The Crew [PS4, XO]

[Shortbread]

http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2013/07/the_crew_was_ported_to_ps4_by_just_two_to_three_people

As part of an extensive article on Eurogamer.net – which, honestly, is far too in-depth for our feeble brains – Ubisoft Reflections has revealed that a team of just two to three people ported Ivory Tower’s next generation racer The Crew to the PS4 in six months. The Newcastle-based studio was tasked with converting the original PC game code to Sony’s system, and short of a few bumps along the road, got the engine up and running fairly effortlessly. No PS3-esque problems here.

In fact, the team is now looking at ways in which it can exploit some of the unique advantages of the PS4’s hardware. “The PS4's GPU is very programmable,” said programmer Simon O’Connor. “There's a lot of power in there that we're just not using yet. So, what we want to do are some PS4-specific things for our rendering, but within reason – it’s a cross-platform game, so we can't do too much that's PS4-specific.”

That last part bothers me a little.... it's a little irritating to think some 3rd party developers will probably shy away from unique feature(s) that may make one platform look better than the other. This is mostly the reason why my Xbox 360 and PS3 library is mostly 1st party software.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Game looks shitty anyway. Most of the best games are multi-platform. Stop worrying about the tech and buy games that are fun to play.

 

[Shortbread]

Game looks shitty anyway. Most of the best games are multi-platform. Stop worrying about the tech and buy games that are fun to play.

I'm one of those rare guys who gets more satisfaction out of technology (visually), than actually having fun. Honestly, I haven't had "fun" since the SuperNes days, now I'm a tech-junky who gets pleasure out of watching technology grow... but that's just me.

 

[Shoujoboy]

Game looks shitty anyway. Most of the best games are multi-platform. Stop worrying about the tech and buy games that are fun to play.

Totally disagree with what's in bold but outside of that you have
a point.

 

[pjbliverpool]

That last part bothers me a little.... it's a little irritating to think some 3rd party developers will probably shy away from unique feature(s) that may make one platform look better than the other.

I completely agree. If only developers would commit to your way of thinking then the PC versions would shame next generation console versions every time.

Tis the way of the world.. for shame.

 

[Inuhanyou]

^ In that case, wouldn't 99% of all other users not be able to play the game to begin with? I'm assuming your referring to coding to the enthusiast level hardware spec of course.

Which of course doesn't make the guy your replying to any less wrong about his assertion.

Third parties unless they are working on exclusives, don't really have the time(and don't have the obligation anyway) to optimize for one platform extensively as evidenced by virtually every multiplatform developer and the SPU's of the PS3.

Any advantages of the PS4 will come with its inherent power gap and not extra optimizations.

We can all remember what happened when Platinum went retarded and optimized Bayonetta extensively for the EDram bandwidth and inherent architecture advantages of the 360. PS3 got the crap end of the stick and half the framerate, and regardless of whether Sega or Platinum worked on it, it would still have come out terrible.

 

[pjbliverpool]

^ In that case, wouldn't 99% of all other users not be able to play the game to begin with? I'm assuming your referring to coding to the enthusiast level hardware spec of course.

I think that statement stands whether you're talking about enthusiast level PC hardware or specifically about the PS4, within the timeframe of The Crew's launch.

But clearly catering to the highest performance level of the market does not exclude lower performance levels. That's called scaling.

 

[Inuhanyou]

true. but then again, not everything is scalable. infact many things arent. for example, ue4's voxel based lighting was too computationally expensive to use in a game today even for a titan which is why they took it out. scaling your tools only goes so far when its just not feasible to start with.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

^ In that case, wouldn't 99% of all other users not be able to play the game to begin with? I'm assuming your referring to coding to the enthusiast level hardware spec of course.

Which of course doesn't make the guy your replying to any less wrong about his assertion.

Third parties unless they are working on exclusives, don't really have the time(and don't have the obligation anyway) to optimize for one platform extensively as evidenced by virtually every multiplatform developer and the SPU's of the PS3.

Any advantages of the PS4 will come with its inherent power gap and not extra optimizations.

We can all remember what happened when Platinum went retarded and optimized Bayonetta extensively for the EDram bandwidth and inherent architecture advantages of the 360. PS3 got the crap end of the stick and half the framerate, and regardless of whether Sega or Platinum worked on it, it would still have come out terrible.

That's assuming that they don't have scalable graphics. Crytek with the original Far Cry coded a game that couldn't be run at decent frame rates even on enthusiast machines at the time of launch without lowering graphics settings. It wasn't until over a year after launch that enthusiast level hardware was able to run the game at max settings with somewhat decent speed.

Hence, maxing out the graphics quality available in a game doesn't mean that game becomes unplayable to the majority of the PC user base. It may just be that the majority of PC users have to settle for console quality or slightly better than console quality (if at the beginning of a console gen).

