*split* multiplatform console-world problems + Image Quality Debate

[Deleted member 11852]

I think that in the future the face-offs next year and from the second year on after both consoles have been released are going to be really fun and interesting to read.

I think that what may happen is that once well antialiased 1080p games start becoming the norm and our eyes are used to them, games significantly sub-1080p may begin to stand out a bit. Maybe the image will be a bit fuzzy or blurry, but it'll lack that sharpness that will have become the norm.

Most of us have been used to 720p and sub-HD resolutions on the TV for the last 6-7 years so it's all looking much better than what we're used to. Of course in 12 months devs may be squeezing more 900-1080p resolution games out of the One and it could be a wash.

 

[SlimJim]

Still, if you press cross, square, and then make a circle motion with an analog stick at the menu screen, the game should switch to 720P mode where you have the added framerate. or 720p effects

 

[Rangers]

yes theres that too but most ppl were saying theyre only gonna result in ~25% better performance of ps4 vs xbone not the > 50% (~75%) we are in fact seeing
I mean lots of ppl were saying theyre gonna be close but so far the results are not

Most people I saw were saying PS4 would be 66%+ more powerful (due to 10% Kinect reserves, 100% more ROPS, 3X the bandwidth (people generally discounted ESRAM BW altogether) no low level coding on Xbox, an supposed extra GB+ RAM reserves (which is nonsense I'm sure), CBOAT's claims that Xbox development was in a state of complete disarray, etc etc. In fact I frequently saw it stated that Xbox One would be closer to Wii U than PS4. All that was completely wrong because there's little noticeable difference in the games...

And then when you see the actual side by side videos, even the one game that has a full 720/1080 split, I think you'd be hard pressed to say the actual visual difference is even 10%. When it's a 720/900 or 900/1080 split it's even less. Go look at the AC4 comparison videos from say IGN, which is a 900 vs 1080P difference. You might as well get out a magnifying glass to see any difference. A lot of times depending on the gamma you may think the 900p X1 version looks sharper at a glance tbh.

I think that's what's been most shocking to me about this whole thing, the surprisingly small noticeable difference between even 720P and 1080P, let alone 900 and 1080 or 720 and 900, when both are using the same next gen assets.

I guess the whole point is even "225% more pixels!!!!" Is translating to maybe, if we are being exceedingly generous, a 20% better looking game (I'd put it more like 10%).

 

[Rangers]

As expected for a a launch title.

If we have to do an honest analysis, we have to take in consideration for all this early Face Offs, some aspects:

1) We are talking about multi-platform engine launch titles, still not optimized for the S/W of each platform;
2) PS4 hardware is more easy, has more row power, with far more mature devkits and tools;
3) XONE has even got some last minutes hardware adjustments; devkits, tools and drivers are still immature, some power aspect yet to be finalized (at least according to the Digital Fundy interview to the 2 XONE engineers), and a far more complex memory system in comparison to PS4 and is a more complex platform as a whole (ddr3, esram, move engines, shape).

4) Another important element, that no one mention in all these comparisons, is Kinect 2.
BF4 (as COD and others) uses a good degree of Kinect 2 functions , and we know that this take away some processing power.
I have seen a couple of video about the leaning and the head tracking inside vehicle functions and, let me say, they seems very cool (especially the leaning function, I can see a lot of games use it!).
Clearly this functions coupled with voice recognition takes some power.

Maybe in the future XONE games could see Kinect functions enabled in a way similar to the 3D function of this console generation, i.e. when Leaning and Head Tracking options are enabled, the games could play at a lower resolution.

In the end, considering that BF4 is one of the highest & demanding multiplatform game in terms of graphic, and taking in consideration the 4 above points, I am quite sure that the 2 platforms will deliver very like for like experiences in terms of graphics.

The competiotion will be played elsewhere !

One last note, I am the only one that find super weird that a 20-40 something person spent its time zooming at screenshots in order to find some foliage in the background or some far cable that looks more aliased at 720 than at 900 ?

