suspect they also delved deep into tessellation and/or displacement maps. Their engine became too taxing for 60 fps on consoles and image quality took a huge hit, Bloodborne for the most part is shimmering city, the AA pass is completely ineffective in some parts, they cheaped out on the DOF effects and the light shafts resolution too. This engine is all about geometry and textures, they went a little too insane I think. I don't even think they have PBR model going on? At times it looked like it does. I don't know, this new engine feels like a mixed bag... especially on consoles.

This engine is not only about that. It also gives us a very low input lag on a 30fps title.

I think framepacing issues and low input lag are somehow linked in the engine similar to the Halo engine on X360 and Destiny in the Beta.

 

[Clukos]

There's definitely pbr in Bloodborne, but maybe not as sophisticated as recent AAA releases

And the Blooborne engine is much better than Ds2 imo geometry density adds incredible depth to the environments and From have some top tier concept and model art talent

Only downside is the frame pacing issues which they really can't seem able to fix.

 

[Clukos]

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Face-Off: Dark Souls 3
Clash of the consoles: PS4 takes on Xbox One.

 

[Clukos]

While the X1 version is not exactly terrible it's not great either. Frame pacing on both versions, it seems like alpha effects are to blame for X1 frame drops for the most part as seen in this part and it doesn't affect Ps4 almost at all:

That was the case with Bloodborne as well, where in some cases in the higher depth chalice dungeons framerate had some problems keeping up. I wouldn't say it's unplayable on X1 though, looks like a typical From Software game performance wise Ah, and definitely expect more drops in areas that have many alpha effects on screen, on both consoles. I've played Bloodborne for about 170 hours so i have some experience with their engine and how it performs

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Digital Foundry: Oculus Rift review
Virtual reality check.

 

[DJ12]

We have a few Oculus kits at work, might try one out, but I don't think it's for me as I have one seriously under performing eye and I guess I won't really get the benefit.

 

[Arwin]

You might be surprised. All the other visual queues we use for depth perception actually work in VR (object closer moving faster and your head movements being tracked helps that even more) and even a purely flat image still completely surrounds you ...

 

[iroboto]

Digital Foundry: Oculus Rift review
Virtual reality check.

Exactly how I felt. I haven't played any AAA titles, GPU is too weak, but the VR experiences are nothing short of amazing. The platform itself is great as well. I concur with this review, I haven't gotten sick yet either, but that might be because I haven't played any games really yet.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Face-Off: Dark Souls 3
Clash of the consoles: PS4 takes on Xbox One.

The XBO port almost seems like an afterthought. They didn't even bother to do the UI elements at 1080p like other titles where graphics are rendered at sub-1080p.

Regards,
SB

 

[Starx]

 

[Clukos]

The XBO port almost seems like an afterthought. They didn't even bother to do the UI elements at 1080p like other titles where graphics are rendered at sub-1080p.

Regards,
SB

Well, it's From. Undeniably one of the best devs in some areas (level design, close combat action gameplay, boss design) and undeniably one of the worst AAA devs in other areas (performance, porting etc.). Can you believe that Dark Souls 1 was locked at 720p and 30 fps on PC? If it wasn't for Durante and DSFix I wouldn't even consider playing what is now one of my most memorable gaming experiences. The fact that they still haven't fixed the frame pacing issues from Bloodborne should tell you a lot about their technical expertise...

 

[function]

Best 60 fps rally game to date is still Rallisport Challenge 2 on the original Xbox, but looks like there might finally be something to move onto. Looks fantastic for both systems (and PC).

 

[Sigfried1977]

Well, it's From. Undeniably one of the best devs in some areas (level design, close combat action gameplay, boss design) and undeniably one of the worst AAA devs in other areas (performance, porting etc.). Can you believe that Dark Souls 1 was locked at 720p and 30 fps on PC? If it wasn't for Durante and DSFix I wouldn't even consider playing what is now one of my most memorable gaming experiences. The fact that they still haven't fixed the frame pacing issues from Bloodborne should tell you a lot about their technical expertise...

Framepacing issues aside (which I barely ever noticed in the 300+ hours I've spent with the game), Bloodborne is a damn fine looking game, and it's not just due to its art direction either. Still cannot think of a great many games with environments that are quite as packed with little details. They aren't exactly the only ones facing problems with Xbox One development. Going by that logic, 90% of all developers had to be utterly incompetent knobs thanks to the plethora of poor PS3 versions during the last hardware generation.

 

[Clukos]

I think Bloodborne is a beautiful game as well, in the most horrific way, but there's definitely room for improvement and i don't think From is technically on par with many AAA studios, even Japanese ones (FFXV, MGSV for example). What they lack in rendering finesse they more than make up to in other departments though, absolutely one of my current favorite devs, like buying blind favorite.

 

[chris1515]

I think Bloodborne is a beautiful game as well, in the most horrific way, but there's definitely room for improvement and i don't think From is technically on par with many AAA studios, even Japanese ones (FFXV, MGSV for example). What they lack in rendering finesse they more than make up to in other departments though, absolutely one of my current favorite devs, like buying blind favorite.

Kojima Productions and Square Enix hire many western developer. Square Enix after buying Eidos and KP in Los Angeles.

I think framepacing problem could easily be corrected and framerate could be better another problem is a bit too much of shimmering and shader aliasing.

With only improving this I think From Software games could be much better on technical side...

And Bloodborne is my game of generation for the moment...

 

[tuna]

Best 60 fps rally game to date is still Rallisport Challenge 2 on the original Xbox, but looks like there might finally be something to move onto. Looks fantastic for both systems (and PC).

Actually Sega Rally 1995 on the PS2 is the best rally game ever.

 

[forumaccount]

The fact that they still haven't fixed the frame pacing issues from Bloodborne should tell you a lot about their technical expertise...

Rewriting a major aspect of the engine like frame synchronization post-release would be a terrible choice. I doubt any experienced and sufficiently non-reckless developer would go for it. Best strategy here is just not to assume anything about people's technical competence without enough info to do so.

 

[Globalisateur]

Maybe they can't fix the framepacing issue if they want to keep the low input lag in the game. I still think there is link between the two.

I remember Destiny Beta that was also plagued with frame-pacing issue on both consoles. They mainly fixed it, particularly on PS4, but the XB1 still had some of this issue after launch (not sure now) and even the PS4 after launch could still very rarely have it.

Halo(s) on X360 always had this problem too. But all games have all a very low input lag at 30fps. Comparable or even better than some 60fps games. As far as I know, no other 30fps games have that kind of input lag.

My theory is that in a way framepacing issue could be seen as some kind of mini framerate drop, but only from the part of the engine that maybe runs at 60fps internally (like the controls), while the other part (like the final output) runs at only 30fps.

LIke the game could run internally at 30fps but in parallel and in 2 16.67ms parts, maybe vaguely similar of how TLOUR run on PS4, except with the controls running at every 16.67ms of each part and the rendering displayed only every 33ms. So it'd improve the input lag and it'd allow them to have mini framerate drops of only one 16.67ms part of the rendering, so they still can catch the time lost in the next 16.67ms part of the rendering, because in a parallel engine the rendering never stop being computed, thus creating a 30fps average but irregular pacing.

Not sure if sufficiently clear but that's just a very vague theory based of not much....