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

ultragpu said:
This is one very confusing reply, is it rendering 720p natively or upscaled for christ sake?
Click to expand...
They are just describing pretty much every game out there, and it isn't really and explanation! Games frequently use mixed resolution framebuffers, like quarter-resolution particle buffers on PS3, and then combine everything into the final output. "720p" here means outputting a 720p composite of mixed-rendering framebuffers, without any clue as to what's rendered at 720p native or not. Everything so far is pointing towards a 960x540 main rendered opaque geometry framebuffer, what we gamers consider the game resolution, with a 720p native HUD/UI overlaid. This official response is a PR-phrased explanation of what they mean by 720p given that the game was described as 720p, and as usual '720p' is used when the output is 720p irrespective of the render resolution.
 
I think that when the gameplay releases and pixel counting starts and the resolution will be added to the official resolutions & tech thread, Alan Wake's resolution will be split in different chapters :LOL:
 
Shifty Geezer said:
They are just describing pretty much every game out there, and it isn't really and explanation! Games frequently use mixed resolution framebuffers, like quarter-resolution particle buffers on PS3, and then combine everything into the final output. "720p" here means outputting a 720p composite of mixed-rendering framebuffers, without any clue as to what's rendered at 720p native or not. Everything so far is pointing towards a 960x540 main rendered opaque geometry framebuffer, what we gamers consider the game resolution, with a 720p native HUD/UI overlaid. This official response is a PR-phrased explanation of what they mean by 720p given that the game was described as 720p, and as usual '720p' is used when the output is 720p irrespective of the render resolution.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation Shifty that was the first thing I thought of.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
They are just describing pretty much every game out there, and it isn't really and explanation! Games frequently use mixed resolution framebuffers, like quarter-resolution particle buffers on PS3, and then combine everything into the final output. "720p" here means outputting a 720p composite of mixed-rendering framebuffers, without any clue as to what's rendered at 720p native or not. Everything so far is pointing towards a 960x540 main rendered opaque geometry framebuffer, what we gamers consider the game resolution, with a 720p native HUD/UI overlaid. This official response is a PR-phrased explanation of what they mean by 720p given that the game was described as 720p, and as usual '720p' is used when the output is 720p irrespective of the render resolution.
Click to expand...

Well, much of the post processing appears to be done in 720p though. I'd say it is sort of a weird area. I do agree that the geometry framebuffer is 960x540, but that doesn't necessarily tell the whole story of how the game we rendered. It wasn't necessarily a lie to say that it was 720p. It just wasn't the whole truth, it left out certain details.
 
Morkins said:
Well, much of the post processing appears to be done in 720p though. I'd say it is sort of a weird area. I do agree that the geometry framebuffer is 960x540, but that doesn't necessarily tell the whole story of how the game we rendered. It wasn't necessarily a lie to say that it was 720p. It just wasn't the whole truth, it left out certain details.
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Ok, so what in the post processing is being rendered at 720p then?

" These are used for example for cascaded shadow maps from sun & moon, shadow maps from flashlights, flares and street lights, z-prepass, tiled color buffers, light buffers for deferred rendering, vector blur, screen-space ambient occlusion, auto-exposure, HUD, video buffers, menus and so on. "

What in this list besides the HUD is 720p? And if they rendered the HUD in 1080p should they then be able to claim the game is in 1080p even though everything else is half or less of that?
 
upnorthsox said:
Ok, so what in the post processing is being rendered at 720p then?

" These are used for example for cascaded shadow maps from sun & moon, shadow maps from flashlights, flares and street lights, z-prepass, tiled color buffers, light buffers for deferred rendering, vector blur, screen-space ambient occlusion, auto-exposure, HUD, video buffers, menus and so on. "

What in this list besides the HUD is 720p? And if they rendered the HUD in 1080p should they then be able to claim the game is in 1080p even though everything else is half or less of that?
Click to expand...

No. I don't know exactly what is rendered at what resolution. I just think relying purely on the opaque geometry buffer is a bit dated when you consider modern engines... There is simply too much going on elsewhere...

I think it would be looking at it a bit too simply to say "This is 540p" and ignoring a lot to say "this is 720p." I think for the purposes of the resolution that get posted, go with 960x540. But, there is simply too many other factors to just call it 540p when discussing it...
 
Shifty Geezer said:
They are just describing pretty much every game out there, and it isn't really and explanation! Games frequently use mixed resolution framebuffers, like quarter-resolution particle buffers on PS3, and then combine everything into the final output. "720p" here means outputting a 720p composite of mixed-rendering framebuffers, without any clue as to what's rendered at 720p native or not. Everything so far is pointing towards a 960x540 main rendered opaque geometry framebuffer, what we gamers consider the game resolution, with a 720p native HUD/UI overlaid. This official response is a PR-phrased explanation of what they mean by 720p given that the game was described as 720p, and as usual '720p' is used when the output is 720p irrespective of the render resolution.
Click to expand...

Thanks Shifty. But when the final image is 540p (upscaled by the Xbox to 720p): does it even make sense that one of the "intermediate" buffers is > 540p?
As I understand it, you use typically smaller intermediate buffers (to save GPU) and not larger ones?
 
Morkins said:
No. I don't know exactly what is rendered at what resolution. I just think relying purely on the opaque geometry buffer is a bit dated when you consider modern engines... There is simply too much going on elsewhere...

I think it would be looking at it a bit too simply to say "This is 540p" and ignoring a lot to say "this is 720p." I think for the purposes of the resolution that get posted, go with 960x540. But, there is simply too many other factors to just call it 540p when discussing it...
Click to expand...
Well if I have understood some elements are 720p but the engine runs at 540p; where is the weird to say runs at 540p? :???: No one said graphically is garbage but yeah the engine runs at 540p at the end.
 
I've moved the last three pages of Alan Wake talk to this new thread for discussing the game and choices. Please use that thread and return this thread to the determining of framebuffer and IQ methods of unreleased games. Thanks.
 
Not too concerned at this point. One of their better improvements is that the specular aliasing is rather minimal throughout. The more pronounced motion blur (camera and per object) helps quite a bit as well.

SSAO is also present.
 
AlStrong said:
Not too concerned at this point. One of their better improvements is that the specular aliasing is rather minimal throughout. The more pronounced motion blur (camera and per object) helps quite a bit as well.

SSAO is also present.
Click to expand...
I am not concerned at all, the game looks (and plays) sweet :p
I was just curious
 
Gitaroo said:
anyone seen any footage of the PS3 version of Red Dead Redemption? Can't seems to find any, and I hope the improve the engine.
Click to expand...

I haven't seen anything, it appears they are showing the X360 version exclusively.
Does that mean ps3 version is running behind the X360 build ? Or is it a marketing decision ?

It's been 2 years since the release of GTA4, so hopefully they've improved the engine.
It would be nice for PS3 to have 720p native, and no dithering problems with X360.
 
AlStrong said:
Not too concerned at this point. One of their better improvements is that the specular aliasing is rather minimal throughout. The more pronounced motion blur (camera and per object) helps quite a bit as well.

SSAO is also present.
Click to expand...
do you think bungie implemented AA? or is it post processing doing a better job at hiding the aliasing.
 
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