Digital Foundry tech analysis channel at Eurogamer

[user542745831]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-sacred-2-1080p-performance

And should Digital Foundry be doing more benchmarking of game performance at SD resolutions?

Why not. Furthermore Digital Foundry could include info about the behaviour of the PC resolution (every output resolution that is not 1080i/1080p (1920 x 1080) or 720p (1280 x 720)) output of Xbox 360 for every game in their analyses. That would include info about native rendering resolution in those output resolutions, display mode (fullscreen, letterboxed etc.) and so on.

Digital Foundry also should analyse and compare every rendering resolution of a game (if there is more than one native rendering resolution available) (just like it happened for 'Sacred 2 Fallen Angel').

That of course would mean, that Digital Foundry should not only analyse the 1080p (1280 x 1080p 2xAA) rendering mode of 'Gran Turismo 5 Prologue' but also analyse and compare the 720p (1280 x 720p 4xAA) rendering mode .

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gran-turismo-5-prologue-analysis

 

[grandmaster]

Yes I can see that working for GT5, and also for something like Ridge Racer 7 which renders natively at both 720p and 1080p.

Also had an interesting suggestion about CoD4/WaW. Bearing in mind that they already render at sub-HD resolutions, do we get extra MSAA etc at 480p and if so, what are the performance advantages, if any?

 

[user542745831]

Yes I can see that working for GT5

Gran Turismo 5 or Gran Turismo 5 Prologue? Or both?

and also for something like Ridge Racer 7 which renders natively at both 720p and 1080p.

That also seems to be

one of those games that predates our performance analysis tool, but is well worth a retrospective look.

 

[Tap In]

With a fair wind, we should have an absolutely brilliant Red Faction Guerrilla feature up on Saturday. Volition is an absolute joy to work with.

sweet!

well deserved attention to one of the Best games of this year

Spoiler

generation

.

looking forward to it

 

[grandmaster]

Metal Gear Arcade feature up. A quick RR7 1080p vs 720p feature is going up today.

Tomorrow it's Red Faction.

 

[Gitaroo]

any chance for an analysis on the conduit? really want to see how this game is compare to some of the Xbox 1 fps like doom or farcry, or even Black.

 

[PhilB]

Not at all surprised with the frame rate of MGO. Very good article all around though. It raises some interesting questions about the arcade version. Can't wait to see how that turns out.

 

[grandmaster]

Yes, we want to do something on The Conduit and whatever else High Voltage is working on. If they're reading this get in touch! Otherwise I'll be tracking them down in due course...

 

[user542745831]

A quick RR7 1080p vs 720p feature is going up today.

Nice.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-rr7-the-1080p-dream-blog-entry

v-synced 1080p60

So V-Sync is enabled in both, 720p and 1080p rendering mode?

Still would be interesting how 'Gran Turismo 5 Prologue' compares in 720p (1280 x 720p 4xAA) rendering mode.

Another nice feature would likely be a direct comparison between 'Gran Turismo HD Concept' in both 1080p (1440 x 1080p 0xAA) and 720p rendering mode and 'Gran Turismo 5 Prologue' in both 1080p (1280 x 1080p 2xAA) and 720p (1280 x 720p 4xAA) rendering mode.

Both using track 'Eiger Nordwand'.



Furthermore analyses of the replay mode of those games would likely be interesting.

 

[Cornsnake]

That Red Faction article makes me wonder how many other games with this level of destruction we'll see. Most games just seem to add more destructable set pieces, instead of designing the game from the ground up for destruction. I've always found the original Red Faction to be more impressive then Black for that same reason. It allows for more creativity while destroying things.

It's interesting to hear that the current hardware is holding the Geo-Mod engine back in what it can show right now. That should prepare them well for next-gen. I would love to seen the terrain modification return. Making tunnels was one of the best aspects of the first Red Faction.

 

[Arwin]

I've played Guitar Hero World Tour again now that I've got a new amp, to see whether I would notice any difference now that I've got HDMI going straight into the amp and the sound is decoded even before the HDMI signal hits the TV. It's probably no surprise that any lag I had on the audio level is gone, but what is more surprising is that my video lag is also more than halved. I don't quite know yet what's going on, but that's what the calibration is telling me (4ms audio and 34ms video vs something like 78ms for video earlier)

 

[grandmaster]

Nice.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-rr7-the-1080p-dream-blog-entry

So V-Sync is enabled in both, 720p and 1080p rendering mode?

Still would be interesting how 'Gran Turismo 5 Prologue' compares in 720p (1280 x 720p 4xAA) rendering mode.

Another nice feature would likely be a direct comparison between 'Gran Turismo HD Concept' in both 1080p (1440 x 1080p 0xAA) and 720p rendering mode and 'Gran Turismo 5 Prologue' in both 1080p (1280 x 1080p 2xAA) and 720p (1280 x 720p 4xAA) rendering mode.

Both using track 'Eiger Nordwand'.



Furthermore analyses of the replay mode of those games would likely be interesting.

Some nice ideas that are probably worth doing once we have the proper game... we can then chart its evolution into the final product.

 

[grandmaster]

Here's what I started work on today:

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/4589/latency.jpg

 

[obonicus]

It'd be interesting to see some real data for that. If latency is lower than previously-reported, would there any way to test the release-code to see if there was any merit to the previous complaints?

 

[grandmaster]

I had a quick stab at it today on the patched version and by my reckoning, latency at 30fps is 166ms. My guess is that the original retail version will be exactly the same and the only thing that was altered was the sensitivity of the "dead zone" in the analogue controls.

Having come back to the game after three months, I would say that it definitely feels laggier than Halo and I would put this down to the simulation of inertia. I think it's deliberate and not related to latency as such.

Killzone 2 is clearly a good place to start though!

One thing I am interested in is how these results could tie-in to OnLive. The fact is we are conditioned to a relatively high degree of latency. With the PC versions running at 60fps, I am interested in how much of an additonal latency window this opens up to allow for streaming of data.

 

[catisfit]

Having come back to the game after three months, I would say that it definitely feels laggier than Halo and I would put this down to the simulation of inertia. I think it's deliberate and not related to latency as such.

Killzone vs Killzone 2 supports that. Any thoughts on comparisons with the prequel?

 

[T.B.]

Hey Grandmaster,

Just wanted to thank you for taking the time to measure Sacred 2. Certainly an unexpected honor. Not sure what is wrong with the 480p version on the PS3. We have more CPU bottlenecks on the PS3, but this is not what I would expect. OTOH the final SD code was put in after I left, so I've never seen it. Oh, and about the higher numbers of torn frames, could you give me the actual frame-by-frame measurements of frame-rate vs. torn frames. I think I know what happens there, and that would be my bug.

Thanks again.

 

[obonicus]

One thing I am interested in is how these results could tie-in to OnLive. The fact is we are conditioned to a relatively high degree of latency. With the PC versions running at 60fps, I am interested in how much of an additonal latency window this opens up to allow for streaming of data.

Also on the topic of latency, do you have a full-BC PS3 to test? I've seen reports that the PS2 emulation introduces frames of latency.

 

[grandmaster]

I have a full BC PS3 (in fact, two of them!) but I don't have any PS2 games any more!

 

[RDK]

Also on the topic of latency, do you have a full-BC PS3 to test? I've seen reports that the PS2 emulation introduces frames of latency.

Yes the EU 60GB model is nearly unplayble with F1 from EA, GT4 too ... it must be cca 300-500ms for F1 and cca 200-300 for GT4