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

[AlNom]

I'm not try to flame more Bayonetta discussion but really where is this large amount of high buffer use who joker talking compared to, for example, ngs 2 on the ps3? I can't see so much difference honestly.

Almost all her attacks have large on-screen transparency visual effects. Also count in the various background foliage... Her own clothes swirling about too... The falling clocktower sequence especially. Not sure how you're missing all that. It's the combined number of effects producing overdraw.


NGS2 - I've seen walkthrough videos on youtube... certain areas do have reduced enemies (in some places, it's quite different in terms of scope, like the werewolves's colosseum or hordes of ninjas or daemons in cut-scenes), but the lack of flying guts going everywhere versus the 360 version... that's a fair bit of reduced alpha blending there.

 

[djskribbles]

Ok, progress I didn't say you did, but that was my original question to those that called it a bad port, what would they have done different. Then (shockingly) it all veered away as I struggled unsuccessfully to get people to answer my original question. I usually let 'bad port' / 'lazy dev' comments slide 99% of the time now. But the games biz is very small, most of us know people at many other companies, and we all know how many hours it takes to make these games and how dedicated you have to be. So yeah, sometimes I do get irritated when I read an entire studio being written off as noobs just people some people believe the PS3 or 360 for that matter are infallible pieces of hardware capable of rendering the entire universe 3 times.

The first thing that hit me like a ton of bricks when I played the PS3 Bayonetta demo was that this game was clearly not designed for the PS3. That much is 100% clear to me. If someone suggested that much blending in the early game design meetings, and wanted to ship 60fps on PS3, I would have sent them home for a sick day. I don't know much about this game (just recently tried the demo), I don't know the history of it, nor do I know anyone at this studio. But the design of this game clearly favors the 360, so I'm guessing the PS3 was not on the radar in the beginning. It looks like some other poor studio got stuck with the port later, and were faced with getting the PS3 to do what it was not designed to do. Given that, the game doesn't seem bad to me on PS3, it's definitely playable, although I haven't tried the 360 version.

It's interesting that you mention Ghostbusters as well. I just finished that game (cool game btw) and what the demo doesn't indicate is that Ghostbusters also has a retarded amount of transparencies, many screen fulls sometimes. I think they even exhaust edram bandwidth, because I believe I spotted half res transparency buffers even on the 360 version, at least for some effects. I missed most of the hoopla when that game came out, but now that I finished it it's pretty clear to me why they dropped the res on the PS3 version at ship.

In some games, like Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, you can design the problem away. But in other games like Ghostbusters, what are you gonna do? There are ghosts everywhere, it would be kinda silly to draw them opaque. The later ghost battles make the demo seem like a walk in the park. Likewise for the ghost traps, plasma streams, spooky effects, etc, you can't design away blending in those cases. Which leads me to...




Not much, from what I saw in the demo it looks like a 60fps game designed for the PS3, with overdraw and blend effects kept the barest minimum. I think it makes the game look sterile personally, I like the look of Bayonetta way better, IMHO. But NGS2 designed the problem away, at the expense of aesthetics.

Not releasing an eastern action game on PS3 would've been a huge mistake. If what you say is true, then they really should have invested some time and money in making an engine or game that is somewhat equal on both platforms. But I agree with assurdum -- I don't see much difference between a game like NGS2 and Bayonetta, or even DMC4.

 

[AlNom]

Here's the clocktower video from the 360 edition. You're all saying that the amount of blending and overdraw is no different than NGS2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7LN1GfuduM

 

[obonicus]

Ok, progress I didn't say you did, but that was my original question to those that called it a bad port, what would they have done different. Then (shockingly) it all veered away as I struggled unsuccessfully to get people to answer my original question. I usually let 'bad port' / 'lazy dev' comments slide 99% of the time now. But the games biz is very small, most of us know people at many other companies, and we all know how many hours it takes to make these games and how dedicated you have to be. So yeah, sometimes I do get irritated when I read an entire studio being written off as noobs just people some people believe the PS3 or 360 for that matter are infallible pieces of hardware capable of rendering the entire universe 3 times.

I don't think PG are 'noobs', but this is a new studio producing their first HD title. They certainly have design chops out the wazoo, considering their history, but it's not surprising at all that a Japanese PS2-era dev struggles with HD. Just look at the efforts from devs that aren't Capcom (all of the little RPGs released, some with horrid tech issues, others using tons of cell-shading to hide the fact that they're not doing much). Hell, it's telling that NGS2 seems like one of the most solid non-Capcom HD engines to come out of Japan. And I'm not saying this because the PS3 port is worse. I'm saying this because the 360 game can't reach its FPS target.

