Red Faction Guerilla engine - Wow!

[gongo]

In case you haven tried it, please do download the demo available at the PSN! It is one of the most impressive tech engine. It is like the best mix of GTA4, GeOW and Battlefield BC. Runs at a very good 30fps, sometimes 60fps, even with all the blowing up in the open sandbox world and the AI are adequate, plenty of reinforcements. Reminds me of the PS3 gas station demo. Is this the beginning of the promised physics gameplay that we were hyped when this generation starts?

Loved the lighting and shadows. I think it is very impressive to put good graphics with good physics and framerates in a multi platform game! The gameplay itself is good, shooting and driving mechanics are tight. I can see the 16p online to be quite the fun. The final car chase scene is so much better with physics. MGS4 was dramatic but this is better from a gameplay perspective.

 

[lbartley]

http://www.digitalfoundry.org/blog/?p=670

The game never passes 30 fps.

 

[gongo]

That is some hardcore site

Could be i was wrong but have they tried spinning the camera to isolate Mason, sorta like MGS4 when you do some angles, it can hit 60fps. That is the best i could put it.

OT: one thing i like about console gaming is how stable fps drops can be, in the case of Red Faction, sure it drops to 25fps but i did not feel it as bad. When it tried PC gaming the fps drops can be felt. That is to say console games seems to smooth fps drops as far it can. Does anyway agree with me?

 

[grandmaster]

The game has a boat-load of screen tear, so you are getting close to 60 different images per second. It's just that half of them are comprised of two different frames. But in terms of distinct, unique frames, it never goes above 30.

I am very intrigued by Red Faction Guerilla, or more specifically by the potential of that physics engine which really is impressive.

 

[pjbliverpool]

That is some hardcore site

Could be i was wrong but have they tried spinning the camera to isolate Mason, sorta like MGS4 when you do some angles, it can hit 60fps. That is the best i could put it.

OT: one thing i like about console gaming is how stable fps drops can be, in the case of Red Faction, sure it drops to 25fps but i did not feel it as bad. When it tried PC gaming the fps drops can be felt. That is to say console games seems to smooth fps drops as far it can. Does anyway agree with me?

Thats all down to whether the framerate is capped and vsync is enabled. On the PC these things can be turned on or off at will (vsync anyway).

 

[Mobius1aic]

Unless someone is struggling for framerate or is experiencing lots of screen tear, I don't think PC gamers use V-synce very much. It's for consoles

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Unless someone is struggling for framerate or is experiencing lots of screen tear, I don't think PC gamers use V-synce very much. It's for consoles

Alas, not any more

 

[pjbliverpool]

Unless someone is struggling for framerate or is experiencing lots of screen tear, I don't think PC gamers use V-synce very much. It's for consoles

Personally I much prefer vsync on as long as you have the performance to back it up. My refresh rate is 60hz so a locked 60fps is just about perfect for me.

 

[AlNom]

Pretty neat demo! I just hope the missions are varied enough as the building destruction seems like a novelty that could get old for me...

 

[gongo]

Any idea how they were able to do it? These ain't no GTX285! Physics from what i know requires hefty calculations to simulate on the fly. How many of RF physics are "realtime" and how many are "prerendered"? How much of it is "visuals" physics and how much is "gameplay" physics?

I wonder if the digitalfoundary site observed which versions was running more physics simulation and holding a better framerates? Cell AFAIK loves simultaneous simulation due to its parallel SPUs.

 

[dskneo]

I have input lag to my hdtv with vsync on...

*pc

 

[Neb]

Any idea how they were able to do it? These ain't no GTX285! Physics from what i know requires hefty calculations to simulate on the fly. How many of RF physics are "realtime" and how many are "prerendered"? How much of it is "visuals" physics and how much is "gameplay" physics?

Graphic sacrifice and ugly framerate perfomance. Escpecially when a moderate amount of objects are colliding the framerate seems to dip to very low framerate*.

Though neat but not really impressive even next to the free old game Cell. ANd the tearing amount is horrible, eye strain.

*PS3 version

 

[Neb]

I have input lag to my hdtv with vsync on...

*pc

Disable smoothmouse function. So far I've found vsync on* to be very responsive vs no vsync on monitor/LCD TV. HEck even better than console games I've tested that had no vsync enabled!

*Triplebuffering enabled

 

[Graham]

Any idea how they were able to do it? These ain't no GTX285! Physics from what i know requires hefty calculations to simulate on the fly. How many of RF physics are "realtime" and how many are "prerendered"? How much of it is "visuals" physics and how much is "gameplay" physics?

Smoke and mirrors. Every time something massive happens, there are huge explosions and visual distortion / screen shake, which lets them be very approximate for the initial part of the destruction. It's all about having things look correct when it's all over with.
When things go wrong and you do see behind the scenes, then you see entire buildings fall through the ground, lots of stuff just disappearing, etc.

So basically, being really really smart. At least, that's my guess.
I didn't notice any screen tear on the xbox version (although I wasn't looking), but I did notice the frame rate hit.

 

[trinibwoy]

Yeah a lot of it seems pre-rendered and it's all low density rigid-body stuff but who cares! The demo was sweet.

 

[Mobius1aic]

Alas, not any more

I was so use to playing games on my laptops back then that struggled for frames so I generally leave v-sync off unless the framerate is through the roof causing screen tear to actually hurt my experience.

 

[Dave Glue]

That is some hardcore site

Could be i was wrong but have they tried spinning the camera to isolate Mason, sorta like MGS4 when you do some angles, it can hit 60fps. That is the best i could put it.

OT: one thing i like about console gaming is how stable fps drops can be, in the case of Red Faction, sure it drops to 25fps but i did not feel it as bad. When it tried PC gaming the fps drops can be felt. That is to say console games seems to smooth fps drops as far it can. Does anyway agree with me?

There's no PC "standard", Red Faction isn't out yet for the PC, so no - I don't agree. The framerate rips you experienced when "tried PC gaming" (what does that even mean) could depend on many, many factors. Hardware/engine/game used/configuration of the PC.

For me, even with a pretty low-end PC, I notice the poorer framerate in most console games quite readily. Red Faction is good on my 360 for what it's doing, but I sill noticed the occasional framerate drop and tearing. 30fps, even if stable, isn't "smooth" to me - albeit depending on the game it is acceptable.

 

[PhilB]

The game has a boat-load of screen tear, so you are getting close to 60 different images per second. It's just that half of them are comprised of two different frames. But in terms of distinct, unique frames, it never goes above 30.

hmm... I saw the video and while it definitely didn't hit it in gameplay situations, I'm almost positive it does hit 60fps at some points (e.g. looking into the sky).

 

[Neb]

hmm... I saw the video and while it definitely didn't hit it in gameplay situations, I'm almost positive it does hit 60fps at some points (e.g. looking into the sky).

But should that even be counted?

I mean I could hit 60fps looking at the ground or sky in Crysis @high or higher on a 7900GT..

However one dont play it that way!

 

[PhilB]

But should that even be counted?

I mean I could hit 60fps looking at the ground or sky in Crysis @high or higher on a 7900GT..

However one dont play it that way!

Well it's not anything meaningful, but I was really just trying to say it's not locked. There's others instances where it hits 60 as well but like the sky bit, it's nothing meaningful (mostly it's still a 30fps game).