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

[AlNom]

Well, without knowing anything about how they setup the renderer, it is rather difficult to say much more on the subject...

 

[Kasersky]

an interesting picture i found on the bungie homepage, devoid of any anti aliasing.

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5516/reach1k.jpg

edit: sorry, iv used to allow hotlinking...

 

[Trejser]

an interesting picture i found on the bungie homepage, devoid of any anti aliasing.

http://img182.imagevenue.com/aAfkjfp01fo1i-1658/loc478/85009_reach1_122_478lo.jpg

"Not found"

 

[AlNom]

It's just a cropped section of a larger frame, no scaling. And there is edge aliasing in it.

 

[cal_guy]

1024 x 576 with 2xAA fits in 10MB edram near perfect with no tiling.

Wouldn't 1024 * 640 be an better option since that would use an perfect 10 MB?

 

[AlNom]

It'll be padded up to 1040x640 (1024 is not a multiple of 80), so no.

 

[cal_guy]

Okay how about the Ninja Gaiden 2 resolution of 1120*585?

 

[AlNom]

I suspect it's actually 584*, but you'd need to check for a ratio of 73 steps per 90 pixels to distinguish it from 13/16. Otherwise the padding would put it to 1120x592, which would be over the 10MB for depth + back buffer.

*With 2xMSAA, the render tiles are 80x8, which 1120x584 would yield integer divisions.

If you're talking about why devs don't max out the 10MB when not tiling, there's nothing to say that they have to do so. Fewer pixels rendered obviously means they can push a higher framerate. The pixel shaders in FF13 are undoubtedly more advanced than what was in NG2, and from what I've observed FF13 is not 60fps.

 

[assurdum]

Okay how about the Ninja Gaiden 2 resolution of 1120*585?

1024x576p is a lot better to upscale, ng 2 upscaled is a blurried mess. From what I know 1024x576p, 1024x600p & 1024x768p remains the better resolutions in terms of upscaling. I guess this is the reason why S-E prefer that.

 

[AlNom]

1024x576p is a lot better to upscale, ng 2 upscaled is a blurried mess. From what I know 1024x576p, 1024x600p & 1024x768p remains the better resolutions in terms of upscaling. I guess this is the reason why S-E prefer that.

You mean because of the 1:1 aspect ratio scaling? You're going tohave to provide more evidence than this, but this is quite off-topic.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

three new vids of final fantasy XIII just got updated to the list from msxbox world.
http://www.msxbox-world.com/xbox360/videos-HD/view/644/Final-Fantasy-XIII.htm

one of the vids is CGI stuff the other two are in game stuff. (Comparison movie 1, and Exclusive lake gameplay clip.)

regardless of it being sub HD or not it looks very clean, and the clarity is very good too. being at a rez below the cod series and ng2, both of those games ran at above 30 fps. that being said, id really like to see some framerate analysis on it when after it hits stores.

from a visual standpoint it's not bad at all but from a technical perspective, engines like the MT-2.0, UE3, Dunia, or even lithtech's jupiter EX don't have to resort to lowering resolutions for 360 because of it's ED memory or for ps3 do to lack of proper deployment through cross platform development. (no mater which console is lead.)

usually all these engines listed along with a bunch of others when handling deployment to the xbox 360, typically resort to just having the ED memory for less tricky tasks. (such as AA, or whatnot.) while still maintaining a 720 output (be it done in tiles or not.) the result either way done is much more eye pleasant than the deduction of pixels.....imo.

 

[Weaste]

regardless of it being sub HD or not it looks very clean, and the clarity is very good too. being at a rez below the cod series and ng2, both of those games ran at above 30 fps. that being said, id really like to see some framerate analysis on it when after it hits stores.

I doubt that it will have any trouble hitting 30fps at that resolution.

from a visual standpoint it's not bad at all but from a technical perspective, engines like the MT-2.0, UE3, Dunia, or even lithtech's jupiter EX don't have to resort to lowering resolutions for 360 because of it's ED memory or for ps3 do to lack of proper deployment through cross platform development. (no mater which console is lead.)

usually all these engines listed along with a bunch of others when handling deployment to the xbox 360, typically resort to just having the ED memory for less tricky tasks. (such as AA, or whatnot.) while still maintaining a 720 output (be it done in tiles or not.) the result either way done is much more eye pleasant than the deduction of pixels.....imo.

This title was going to be PS3 exclusive for a very long time. They never started out thinking about making it multi-platform, and they themselves have said that for the graphics they had to build a different engine for the XB360, and only had a year to do the port. We don't know how heavy the White Engine actually used the SPUs or how it went about its business. HDR, AA, Alpha, etc. When they had to get that running on the XB360 in a quite different hardware environment, then I don't think that it's that surprising. If they were given more time, I have no doubts that they could pull it off. We are not talking about a lead platform here, but rather an engine and game developed specifically for a single platform - it's a port, engine and all in a very short frame of time.

 

[TheWretched]

You mean because of the 1:1 aspect ratio scaling? You're going tohave to provide more evidence than this, but this is quite off-topic.

Yeah, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has only one axis scaling and still doesn't look blurry or anything at 1080P.

I don't think the aspect ratio of scaling does matter really... it's always the same... more scaling equals more blurring, bad algorithms equal more blurring etc...

