"Gears of War:The Road to E3" MTV Special

I wonder if the multitude of devs who are producing PC games based on UE3 are prepared for the backlash that lack of AA has seen in GRAW - or at least the backlash from PC gamers.

Did the backlash amount to much?

Jawed

 

There is a fair bit on the GRIN forums (developers of GRAW). Some people are actually asking that they change the lighting/shadowing model.

 

I know it's too early to tell, I'm merely curious if sales of the PC version of the game have been hurt.

Is lack of AA really a big deal to PC gamers?

Jawed

 

From what I've seen on several forums, the lack of AA seems to be one of those expected things now, so the backlash isn't so extreme for GRAW. According to NPD, it's been in the top 10 for the weeks since release (7th spot)... not sure what to conclude from that.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

I think a lot of people don't tend to notice alaising at higher rendering resolutions and many aren't distracted by it even at low resolutions, so in that sense I'm guessing UE3 will be all right. Not having or not being able to use AA won't put me off buying a good game either, but it does kick my interest down a notch.

 

I've never been a great fan of AA, as it has traditionally made the picture very bland. Particle and light effects can look a lot more striking without it. But in the new generation, I'm not sure what will be better. Sure, for stills it can matter a great deal, but for moving images, not so much.

I liked what they did to the cars in GT4. It seems as if they did some kind of polygon based blending or semi-transparancy on the car's edges. Anyone noticed the technique and/or could tell me more about it? (in a pm or other thread would also be fine)

 

depends on what the bottlenecks are, and for GOW (as with most other fps's) i dont really see it helping that much. what it will help with though is if they increase the quality, eg 1000's particles colliding + bouncing around the environment instead of just geting removed with collisions (or even worse / ignoring environment + passing through it).
lso lack of framerate i attribute not to the cpu

 

At least in my opinion; when rendering at higher resolutions like 1280x720 the aliasing on still images isn't particularly bothersome in most situations; but the way that aliasing crawls when moving is very distracting. I don't follow you on the bland thing at all though, and am at a loss to figure what you are speaking of in regard to particle and light effects.

 

I am almost happy that I am on a SDTV, an 720p image on the SDTV should give some nice AA ...

 

heres a topic i started that i believe explains what the poster means
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=369392
+ 2 small screenshots
http://uk.geocities.com/sloppyturds/shipAA.png
http://uk.geocities.com/sloppyturds/shipNOAA.png

in 99% increasing screensize will look better than increasing AA (within reason)
afterall AA is meant to lessen alaising which is caused by outputing to the computer/tv screen which has a limited resolution

 

You got it exactly, Zed. Perhaps HDR is what saves AA on modern systems, but it can really take the edge out of your graphics if you're not careful. The vivid and realistic lighting in GT4 would have been destroyed with full screen AA active. I'll try to see if I can give some examples.

On the original Xbox, I believe you had some kind of obligatory AA that you couldn't switch off, similar to what I remember the GeForce3 had, which was considered a downside by some. I'm not sure what kind of AA tihs was and it's been a while ago, but I consider it the reason why Xbox games tended to look so bland, despite its power. The GameCube seemed to do much better here, though I don't know much about this system and have only seen it in side-by-side screenshots.

Anyway, since then I've been wary of AA, and thought the technique of local polygon blending was interesting, especially since you can use it much more dramatically with depth-of-field effects.

 

Although people mentioned that there wasnt really too much information. It did give you an idea on how even top developers have to fight to get their visions and game ideas across about important aspect or features the developer feels needs to be in the game. Then to have the big guns (MS in this case) state they feel its too much or dont agree with what direction the game should take. Cliffy fought for that chainsaw assault rifle and it worked. Makes you wonder how many games we have played that showed promise but ultimately "hurt" (being nice there ) by top decision makers.

One thing I was disappointed with is I thought they were going to have a 4 player co-op to play through the campaign when first announced. Now it looks like its only going to be 2 player co-op now I do agree with the MS advisor (forgot his name) that from what little we saw of gameplay etc., the A.I. definately needs some work. I did like the comment from Epic to MS advisor "if you think the A.I. sucks tell me it sucks" (paraphrasing) lol


As for running on multicore, I believe it was either a interview on G4tv or E3 (I need to look it up) that Cliffy commented that it was running on one core at the time but they are continuing to work and test the UE3 engine to make use of multicore platforms and should hopefully be done shortly. (We all know what that means in game industry )

Overall I have high hopes and since they have until November hopefully they can deliver.

 

The loss of 4 player co-op was indeed a disappointment in my eyes. But, a sollid 2 player co-op is still excellent.

 

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=1878585

 

It's up again: http://xboxyde.com/leech_2679_en.html

 

new (not direct feed) screens of multiplayer.


pretty cool though

http://www.gfdata.de/archiv05-2006-gamefront/01737.html

 

AA on xbox? I hadn't noticed. link?

Actually it's funny you say that comparison of gc v xbox because to me it always looked as though gamecube games had much "softer" edges to their polygons.

 

Who says GoW's engine cant do hair?

http://www.gfdata.de/archiv05-2006-gamefront/gearsofwar01.jpg

 

Forbidden does.