Image Quality and Framebuffer Analysis for Available/release build Games *Read the first post*

I would like to know about the fps also. It seems they did a good job on the ps3 version but 360 will probably be slightly better graphically from looking at the SS.
 
There is still a reduction in various character textures, so there's the memory savings in effect. Miranda's hexagon suit is curious in that it seems they've gone for a higher res base-texture and skipped the normal and specular maps. Looks nicer on facial close-ups, but may end up looking a bit flat in-game... Not that it's a big deal in the grand scheme.

The lighting can be rather bizarre at times (lots of black crush in the Normandy) and maybe it's just because it was tailored specifically for the ME2 renderer ( :?: ).

Effects wise, there are some precision issues showing up as blocking artifacts - the star at the beginning, distortion shader for biotic powers, helmet visor etc.
 
AlStrong said:
Oh sweet Miranda, in different light, you are revealed to be a troll face
Click to expand...

Well, that's more like the lighting and shading's fault, the real miss Strachowsky is rather nice looking IMHO. Or maybe the 3D model was made after photographs and not a scan of her head.


And yeah, the asset guys were talking about various trickery related to the textures on the characters, even the X360 uses downscaled normal and spec maps compared to the PC. It seems that they had to free up even more memory for the PS3 (as expected) and did not want to touch the environments, so they looked at what else can be cut from the characters. It's probably a much smaller scale task to go over them, compared to all the 30+ levels.
 
Laa-Yosh said:
Well, that's more like the lighting and shading's fault, the real miss Strachowsky is rather nice looking IMHO. Or maybe the 3D model was made after photographs and not a scan of her head.
Click to expand...

:p Agreed. There's some really bizarre lighting at times going by the comparison shots that will be up on DF soon.

And yeah, the asset guys were talking about various trickery related to the textures on the characters, even the X360 uses downscaled normal and spec maps compared to the PC. It seems that they had to free up even more memory for the PS3 (as expected) and did not want to touch the environments, so they looked at what else can be cut from the characters. It's probably a much smaller scale task to go over them, compared to all the 30+ levels.
Click to expand...
Indeed, it will be interesting to compare the environments later on in the game like the club scene on Omega or Tali's/Kasumi's loyalty section, which sported a lot of characters and effects. I wonder how the Collector-related missions will fare as well.

All in all, I'm still wondering what exactly we are meant to see about the Mass Effect 3 engine.
Time to make a 6km trip to their main office and make some demands. :3
 
Trejser said:
Video comparison from DF http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/masseffect2-360-vs-ps3-faceoff?size=hd

Sometimes PS3 version looks a bit better and the textures/models/etc. looks the same to me :)
Click to expand...
The lighting looks better at times on PS3, but the facial textures look better sometimes to me on 360 (or maybe it's the different lighting that's causing it to look different).
Tearing/performance is to be expected considering it's the UE3 engine.

Overall, it looks like a good port.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Trejser said:
So it can go above 30 fps in PS3 version?
Click to expand...

There were some moments that seemed to go over 30 fps. But, like, less than a second or so based on my experience with the demo.
The frame rate is not stable in places, but it's not as bad as the original Mass Effect in my opinion.
 
That is bad. You would also need to pause to aim in some battles. Also adding that ME1 on PC ran barely ever under 25fps on a 7900GT at 1280x1024 max + 16xAF. Minimum 30fps was almost given and avg well above. Was same with Gears. But anyway they improved perfomance for ME2 360 version while improving visuals and perhaps no cutdowns or maybe, dunno.

Anyway it seems they added more cinematic lights for PS3 or alternatively changed the cinematic light effect. Seems strange it would not by detected by devs if they handplaced the lights, if they now added new lights that is.

Code: 
MaxCharacterCinematicLightingPasses=3
 
Rotmm said:
Also, in a couple of shots, it's apparent that they've upped the resolution of the character shadows. This is quite obvious in the 7th set of pics down, the one with Shepard holding his face. The PS3 version's shadow at the top, while somewhat pixellated, has a lot more detail than the low resolution shadow map on the 360 version.
Click to expand...

They have probably same shadowmap resolution with only differing filtering quality. O gives pixelated shadow edges and higher smoother shadow edges.

Code: 
ShadowFilterQualityBias
 
Nebula said:
Anyway it seems they added more cinematic lights for PS3 or alternatively changed the cinematic light effect. Seems strange it would not by detected by devs if they handplaced the lights, if they now added new lights that is.

Code: 
MaxCharacterCinematicLightingPasses=3
Click to expand...

Considering the bizarreness of a number of close-ups, I don't think it's an increase in light passes we are seeing here. If anything, it seems like fewer.

Nebula said:
They have probably same shadowmap resolution with only differing filtering quality. O gives pixelated shadow edges and higher smoother shadow edges.

Code: 
ShadowFilterQualityBias
Click to expand...
They just use jittered/sparse samples for the shadow penumbra on 360 versus the usual PCF on PS3. It's a favoured choice for shadowmaps to hide the jagged edges of lower resolution shadowmaps. On 360, they have to do multiple fetches anyway since there is no hardware 2x2 PCF (single fetch). In some ways having that base cost means they can do what they want with access to four samples at relatively little extra cost, such as in Just Cause 2's case with self shadows. They may even hide other or entirely unrelated math ops to do in parallel, in which RSX would otherwise stall during so many fetches (moot point with the one fetch).

At such an extreme distance, of course, you can see the noisy effect, but for most of the cases in Mass Effect 2, it's an adequate solution producing a smoother penumbra. It is much improved over the first game as well.
 
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