*merged/spinoff* for the Neverending Killzone Discussion on Graphics

[Lucid_Dreamer]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make an assumption that Crytek does their best to optimize all of the code that they run on the SPUs. Why would you assume they don't? That's what developers do.

Hmmm...this song just popped into my head when I read your post. "I tried my best, but I guess my best wasn't good enough." Sometimes your best just isn't enough, in some cases. Didn't they have to get the Sony ninjas to come in and help late in the game?

 

[patsu]

It was meant to be the supposedly Halo killer since Killzone 1 days -HUH??-, it was supposed to be the 2005 CGI -which, I agree with others, the total level of fail in the comments of the DF article was just beyond words, it was that awful-, etc etc.

Did GG or the press claim KZ2 is a Halo killer ? I actually like the 2005 CGI and think KZ2 delivered the atmosphere nicely. I remember the journalists thought they were watching a movie when they saw the first KZ2 real time cutscene in the theater… until the presenter started to move the character with the controller.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

Don't worry,I'm not offended,there is nothing to be offended by.
I don't have the evidence but I'm just looking at what they are running on consoles and I kinda assumed that they had to be pretty good to achieve that on these consoles.Beside iffy AA and lower res there is absolutely nothing that is missing.

Thats why I gave you their numbers on SSAO and SSGI which are pretty damn fast.This numbers are quite good,in line with NDs.Plus you have first real time global illumination running on any hardware,also pretty fast on consoles.Both 1 ms.

Another thing is that they have engine to sell.Their engine is suppose to work very best on both platforms with all fancy effects turned on so I guess It wouldn't make sense for them not to do their best on PS3.

Agreed. The SSAO and SSGI numbers are very good. What about the rest? That's what I want to know.

The whole "first game with real-time GI" is debatable. MLB: The Show has real-time GI. In before, "It can't doing real-time GI with day/night transitions. It must be a trick."

 

[Scott_Arm]

Hmmm...this song just popped into my head when I read your post. "I tried my best, but I guess my best wasn't good enough." Sometimes your best just isn't enough, in some cases. Didn't they have to get the Sony ninjas to come in and help late in the game?

The fact that you wrote "Sony ninjas" makes me not want to respond to this, but here goes ... They've put many years of work into it, and I expect they aren't perfect, as no developers is, and may have issues or seek help when working with new hardware platforms. You have no idea what they requested help for, or to what extent Sony's "ninjas" actually helped. To completely write them off, for consulting with Sony's internal teams (which would actually seem a smart and beneficial thing to do) is probably not a great mindset. With any software, there will always be things that can be improved.

 

[Neb]

Tons of stuff on the SPUs? Like? And, how long did these tasks take? Optimized or just ported code?

Like what is written in the shaders and configs. Also ported code? Why would they port code to their engine when they have been researching console HW since 2006/2007 with dedicated teams. If anything they might use some optimal algorithm and themselves implement into their engine tweaking and adapting it like PS3 exclusive devs also done (MLAA for example).

Anyway you seem to try real hard to discredit what is done based alone on video measured framebuffer resolution ignoring the rest. How about trying to find a PS3 exclusive that does all the tech effects in C2. That way we can actually get to something more concrete as of if Crytek has achieved something special.

Didn't you say C2 was around 0.7 million? I remember seeing the debug screen go between .5 million and .73 million, during the video.

Depends on which settings/scene. But first number is for geometry assets and second is for shadow pass. You need to put both values together to get total processed polygons per frame. It can easily get upwards total 1m polygons per frame on low settings.

 

[L. Scofield]

Hmmm...this song just popped into my head when I read your post. "I tried my best, but I guess my best wasn't good enough." Sometimes your best just isn't enough, in some cases. Didn't they have to get the Sony ninjas to come in and help late in the game?

Sony devs help each other out. Does that mean their individual efforts aren't good enough either?

The whole "first game with real-time GI" is debatable. MLB: The Show has real-time GI. In before, "It can't doing real-time GI with day/night transitions. It must be a trick."

We still have NO PROOF that they use realtime GI, just that they shade their characters with indirect lighting information which could have been stored in a lightmap.

 

[kagemaru]

Ported like MLAA, in it's original form, was ported to the SPUs. It was 120ms. The was unoptimized code. It, eventually, got down to 20ms with improvement over the original ported code. Are you saying you have evidence of Crytek doing this sort of process to their SPU code? That's what I'm asking. It's a completely valid question. Why do you seem offended by it? Please bring forth your findings.

You seem to automatically think SPU code could be the bottleneck, but have you ever considered that something else like memory could be the reason for any possible differences?

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

The fact that you wrote "Sony ninjas" makes me not want to respond to this, but here goes ... They've put many years of work into it, and I expect they aren't perfect, as no developers is, and may have issues or seek help when working with new hardware platforms. You have no idea what they requested help for, or to what extent Sony's "ninjas" actually helped. To completely write them off, for collaborating with Sony's internal teams (which would actually seem a smart and beneficial thing to do) is probably not a great mindset. With any software, there will always be things that can be improved.

