PGR3 : MS's attitude towards graphics actually supports Nintendo!

[Shifty Geezer]

Since all the ruckus about Nintendo not supporting HD, I felt these comments from MS, when asked what resolution PGR3 was rendering at, poignant...

"What is going on behind the scenes in the code or the HW to get the incredible visuals for Xbox 360 is not what gamers care about.
"They just care about playing great looking and innovative games, and that is exactly what Xbox 360 and the launch lineup has provided."

From this article about PGR3's framebuffer, as mentioned already in the gaming forum.
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=61708

This both supports the view that PGR3 isn't rendering at 720p, and the view it doesn't matter. As long as games look good who cares about the resolution etc (except geeks on a 3D forum discussing tech, but who don't care about the numbers when actually playing games instead of analysing them)!

 

[pipo]

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25517

 

[Hardknock]

Well first it's a trade off, if a dev has to slightly drop the resolution for some amazing effects I'm all for it.

But to dismiss higher resolutions completely is a whole nother ball game.

 

[Gollum]

No amount of AA and effects on this world could ever make me go back to gaming at 640x480 on my PC, its that simple. For people with SD TVs it is going to be negligible, very true. But anybody with an HDTV set is instantly going to get improved IQ, a sharper, more detailed image and most likely will never want to go back to SD gaming ever again. Even if PGR3 isn't running at full 720p, its still a heck of a lot more detail than 480P does provide.

I must admit that I find it somewhat ironic though, that we've been told that every X360 game would have to be rendered at 720p, yet the first flagship title out of MSG already disregards that "requirement"...

 

[one]

Now it's interesing if devs of future games also dare to use this upsampling HD hack after this scrutiny or go Ridge Racer 6...

 

[fearsomepirate]

I know I'd definitely rather play Zelda at 480p than some non-Zelda game at 720p. And I'd rather DM in Quake 2 on a PC with a GeForce 2 than Halo 2 just for the simple reason that it controls so much better...despite the massively better-looking graphics.

;-)

 

[valioso]

it was obvious that corners where going to be cut in order for pgr3 to make launch.. if a year for now this is still happening then will be the time to blast MS

 

[Bill]

It's just graphics. I dont understand the focus.

 

[Titanio]

it was obvious that corners where going to be cut in order for pgr3 to make launch.. if a year for now this is still happening then will be the time to blast MS

It may have been obvious as the situation for launch game developers became more and more clear over time, but there was nothing necessary or inevitable about that situation.

 

[dopefishzzz]

No amount of AA and effects on this world could ever make me go back to gaming at 640x480 on my PC, its that simple. For people with SD TVs it is going to be negligible, very true. But anybody with an HDTV set is instantly going to get improved IQ, a sharper, more detailed image and most likely will never want to go back to SD gaming ever again. "...

so true...

that's why I think Nintendo made some big mistake not supporting HD-Def.

Gamers will see 720P as the new standard when they'll see the 360 in action, in by the time Nintendo release the revolution, we'll all be accustomed to 720P, and 640 X 480 will look SOOOOOOO 10 years old graphics.

 

[London Geezer]

so true...

that's why I think Nintendo made some big mistake not supporting HD-Def.

Gamers will see 720P as the new standard when they'll see the 360 in action, in by the time Nintendo release the revolution, we'll all be accustomed to 720P, and 640 X 480 will look SOOOOOOO 10 years old graphics.

And next to them there will be a normal DVD of The Incredibles (just to name one we've never mentioned before!) and go "oooooh what res is that running at?!!"

 

[one]

it was obvious that corners where going to be cut in order for pgr3 to make launch.. if a year for now this is still happening then will be the time to blast MS

But if they did it to fit it in the eDRAM, it means they managed to obtain 30fps in the most optimal situation without tile-rendering overhead. In other words, when they begin to use tile rendering to do 720p+2xAA, it gets even more difficult to get 60fps for them.

 

[valioso]

But if they did it to fit it in the eDRAM, it means they managed to obtain 30fps in the most optimal situation without tile-rendering overhead. In other words, when they begin to use tile rendering to do 720p+2xAA, it gets even more difficult to get 60fps for them.

final hardware was late. They did not start developing the game on final hardware either. Remember the alpha kits were G5's

 

[Powderkeg]

But if they did it to fit it in the eDRAM, it means they managed to obtain 30fps in the most optimal situation

You consider being extremely rushed to make your game, to the point of having to cut some features an "optimal situation"?

Do you even know what optimal means?

 

[one]

You consider being extremely rushed to make your game, to the point of having to cut some features an "optimal situation"?

Do you even know what optimal means?

As optimal as it doesn't require tile rendering. What's not optimal with this? We all know they've been developing PGR 3 for at least 3 years. By forgetting tile-rendering, they ought to be able to have transferred all the codebase to 360 without major hack if you believe J Allard et al said about the friendliness of the new XDK that enabled Rare to port Kameo from Xbox 1 to 360.

 

[expletive]

As optimal as it doesn't require tile rendering. What's not optimal with this? We all know they've been developing PGR 3 for at least 3 years. By forgetting tile-rendering, they ought to be able to have transferred all the codebase to 360 without major hack if you believe J Allard et al said about the friendliness of the new XDK that enabled Rare to port Kameo from Xbox 1 to 360.

You are assuming the game is xenos limited instead of xenon/multithread limited. Theres no way to know what the bottleneck here is and what could have been done with more time with the final hardware. I htink we would all like to think you just run your code on G5s one day, then final hardware the next and "Voila!" 60fps but its not that easy.

 

[Powderkeg]

As optimal as it doesn't require tile rendering. What's not optimal with this?

Optimal means under the best possible circumstances or situation.

So, the question is, do you consider PGR3's development and graphical output to be made under the best of circumstances?

I would be willing to bet that given an unlimited amount of time and access to final hardware from the start they could have pulled off the same graphics internally rendered at 720p and at 60 FPS. Maybe even increased the amount of AA.

They didn't go with a non-tile based solution because it's slower, they went that way because they didn't have access to the final hardware long enough learn how to make it work.

 

[one]

Optimal means under the best possible circumstances or situation.

So, the question is, do you consider PGR3's development and graphical output to be made under the best of circumstances?

I would be willing to bet that given an unlimited amount of time and access to final hardware from the start they could have pulled off the same graphics internally rendered at 720p and at 60 FPS. Maybe even increased the amount of AA.

They didn't go with a non-tile based solution because it's slower, they went that way because they didn't have access to the final hardware long enough learn how to make it work.

Please look at my first post in this thread. I mentioned Ridge Racer 6. (Or DOA4, as Itagaki bragged about its 60fps.) Isn't it a rushed job, even more so than PGR3?

 

[dopefishzzz]

And next to them there will be a normal DVD of The Incredibles (just to name one we've never mentioned before!) and go "oooooh what res is that running at?!!"

If 480p movies were SO great, we wouldn't be switching to HD-DVD and Blueray like we are about to

Ever saw a 720p clip on a HDTV ? Normal DVDs don't look good anymore after you saw that !

And a movie with motion blur is not the same as a digital game without it.

 

[scooby_dooby]

But if they did it to fit it in the eDRAM, it means they managed to obtain 30fps in the most optimal situation without tile-rendering overhead. In other words, when they begin to use tile rendering to do 720p+2xAA, it gets even more difficult to get 60fps for them.

And didn't they also say they wanted to rebuild their entire game after getting the X360 GPU? Sometimes you gotta use a little spit and bubble-gum to patch these things up and work within tight timelines.