I'd personally love it if more developers did like they used to and put in so much graphical advances and techniques that at the highest quality levels the game wasn't playable on the highest end computers of that timeframe. You will still end up playing with the same graphics settings regardless of whether a developer coded only to current hardware or coded to above current hardware specs. But at least in the second case if I replay the game a year from purchase, I'll have even better graphics.

Regards,
SB

 

[Inuhanyou]

see my above post. its a challenge for enthusiast users sure. but for a developer going for feasibility and practicality, its just a burden.

in this age specifically, going balls out like that outside of a few physics add ons or crazy AA settings is an unworthwhile venture.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

New gamescom walkthrough.

 

[deathindustrial]

Feels like Ubisoft is being really quiet about this game when it lands so soon (November 11, 2014). From watching streams of the closed Beta on Twitch, I'm super stoked for this title as it looks like the spiritual successor to Test Drive Unlimited which personally was one of my favourite PS2 games.

While the story and voice acting seems to be of Far Cry 3 level of retardation, the gameplay looks spot on.

Cheers

 

[Karamazov]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4cWF95qAgs
such a big map,of course it's not as good looking as the other two big racers coming around the same time, but damn, i'm tempted to buy it just to spend hours exploring that world.

 

[Globalisateur]

http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2013/07/the_crew_was_ported_to_ps4_by_just_two_to_three_people



That last part bothers me a little.... it's a little irritating to think some 3rd party developers will probably shy away from unique feature(s) that may make one platform look better than the other. This is mostly the reason why my Xbox 360 and PS3 library is mostly 1st party software.

Since the deal Nvidia made with Ubisoft, most of Ubisoft AAA games are now first completely developed on PC with Nvidia cards and then later ported on different AMD consoles, probably by quicky adjusting the settings.

It may be possible that the only Ubisoft game currently developed on PS4 devkits is Far Cry 4, as everything they showed/demoed was running on PS4.

But the others AAA games: The Crew, The Division, Assassin's creed Unity are all developed on PC equipped with Nvidia, and they only showed us PC builds of those games, with different settings for AC Unity notably.

IMO, you are right to be worried.

 

[deathindustrial]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4cWF95qAgs
such a big map,of course it's not as good looking as the other two big racers coming around the same time, but damn, i'm tempted to buy it just to spend hours exploring that world.

I probably would have pre-ordered it myself (feeling pretty done with physical discs these days) if it was actually listed on PSN.

Cheers

 

[Ruiadas]

I was initially excited for this game after watching a stream of it in July but after playing the beta myself a month or so ago I was extremely unimpressed. The driving feels bad and is often frustrating, especially when off-road. There is a big problem with the sense of speed in The Crew. Driving at 120 feels like you are going 80 and everyone else is going 30. I played the beta on PC at 4k with everything maxed and the visuals ranged from ok to pretty good to meh. The thing that really killed this game for me was the demo for Forza Horizon 2. It is essentially the same game (just set in Europe) but the driving is so much more fun and the visuals are so much better. Even comparing 1080p Xbone Forza to 4k The Crew on PC Forza comes out ahead by leaps and bounds. The visual difference feels like playing Watch Dogs and then loading up Infamous SS.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Damnit ! Turns out I was invited for the closed beta but I never checked the "promotions" section of my gmail ! Just checked now and th ebeta ended on 4th !

 

[Sigfried1977]

I was initially excited for this game after watching a stream of it in July but after playing the beta myself a month or so ago I was extremely unimpressed. The driving feels bad and is often frustrating, especially when off-road. There is a big problem with the sense of speed in The Crew. Driving at 120 feels like you are going 80 and everyone else is going 30. I played the beta on PC at 4k with everything maxed and the visuals ranged from ok to pretty good to meh. The thing that really killed this game for me was the demo for Forza Horizon 2. It is essentially the same game (just set in Europe) but the driving is so much more fun and the visuals are so much better. Even comparing 1080p Xbone Forza to 4k The Crew on PC Forza comes out ahead by leaps and bounds. The visual difference feels like playing Watch Dogs and then loading up Infamous SS.

Supposedly the team behind "The Crew" also handled the driving in Watch_Dogs, so no real surprise considering how shitty the handling in that game was.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Damnit ! Turns out I was invited for the closed beta but I never checked the "promotions" section of my gmail ! Just checked now and th ebeta ended on 4th !

Argh! I entered but wasn't chosen for the beta. I really want to try this game. I've head so many bad things but the basic premise of driving around the USA appeals. I'll ignore that all online co-op crap

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The Crew release bumped to 2nd December.

Eurogamer are reporting the Crew release date has been bumped three weeks, from 11th November to 2nd December.

Potentially a good move as it was sandwiched between COD Advanced Warfare, and WOW Warlords of Draenor on one side and Far Cry 4, GTA IV and Dragon Age on the other. December is looking pretty desolate.

They also say there will be a second closed beta in November so maybe I'll be lucky and get in that - if I have any time left to play any other games!