 

[marcus_rocks]

according to TDMoss,

gow3 is massively data driven, the 100+ talented people make the game; the exe is just 5.3MB, no overlays.
text=4110428, data=1305720, bss=1362156. Point of pride for us on the gow3 code team. More memory for content!

Take that guys

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

to, Weaste.
hmmmm, well, that may be true, no clue as to why the engine swap. the white engine was founded at around 03 and was designed to take advantage of the 128 bit generation, at around 07 the engine got a name change to crystal tools. it would only make sense if they added down the line support for multi-core possessors running dual threaded instructions.......i think that was established with the pc version of FF11, if not the 360 version.

ah, anyhow, switching a bit of the subject. Ive conducted my own little experiment and learned that 360's build did undergo some dramatic changes in it's life cycle under development.

from the MS E3 09 press conference alpha footage.
http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/9702/99234770.png

from the msxbox world footage, (demo or not, not sure.)
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/9068/20770648.png

hope some will forgive my captures, i'm doing this all off of my netbook. (which runs at the maximum of 1024x600.) here is my source of ms e3 09 footage.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-final-fantasy/49971?type=flv

from what my sources say the 360 version underwent three major changes in it's development, this goes far back to the beginning of 09 when SE was leaving little tidbits of 360's development scattered from interview to interview.

first of course was the deployment, the second was better implementation of the usage of shaders, the third was what they quoted in may of 09 was more fine tuning as they stated the deployment was long finished. (and possibly resolution or the usage of AA, either way it's not present in the alpha.)

360
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/2517/ff13ps3vsxbox360002.jpg
(supposedly ps3, considering msxbox world is using it and scraped the other.)
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/8094/ff13ps3vsxbox360001.jpg

in these two images you see a couple things in it that are different, for one you see the lack of smoothness to everything, the second is the text. in a couple new extended low-rez vids of 360's ff13 it doesn't have the words "snow" "heroes don't run from fights" it just says "heroes don't run from a fight". and of course in a couple vids the hair is more nicer. http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/6175/1212o.png

well, that's it for now i'll keep people posted on my end if i see anything more fishy.:smile2:

 

[grandmaster]

It really wouldn't surprise me at all if the alpha footage wasn't from 360 at all. At the end of the day, you're not going to show sub-HD footage when you have a very clean 720p source to hand.

In terms of differences, there are quite a few between the PS3 demo and the retail version where there were no major engine revisions - just optimisations. So comparing trailers and looking for differences is probably a waste of time. I'm also not sure how you can infer AA or lack of it based on the highly compressed shots you have posted.

Bottom line is that the Xbox 360's attributes have been confirmed using basic, simple mathematics from MazingerDUDE, Al Strong and others.

 

[shido808]

As for the text, you can toggle whether it shows the character's name on or off via the options menu. So the difference between the scenes where one has "Snow" and the other omits it, is probably just a difference in settings.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

It really wouldn't surprise me at all if the alpha footage wasn't from 360 at all. At the end of the day, you're not going to show sub-HD footage when you have a very clean 720p source to hand.

the footage was from 360, it was actual interactive gameplay. the people that display their products at E3 don't bring their own setups, all of the demos are all on one hdd connected to a regular console which is cast off to the side. usually if the choice of displaying the game with gameplay in mind is not interactive it's all prerecorded with narrations on it, since it's pointless to have people mimicking movements in front of a live audience.

besides, the xbox 360 copy wasn't announced that year, it was the year before. which i think they had plenty of time to come up with an alpha build.

In terms of differences, there are quite a few between the PS3 demo and the retail version where there were no major engine revisions - just optimisations. So comparing trailers and looking for differences is probably a waste of time.

the issue isn't about the ps3 version. with that version the only major change in it's development was the deployment from pc to it as SE stated, hence the change in graphical development over the years.

with the xb 360 it went from pc to ps3 and then from ps3 to 360 without using the same engine, just the finished assets were ported and optimized. and as of the past week or so, people have been comparing trailers and vids of actually 360's builds at different stages of development to ps3's build. (which never went through the same steps.)

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/5806/ff13lighting360.jpg
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/6632/ff13lightingps3.jpg

in that shot taken from a vid, the 360 version not only doesn't have cleaner alpha maps on fur or hairy objects as the newer vids do but it also isn't using the same shaders as it is in most recent vids.

I'm also not sure how you can infer AA or lack of it based on the highly compressed shots you have posted.

it's simple, i saw it in motion, and it wont take you minutes of time to see the lack of it, ms has the footage of the E3 09 build which is three times the size of the vid at gamtrailers. (you'll need a 360 to read it) http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/g...fe-1000-9115-d80258580815/?p=1&of=0&bt=0&sb=1

all i was using my captures for (which both are from the 360 version.) were to show it's evolution (the noticeable added shaders.)

As for the text, you can toggle whether it shows the character's name on or off via the options menu. So the difference between the scenes where one has "Snow" and the other omits it, is probably just a difference in settings.

that's not exactly what i was highlighting, dialog text is something you can't really restructure is what i was referring to, that was SE's doing since there's no setting for that.

 

[Turok]

Is the PS3 version using A2C as well? Kind of hard to tell from some of the shots. Either way, it looks like the PS3 version for me.

 

[AlNom]

Yep.