New PS2 F1 Game

[randycat99]

Feel free to post some pix then.

 

[marconelly!]

Marc,
BGDA runs 1280x960I. And id's speculate this F1 game is more likely running 640x960I as well - given that it's supposed to be very stable in framerate and all.

Whoa... So BGDA renders to 1280x960 back buffer and downsamples that to 640x240 front buffer? If it was downsampling it to 640x480 front buffer, they could make the game run in the progressive mode, correct?

V3, either you are playing something that noone has acces to, or I'm crazy. I really don't think there is a single F1 game that looks this good and has such tech specs. There aren't too many recent F1 games to begin with, though...

 

[V3]

I have no idea about poly count, but play any F1 game, they all looks very similar, during this gen. There are at least an F1 games every year. I've been playing with the new EA one and the new Sony one recently. They both have hic up in the frame rate. But the Sony look similar to this one. The EA one don't look that bad either. They both play similar as well.

I like F1 games, so I am getting all of them but you guys might want to get this one, though the Sony one is also alright, if you don't want to wait.

I still think Polyphony should have done F1 game. Though this one is from the Le Mans team, as long as the car don't handle like in that game it will be alright.

Feel free to post some pix then.

I would, but don't know where to look.

Edit: Here's one

 

[randycat99]

On a fundamental level of detail, I would tend to agree that these F1 games are very close. The thing that puts GPC over the top is that vertical AA feature that really blends things in quite nicely. You can see in your pictures there are still areas that still have an ever so subtle jaggie artifact. It's not bad at all- quite typical of a high quality 640x480 presentation (about where you would expect PS2 to be in IQ right about now). GPC is probably going to get a lot of kudos because it represents the next step in what PS2 games will look like, just with that AA effect.

Maybe a few more close-up shots of one of the cars may reveal some further enhancements in model geometry in GPC. You would certainly be in the right to say that any improvements are quite subtle at this point.

...but you are the F1 fan, of course, and I am not. So whichever game you like better in the end is certainly quite valid. Me personally, I just find what they have accomplished in GPC quite impressive when they really didn't need to go as far as they did just to be on par with other PS2 F1 games.

 

[marconelly!]

V3, that also looks pretty damn good. Is that EA's F12002? I can't seem to find it for the Xbox, and the PS2 version doesn't look as good on the screens at Gamespot... Are those screens from PC version?

 

[V3]

Hehehe, the FIA rules implementation is more important. (Assuming they got the handling right). Graphics, well not that important, as long as frame rate is good. Once you are in cockpit view everything looks the same.

On second note, Parhelia and 3 screens is pretty good for F1 2002. I am hoping NV30 will support 3 screens as well.

Marco,
Yeah I think those are from PC, though they said its PS2. I like the PC one, I can play it over 3 screens.

BTW Gamespot screens are pretty horrid. If GS were to take screens from this game it would look horrid as well.

 

[-tkf-]

Hehehe, the FIA rules implementation is more important. (Assuming they got the handling right). Graphics, well not that important, as long as frame rate is good. Once you are in cockpit view everything looks the same.

Graphics in the cockpit are very important, i need a long draw distance and a good res so i can see whats ahead of me.
And the new FIA rules can bite a big one. As long as it's a game they wont really make any difference. The rules were made for TV viewers so that they would get more interesting races not because the guys behind Michael Schumacher were bored.

 

[V3]

The draw distance is about the same in this gen. They are pretty good. Though generally, you memorised the track, so you don't really need that huge draw distance, since you just need to see your braking point and a car in front of you. And braking point in F1 are so late anyway.

The rules are important to get it right. If not the game become generic. I am not talking about point system either, but the rules of the race. Yellow flag, 107% and such are important.

 

[marconelly!]

Two new videos, one with more rain effects:

ftp://ftp.download-center.com/pub/Download/it_infogrames_com/GPChallenge/gp_monza.zip
ftp://ftp.download-center.com/pub/Download/it_infogrames_com/GPChallenge/gp_suzuka.zip

 

[Fafalada]

Marc, uh sorry, my english playing tricks on me again I guess.
I meant they BGDA used interlace mode, which means their BackBuffer is only 448 tall yeah, but we're talking about end number of samples used for each screen.
This is all just opinion, but I think that for PS2, a stable 60hz game that uses supersampling AA just doesn't make much sense to use progressive sized buffers.
2x memory used for back buffers could be better spent for effect buffers, higher color depth (BGDA was 16bit for instance), etc.
Which is why I speculate this game is also done interlaced internally.
Progressive is a gimmick as it is, so if you really need it, you could simply take off the AA in that mode.

