Graphical Comparisons: Don't go Chasing Waterfalls or Throwing Rocks at Cars *bifurcation*

[phoenix_chipset]

Hmm I agree with @ultragpu, FH4 still has that xbox one base level of detail hanging around when compared to ps4 stuff (1080p with 4xMSAA is pretty taxing for poor base xbox one lol). Running on an engine designed for 60fps probably doesn't help either. BUT for realistic racing games, it's king of the hill.

Not a fan of HZD's visuals though and the environments are pretty static. I would rather use spiderman as a metric here

 

[higherARC]

Hmm I agree with @ultragpu, FH4 still has that xbox one base level of detail hanging around when compared to ps4 stuff (1080p with 4xMSAA is pretty taxing for poor base xbox one lol). Running on an engine designed for 60fps probably doesn't help either. BUT for realistic racing games, it's king of the hill.

Being on a base xbox has no effect on what can be further enhanced

Some improvements X/pc has over base console

• "in many games using SSR, there's a cut-off around the edges of objects in the way of a reflected surfaces...Xbox One X gets a 2x detail boost over the standard console"
• "The game runs with improved tessellation on deformable snow, rendered up to 10x the quality on Xbox One X compared to the representation on the base console."
• "SSAO is only enabled on Xbox One X in its quality mode"
• "motion blur rendering is boosted on Xbox One X"
• "dynamic night-time shadows from headlights are only an X feature while running at 4K and 30fps, and likewise for ambient occlusion"
• "textures get a boost on Xbox One X to take advantage of the system's extra memory"
• "To go alongside that, foliage density is increased by 50 per cent"

Both games look great and I would put the 2 neck and neck but to me FH4 takes the lead. Also hzd has issues I find lacking like water, 90% of grass clips through character, lod draw in, and lighting.

pop in

 

[phoenix_chipset]

But all the geometry and shaders are made with base xbox one in mind, at 1080p 4xMSAA. Or, even if it was lead xbox one x the end results are similar as to porting up from base after shooting for native 4k and all those extras. Typically Xbox one's sweet spot is 900p with some kind of post AA.

Maybe if they didn't go for so much MSAA they could bump world detail up, but I applaud such a clean method at least.

Like I said i'm not the one using HZD as a bench, I agree on the water and foliage and general simulation being lacking. It also has a copy paste look because it's procedural.

Spiderman though? Noticeably better.

 

[higherARC]

But all the geometry and shaders are made with base xbox one in mind, at 1080p 4xMSAA. Or, even if it was lead xbox one x the end results are similar as to porting up from base after shooting for native 4k and all those extras. Typically Xbox one's sweet spot is 900p with some kind of post AA.

Maybe if they didn't go for so much MSAA they could bump world detail up, but I applaud such a clean method at least.

Like I said i'm not the one using HZD as a bench, I agree on the water and foliage and general simulation being lacking. It also has a copy paste look because it's procedural.

Spiderman though? Noticeably better.

Shader complexity is made better on X/pc over base as well as geometry for cars and distant objects. This is why there's more foliage than base console. For me Fh4 has the most detail in a open world. The seasons change the landscapes completely. Spiderman doesn't look as good espicailly with no real time TOD changes and just a urban environment so not much to show. I prefer hzd and fh4 over it easily. If i had to pick the top 3, it would be fh4, hzd, and soon to be rdr2

Here's mud filling up with water from the river

 

[phoenix_chipset]

It looks pretty much the same on X as it does for base with slightly better lods and night lighting + textures. Can't say I notice much difference besides clarity.

Simple math would say that a 4k 4xMSAA game on xbox one is not competing in detail with 1080p post AA on ps4 given the gpu's. I'm not saying forza doesn't look really good, but the technical limitations are there.

Spiderman has BEST in class post processing (temporal injection with no ghosting, incredible motion blur), phenomenal lighting, effects and materials and I wouldn't say every game has to have a dynamic time of day system, it kinda seems like an item on every developers checklist these days but we've had real time of day systems since last gen so? Is this like godrays last gen every game needs them?

 

[higherARC]

It looks pretty much the same on X as it does for base with slightly better lods and night lighting + textures. Can't say I notice much difference besides clarity.

Simple math would say that a 4k 4xMSAA game on xbox one is not competing in detail with 1080p post AA on ps4 given the gpu's. I'm not saying forza doesn't look really good, but the technical limitations are there.

Spiderman has BEST in class post processing (temporal injection with no ghosting, incredible motion blur), phenomenal lighting, effects and materials and I wouldn't say every game has to have a dynamic time of day system, it kinda seems like an item on every developers checklist these days but we've had real time of day systems since last gen so? Is this like godrays last gen every game needs them?