Will be interesting how the future goes, I think already the gap is shrinking. More and more games are being announced/faced off at 1080P on both (NBA2K, UFC, NFS Rivals, now FIFA the most recent, etc) whereas it started with COD Ghosts at a full 720P vs 1080P split.

 

[Rangers]

Try bandwidth, fill rate and shader performance...

I'd say a good guess would be mostly just ROPS, actually.

Hopefully in time it appears that will be ironed out as devs come to better grips with the system.

 

[djskribbles]

I didn't see anyone say 66% here... I was seeing 40-50% being thrown around a lot.

Visually speaking, on my 60" plasma or my 32" TV that I use as my desktop monitor, the differences are more like 30-35% for CoD and 15-20% for BF4/AC IMO. To be fair, the Xbox One has a small framerate advantage in CoD, but the PS4 has a bigger framerate advantage in BF4.

 

[DrJay24]

Will be interesting how the future goes, I think already the gap is shrinking. More and more games are being announced/faced off at 1080P on both (NBA2K, UFC, NFS Rivals, now FIFA the most recent, etc) whereas it started with COD Ghosts at a full 720P vs 1080P split.

The gap is shrinking? These games were all made at the same time.

 

[Strange]

The gap is shrinking? These games were all made at the same time.

And those named as "on par" are clearly known titles to stress the hardware while the ones with differences clearly were not.

 

[zed]

with the whopping bandwidth available for the Xbox One,

the whopping is ~12% more than the ps4's in theory, but a lot more of a PITA to work with

I didn't see anyone say 66% here

yeah I dont remember that also, link to the posts here on beyond3d

10% ? well I suppose thats up to the person apparently some ppl to claim not to be able to tell a difference, heres two uncompressed images, you make up your mind, and if you can read what it saiz on the right side your eyes are better than mine

 

[Strange]

I think that's what's been most shocking to me about this whole thing, the surprisingly small noticeable difference between even 720P and 1080P, let alone 900 and 1080 or 720 and 900, when both are using the same next gen assets.

Especially when there was a bug on the 1080 version that made it render 720p, which was fixed after a patch.

Of course they looked similar

 

[Globalisateur]

Most people I saw were saying PS4 would be 66%+ more powerful (due to 10% Kinect reserves, 100% more ROPS, 3X the bandwidth (people generally discounted ESRAM BW altogether) no low level coding on Xbox, an supposed extra GB+ RAM reserves (which is nonsense I'm sure), CBOAT's claims that Xbox development was in a state of complete disarray, etc etc. In fact I frequently saw it stated that Xbox One would be closer to Wii U than PS4. All that was completely wrong because there's little noticeable difference in the games...

And then when you see the actual side by side videos, even the one game that has a full 720/1080 split, I think you'd be hard pressed to say the actual visual difference is even 10%. When it's a 720/900 or 900/1080 split it's even less. Go look at the AC4 comparison videos from say IGN, which is a 900 vs 1080P difference. You might as well get out a magnifying glass to see any difference. A lot of times depending on the gamma you may think the 900p X1 version looks sharper at a glance tbh.

I think that's what's been most shocking to me about this whole thing, the surprisingly small noticeable difference between even 720P and 1080P, let alone 900 and 1080 or 720 and 900, when both are using the same next gen assets.

I guess the whole point is even "225% more pixels!!!!" Is translating to maybe, if we are being exceedingly generous, a 20% better looking game (I'd put it more like 10%).

The sharpen effect with crush backs are perfect for compressed video/screenshots but not so much on real native TV where it brings noise and artifacts and everything is grainy and you can't see properly.

From 720p to 900p and 900p to 1080p there is a 44% more pixels on the latter. But I think in raw performance if you take a few games we can well say there is roughly a 60% difference on average, not in perceived gap which is subjective, but a raw measured one.

BF4: 44% more pixels and 10fps (SP) 5fps (MP) advantage on PS4.
COD: 125% more pixels (It is 2.25 times more pixels BTW) on PS4 but with slight fps advantage on X1 on SP (but lower measured framerate drops may be worse on X1).
AC4: 44% more pixels on PS4 and worryingly still not performance video on X1 version.

Of course I won't talk about the EA parity games we had so far (NFS, FIFA and probably the rest).