Hey, I've heard the term "Sony ninjas" or "Sony coding ninjas" affectionately used several times. I guess you're trying to attach a social stigma to that to some benefit, right? Who "completely" wrote them off? Who actually typed those words? I just don't think you should outright lie (or get away with that type of lying) about your progress or lack thereof. To me, if it's a blurry jaggied mess, it's not worth it. There should be penalties for being dishonest in life. To try to side-step that is in bad taste, IMO. The second and last sentence in the post is stuff, I think, we all know (Devs/human beings aren't perfect and software can be improved).

On another subject, I wonder what coding projects are being tested on the SPUs behind closed doors.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

You seem to automatically think SPU code could be the bottleneck, but have you ever considered that something else like memory could be the reason for any possible differences?

Sure. Just like GG ran into those issues. They were solved. Great devs are great problem solvers, IMO.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Hey, I've heard the term "Sony ninjas" or "Sony coding ninjas" affectionately used several times. I guess you're trying to attach a social stigma to that to some benefit, right? Who "completely" wrote them off? Who actually typed those words? I just don't think you should outright lie (or get away with that type of lying) about your progress or lack thereof. To me, if it's a blurry jaggied mess, it's not worth it. There should be penalties for being dishonest in life. To try to side-step that is in bad taste, IMO. The second and last sentence in the post is stuff, I think, we all know (Devs/human beings aren't perfect and software can be improved).

On another subject, I wonder what coding projects are being tested on the SPUs behind closed doors.

Maybe "completely wrote them off" was too strong. You're asking for proof that they optimized, or made progressively better iterations of, SPU code and algorithms. I'm not sure why you'd believe they didn't do that. It's pretty much unthinkable that they wouldn't. In fact, I'd say the results would be embarrassingly terrible if they didn't, and there's no way the product would see the light of day. I'm not really sure what you're looking for. Are you suggesting they are somehow incapable of working on consoles, and why?

I'm not sure what lying you're referring to.

 

[ct03]

I'm not really sure what you're looking for. Are you suggesting they are somehow incapable of working on consoles, and why?

I have a feeling he is of the mindset that Crysis 2 on PS3 should be leaps and bounds beyond Crysis 2 on 360. Since it isn't, he assumes that they're not good at their job, unlike the exclusive developers.

Excuse me if this is not the case. I just lurk in a few other forums for sheer entertainment, and this kind of thought process comes up again and again.

 

[kagemaru]

Sure. Just like GG ran into those issues. They were solved. Great devs are great problem solvers, IMO.

What works for one game/dev may not be an option for another.

 

[ultragpu]

Depends on which settings/scene. But first number is for geometry assets and second is for shadow pass. You need to put both values together to get total processed polygons per frame. It can easily get upwards total 1m polygons per frame on low settings.

Last time I checked High setting has about more than twice the polys of Medium setting, and Low setting is much lower still. Overall it's rendering a lot less polys than Crysis 1 that's for sure and as for consoles I would imagine the polys fall between med-low judging by the aggressive pop ins and LOD.

As for KZ3's polys, that snowy screenshot displays 1m/frame but it's hardly the most dense environment in the game. The nuked City, Scrapyard, Mawler battle and Jungle level all sport considerably more polygons on screen, especially the scrapyard level. Even then, that snowy screenshot isn't the best example to show off the highest polycount in that level.
http://i51.tinypic.com/2zjaufq.jpg
http://i53.tinypic.com/2pqryir.jpg
http://i52.tinypic.com/rhrj2e.jpg

 

[(((interference)))]

I have a feeling he is of the mindset that Crysis 2 on PS3 should be leaps and bounds beyond Crysis 2 on 360. Since it isn't, he assumes that they're not good at their job, unlike the exclusive developers.

Excuse me if this is not the case. I just lurk in a few other forums for sheer entertainment, and this kind of thought process comes up again and again.

See, this is exactly my point - any MP AAA title that performs better on 360 than PS3 is immediately written off as a poor port (best example was the RDR tech thread debacle) and now even Crytek will also be accused of not doing enough on PS3.

At least with BF3 we clearly have a title where the devs have gone out of their way to customise their renderer to the PS3's strengths and weaknesses and so perhaps then it will finally stop.

Whats exactly problem with Reach tech?
From what i played Reach,it has,hands down best particle effects this gen,they are razor sharp,I was enjoying looking at them sparking.
There is camer/object motion blur,there is HDR lighting,SSAO,lighting looks really great and character models(Spartan) and textures(as well as AF) are up there with best.Word is quite expansive and its not as restricting like 90% of other shooters.

Problem with Reach is the fact that its artstyle is not something you would describe "in your face".I thought that in lot of instances Black Ops looked better than Reach.Alot of it goes to the fact that Reach world is very very clean,with not much smoke,gritty foggy artistic look is not present and then you get the feeling world is just a tad to "clean".

