Encyclopedia Brown & The Mysterious Case of the PS4 and the Missing Anisotropic Filtering

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I always thought this was a case of 'PS4 has AF problems' and the question was 'why?' - with people citing performance, some sort of technical issue (be it h/w or API) and dev time/skills required to implement.

As such, it's clearly down to the devs - this much is clear (we have evidence that PS4 has no issues with AF, we have devs saying it's not a hardware issue and as stated I'm fairly certain devs have said it's not a bug)...so I don't see why we can't just close the thread...at least until an actual dev makes some sort of statement/leak about why this has happened - until then it's safe to assume time/costs/overlooked IMHO
 
iroboto said:
Alright. Well we've had several developers indicate it is not an SDK bug. I'm not sure if that has been considered for evidence yet.
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We still have no testimonies of real developers who have shipped their PS4 games with low AF on PS4 compared to other console version. That includes Dying light developers before or after the patch.

All the other testimonies we have, for instance one from ICE team guy (saying it's not a SDK or Hardware problem) or from a well known PS3 developers who after having read some PS4 API doc declared it's most certainly because of "API misuse and not a performance cost issue" have not shipped any games on PS4 with those issues. So maybe they are just assuming as much a us.

At this point the only explanation that still makes sense is the only one which is not a Sony SDK bug or because of performance reasons, while being a "API misuse" issue: A third party API like some automated software to convert some old directx 9 texture / shader code to PS4 GPU code that would automatically set the AF to an arbitrary low number.
 
Globalisateur said:
We still have no testimonies of real developers who have shipped their PS4 games with low AF on PS4 compared to other console version. That includes Dying light developers before or after the patch.

All the other testimonies we have, for instance one from ICE team guy (saying it's not a SDK or Hardware problem) or from a well known PS3 developers who after having read some PS4 API doc declared it's most certainly because of "API misuse and not a performance cost issue" have not shipped any games on PS4 with those issues. So maybe they are just assuming as much a us.

At this point the only explanation that still makes sense is the only one which is not a Sony SDK bug or because of performance reasons, while being a "API misuse" issue: A third party API like some automated software to convert some old directx 9 texture / shader code to PS4 GPU code that would automatically set the AF to an arbitrary low number.
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That's fair. Misusing an API can lead to issues, sure at this point in time we might as well call it what it is - the wrong setup/wrong code for the job. But every multiplatform game suffers from this because there is not 1 universal way to maximize each console, hence why exclusives are an ideal platform for developers reach their performance targets. There is of course another perspective, which is that after additional weeks of time at the code, they have just optimized it to run better overall, made more room for improvements. Games as they get their code based change can improve or worsen - we've seen this happen in the PC space all the time. Why is this dying light patch excluded from the common case?

Everyone just linked to the NXGamer video which pretty much sums up: hey software makes up for most of the problem, and shipping on time was more important than getting those features in. Good programming goes a long way to having good performance.
 
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Cort develops PS4 drivers. Him not knowing of an API or SDK issue doesn't rule it out, he does not develop games. I don't know who else you are referring to, but I suspect it is not as black and white as your interpretation.
 
For all we know it could be a very simple explanation.

The AF switch is there... and all devs use it. But it doesn't actually enable it on PS4, like it does on X1. You need one more step to do it. Most people don't see bad AF (at least compared to slightly better AF) unless you shove a side by side into their face. Maybe the time-constrained developers didn't notice it either, or it was too late... patches aren't exactly free (though it has been said, that expensive patches have been removed, sort of, by MS and Sony), so it stayed as is.
 
If AF is that free, what about games with low AF on ps4 AND Xbox One ? Like watch dogs which only has 4x if i remember correctly
 
DrJay24 said:
Cort develops PS4 drivers. Him not knowing of an API or SDK issue doesn't rule it out, he does not develop games. I don't know who else you are referring to, but I suspect it is not as black and white as your interpretation.
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If there was an API or SDK issue he would most likely know about it, as he would be the one assigned to fix it.
 
