Killzone: first pics

[chaphack]

:shrugs: whatever people whatever.

And marc, SC2 has the usual PS2 IQ, grainy and shimmery, while SC1 has a much smoother PC IQ, VGAish filtered and clean. So i dont geddit how you can think SC1 looks worse than SC2, in all regards. :?

Maybe you can try playing at your HDTV owning friends' homes or local arcades. You are bound to see the PS2/Sys246 IQ difference. I swear.

 

[marconelly!]

Oh man... I was looking at SC1 running on VGA and SC2 running on component TV... It's just stupid to argue how much better SC2 looks.

*edit* Not only SC1 uses those blurry-ass bitmap backdrops in almost all of it's levels, but even the floor gets all blurred after first few inches, and you can even clearly see the mip line separating the blurred portion from the sharp looking one, and it *still* shimmers a bit, even in progressive scan. If that's what you call 'clean PC look', I don't think you've played PC games lately. In SC2 PS2 you do get that slight shimmer too, but at least not everything after first few inches from the bottom of the stage looks blurred.

And what's "whatever" about my post? Would you say that some of those titles I mentioned actually have bad IQ?

 

[chaphack]

If you insist

ZOE2, TR:AOD, NBA:S2, Burnout 2, Frequency, Amplitude, Jak 2, Ace Combat 4, Tekken Tag, Tekken 4, LOTR:TT, SH3

ZOE2 - washed out dull textures, chances of shimmer lowered.
TR - no idea
NBA - no idea
BO2 - grainy road
Frequency/Amplitude - no idea, but musical games?
Jak 2 - no idea
AC4 - the ground is mostly made up of a few large burry textures that looks fine far away
TTT - no idea, but T4 has shimmers and the textures look "pale" in comparison to DOA3, like a oft-washed cloth vs a new cloth. lowered vibrancy?
LOTR - IIRC, it was alright, guessed the fixed cam helped
SH3 - shimmers


Not sure how to put it, but PS2 games' color gradient seens somewhat off. They are like, missing a few dynamic range or something. They just lack the vibrancy and richness of DC/XB. Its like a brand new coat of paint vs one thats being around. Thats one part.

The other part is the aliasing. Texture shimmering is the most common. The display is just not as stable as competitors. You can have a nice looking title like GT3/SH3 but the image is sadly marred by the swimmy textures.

As before, shimmery and grainy display is what hampers PS2 the most IMHO. I can live with limited textures but the video on my screen is troubled with artifacting, and till today, that is not solved.

 

[chaphack]

Oh man... I was looking at SC1 running on VGA and SC2 running on component TV... It's just stupid to argue how much better SC2 looks.

*edit* Not only SC1 uses those blurry-ass bitmap backdrops in almost all of it's levels, but even the floor gets all blurred after first few inches, and you can even clearly see the mip line separating the blurred portion from the sharp looking one, and it *still* shimmers a bit, even in progressive scan. If that's what you call 'clean PC look', I don't think you've played PC games lately. In SC2 PS2 you do get that slight shimmer too, but at least not everything after first few inches from the bottom of the stage looks blurred.

And what's "whatever" about my post? Would you say that some of those titles I mentioned actually have bad IQ?

bZZZt. I have not played SC1/2 latey.

ANYWAY, i really like the *slight* blurry look of mipmapping in DC/XB. I just cant stand the crawlies! :? While shimmery is also present in DC/XB games, they are less severe than their PS2 counterparts. IIRC, look towards the grounds in SC2, you can see the grainy crawliness.

 

[marconelly!]

ZOE2- I'm sorry, but 'washed out dull' textures have nothing to do with image quality. If you want to complain about that, it's a different issue. Besides that, ZOE2 looks sharp where it needs to, and looks anything but dull, but I guess there's no arguing with you there... I guess you would argue that Myazaki's films also have blurry washed out colors, when it's obvious that Anime is supposed to look that way.
Example: http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2002/e32002/playstation2/zoe2/zoe2_b2_screen002.jpg
Not dull at all, IMO.

BO2 - grainy road? I honestly don't have a clue as to what you are talking about.

AC4 - so what? Does image quality suffer because of that large texture that actually looks really good 99% of time?