The first thing that hit me like a ton of bricks when I played the PS3 Bayonetta demo was that this game was clearly not designed for the PS3. That much is 100% clear to me. If someone suggested that much blending in the early game design meetings, and wanted to ship 60fps on PS3, I would have sent them home for a sick day. I don't know much about this game (just recently tried the demo), I don't know the history of it, nor do I know anyone at this studio. But the design of this game clearly favors the 360, so I'm guessing the PS3 was not on the radar in the beginning. It looks like some other poor studio got stuck with the port later, and were faced with getting the PS3 to do what it was not designed to do. Given that, the game doesn't seem bad to me on PS3, it's definitely playable, although I haven't tried the 360 version.

The game was supposedly shopped to Sega as a 360 title, Sega asked for a PS3 port and PG said they didn't have the bandwidth, which meant some internal Sega studio got porting duties. If that's true, Sega probably should have had their own tech guys monitoring the title more closely to try and tone down the features that wouldn't fly on PS3. Or made it only a 360 game (which would probably doom it in Japan).

Not much, from what I saw in the demo it looks like a 60fps game designed for the PS3, with overdraw and blend effects kept the barest minimum. I think it makes the game look sterile personally, I like the look of Bayonetta way better, IMHO. But NGS2 designed the problem away, at the expense of aesthetics.

Also, I'm not sure NGS2 is really a 'port'. NGS2 is based off NGS1 code, which was written from the ground up for PS3. NG2 was, at least from what I've heard, an Xbox engine pushed to HD, which was as far as it could go.

 

[assurdum]

Almost all her attacks have large on-screen transparency visual effects. Also count in the various background foliage... Her own clothes swirling about too... The falling clocktower sequence especially. Not sure how you're missing all that. It's the combined number of effects producing overdraw.


NGS2 - I've seen walkthrough videos on youtube... certain areas do have reduced enemies (in some places, it's quite different in terms of scope, like the werewolves's colosseum or hordes of ninjas or daemons in cut-scenes), but the lack of flying guts going everywhere versus the 360 version... that's a fair bit of reduced alpha blending there.

The enemies decrease is just to gameplay reasons. If you don't believe me avoid the enemies and go to the follow area until you reach the same numbers and beyond. The fps is enough steady.

 

[2real4tv]

Almost all her attacks have large on-screen transparency visual effects. Also count in the various background foliage... Her own clothes swirling about too... The falling clocktower sequence especially. Not sure how you're missing all that. It's the combined number of effects producing overdraw.


NGS2 - I've seen walkthrough videos on youtube... certain areas do have reduced enemies (in some places, it's quite different in terms of scope, like the werewolves's colosseum or hordes of ninjas or daemons in cut-scenes), but the lack of flying guts going everywhere versus the 360 version... that's a fair bit of reduced alpha blending there.

Yeah but the 360 also too a hit in resolution and lighting as a result(?)

edit: That clock tower sequence was awesome

 

[obonicus]

Here's the clocktower video from the 360 edition. You're all saying that the amount of blending and overdraw is no different than NGS2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7LN1GfuduM

NG is more spartan in design, there's usually less flashiness, so you're probably right (also, I still think NGS2 is technically an exclusive and probably shouldn't be used as an argument). What about DMC4, though? I can't think of any level that is quite as crazy (maybe the late-game ones, vs. the Messiah) but is Bayonetta doing a ton more? Honestly, the only game I think that would provide a proper comparison are the GoW-types, and those aren't out yet this gen. Edit: there is Heavenly Sword, but certainly an exclusive so may not apply.

 

[betan]

Here's the clocktower video from the 360 edition. You're all saying that the amount of blending and overdraw is no different than NGS2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7LN1GfuduM

Let's cut to the chase, two simple _yes-or-no_ questions to you and Joker:

Do you think PS3 cannot do that level of graphics?

Do you think Sega's port was/is the best possible port given the 360 codebase?

 

[joker454]

If what you say is true, then they really should have invested some time and money in making an engine or game that is somewhat equal on both platforms. But I agree with assurdum -- I don't see much difference between a game like NGS2 and Bayonetta, or even DMC4.

Well, just my speculation. I don't recall DMC4 too much, it's been a while. Was it true 60fps? Somehow I remember on the PS3 version that there was a bunch of blurring every time the camera moved, so there was some kinda voodoo going on. I don't recall it having quite the on screen insanity that Bayonetta has as well.

 

[obonicus]

Well, just my speculation. I don't recall DMC4 too much, it's been a while. Was it true 60fps? Somehow I remember on the PS3 version that there was a bunch of blurring every time the camera moved, so there was some kinda voodoo going on. I don't recall it having quite the on screen insanity that Bayonetta has as well.

The blurring was supposedly temporal AA (as opposed to the 360's 2xMSAA, I think), at least according to grandmaster's analysis. I don't think he had the tech up to do FPS comparisons at the time... and it doesn't look like ps360 looked at it up either. Reports are that it was 60 indeed. It's also a different sort of game, which makes it hard to compare -- Bayonetta's more GoW-like in that it seems to love the big fancy set-pieces, DMC4 was enemy-wave after enemy wave in similar walled-off locations. There was a tower mode that had a ton more enemies than the regular game, though, but I think the setting for those was relatively spartan. There were a few impressive scenes, but I have no idea how demanding they were.

 

[AlNom]

Yeah but the 360 also too a hit in resolution and lighting as a result(?)

A resolution and MSAA choice that is curiously at the very limit of eDRAM, n'est pas? Anyways, given the development history, it's not a great analogy to begin with.

I do find the apparent "dynamic MSAA" status of NGS2 to be of one point of interest concerning bandwidth, but that wasn't confirmed yet.

What about DMC4, though?

Don't know, haven't seen any of it. (That's why I didn't comment. )

Do you think PS3 cannot do that level of graphics?

Not the purpose of the thread. Really.

What we know is that for Bayonetta it takes a dive with these blended effects. There aren't very many culprits as to why that can happen.

 

[joker454]

Let's cut to the chase, two simple _yes-or-no_ questions to you and Joker:

Do you think PS3 cannot do that level of graphics?

Do you think Sega's port was/is the best possible port given the 360 codebase?

It has a hard time handling that level of full resolution *blending* without large performance spikes, which in turn affects the rest of the graphics because other stuff must get shaved away to accommodate said spikes. Even if the PS3 version ran faster 80% of the time, it wouldn't mean anything if it still ran significantly slower 20% of the time. It's the spikes that matter, they in turn hold everything else back. So if PS3 ran 13ms most of the time with spikes up to 19ms, and 360 ran 14 ms most of the time with spikes up to 16ms, then you can ship the 360 version, but you still have to lop away something from the PS3 version to get the spikes down, even though it's faster most of the time. Not a yes/no answer, but it's not a yes/no question.

No clue if it was the best possible port, I don't have the code. But I don't think there is enough there to conclude that it's a bad port. 60fps is far more than twice as hard to achieve than 30fps, and even harder on PS3 which is more susceptible to performance spikes. So for them to get 60fps means they must have some skill.

What makes no sense to me is when people assume a PS3 version must be a bad port if it doesn't match the 360 version. That's why I asked "why is it a bad port" when that came up. We all know each machine has it's strengths, it just happens that blending to the 360 is like chocolate cake, whereas it's like anchovies to the PS3. Likewise if you had to sequentially churn through gigabytes of vector data, I would not call the 360 version of said product a bad port when it inevitable ran slower, since now it's the 360 eating the anchovies with the PS3 gorging on cake.

You'll note that it's been said many times "Lead on PS3". There's two main reasons for this. First and foremost, is it forces you to redesign your data to be spu friendly, which in turn benefits every other platform out there as well, so win-win all around. Second though, you lead on PS3 so that you can't use edram. If you leverage edram, and you inevitably will if you lead on 360, then you will be in trouble when it's time to port. The amount of trouble will depend on how far along the project you started the port. If it's very early then you are in luck, because you will see the performance spikes early and you can re-design the game to eliminate them. If it's very late in the project, then you are screwed.

The blurring was supposedly temporal AA

Ah ok. I thought maybe they did something funky, like everything is rendered at 60fps except the backgrounds, that maybe get rendered at 30fps and then get blended in some voodoo fashion.

 

[obonicus]

What makes no sense to me is when people assume a PS3 version must be a bad port if it doesn't match the 360 version. That's why I asked "why is it a bad port" when that came up. We all know each machine has it's strengths, it just happens that blending to the 360 is like chocolate cake, whereas it's like anchovies to the PS3. Likewise if you had to sequentially churn through gigabytes of vector data, I would not call the 360 version of said product a bad port when it inevitable ran slower, since now it's the 360 eating the anchovies with the PS3 gorging on cake.

Going in this direction, would it be fair to say, instead of 'bad port', 'bad architectural design' when referring to multi-plat games that don't feature something close to parity ('true' parity, in the Burnout Paradise sense doesn't seem necessary -- lots of games that were markedly better on 360 did proportionately well anyway, like RE4, SF4, even Ghostbusters fit the pattern first month).

You'll note that it's been said many times "Lead on PS3". There's two main reasons for this. First and foremost, is it forces you to redesign your data to be spu friendly, which in turn benefits every other platform out there as well, so win-win all around. Second though, you lead on PS3 so that you can't use edram. If you leverage edram, and you inevitably will if you lead on 360, then you will be in trouble when it's time to port. The amount of trouble will depend on how far along the project you started the port. If it's very early then you are in luck, because you will see the performance spikes early and you can re-design the game to eliminate them. If it's very late in the project, then you are screwed.

Going back briefly to Ghostbusters, aren't there workarounds to getting transparency working? I seem to remember nAo disagreeing with you or with Mintmaster a good while back on something like it.

Also, and this is slightly OT, but is using EDRAM best practice anyway? It seems from your and other previous comments that coding close to the metal on the 360 is unadvisable (because it's more trouble than it's worth, as opposed to the PS3, where it might as well be required).

 

[AlNom]

Going back briefly to Ghostbusters, aren't there workarounds to getting transparency working? I seem to remember nAo disagreeing with you or with Mintmaster a good while back on something like it.

I believe that was about floating point alpha blending and to just use an INT8 buffer when rendering with HDR encoded formats (or G-buffers). "Is HDR necessary for such effects". This may also relate to TB's (later) comments regarding ping-ponging between buffers on PS3.

Another work around would be alpha to coverage, but... the results would have fairly limited usefulness (like racing games where you don't notice how fugly it can be without sufficient MSAA).

 

[obonicus]

Another work around would be alpha to coverage, but... the results would have fairly limited usefulness (like racing games where you don't notice how fugly it can be without sufficient MSAA).

Heh, GTA4 seems to have used it nonetheless. But with Bayonetta, for say, the 'debris' that float in front of the camera in the foreground for a brief moment or the mystic symbol that hangs around for less than a second, or even the 'lips' targeting reticle, would it be that noticeable?

 

[marcus_rocks]

Here's the clocktower video from the 360 edition. You're all saying that the amount of blending and overdraw is no different than NGS2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7LN1GfuduM

If you compare like that than we need to compare that to the titans that climb mount Olympus and Kratos fights on those titans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3htUla6Baw

 

[AlNom]

uh... You're comparing a trailer to a demo This is not relevant...

 

[betan]

It has a hard time handling that level of full resolution *blending* without large performance spikes, which in turn affects the rest of the graphics because other stuff must get shaved away to accommodate said spikes. Even if the PS3 version ran faster 80% of the time, it wouldn't mean anything if it still ran significantly slower 20% of the time. It's the spikes that matter, they in turn hold everything else back. So if PS3 ran 13ms most of the time with spikes up to 19ms, and 360 ran 14 ms most of the time with spikes up to 16ms, then you can ship the 360 version, but you still have to lop away something from the PS3 version to get the spikes down, even though it's faster most of the time. Not a yes/no answer, but it's not a yes/no question.

If it's not a yes/no question, I'm not sure what your point is besides "you cannot say it it's a bad port because it looks worse than 360 lead code" (which I agree with BTW but so what?).

I also don't see much value in arbitrary madeup numbers, in particular you don't need them to convince people that heavy alphablending has a bigger load on the platform with worse bandwidth.

The question is whether the SEGA did their best to attack this problem (since that seems to be the focus of discussion as if game is only about alpha blending),
for which we don't seem to have any idea.

 

[obonicus]

The question is whether the SEGA did their best to attack this problem (since that seems to be the focus of discussion as if game is only about alpha blending),
for which we don't seem to have any idea.

I don't think it's the worst port, at least? It's 720p, it has most of the 360's effects, it sometimes reaches 60fps. There have been worse ports, IMO, even this year. I do think we might see some improvement over the demo, at least in the US (in Japan I think they're counting on a more or less captive audience).

 

[marcus_rocks]

Anyway here is the conclusion

You'll note that it's been said many times "Lead on PS3". There's two main reasons for this. First and foremost, is it forces you to redesign your data to be spu friendly, which in turn benefits every other platform out there as well, so win-win all around. Second though, you lead on PS3 so that you can't use edram. If you leverage edram, and you inevitably will if you lead on 360, then you will be in trouble when it's time to port. The amount of trouble will depend on how far along the project you started the port. If it's very early then you are in luck, because you will see the performance spikes early and you can re-design the game to eliminate them. If it's very late in the project, then you are screwed.