 

[marconelly!]

But that's why I simply don't understand why Melbourne House is using 960 pixel tall back buffer. That essentially makes the vertical antialiasing 4X as it scales down to 240 pixels before displaying it on the interlaced screen. In the mean time, there are no horizontal AA in this case. Weird?

 

[Phil]

After reading through those many pages on the Gran Turismo forums, I must say that this title has my hopes up quite high. The visuals are also very impressive - seeing that it's out this Friday, I will definately give it a try and buy it, if it seems to live up to the impressions I've gathered so far. After EA's first and rather weak attempt to the F1 scene (F1 championship season 2000 - I still regret buying it.. ), it can only get better.. hehe.

Anyway, I don't think it's too well accepted when new members (such as myself) post new threads to welcome ourselfs, so I'll just do it here. After being a regular visitor to this site, I finally took the initiative to sign up, as this does seems like a great place to post..

 

[Fafalada]

Question is whether they really use 960 tall buffer or not. Interlaced, you only need half of that.
I have to say I'd find it odd if they did too, it'd make more sense to add horizontal samples x2 :\

 

[ERP]

Although it sounds counter intuitive, vertical antialiasing is actually more effective on a TV.

This is purely from observation, but I think it has to do with the way horizontal pixels bleed into each other. Anyway, scanlines are just more defined than columns of pixels, so addressing the aliasing due to scanlines ends up being more effective.

 

[Tagrineth]

But that's why I simply don't understand why Melbourne House is using 960 pixel tall back buffer. That essentially makes the vertical antialiasing 4X as it scales down to 240 pixels before displaying it on the interlaced screen. In the mean time, there are no horizontal AA in this case. Weird?

The PS2 outputs 480 lines to the TV

 

[randycat99]

But that's why I simply don't understand why Melbourne House is using 960 pixel tall back buffer. That essentially makes the vertical antialiasing 4X as it scales down to 240 pixels before displaying it on the interlaced screen. In the mean time, there are no horizontal AA in this case. Weird?

I'm completely not understanding you as I don't know the real behind-the-scenes process. I realize that an NTSC field is constructed with 240 lines, but since these are not sequential lines, why would there be *any* scaling to go from the 480 rendered output to the 240 field output? I had always imagined that the rendered 480 frame is submitted to the video output chip and it slices it (not scales, thus no opportunity for any AA here) as necessary to the 240 field output. The 240 field isn't a continous image, so why would there be any scaling involved? It is just a sequence of slices from the original 480 rendered frame, that happens to correspond to 240 lines. Do I have this completely misconcieved?

 

[Fafalada]

Although it sounds counter intuitive, vertical antialiasing is actually more effective on a TV.

I know it tends to help more, but this comes down to the type of game as well I think. Particularly when you're dealing with long draw distance and far geometry aliasing in a racing game, I'm not entirely convinced only vertical would be the best way to go :\

randy,
most video controllers DO have the ability to postprocess the outputted data - including blending scanlines together (not just slicing). But that aside, outputting to an interlaced display at 60hz, you can render each 960 tall buffer offset by 0.5 pixel from frame to fram, downsample to 240, and voila - 4x vertical AA.

 

[marconelly!]

The PS2 outputs 480 lines to the TV

Just read Faf's answer above. Of course, in the case of progressive TV set, output would be 480 lines (if the game supports that) However, I was talking about interlaced displays.

 

[randycat99]

Faf,

I see- very clever! My guess, is they just wanted to keep things simple and straightforward. Are you implying that if all they wanted to do to get 2x vertical AA, they really only need to render the standard 480 and then do that half-pixel offset thingy to get the AA effect?

 

[Fafalada]

Are you implying that if all they wanted to do to get 2x vertical AA, they really only need to render the standard 480 and then do that half-pixel offset thingy to get the AA effect?

Yep. The downside here is that this doesn't let you use any flicker filtering with it.

This also goes against common sense, but if all you can do is 2x downsample, NOT offseting each field by 0.5 pixels (giving you a 480 with a 2line blur filter instead of AA) would probably look better to most people (less interlace flicker).
Actually this would kinda explain the logic for using a 960 back buffer instead of any horizontal AA too...