*spin-off* Dynamic GI on Consoles

Regarding the pics of the characters, that has to do with the e_gi option.

Whatever e_gi is (I'm think ssgi probably) there is still some form of it with it off.

 

The player may be standing in roughly the same area, but on 360 he's turned about 90 degrees to the left, with the sky in plain view. You can't compare the lighting in these completely different screenshots.

When you say that "the game doesn't look like that on the 360 in any way", you'll really have to prove it by posting a screenshot with a similar point of view. Frankly, I'd be surprised to find that it doesn't look like that.

 

Ehh they are basically the same, actually PC lowest should be better using higher HDR precision. Also your comparisions is heavily biased with staged view directions but looking at material lit it looks about the same. Anwyay everything is pointing to consoles not having RT GI. There are proper comparision pics of RT GI on/off vs console shots of same spot, the final config files says it is off. It's a shame but evidence here is of no RT GI is damn strong.

 

Might be poinlights used. Also e_GI and r_SSGI, two separate cvars. e_GI controlling main GI and SSGI probably enhancing the RT GI.

 

Which basically makes this whole witchhunt rather pointless unless one cares to go through the entire game with the editor. The actual tech discussion on CE3 has taken quite a downturn as of late just because of it. :/

Has anyone thought about the implications to the renderer with the GI setting off? As in... the entire RSM-LPV chain, memory consumption, shading? It's just on/off on/off on/off on/off on/off on/off on/off on/off on/off on/off on/off something something something Crytek promises on/off on/off on/off ...

 

You dont need the editor you just need to disable GI to compare. Honestly I dont care much about this or at all but judging by lack of RT GI in other proper comparision shots it seems plausible that it is pointlights and it is.

PC shot, no GI, no SSGI and same location.


PC shot, GI on, SSGI on and same location.


Something went wrong and Crytek had to cut out stuff. Shame but whatever.

 

So we're back to where we started knowing that using deferred lights was a viable solution for faking GI (because it's faster) from their very own presentation. Awesome.


There's always the New Thread button for discussing Crytek's decision-making (good/bad/benefits/detriments/advantages/disadvantages for developers/development).

 

Cut it out to a thread named "Crysis 2 on consoles and use of GI".

 

Truth be told, that GI doesn't seem to add much to the lighting anyway. Makes you wonder if it's all some point lights + screen space occlusion, or maybe they do precalculate some of the stuff...?

 

Bare in mind Crysis have already stated that PC Low is pretty much the same as console settings aside from platform specific features like texture formats. Doesn't really hold with the theory that PC low lacks GI while consoles do not.

 

Is it possible on the PC to turn off ambient lighting so that the GI is more obvious? Seems like we shouldn't need an ambient light value if GI is being done properly..and hopefully in the rumored DX-11 update will allow GI for lights other than the sun. The night scenes would look even more incredible with proper GI for the weapons effects etc.

 

I'd love to, but I don't have a PC that can run Crysis 2 to make a comparison with the 360 version, so I am depending on fellow PC gamers.

The only good image I found on low settings is that one. Most pics out there feature High settings. Besides that, I am afraid I might lose my current progress in the game by going back and replaying some areas. I will play them on Supersoldier difficulty as I am quite enjoying the game on Veteran already, but not now.

Tip: on high difficulty levels use Armour nanosuit abilities if you want to survive, Cloaking is also great in many situations but it halves your character's life.

I don't like arguing on the net. I did sometimes but anyways... I feel dehumanized when I do that.

My comparison is not biased, it's just a comparison; PC low settings-360. And they don't look the same to me. The lighting is very flat in that pic compared to what I am used to see in the game after what has been like 7-8 hours playing the game.

I have the game and GI is quite evident to me sometimes. I remember that particular level and trust me that it doesn't look like that on the 360. The entire game in fact looks different than the PC picture posted. Look at the portakabins, those two huts close to the wall, whatever they are. The lighting is very different. It can be many things, like the screen calibration, actual resolution of the screenshot, etc etc, but the rest is up to me to figure things out, and what I see doesn't match exactly what I've played on my 360.

The Cryengine is highly scaleable, and consoles = PC Low Setting is a very simple way of putting it, taking into account that consoles are closed hardware. Crytek probably just need optimize the settings for each console and pump out a code specialized for every system. Low settings on PC aren't entirely the consoles config, judging by the ingame graphics.

Again, it's all in their presentation. You can find info about their GI solution here, among other things.

http://crytek.com/cryengine

More specifically in this one:

http://crytek.com/cryengine/presentations/real-time-diffuse-global-illumination-in-cryengine-3

This presentation might be helpful too:

http://crytek.com/cryengine/cryengi...n-volumes-for-real-time-indirect-illumination

I tried to explain it as I understood their work. Maybe I am wrong but they clearly say that they are using GI on consoles, so I assume they are telling the truth. I dunno if it's prebaked or not sometimes but it's implemented.

Crytek aren't liars, they say pretty clearly that they are using Cascaded LPV.

Anyway, paraphrasing their preceding presentation....

It clearly demonstrates it's working on consoles, with numbers, and also they say this:

Reflective Shadow Maps (RSM) have twice the size on PCs compared to consoles, but they exist on consoles too.