I think Laa Yosh posted Reach A.I characters and proved that they are really detailedly textured,if not more so than KZ3s characters.But when you play it Reach characters just don't have that "wow" look to them.KZ3s on other hand looked much better,as did(IMO) Black Ops and I'm sure not many people would agree that Black Ops has finer detail on characters.

If you are going to argue game look it would be smarter to look at tech featuring rather than "IMO this looks nicer".

Anyway...I'm ranting here and I sense my try for explanation will go to recycle bin once AL sees it so I'll leave it at this:smile:

Here is a little video from Reach which I would argue looks as good as any other shooter out here.

I agree that Reach has the best weapon and particle effects this gen (and have said as much before)

But yeah, Bungie don't make good technical/art decisions (just look at the mess that was H3) the fact that KZ2s characters look better despite having lower res, tiled textures is just proof of that. Also things like the ridiculous looking 'Big Bird' feet on the Elites.

Bungie also definitely have more of a gameplay/content focus unlike most of Sony's tech focused studios.

Which just goes to show that even the premier 360 dev comes short, artistically at least compared to Sony's top devs - which was the point I was making.

The fact that on 360 the what is probably the most technically impressive exclusive title comes from a third party team of 30 says a lot.

 

[nightshade]

I agree that Reach has the best weapon and particle effects this gen (and have said as much before)

I'd say FF13 has more impressive particle effects, having the whole screen filled with elemental spells and effect is a sight to behold...what's more, they are rendered at full res on PS3.

 

[(((interference)))]

I'd say best particle effect goes to FF13...and IIRC they are also full res on PS3.

For a action game not some JRPG where everything is about the flashy attack effects. Otherwise we'd have to take into account games like Geometry Wars or Super Stardust HD.

Perfect Dark Zero. They kept the effect pretty tightly close to the player view though. It would actually be really interesting to revisit the launch titles, particularly PDZ and Kameo, because it seems a lot of folks have forgotten (me included) just what sorts of effects were used to pimp the jump to next-gen. Kameo had all sorts of particle effects and crowd rendering. PDZ itself was a custom deferred renderer as well.

I also think that Rare are probably MS most technically and artistically capable studio, BK3 and VP were both very impressive, too bad they've become their full time Kinect dev and probably will never get the chance or time to build a AAA title like Perfect Dark 2.

 

[nightshade]

For a mainstream action game not some JRPG where everything is about the flashy attack effects. Otherwise we'd have to take into account games like Geometry Wars or Super Stardust HD.

I think Final Fantasy is pretty much as mainstream as a game can get.
I fail to see the point which you raise by making comparison between a tech heavy game like FF13 and games that use simpler rendering tech like Geometry Wars/Super Stardust.

And no hard feelings but what does "everything is about the flashy attacks" has anything to do with this ?
Aren't we talking about the transparencies here ? If they are good to look at, being rendered at full resolution (on a PS3) and the overall game itself is tech heavy, then it obviously deserves a nod, no matter how flashy they look.

 

[Turok]

The fact that on 360 the most technically impressive exclusive title comes from a third party team of 30 says a lot.

Fact? I don't think this is something you can measure factually. What would be the most "technically impressive" title on a console anyways? The one that stresses the internal components of the console most?

I'm not sure I agree with the notion that you can pick a game that is the most "technically impressive" on a console.

 

[(((interference)))]

I think Final Fantasy is pretty much as mainstream as a game can get.
I fail to see the point which you raise by making comparison between a tech heavy game like FF13 and games that use simpler rendering tech like Geometry Wars/Super Stardust.

And no hard feelings but what does "everything is about the flashy attacks" has anything to do with this ?
Aren't we talking about the transparencies here ? If they are good to look at, being rendered at full resolution (on a PS3) and the overall game itself is tech heavy, then it obviously deserves a nod, no matter how flashy they look.

True, I'll change that. But FF13 far more linear and scripted than a shooter/action game so it's not really comparable with something like Reach or KZ, especially when (with the exceptions of characters and effects) the graphics are rather basic:

Fact? I don't think this is something you can measure factually. What would be the most "technically impressive" title on a console anyways? The one that stresses the internal components of the console most?

I'm not sure I agree with the notion that you can pick a game that is the most "technically impressive" on a console.

Sigh, here 'fact' is more of a helper word to make the sentence work rather than describing that what follows is objective fact - is sort of interchangeable with 'situation' or 'that the'.

As for technically impressive really there's no definition to that, for the purposes here I take it to mean the best technical/artistic achievement, so a 360 title most similar to the accomplishments of UC2, GOW3 and KZ3 on PS3.

With that in mind, when it comes to 360 exclusives, it's pretty much either going to be Reach or Alan Wake. And I personally would give it to Remedy.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

Killzone vs World meltdown garbage thread number 102412415918348976

What works for one game/dev may not be an option for another.

That doesn't have anything to do with my post. A great problem solver solves problems. Devs, by trade, are suppose to be good troubleshooters/solvers. The PS3 is a flexible platform. Plenty of other devs are properly solving their problems. If you are creating major problems you can't properly solve, that is a serious...problem. :smile: