The Game Technology discussion thread *Read first post before posting*

[Shifty Geezer]

Rules of Engagement (or "why do all my posts get deleted?!" : Read before posting or run the risk of losing posting rights in the Tech Forum!

This is principally a technical discussion thread. It is allied to the IQ and Framebuffer Analysis threads and shares the same rules as those which you should familiarise yourself with. The purpose is to discuss on a technical level the techniques employed by game developers in their games, and includes the comparative design decisions of cross-platform titles. Thus here will be observations of technical variations of the same game across different consoles, with reference to the Framerate Analysis thread and the Image Quality and Framebuffer Analysis thread. This is the place to discuss why a game has a different AA system, or framerate, or lighting model, on one version of a game than another, or to just observe and discuss the techniques used by developers in general, such as the (dis)advantages of rendering to a particular framebuffer size.

This is the thread to discussus the Eurogamer/Digital Foundry Head-to-Head articles, Lens of Truth comparisons, and similar.

What this thread is not, is a place to complain about a port's quality and make accusations of developers, trumpet your preferred console over the other, talk business and sales, talk about how great a game is or how aesthetically pleasing it is without talking about technical techniques to achieve that (no artistic or game design discussions), or otherwise sidetrack the discussion from talking about how developers are creating their games. If you do not post to the required standard, your posts will be removed, and persistent unwanted contributions will see you locked out of the Technology Forum.

 

[Turok]

Ouch, the difference between either console version and PC is immense. I checked the game resolution lists but couldn't find it, does anyone know if CoD:WaW is still using a lower native resolution? And if so, which one? The quality degradation is quite pronounced here.

Nothing official as far as I know, but the popular assumption is that it's the same as COD4 on consoles, 1024x600.

 

[assurdum]

But the reason to cut the vine in the jungle? I don't think can change drastically the smooth on ps3...

 

[Neb]

But the reason to cut the vine in the jungle? I don't think can change drastically the smooth on ps3...

But if they cast shadows + the textures + polygons + draw calls?

Or it could just be a priority to not lower texture resolution vs having more objects onscreen due to system memory?

 

[woundingchaney]

What would the "shinier/more pronounced" normal maps have anything to do with storage space??

 

[vanquish]

What would the "shinier/more pronounced" normal maps have anything to do with storage space??

I doubt it, would probably only amount to a couple of kb difference, and the 360 has more available (and more flexible) system memory anyway so its not like these hi res maps would only fit into PS3 architecture.

 

[assen]

Maybe the specular is more pronounced on PS3 because it is not attenuated properly for polygons in shadows or facing away from the light? Can anyone try taking something specular under a pronounced shadow line?

 

[vanquish]

Maybe the specular is more pronounced on PS3 because it is not attenuated properly for polygons in shadows or facing away from the light? Can anyone try taking something specular under a pronounced shadow line?

Yes its more likely it's a technical quirk, the PS3 version has more definied shadows (according to the article) so maybe it's lighting related.

 

[davygee]

This isn't the first time that more pronounced specular has appeared within games. Doesn't Fallout 3 on the PS3 have more pronounced specular compared to the flater 360 visuals. It seems too much of a coincidence that this is now happening with COD WAW as well surely.

Also, can someone please explain the "360 has more memory for higher res textures than the PS3"? Can't the PS3 stream them from the hard disk or BR and maybe does the DVD size restrictions come into play with regards to how high the resolution of the textures are?

 

[vanquish]

This isn't the first time that more pronounced specular has appeared within games. Doesn't Fallout 3 on the PS3 have more pronounced specular compared to the flater 360 visuals. It seems too much of a coincidence that this is now happening with COD WAW as well surely.



Also, can someone please explain the "360 has more memory for higher res textures than the PS3"? Can't the PS3 stream them from the hard disk or BR and maybe does the DVD size restrictions come into play with regards to how high the resolution of the textures are?

I pointed out the Fallout 3 similarities in a previous post

The 360 has more available memory as the 360 firmware uses less system memory (only 32mb) than the PS3's XMB (84 MB in May 2007, dunno about now), plus it has 512mb of unified memory, not split in half between the CPU and GPU, which means its more flexible for devs to utilise it the way they want.

http://www.ps3vault.com/ps3-memory-foot-print-explained-1432

 

[assurdum]

it confirms that at certain scenes the PS3 drops environmental details (such as vines) to maintain framerate (the 360 version runs smoother than the PS3 by 10-20%).

Where on ps3 is drop some poligon enviroment element on 360 is drop the bump effect or shadow resolution (however polygon element on character are different on 360 compared ps3), they are try to optimize the engine for any platform I think.

 

[assurdum]

Sometimes on 360 too (and pc) some polygon element are less compared ps3 version. Look the palms on the mountains. At this point I think in others areas is the same. 360 and pc are too close for polygons element. On ps3 something is add or less for different architecture.

 

[Betanumerical]

I pointed out the Fallout 3 similarities in a previous post

The 360 has more available memory as the 360 firmware uses less system memory (only 32mb) than the PS3's XMB (84 MB in May 2007, dunno about now), plus it has 512mb of unified memory, not split in half between the CPU and GPU, which means its more flexible for devs to utilise it the way they want.

http://www.ps3vault.com/ps3-memory-foot-print-explained-1432

The split in half argument is moot really, because the GPU can access both pools of ram.

 

[assurdum]

The split in half argument is moot really, because the GPU can access both pools of ram.

It's ot but I know the xbm ram is reduce too 48 MB on ps3 lately

 

[AlNom]

It's ot but I know the xbm ram is reduce too 48 MB on ps3 lately

Whether it has been reduced further is unknown, but yes, in a fixed memory environment, 16/512 isn't insignificant. There is further RAM savings due to the eDRAM on 360 - the backbuffer fits within the 10MiB and the data is downsampled to simply colour information in main memory ( as the front-buffer). So, with respect to texture resolution or number of objects, main memory should not have been the issue.

Maybe the specular is more pronounced on PS3 because it is not attenuated properly for polygons in shadows or facing away from the light? Can anyone try taking something specular under a pronounced shadow line?

With the screenshots of the boot, I have to wonder if the specular is more pronounced on the PS3 appear more pronounced simply because of the lower resolution - the higher frequency data is lost and becomes blurred resulting in bigger bumps as opposed to the finer detailed bumps.

 

[GuestLV]

Sometimes on 360 too (and pc) some polygon element are less compared ps3 version. Look the palms on the mountains. At this point I think in others areas is the same. 360 and pc are too close for polygons element. On ps3 something is add or less for different architecture.

I have found something strange with PC version of COD
first run

second run

may be on consoles they did the same,looks like environment randomizer

 

[DJ12]

Grandmaster has already mentioned that the soldiers equipment is randomly generated.

 

[grandmaster]

Yes this is extremely frequent in games - you'll see randomised car liveries and point jobs in racing games, randomly generated enemies etc.

 

[vanquish]

I agree, seeing as the 360 can display up to 1080p, surely this should be an option with the GUI. It must be down to the actual space the gfx's take up thats dictated that it should be 720p.

Like someone said earlier though, surely they could have made the majority of gfx as vector thus reducing the space required and then it could be made on the fly.

Isn't it upscaled to 1080p (so it isn't that big of a deal)? looks better than the old firmware in terms of resolution on my set, so I'm happy, it probably takes more than 32 mb RAM to have the GUI run in 1080p native.

And wouldn't Al Strong say we're going off topic now, he made a good comment on how COD5's PS3's normal maps look more pronounced due to lower resolution. I'll try and find examples.

The ground in this scene shows lower resolution ground textures (or normal maps) on PS3. Also note the absent lighting on the hand and gun.
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a/3/0/8/2/4/1/CoD5_PS3_018.jpg.jpg
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a/3/0/8/2/4/1/CoD5_360_018.jpg.jpg

And is it just me or are there slight differences in AA between the 360/PS3 ie. on the cables and trees

And assurdum, with regards to the 360's geometry being pared down in the below scene (i linked 720p grabs), there are other differences in the scene, the 360 could be pushing more grass etc. Or the minor environmental details could be randomly generated.
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a/3/0/8/2/4/1/CoD5_360_022.jpg.jpg
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a/3/0/8/2/4/1/CoD5_PS3_022.jpg.jpg

 

[Nesh]

The ground in this scene shows lower resolution textures on PS3. Also note the absent lighting on the hand and gun.
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a/3/0/8/2/4/1/CoD5_PS3_018.jpg.jpg
http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles/a/3/0/8/2/4/1/CoD5_360_018.jpg.jpg

I see identical textures on both personally. And a shadow probably casted over the hand on the PS3 version. Which should be just a result of standing on a slightly different position

edit: Oh now I get what you mean with textures. Is that AF difference or some kind of smoke/fog in the distance I am not sure