Beware of the sharpen effect and black crushing on X1. It may work well on compressed youtube video (you noticed it, so do I) but in real life on a real native TV this perceived X1 advantage disappears. People are already struggling to have a good image on some games, removing the sharpen effect, increasing the brightness... they are making whole threads of it in forums, with DR3 notably where on compressed screenshots it looks sharp but on TV they can't see shit and the image may be awfully grainy on big screens.

Anyway by the bolded part I can see that you didn't compared the 2 versions for real. The few people I have seen who owns the 2 versions of those games prefer the PS4 version.

 

[Airon]

the whopping is ~12% more than the ps4's in theory, but a lot more of a PITA to work with

yeah I dont remember that also, link to the posts here on beyond3d

10% ? well I suppose thats up to the person apparently some ppl to claim not to be able to tell a difference, heres two uncompressed images, you make up your mind, and if you can read what it saiz on the right side your eyes are better than mine

O my god...
A question to you, this little immage cover what % of the full screen?
Is a central part or a background one..?

Clearly there are difference between 720 / 900 / 1080...

But also yourself can realize that if you have to zoom and analyze specific points in the background in order to spot them...
If you really need the bigger, better one go with an ultra PC!

Come on, enjoy your new platform what ever it is, play videogames and enjoy exclusives ip and services. Do not waste your time with magnifying glass!

 

[Lalaland]

O my god...
A question to you, this little immage cover what % of the full screen?
Is a central part or a background one..?

Clearly there are difference between 720 / 900 / 1080...

But also yourself can realize that if you have to zoom and analyze specific points in the background in order to spot them...
If you really need the bigger, better one go with an ultra PC!

Come on, enjoy your new platform what ever it is, play videogames and enjoy exclusives ip and services. Do not waste your time with magnifying glass!

You don't have to zoom while gaming as the difference is just 'there' zooming is used on forums as most folks are on 1366 x 768 laptop screens so can't appreciate 1080p native images. There is a gulf and it is huge particularly with respect to dot crawl which is amplified by both low res and the awful sharpen filter applied by some titles. This is a tech forum 'it all looks the same from your couch' is for the kind of places that say Upscaled DVD = BD

 

[Brad Grenz]

O my god...
A question to you, this little immage cover what % of the full screen?
Is a central part or a background one..?

Clearly there are difference between 720 / 900 / 1080...

But also yourself can realize that if you have to zoom and analyze specific points in the background in order to spot them...
If you really need the bigger, better one go with an ultra PC!

Come on, enjoy your new platform what ever it is, play videogames and enjoy exclusives ip and services. Do not waste your time with magnifying glass!

This image is not zoomed in. It is a cropped, 1:1 pixel section of the game. If you view this post on a 1080p screen you will be seeing it exactly as it will appear in game. Since my PC is connected to the 40 inch screen I game on it is very easy to put a Chrome tab on that screen, sit back and see the difference. Even if I scoot my chair so I'm 8 feet away it is obvious which looks better. And that's just for a small, dark still image.

I've done the same test with a full screen animated PNG of AC4 comparing the PS4 version in 1080p and the 900p Xbox One version and this room isn't even big enough for me to get far enough from the screen for the difference to no longer be apparent. Even pressed into a corner 12 feet away from my 40 inch HDTV the PS4 version was obviously sharper. In motion a real game will also exhibit dramatically more shimmering and pixel crawl in lower resolution versions of the same game that will only exaggerate the difference.

And it's not like I have incredible vision. My eyesight was tested at 20/30 just a few months ago.

 

[SlimJim]

This image is not zoomed in. It is a cropped, 1:1 pixel section of the game. If you view this post on a 1080p screen you will be seeing it exactly as it will appear in game. Since my PC is connected to the 40 inch screen I game on it is very easy to put a Chrome tab on that screen, sit back and see the difference. Even if I scoot my chair so I'm 8 feet away it is obvious which looks better. And that's just for a small, dark still image.