TTT & T4, if you want to nitpick THAT much, I guess it's safe to say that DOA3 also looks like a shimmerly mess (because it DOES shimmer a bit, oh the horror)

SH3 - shimmers... in approx 2% of the game...

Seriously, though, it's as if your selective criticizm gets upped to 11 when it comes to judging PS2 games' graphics. It's as if you don't see how much flawed are even the best looking games on other consoles, and how much can be nitpicked about them.

I have not played SC1/2 latey.

Well, Id' suggest you do play SC1 because I think you would be surprised just how much blurred many things in it are.

 

[chaphack]

Well i am not sure but if you used lower contrast colors, you get less chance of having those creepy crawlies!

For the case of BO2, colors used are more contrasty hence you can see the "grain" on the road surfaces. You know grain? sparklies?

DOA3 has some shimmers, but i like the vibrancy of the colors used, yet has a soft stable look. Suits an arcade fighter well.

 

[chaphack]

Example: http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2002/e32002/playstation2/zoe2/zoe2_b2_screen002.jpg
Not dull at all, IMO.

Looks dull to me


ANYWAY, can someone explain to me why ZOE2 captures look particularly bad? Poor captures or is it doing some half height thing?

 

[marconelly!]

Nope, the game is definitely full height buffer, like every other Konami game that I can think of.

 

[schmuck]

Sorry but PS2, without a doubt, has the worst IQ this gen. FACT.

No offence to anyone, but i dont see how you can argue with this.

 

[LisaJoy]

Sorry but PS2, without a doubt, has the worst IQ this gen. FACT.

No offence to anyone, but i dont see how you can argue with this.

I don't either, Sony did a good job making the EE able to hold its own by pushing more than enough polys to get the job done. But they made a big mistake on not addressing the systems texture issues, had they just made sure the system had some form of texture compression the small texture cache would not have been so much of a problem.

 

[notAFanB]

Sorry but PS2, without a doubt, has the worst IQ this gen. FACT.

No offence to anyone, but i dont see how you can argue with this.

I don't either, Sony did a good job making the EE able to hold its own by pushing more than enough polys to get the job done. But they made a big mistake on not addressing the systems texture issues, had they just made sure the system had some form of texture compression the small texture cache would not have been so much of a problem.

might wanna throw in some more flexible texture filtering in there too.

 

[chaphack]

Exactly. 8)

Thus i felt really saddened to be lynched of speaking what is basically the truth. Its there, its *there*.

Like its *there* for Ps2 with its excellent cinematic framebuffer effects(eg motion blur ect), which still stands tall against the competition today. Its also *there* with Ps2 ability to throw plenty of simple textured polygons. But its IQ is simply not *there*.

 

[schmuck]

In the end though it doesnt really matter how unbalanced the ps2 hardware is with the amount of talented teams and budgets being thrown at it, the top of the line Ps2s graphic will always be of high quality and on par.

 

[chaphack]

Yup, the resources thrown at making games for the No.1 console, will ensure the quality of the end results be good. BUT i wouldnt call them on par today.

 

[schmuck]

Maybe not on paper or whatever, but when you look at the best looking ps2 games on screen they definatly look on par..Just look at sh3 for christsake, easily a top 10 game this gen.

 

[LisaJoy]

When it all comes down to it at the end of the day, there is too much ignorance in the console world.

if you are buying a car, a house, or an another electronic appliance.. you are going to check the Warrenty, the quality of it, you will do your research... with consoles, people say... its a playstation so I am buying it, overlook that its hardware is relatively weak, and the Warrenty is terrible, 90 days is just cheap, they really need to work on that in the next generation as well.

Sure it has more games, but because everyone bought it when it did not, as I recall when I got my PS2 on launch day, I waited a year before some games I wanted to play came out.

 

[schmuck]

Yea ps2 sold on brand recognition alone the first year. I mean neither the graphics nor games was on par with dc.


But can you blame them? Psx was and still is one of the best consoles ever..The psx alone has more great games imo than all four consoles this gen.

Today the ps2 situation is alot better, there are lots of great games and some of them even look great. But i dont think ps2 will ever be looked upon like the well rounded psone.

 

[notAFanB]

Exactly. 8)

Thus i felt really saddened to be lynched of speaking what is basically the truth. Its there, its *there*.