The issue being discussed here is that it's as 'free' on PS4 as it is on the One, therefore the instances where one version had it and the other doesn't, has more to do withOHMYGOD we're still talking about this!
 
goonerpost: 1834280 said:
If it were not why would we see Dying Light not only add AF at x8 but also improve other features?
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Every game is different.
They had room left for it in dying light, that does not mean the same could be done without performance impact in games like WD or say driveclub which seems very optimised.

AF going from 2x to 8x in killzone, is an exemple of AF impacting performance in certain situations.
 
Every game is different, however this game had none - had it switched on - improved other features and ran better.

So in conclusion, Dying Light 'OMG -no AF, what is up with PS4 and AF?' = There is no issue. Sure it may not be 'performance free' but it's clear there's little impact in Dying Light (if any) - that's an open world 'next gen only' game, so quite demanding really.
 
goonergaz said:
Every game is different, however this game had none - had it switched on - improved other features and ran better.

So in conclusion, Dying Light 'OMG -no AF, what is up with PS4 and AF?' = There is no issue. Sure it may not be 'performance free' but it's clear there's little impact in Dying Light (if any) - that's an open world 'next gen only' game, so quite demanding really.
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How many weeks from launch till this patch? Games are often shipped incomplete and unoptimized these days. So it's very unfair to suggest that they just flipped it on.

Titanfall shipped with terrible tears and a constant 40. Now it's better than that. Destiny was about to ship at 900p. So was Diablo 3. Assassins creed Unity on PS4 had huge frame rate problems that were later addressed as well. Time to deliver is the biggest factor in the quality performance of a game other than any other factor. You can ask any developer here if this or that is possible and they'd tell you likely if they had more time.

If at the time they couldn't get what they wanted from dying light in ps4 they cut AF spent more time optimizing the game and brought it back in with a patch.

Games are patched to improve performance all the time. Heck there is a patch coming to improve bloodborne performance too. Yet no one is treating that as a special case. Dying light may have chosen to remove AF and not suffer from additional frame rate issues, optimize when they had the chance put it back in and now you have a better product. You guys are making this more complex than it should have to be. I mean, didn't we just go through the worse year of number of games that should have been delayed, and games that were actually delayed?

2013, 2014 are full of games that should have been delayed, but the deadlines were too tight learning both new consoles, and into 2015 we're just seeing games get delayed flat out as they still adjust. By 2016 I fully expect these issues to go away.

Performance of a game does not represent the performance of the hardware.
 
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I thought I was trying to simplify things lol

I understand what you're saying - but I'm also not saying that they just 'switched it on', what I am saying is that switching it on had so little impact on performance there was room for other improvements...as such (and considering the game ran quite well at launch) I find it hard to believe they switched it off to help performance.
 
goonergaz said:
I thought I was trying to simplify things lol

I understand what you're saying - but I'm also not saying that they just 'switched it on', what I am saying is that switching it on had so little impact on performance there was room for other improvements...as such (and considering the game ran quite well at launch) I find it hard to believe they switched it off to help performance.
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that's fine, I'm okay if you see it that way. For me, resolution, AF and AA are the easiest switches for developers to flip to generate immediate performance gains (if you have no time to do more subtle performance decreases). I feel of the 3, AF is the most subtle, or maybe that was all they needed. In any event, i'm sure PS4 - it's going to be fine. I'm not sure if we have officially entered 'wave 2: the second title for each company' but it should be coming soon and I don't expect to see any of these issues for PS4 crop up at that point in time.
 
possibly, but as I said, performance wasn't an issue for the PS4 version anyway so why cut it out? If it made that much of a difference then putting it back in at x8 + other improvements makes no sence
 
iroboto said:
How many weeks from launch till this patch? Games are often shipped incomplete and unoptimized these days. So it's very unfair to suggest that they just flipped it on.
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You do realize the game was often running over 30fps and causing stuttering? Your narrative is not adding up. The devs were under no obligation to spend money and man hours on a released game that was in a perfectly working state. It was not a broken mess like Unity causing a huge PR shitstorm. Most everyone was happy with the graphics and performance for Dying Light.
 
Lots of games have performance patches after launch these days.

You don't know what changed - or didn't change - that allowed aniso to be applied. There is always insufficient time for optimisation before release.
 
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