Old Discussion Thread for all 3 motion controllers

[(((interference)))]

They're total lag, not controller lag, as others have said, including the screen lag. We're probably looking at about 100ms extra on average to what we're used to.

I don't think so, grandmaster says numerous times that he's excluding lag from the display

Based on this video, we see that the lag in the fully patched Killzone 2 is 12 frames. Factor out the three frames of lag in the display itself and we're left with a 150ms "ping" between gamer and on-screen action.

The average videogame runs at 30FPS, and appears to have an average lag in the region of 133ms. On top of that is additional delay from the display itself, bringing the overall latency to around 166ms

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-lag-factor-article

Where frame-rate is steady, and factoring out the display lag, a nine-frame gap between button press and on-screen action is confirmed, regardless of the weapon used. So yes, Killzone 2 latency is confirmed at 150ms, a full 50 per cent higher than many 30FPS first-person shooters.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-console-lag-round-two-article?page=2

Sony said the Sixaxis/DS3 had 16ms of lag and Move had 22ms.

Ah, so then for the best performing (input lag wise) 30 fps titles we're looking at something like 106 ms of lag vs 100 ms with the regular controller. So 27 ms better than Kinect.

 

[patsu]

It really depends on the task on-hand.

For the KZ2 trigger test...

To detect a button press/stick shift with motion data (SIXAXS, Move, Wii), a physical controller only needs one "read" (@ 16 or 22ms + other lag).

To determine a Kinect button press, you can't rely on just one signal. You have to track the entire button pressing action, they will take the basic Kinect lag plus the entire gesture recognition delay (while waiting for the user to follow through the entire arm action).


For flailing, then all parties can let it run wild. I supposed the TV will just show the "raw" input from the devices ?


I think you'll have to measure the actual game action itself if you're interested in the speed. I suspect it also depends on how fast the app samples the input. Even in the Move case, a gesture recognition will lag too. I'm interested to see if the full body tracking lag cascades (i.e., the larger the movement, the longer time it needs), or is the tracking "embarrassingly parallel" (e.g., you can "reduce" the whole action in parallel at one go).

 

[Arwin]

Indeed, but unlike the examples you have given it is unclear if motion control is an improved interface or not We still use a mouse to interact with our computers after how many years? no other interface so far has been a clear improvement, and i feel the same way about motion controls to some extent.

I think that Touch is a clear improvement over a mouse in most cases. The Wii controller wasn't as clear an improvement for some activities as say the DS touch screen was or the iPhone touch screen, but that was partly because the Wii controller was still a fairly limited interface, and for many cases still a little abstract or overly simplified. Even proper 1-to-1 will have its limitations until we see everything in full 3D, but I'm extremely confident that for shooting, 1-to-1 with pointing at the very least has the potential to be a very big deal - I played a lot of Time Crisis back in the day, and to this day, for the actual shooting nothing touches it, not the mouse, not the analog stick. The move controller should be able to match that feeling, and if you have a second one to control your movement, you should be able to beat everything else. I won't know until I've tried of course, but I do know that I've tried everything else.

But that's just shooting. For anything in gaminig that is at all like, say, Angry Birds, something like a Move controller is going to be vastly superior. The pointing your squad commands to go to certain locations using a certain route as shown in Socom 4 also seems very powerful. There are so, so many type of games I can think of that can be done better with a Move style controller, and so many more that are probably now not even made because of the limitations of current controllers, that my mind near explodes.

It'll take a little while for us to see it come to fruition though, and probably much longer before a big game is designed for it from scratch. But it's coming and it won't go away, that seems for certain.

 

[(((interference)))]

Digital Foundry's is reporting on twitter that Kinect is using 30% of CPU time. This was always my biggest concern, and if true is going to severely hamper Kinect being integrated into core games.

Will have to see what kind of graphical cutbacks Forza Kinect has.

Whoa, Kinect looks absolutely massive compared to the slim 360

 

[patsu]

Phhppt... Microsoft has always said that Kinect/Natal will take 10-15% to 30% CPU usage depending on what it tracks.

What does it track with 30% utilization ?

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

Ah, so then for the best performing (input lag wise) 30 fps titles we're looking at something like 106 ms of lag vs 100 ms with the regular controller. So 27 ms better than Kinect.

I would think it would be more like 100ms vs 100ms. I think the data would just be sitting around waiting (for any games having more than 22ms of input lag) until it's need.

 

[aselto]

I would think it would be more like 100ms vs 100ms. I think the data would just be sitting around waiting (for any games having more than 22ms of input lag) until it's need.

How so? Isn't the reverse, ie. you need the user input as fast as possible to base your next frame(s) on it?

 

[boommoob1]

Digital Foundry's is reporting on twitter that Kinect is using 30% of CPU time. This was always my biggest concern, and if true is going to severely hamper Kinect being integrated into core games.