Like its *there* for Ps2 with its excellent cinematic framebuffer effects(eg motion blur ect), which still stands tall against the competition today. Its also *there* with Ps2 ability to throw plenty of simple textured polygons. But its IQ is simply not *there*.

in truth the situation has definately improved this last generation of titles (well most of them) and full height FB/mipmapped Biliear/proper use of flicker filters have alleviated the godawful quality of launch titles.

if you were to weigh it up I suppose IQ is somewhat comparable to GC and far behind Xbox ( and no I am not including texture res here, since I group that with geometry and lighting as GFX domain).

Well i am not sure but if you used lower contrast colors, you get less chance of having those creepy crawlies!

I don't see how that is the case.

No offence to anyone, but i dont see how you can argue with this.

you can't.

 

[LogisticX]

Jesus, how many times does this fucking IQ discussion have to be brought up? I mean, all it took was ONE comment to derail this topic into an entirely new direction.

Killzone looks great, that's all there is to it. The IQ of this particular game is looking pretty sharp, and will most likely at least be tolerable where your eyes won't be bleeding from looking at the screen.


And chap, would you give it a fucking rest already.... if you were half as critical of Xbox games as you are with PS2 games, then maybe I'd forgive your never-ending nitpickings of a console that's the oldest out of the bunch. While you drool over RSC2, you don't care that a particular piece of texture isn't as high res as it should be, or you don't care that the first RSC had ungodly bad aliasing. Yet for a game on the PS2, you'll nitpick every detail as seen on this very page.


This whole running in circles thing is getting old. Excuse the previous profanity, but I just want to emphasize my thoughts on this.

 

[Phil]

The IQ Argument:

I can only agree with LogisticX. This argument is definately getting old. Chap, I don't know why you always bring up this flaw and blame the hardware for something it definately doesn't deserve to be. It takes just one game to prove your argument to be incorrect - given the talent and the effort and the hardware IS capable of performing up to par image quality. No matter how you try to dodge the argument, it can't be denied. And it's not just one game as Marconelly already pointed out. Burnout 2 has fabulous IQ, as does The Getaway and definately Jak II which I have already played and can confirm.

One has to see that since PS2 is the #1 console, it also has the highest support and with that, also many developers that don't go through the necessary effort to make sure that IQ is good enough. The hardware has proven to be very well capable of. In average, yes, IQ is a problem on PS2 - just as framerate seems to be a problem on Xbox. In case you want to argue it on Xbox, be aware though that I am not dishing the hardware as it is very capable of it, but in average, framerate does seem to be on the lower side (just as you see IQ as a problem on PS2 hardware).

LisaJoy:

I don't either, Sony did a good job making the EE able to hold its own by pushing more than enough polys to get the job done. But they made a big mistake on not addressing the systems texture issues, had they just made sure the system had some form of texture compression the small texture cache would not have been so much of a problem.

I'd argue that it was a BIG mistake. Not considering it's the number one console by a very large margin and continueing to do so. Even more so once you consider how exceptionally well the hardware is still compeeting with newer and latter consoles. In the end, every console manufacturer will make sacrifices and making the right ones is all it's about. We can argue night and day which sacrifices Sony took with the PS2 hardware, but we can also talk about the other consoles as well, which may I add to have their flaws as well. Given that the games look so different and ends up being quite subjective, I wouldn't say Sony made a big mistake - especially considering its age and its position in todays market.

if you are buying a car, a house, or an another electronic appliance.. you are going to check the Warrenty, the quality of it, you will do your research... with consoles, people say... its a playstation so I am buying it, overlook that its hardware is relatively weak, and the Warrenty is terrible, 90 days is just cheap, they really need to work on that in the next generation as well.

Since when was hardware ever the selling factor? Mainstream people buy consoles for games/brand recognition and rarely because of the specsheet at the back of the box, so I wouldn't know why you would even bring this up. People buying into the PlayStation brand have a very good reason. The selling factor should be games, not the performance of the machine. I'd also argue the aspect of the hardware being weak. Keep in mind, it was the first to launch and that quite a few months in advance - yet it still continues to be more or less up to par given it has a few advantages here and there which make it hard to judge which is really better as they all have their fair share of pros and cons.