Some more info.

They seem to use photon mapping as examples in order to compare their method with other posible solutions.

There is no need to refute Crytek's presentations, as if they were worthless. If developers say they implemented GI on consoles it's because they just did. As I said I am pretty sure Crytek aren't lying. The lighting of the game is really good and for such a long game, taking 5.1 GB of disk space doesn't seem much, and it says most of the lighting isn't prebaked.

As I said the game looks different to me on the 360 compared to PC low settings. There is a pic in this presentation.... http://crytek.com/assets/Crysis-2-Key-Rendering-Features.pdf

.... which shows an area of the game featuring both GI OFF and GI ON.



It might be a very good place to start a proper comparison and take a pic to discern the differences while playing on my 360, because the stage where they took the screenshot it's not that far in the game. I would have to use another account on my console not to lose my current progress and I will probably set the game's difficulty to the easier level of difficulty, too.

Looking at the GI on screenshot, I don't recall the game looking like that on my 360 when I played that particular level but we shall see.

I feel kind of dense lately to do a good comparison but I will try.

 

Things change overtime. Crysis was supposed to have indirect lighting but they ditched it.

Well I be damned when one shot is facing the ground and the other is facing the sky with a 90 degree turn it is bound to look different!

Anyway I am outta here, just waste of time and it all taking the "sect" style turn with to much emotions involved biasing and ingoring proper posted comparisions aswell as not enough data for 100% conclusive answer. Also new thread for this stuff, chop it off.

 

Dude, considering how many times youve told us to trust what Crytek says and that they aren't lying, I'm finding it difficult to understand why you won't believe them yourself when they specifically say that the pcs settings on low are equivilent to console settings. You said yourself you haven't played the pc version and have only seen a single screenshot. Do you seriously think this is enough evidence to be basing such a contrary conclusion on?

 

Yep the quote used actually refers to DX10 in the PC version too and we already know that was dropped!

 

They could have rolled DX10 into the DX11 update.

 

But they seem to have had trouble reaching acceptable framerates on the consoles so decided to ditch GI at the last minute.

I know I would, since it seems so difficult to tell the difference between a few spot lights and GI.

If Nebula of all people, thinks GI is off, it probably is.(and why did he change his name to Neb?)

Someone should contact Grandmaster and get him to look into it (ask Crytek perhaps) Crytek shouldn't get credit for implmenting realtime GI on consoles when it doesn't actually ship with the retail title.

 

I made 2 screenshots from PC version, from high (GI off) and Extreme (GI on) settings (sorry, without quick save function it's not easy to match the view)

http://img717.imageshack.us/i/crysis22011040101361437.jpg/

http://img22.imageshack.us/i/crysis22011040101435487.jpg/

Now, we need screenshot from 360/PS3 version

 

I must admit I didn't know they had ditched indirect lighting altogether. Thanks for sharing.

It seems to me we have the head in the clouds here in Beyond3D sometimes. I don't know a single comparison can be called biasing. Don't get me wrong, I can understand someone making a genuine error, like I can make sometimes, but while I am a console gamer I don't hate the PC. I didn't get emotional. Being aware of this definitely saves a lot of heartache down the road.

The repetitive questioning of my methods do get annoying. I tried to understand how their solution works and I think I am almost spot on, at least for someone like me who isn't a developer. No one is saying that the GI isn't disabled on consoles, it might be a possibility but my eyes tell me otherwise. And the presentation's documents are pretty clear on certain things.

I had no problem whatsoever comprehending them the first time I read through them, because it's so well explained. GI is enabled on the PC and consoles using their LPV-RSM technology. That's what it says, and it would suck not implementing it on consoles after four years of work. That's why I trust Crytek over anything else. They are the developers of the thing. "Is a weak type GI more consoles-friendly the same as Extreme settings on PC?" No. "Is it a problem because it shouldn't be implemented on consoles?" No. I really don't know what you want to hear. I feel like this discussion makes a great starting point and my posts were written in a very friendly and accessible manner, though I wasn't sufficiently inspired, but anyways.

Being over-zealous to the extreme might not be the best way to go about things... I think.

I am very much in favour of something like that. Maybe Crytek would gladly accept an interview about technical details of their engine.

That's a very good comparison and it shows really well how GI works. I couldn't match the view either. I took these pictures and I think GI might be disabled on consoles for that particular place, but them it seems enabled in other places.

Well, here are the screenshots, judge by yourself.





http://uploadpic.org/v.php?img=fKliQLjxeb

http://uploadpic.org/v.php?img=8TGvxK6JPV

http://uploadpic.org/v.php?img=DANOuHp0Pb

Some GI artifacts exactly in the same area, so GI might be enabled there, it's just that the LOD is very low on consoles?...

When I walk further away from the columns and boxes in this area, this is what happens



But then I move forward and while getting nearer GI seems ON in the whole area -the boxes, pillars, ground, ceiling and walls, everywhere...- That's not typical of a prebaked engine whatsoever:



Also, this is a place Crytek uses as an example to show how their GI tech works and that's how it looks on the 360:

 

Alright, so no GI confirmed then, I guess. Thanks for those last shots.

Pretty disappointing though.