Being 4k 4xMSAA has no bearing of matching a 1080p game on ps4. X has significant more ram, bandwidth, and more efficient gpu to push more details at the res as seen in games where X shows enhancements over base ps4 1080p games being at 4k. Again I see no difference in detail quality compared to fh4. There's a lot of complex rendering in fh4 (per pixel lighting, color light bounce off cars onto surfaces, voxel gi, tessellation, volumetric ssao, etc). The temporal injection is great in spider but to me natural scenery is more impressive with more "uneven" surfaces and natural details which is why I find hzd better than spiderman. Excited to see rdr2 though

 

[Karamazov]

i was impressed by Far Cry 5 too

I'd like to try AC origins.

 

[Recop]

Being 4k 4xMSAA has no bearing of matching a 1080p game on ps4. X has significant more ram, bandwidth, and more efficient gpu to push more details at the res as seen in games where X shows enhancements over base ps4 1080p games being at 4k. Again I see no difference in detail quality compared to fh4. There's a lot of complex rendering in fh4 (per pixel lighting, color light bounce off cars onto surfaces, voxel gi, tessellation, volumetric ssao, etc). The temporal injection is great in spider but to me natural scenery is more impressive with more "uneven" surfaces and natural details which is why I find hzd better than spiderman. Excited to see rdr2 though

You can say that FH4 is the best looking game ever and i have no problem with that. The game is stunning.

But the rendering is inherently less demanding. Again, there're simple maths to help us. You need a GPU that is over 7 Tflops to achieve what's the PS4 is able to do at native 4K.

It's obvious that Spiderman and HZD could not run at 1080p on XB1 and native 4K on X. Those games are more complex and it is true for third person games in general. Racing games are basically the only games that are able to achieve 1080p on XB1 and there's a reason for that.

Also, FH4 has far more pop in issues than HZD and at a closer distance.

Obviously, if we take the resolution into account (native 4K) FH4 beats any Sony exclusive game from a technical standpoint but it would not be true at equal resolution.

Even if Spiderman doesn't have dymanic TOD, it is still a more demanding game than FH4 at equal resolution. Obviously, at a lower resolution than native 4K, FH4 could achieve a rendering complexity that is unmatched on XBX.

Also, this pic doesn't really support your point :

But then again, i consider Playground as one of the best developer in the market. Considering all the constraints they had, they did an incredible job and the overall look of the game is excellent.

There's no reason for a player to be this far in the woods and yet it's as detailed as any normal open world game

No, it is not. You won't find anything as foliage heavy in FH4 :

But those kind of forests don't exist in UK anyway, so everything is done right in FH4. But it still save them some precious ressources.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

Being 4k 4xMSAA has no bearing of matching a 1080p game on ps4. X has significant more ram, bandwidth, and more efficient gpu to push more details at the res as seen in games where X shows enhancements over base ps4 1080p games being at 4k. Again I see no difference in detail quality compared to fh4. There's a lot of complex rendering in fh4 (per pixel lighting, color light bounce off cars onto surfaces, voxel gi, tessellation, volumetric ssao, etc). The temporal injection is great in spider but to me natural scenery is more impressive with more "uneven" surfaces and natural details which is why I find hzd better than spiderman. Excited to see rdr2 though

Let's spell this out - Ps4 = 1.84 tf, @1080p a ps4 game needs over 7tf for native 4k, X only has 6tf. Then consider the hit that 4xMSAA incurs which is not found in Ps4 exclusives. See?

But I mean hardware is one thing, I agree 4H4 is a nice looking game. I would say breath of the wild even on Wii U looks better than HZD with non muted colors, grass and water that at least reacts to the player and more visual variety so there's more to it than what game is most hardware demanding.

 

[Karamazov]

Zelda has great art and nice cell shaded style but technically it is far from amazing really.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

Zelda has great art and nice cell shaded style but technically it is far from amazing really.

I didn't say it was

But, it's pretty damn impressive for the Wii U, for an open world game. Held back by the cpu in Wii U which is worse than 360's so I would not use it as a switch benchmark.

 

[steveOrino]

The above is rendered using Redshift GPU render and I am using it as a contrast to stuff posted in this thread.

Im not going to critique anything since its all subjective, especially where we are at in terms of real time rendering but I will say in most of the screen shots I see in this thread reminds me of the presentation Nvidia gave about graphical edge cases and the extreme measures that are needed in raster graphics to alleviate most of them. To me one of the next issues for pushing visual fidelity in real time games is indirect lighting. Everything I have seen no matter how impressive the engine or the amount of time is put into capture and baking, the visual constancy all falls apart when not directly lit. Reading about how much photography data and time it takes to process FH4 HDRI maps for example is staggering and even with all that effort the lighting inconstancies still are very much clear.

I think auto racing games are a great showcase for graphics because cars aren't organic objects so they don't have to do too much to pass the eye test nor do they need much in the way of world simulation and script execution/book keeping like (for example) RPGs do so more processing can be devoted to rendering. I think thats why in nearly every console generation car games are front and center as far as visuals are concerned and a good test to see how far rendering has to go to get the cars and the world consistent with real life.