Will have to see what kind of graphical cutbacks Forza Kinect has.

Whoa, Kinect looks absolutely massive compared to the slim 360

With respect Kinect isnt going to be in core games.

 

[patsu]

May be they are considering the dual chip implementation for core gamers ?

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

How so? Isn't the reverse, ie. you need the user input as fast as possible to base your next frame(s) on it?

That's what I'm talking about. I think the input transmitted from the controller would wait around 'til the game code was ready for it.

 

[(((interference)))]

With respect Kinect isnt going to be in core games.

Er, Forza? Fable?

 

[Scott_Arm]

If Kinect is running on the 360 CPU, there should be some degree of flexibility in terms of resource usage, if they're smart. You should be able to turn off the parts you're not using. It wouldn't make sense if you couldn't. Why tie up resources in voice recognition, if you aren't going to use it. You'd think there would be some customization for skeletal and face tracking, depending on whether you were playing a single or multiplayer game. Maybe not.

 

[scently]

Digital Foundry's is reporting on twitter that Kinect is using 30% of CPU time. This was always my biggest concern, and if true is going to severely hamper Kinect being integrated into core games.

Will have to see what kind of graphical cutbacks Forza Kinect has.

Whoa, Kinect looks absolutely massive compared to the slim 360

I think you should read that statement again.

He is saying that the Forza demo clearly shows that the whole "30%" thing is false.

Because Forza probably will not be able to spare 30% cpu time on Kinect.

Also Turn10 will be doing a closed door demo to the press, the game, btw has all new engine.

 

[patsu]

Why not just post a link to the twitter ? So it's not official info but DF's inference ? We should really wait for official info for this kind of things.

 

[(((interference)))]

Why not just post a link to the twitter ? So it's not official info but DF's inference ? We should really wait for official info for this kind of things.

Twitter is down for some reason

And the 30% figure has been mentioned before as well by sources working on Natal (and denied not quite convincingly by MS)
http://www.techradar.com/news/gamin...require-a-dedicated-xbox-360-cpu-core--662162

It is also noted:

High-end graphics such as those in a richly-rendered racing game such as Forza 3 could still be possible, the source told Kotaku, but compromises might have to be made for "slightly reduced" artificial intelligence, sound or physics."

So perhaps that's why F3 Kinect uses a new engine, because the Forza 3 engine was also brand new and it wouldn't make any sense to throw it out and start from scratch if Kinect support could easily be integrated. But if it requires a whole core, then the engine would require significant rewrites.

And it also seems Kinect has more embarassing accuracy problems, apparently it shrinks people

http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/109/1097583p1.html

That's not going to be good for fitness games.

 

[Arwin]

Here's a recent version of the well known Anton style Move tech demo. This time it includes some advanced object manipulation though, among others pushing and pulling parts of a 3D head and spray painting the mesh directly.

http://techland.com/2010/06/14/exclusive-sony-playstation-move-tech-demo/#ixzz0qtM87iHp

 

[(((interference)))]

Digital Foundry on Kinect:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-kinect-tech-analysis

I think you should read that statement again.

He is saying that the Forza demo clearly shows that the whole "30%" thing is false.

Because Forza probably will not be able to spare 30% cpu time on Kinect.

Also Turn10 will be doing a closed door demo to the press, the game, btw has all new engine.

Yea, reread it, you're right

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't think so, grandmaster says numerous times that he's excluding lag from the display

I stand corrected.

Ah, so then for the best performing (input lag wise) 30 fps titles we're looking at something like 106 ms of lag vs 100 ms with the regular controller. So 27 ms better than Kinect.

That just cannot be true, judging by the videos. We can see a marginal lag on Move, a significant one on Kinect. A single frame wouldn't be noticeable.

 

[Arwin]

I stand corrected.
That just cannot be true, judging by the videos. We can see a marginal lag on Move, a significant one on Kinect. A single frame wouldn't be noticeable.

Digital Foundry's analysis seems to agree with you:

So, not much has changed in terms of the performance level compared to what we played a year ago. You still need to think ahead and react in advance somewhat to make sure that you hit all those balls, with lag in the 200ms range (including the latency from the display, of course).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Also reading that article, Richard makes a point of specifying 150ms was for that particular title. Perhaps it can go beyond that in some cases, such as with 2 players?

Having said that, I'm not really seeing where the lag is coming in. Processing overhead affects refresh rate, not latency. It's still taking one frame to process the data as the games are running at 60fps (in the case of Forza). Perhaps there's a multi-pass processing, requiring several pipelined steps that run across game refreshes?

Also watching the Anton demo, it's good to see these consoles have finally found their identities! At the beginning of this generation, PS3 and XB360 were very similar and didn't offer much difference. Blows were traded over services and features, but they were both HD gaming boxea offering basically the same experience. Whereas now, these motion solutions are very different and will invite different titles.