I've done the same test with a full screen animated PNG of AC4 comparing the PS4 version in 1080p and the 900p Xbox One version and this room isn't even big enough for me to get far enough from the screen for the difference to no longer be apparent. Even pressed into a corner 12 feet away from my 40 inch HDTV the PS4 version was obviously sharper. In motion a real game will also exhibit dramatically more shimmering and pixel crawl in lower resolution versions of the same game that will only exaggerate the difference.

And it's not like I have incredible vision. My eyesight was tested at 20/30 just a few months ago.

But there is another person can't see the difference and who even tests people at his home, and they can't differ between 1080P and 720P, unless they can see the hud I think. So maybe the difference you see is because of the HUD, and not so much 900P vs 1080P? I mean, did you test it only for yourself or did you test other people as well?

 

[Airon]

But there is another person can't see the difference and who even tests people at his home, and they can't differ between 1080P and 720P, unless they can see the hud I think...

And we do not have to forget the first COD:G reviews...

Many journalists from premium gaming sites declare the immense graphic superiority of PS4 COD due to the higher resolution... When in reality they just reviewed the 720p version of COD for PS4 (the one pre-patch...): the same resolution of the XOne version !!!

So, a part from fanboysm, personal agenda etc... that event said quite much about this matter...

 

[patsu]

And we do not have to forget the first COD:G reviews...

Many journalists from premium gaming sites declare the immense graphic superiority of PS4 COD due to the higher resolution... When in reality they just reviewed the 720p version of COD for PS4 (the one pre-patch...): the same resolution of the XOne version !!!

So, a part from fanboysm, personal agenda etc... that event said quite much about this matter...

During the review, SP was 720p and MP was 1080p. I think some builds were blurred ? That's why some reviewers said they couldn't tell the difference but others could.

The XB1 had (has ?) some sort sharpen filter turned on too.

 

[Cyan]

the whopping is ~12% more than the ps4's in theory, but a lot more of a PITA to work with

yeah I dont remember that also, link to the posts here on beyond3d

10% ? well I suppose thats up to the person apparently some ppl to claim not to be able to tell a difference, heres two uncompressed images, you make up your mind, and if you can read what it saiz on the right side your eyes are better than mine

Theoretically wise these are the number of Xbox One's bandwidth. 140/150GB/s for the eSRAM + 68GB/s DDR3 = 208/218GB/s on average. Max theoretical bandwidth is 204 GB/s for the eSRAM + 68GB/s for the DDR3 = 272 GB/s.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-the-complete-xbox-one-interview

With DDR3 you pretty much take the number of bits on the interface, multiply by the speed and that's how you get 68GB/s. That equivalent on ESRAM would be 218GB/s. However, just like main memory, it's rare to be able to achieve that over long periods of time so typically an external memory interface you run at 70-80 per cent efficiency.

The same discussion with ESRAM as well - the 204GB/s number that was presented at Hot Chips is taking known limitations of the logic around the ESRAM into account. You can't sustain writes for absolutely every single cycle.

The writes is known to insert a bubble [a dead cycle] occasionally... One out of every eight cycles is a bubble, so that's how you get the combined 204GB/s as the raw peak that we can really achieve over the ESRAM.

And then if you say what can you achieve out of an application - we've measured about 140-150GB/s for ESRAM. That's real code running.

I see the point of your image. Before the Digital Foundry comparison article came out I said that CoD: Ghosts looks incredible on the Xbox One. And it does.

I was awestruck by the quality of textures and everything running so smooth.... I was only disappointed with the lack of Kinect support, contrary to BF4.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

B3D members who were obvious PS4 fans well before the launch are saying the differences are immense, huge, easily visible with not-so-perfect eyesight from across the room on a smallish TV... lots of hyperbole to be sure. Obvious XB1 fans saying the differences aren't visible, can't be seen in blinded testing, may even look better in some cases... apologists to be sure.

Why bicker now? Just enjoy your purchases (for those of you who actually have one) and games. Time will tell after devs have become accomplished on both platforms how the hardware differences actually affect games. For now, any number of factors not even related to raw hardware capability are at play. Differences may shrink or grow larger with time.

 

[patsu]

Well, I am not particular about texture details but even I could tell the screens were very different. Remove the blur and "everything" should be fine.