 

[Recop]

Spiderman has BEST in class post processing (temporal injection with no ghosting, incredible motion blur), phenomenal lighting, effects and materials and I wouldn't say every game has to have a dynamic time of day system, it kinda seems like an item on every developers checklist these days but we've had real time of day systems since last gen so? Is this like godrays last gen every game needs them?

Indeed, Spiderman is incredible but the environment is not really comparable to FH4.

The above is rendered using Redshift GPU render and I am using it as a contrast to stuff posted in this thread.

You mean the car of the whole picture ? Because we can see the car is not real on a close inspection but the environment looks like a real photo to me.

 

[Cyan]

i was impressed by Far Cry 5 too

I'd like to try AC origins.

did the game live up to the graphics quality, gameplay wise? I haven't had a Far Cry game since FC4. A very cool looking game tbh but there was something about it that I found fakey, compared to say, Skyrim.

 

[steveOrino]

You mean the car of the whole picture ? Because we can see the car is not real on a close inspection but the environment looks like a real photo to me.

 

[Karamazov]

did the game live up to the graphics quality, gameplay wise? I haven't had a Far Cry game since FC4. A very cool looking game tbh but there was something about it that I found fakey, compared to say, Skyrim.

I never played FC4, i played the whole FC5 campaign in coop so we had a lot of fun, but nothing amazing gameplay wise. We liked Ghost Recon wildlands more.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No, it is not. You won't find anything as foliage heavy in FH4 :

But those kind of forests don't exist in UK anyway, so everything is done right in FH4. But it still save them some precious ressources.

Eh?

 

[higherARC]

Let's spell this out - Ps4 = 1.84 tf, @1080p a ps4 game needs over 7tf for native 4k, X only has 6tf. Then consider the hit that 4xMSAA incurs which is not found in Ps4 exclusives. See?

But I mean hardware is one thing, I agree 4H4 is a nice looking game. I would say breath of the wild even on Wii U looks better than HZD with non muted colors, grass and water that at least reacts to the player and more visual variety so there's more to it than what game is most hardware demanding.

What you and recop don't understand is that way of thinking is flawed. There are games that are 1080p on ps4 that run 4k native on X. There are many games that run 70%+ higher resolution over pro even though "theoritically" X is only 50% stronger. GPU flops is only a small part of the whole equation. The X isn't like the pro where the gpu mostly got a jump. X has a substantial jump in memory amount, bandwidth, and everything else. This allowed games to run higher than the "theoretical" gap between X and pro. So having a game on ps4 run at 1080p has no bearing. You don't have to spell anything out as your example is only valid if X was only a jump in gpu power

Eh?

Thank you I'm going to take a good amount of pics this weekend. There are areas heavily dense in foliage. No problem showing that Just gotta wait for spring to roll around haha

Another thing I don't see why anyone mention LOD a issue in FH4. DF states it's not remotely noticable and I haven't seen any during gameplay. Of course if you're looking at base console footage or the bug on pc that causes LOD and AF to be screwed you can say that but that's not the case in X/pc with no bugs. It's not any worse than you see in say hzd

Anyways another city pic

 

[phoenix_chipset]

What you and recop don't understand is that way of thinking is flawed. There are games that are 1080p on ps4 that run 4k native on X.

What games? Technically X is only 42% better in gpu, but yes I understand you also have higher bandwidth on X.

But Forza doesn't help your argument because it is 1080p 4xMSAA on base hardware. If a game is 1080p on Ps4, logically it should be 900p on xbox one (at best, since ps4 is more asynchronous) if given the same level of optimization. So, you're talking about a game (forza) that runs at typical ps4 resolution, with the most expensive form of AA sans supersampling, and it's somehow as detailed as the big ps4 exclusives which are obviously pushing the hardware? Number one it's not I can see it with my own eyes, and then the numbers support this. I am not, however going to tell you you're wrong if you find forza horizon 4 the most visually pleasing to you.

The biggest improvement in forza going from base to X hardware are the night headlamp shadows which really looks great, but everything else is a relatively minor visual bump.

Shit, I think gears 4 looks amazing, and better than the god of war reboot, but i'm also not going to say it's pushing more detail than god of war because it can't.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

Regarding the fact that there's games with *dynamic* 4k on X and dynamic 1440p on Pro in games like wolf 2 and star wars, and that those numbers don't make sense given the flop divide, how can we attest to anything there? It's not definitive proof that such a gap in software can't be closed.

It also doesn't make sense that forza H 4 can't run above 1080p in 60fps if we look at the numbers, but i'm not going to say that's the best the X can produce and a forza horizon 5 can't hit 1440p60 somehow, maybe they rushed to hit 60fps? Getting a locked 60 couldn't have been easy if they only had a short time to do it.