Image Quality and Framebuffer Speculations for WIP/alpha/beta/E3 games *Read the first post*

[AlNom]

Alrighty... Both are definitely 720p. I was able to find a number of areas that show 2xMSAA on 360 although it's very tough with the post processing interfering in some parts of the scene on top of the very low contrast environment.

On the PS3, I was hard pressed to find any MSAA no matter what I was looking at. I was running around the demo, particularly the second level where there's almost nothing to be rendered whilst climbing the ladder and it doesn't seem like it has any AA. The forest stuff certainly didn't have any, but the rather uniform colour palette hides a lot of the edge stuff anyway.

It may not be variable AA for this title this time, and I wouldn't be surprised given what they've shown in videos thus far. They probably need all the bandwidth & vertex processing they can muster.

 

[SG79]

On the PS3, I was hard pressed to find any MSAA no matter what I was looking at.

How about the giant akrid fight area? (the only identical area between the demos). That's one area that I was hard pressed to see any differences in aliasing between the two versions. Looked quite a bit smoother compared to the two exclusive PS3 levels for sure.

 

[AlNom]

Yeah, that one was really tough to find the 2xAA on 360. The rendering they do seems to screw a lot with the MSAA resolve; I grabbed this just a few moments ago:


Note how the MSAA is kinda wonky on the right side with a completely wrong sub-sample result.

If you zoom in really close on the respawn pod...thing:
http://www.gameswire.net/comparisons/comparison-large_11_32_stack.html

You can see MSAA in effect on 360 with the just-off-white shade (a little greyer) from the white outline. On PS3 it's clearly no MSAA there, no matter the compression. Generally, this level is very low contrast with poor illumination, so it's not too surprising that it's difficult to tell the difference, especially during gameplay. That the MSAA is rather inconsistent on the 360 version makes the difference that much smaller.

 

[ultragpu]

Thanks again ALstrong, it seems the game has less AA than in Resident evil 5. I wonder if the updated engine would prioritize effects more than AA in this case. Understandable judging from everything happening on the screen.

 

[nightshade]

Even the color palette is such that its very effective in hiding teh jaggies.

 

[liolio]

I just read this post from the"Halo Reach"
All the screenshot are 1080p Alstrong (or someone else forthe matter) can you tell if they are native 1080p (vs down sampled or 1080p+extra AA)?

 

[AlNom]

A few of those are 2560x1440 no AA (the ones where you really notice aliasing). The rest are the 7x7 photomode renders as far as I looked.

 

[zaftxx]

I heard that the BF BC 2 MP demo is on Xbox Live now.

I wonder if the Xbox version has AA??
(if I remember correctly, the PS3 beta was 720p without AA)

EDIT: link to DICE Twitter

http://translate.googleusercontent....gle.de&usg=ALkJrhg3DLQf3WSlniRJRPvUwEJHQenLZw

from playing the demo, its no AA for sure, same as BF1943. I dunno it never bothered me in 1943 or any other game for that matter. no aa is terrible when games are sub hd and then upscaled like halo 3, which has some terrible jaggies.

 

[nightshade]

Its also down to contrast of the game....Halo 3 has high contrast colors making jaggies more easy to notice.

 

[N_B]

I just hope they've fixed the huge jagged edges created by low res alphas...was quite distracting in previous games. MazingerDUDE had a nice example:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1281517&postcount=372

I think the visible aliasing is just caused by post processing probably by a lower res alpha channel

Here's an example

http://www3.telus.net/public/dhwag/lowresalpha.jpg

Has anyone in the beta or has played the demo seen this? Did the 360 versions of previous BF games have this issue?

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

Alrighty... Both are definitely 720p. I was able to find a number of areas that show 2xMSAA on 360 although it's very tough with the post processing interfering in some parts of the scene on top of the very low contrast environment.

so is it there or does it look like it's imitating the attributes of aa? it's pretty hard for me to pay attention to it. maybe it toggles on and off depending on stability?

you know there's an option in the game to toggle the amount of brightness and contrast the game has.

 

[AlNom]

The point is that a dark colour next to a dark colour = low contrast or rather low frequency making any sort of analysis dubious and a waste of time.

 

[PeterT]

Some real-looking screenshots of Star Ocean 4 International (PS3) surfaced:
http://www.jeuxvideo.com/news/2010/00040226-images-de-star-ocean-the-last-hope-sur-ps3.htm

Exploration:
http://www.jeuxvideo.com/screenshots/images/00018/00018531_166.htm
Battle:
http://www.jeuxvideo.com/screenshots/images/00018/00018531_096.htm
http://www.jeuxvideo.com/screenshots/images/00018/00018531_104.htm (WTF, this one is much better. Do they switch to 30 FPS for post-battle stuff or something like that?)

The 360 version is the current record holder for worst IQ in a "HD" console game IIRC -- I find it very hard to judge if the PS3 version is any improvement but maybe a really good pixel counter can do better. There do seem to be fewer aliasing artifacts but it's also very blurry.

 

[Dr. Nick]

http://www.jeuxvideo.com/screenshots/images/00018/00018531_104.htm (WTF, this one is much better. Do they switch to 30 FPS for post-battle stuff or something like that?)

I don't remember the image quality changing between the battle and post battle stuff in the 360 version but I could be wrong. This might be an improvement over the 360 version but I don't have any screens to compare.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Whats is this? GoW3

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's a supersampled promo shot. Earlier in the thread GOW3 is reported as 720p, 0x or 2x MSAA. I don't think any native screengrabs have been released yet.

Tell a lie! Change your ../gow30.jpg link to ../gow31.jpg and you'll get a very clean 720p 0xAA screenie.

 

[Kasersky]

I don't remember the image quality changing between the battle and post battle stuff in the 360 version but I could be wrong. This might be an improvement over the 360 version but I don't have any screens to compare.

actually the 360 does go to higher resolution post battle. since they are closeups a low resolution shot would look awful. while battles run at 60fps, post battle is 30fps. i looked at the pics and they look pretty much the same resolution as the 360 version. Only thing that may be different is the frame rate, loading and screen tearing. Counter-intuitively the 360 version would actually stutter load if the game was installed on the hdd.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

hmnmmmm, qestion.

why dose Bad company2's demo weigh 1.3 gbs?

It's got only 1 map and has no single player mode or movies, and yet it weighs as much as bioshock's demo, which had quite a few areas inside of it.

 

[Neb]

hmnmmmm, qestion.

why dose Bad company2's demo weigh 1.3 gbs?

It's got only 1 map and has no single player mode or movies, and yet it weighs as much as bioshock's demo, which had quite a few areas inside of it.

PC beta is ~1.55GB in size when installed. Here is a breakdown of content.

Sound files ~880MB
Menu files ~50MB
Level ~180MB
Wepon stuff etc ~190MB
Videos ~200MB

And the rest is small files for game engine and other game stuff.

 

[Jonsoncao]

I don't remember the image quality changing between the battle and post battle stuff in the 360 version but I could be wrong. This might be an improvement over the 360 version but I don't have any screens to compare.

the IQ changes to the higher res one(like the cutscenes) in the post battle summary, SO4 360