Lucid_Dreamer
Veteran
And, destructibility...and particle effects...and platforming...and draw distance...amount of enemies on screen...
The Game Technology discussion thread *Read first post before posting*
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
- Start date
Its not apples to apples when the game design of mentioned games is totally different. Completely open world games are much harder to control and performance spikes are considerably bigger than in linear games.
I only mentioned Killzone because you only posted source for KZ and UC, not for Infamous 2. As a matter of a fact, Sucker Punch mentions they are utilizing up to 60% of Cell time in Infamous 2, not 100. Since they "only" utilized 60% of Cell, and the game has no AA I guess they are incompetent and are clearly lagging behind other Sony studios, no?
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-09-27-sucker-punch-talks-infamous-2-interview
Draw distance is not one of Infamous strengths. Developers cleverly made city so it occludes buildings in the back and they implanted fog that covers everything 30 feet in front of you so that they can minimize LOD transition and polygon count.
AC/GTA games are more impressive from that standpoint than Infamous, than again it has more to do with developer than hardware.
Last edited by a moderator:
Lucid_Dreamer
Veteran
Are you saying you can't have 90 to 100% SPU utilization because it's an open world game? Open world games stalls SPUs? If that's not what you are saying, SPU utilization comparison is apples to apples. It doesn't matter how the game turned out, in this case. It's just about how effectively they kept "all the plates spinning".
You certainly didn't mention Uncharted 2 or 3. Why just Killzone? The previous point seemed to be that PS3 games never reached 90 to 100% PU usage on average. The Uncharted 2 and 3 tech interviews seem to crush that idea. Is that why you did not mention it?
They are lagging behind other Sony studios. No matter how good the game looks and plays, they are not there, yet. Sucker Punch even say they were still figuring out big things with their coding. "At some point everybody figures out most of the big stuff. But we're still figuring out big stuff."
Plus, we should all know Sucker Punch said they had a memory leak that prevented AA usage. They are still learning.
Are you saying other games with larger distances don't occlude anything and don't have aggressive LOD? Otherwise, that part of your post doesn't make any sense. What open world game(s) cover the total amount of check marks Infamous 2 covered with a lowly "up to 60%" SPU usage?
No, I'm saying that design choices from game to game are not the same, and as such present different sets of compromises. Open world games are in fact much less controllable (from performance POW) than completely linear cinematic games like UC, so its very much logical to conclude that open world games have bigger performance spikes because of their nature. Having bigger spikes means that the closer you are to 100%, the bigger the frame drops will be which means its better to have more headroom when it gets hectic.
I mentioned KZ because it is the most comparable game to FC3 and because documentation on it is extensive. The trade offs are different, and being that both games are completely different design doesn't really help the cause. Fact of the matter is, FC3 is open word game running on deferred shading engine with all the bells and whistles one can think fit in console budget, trying to downplay their effort is arrogant and stupid.
On the other hand, KZ3 uses MLAA and FC3 does not. I'm sure the cost of it is not insignificant at all and the SPU usage goes up when you are running MLAA.
Ok, UC2/3 interviews crushes that idea. Like Crytek's, Ubisofts, DICEs and other crush it. It means little.
No, I'm saying that Infamous games (like older AC games) are designed cleverly so buildings are occluded "naturally" since you can't see anything behind them. When you get up on highest point though, its very much noticeable that LOD is very agressive and heavy DOF is included to mask lack of draw distance.
I don't know how much other open world games tax the system, all I know there are better looking ones. GTAIV, RDR, ACR all better IMO.
BTW, gamedev mag suggest 80% number for FC3, but that doesn't really matter anyway. This is the last thing I'm going to write on the subject because this always turns out the same with certain people on this board.
Judging how well a system is being utilised by how active the processors are is about as useful as judging how much content a game has by the size of the disk. While it makes sense, it ultimately isn't a useful measure.
A game that is struggling to hit 30fps is, by nature, using a very high proportion of the available processing power - it doesn't mean it's making good use of those resources however.
upnorthsox
Veteran
Neither is the type of game a useful judge of cpu utilization. In fact it's irrelevant as the application doesn't even need to be a game to observe the effects of high cpu utilization.
Lucid_Dreamer
Veteran
Then, where are all the frame drops for Uncharted 2 and 3? According to their tech interviews, they stay around that point.
I guess you really didn't even read my posts. Some people tend to think that way or should I say use that emotional trigger for their benefit. Just because they are still learning how to use the system more effectively doesn't mean their effort is downplayed.
The KZ3 debug screens (beginning after page 90) did not show large performance spikes (after optimizations), even with the use of MLAA.
http://www.guerrilla-games.com/presentations/Siggraph11_CreationOfKillzone3.pdf
The tech interviews means little? Crytek and Ubisoft said they had virtually no SPU idle time? Doubtful. Links? I read Crytek's documentation.
Of course buildings occlude things behind them. That's how cities work. And, aggressive LOD is how long draw distances, in open worlds, are generally handled on consoles. From the, higher than usual, user created points in Infamous 2; the draw distance seems nice to me. Add that on top of everything else the game engine is able to accomplish, and I don't see another open world game doing as much.
I've got your opinion loud and clear. However, I'm talking numbers here (check marks, if you would). I'm talking about getting as scientific as one can get about such things. Some people have issues with keeping to the numbers.
I try to go by the devs actual words/presentations, though. I agree with your last sentence.
Lucid_Dreamer
Veteran
I agree, but it's the only way to keep the "IMOs" at bay.
I want to see high utilization and good use of those resources. I COULD settle for mid-level SPU usage, but great use of those resources.
Dominik D
Regular
Not sure about the third one, but the first two were narrow corridor shooters. Much easier to predict load.
Yeah this tells us nothing and in the end doesn't answer my question.
So in reality there is no basis for your previous assumption, but you'll think it anyways.
You can utilize them SPUs all you want but how smart are you utilize them? For what it's worth I think the Farcry3 team has done an excellent job of pumping out this much of effects while only using 65% of SPUs time. I also agree the predictability and performance spike is limiting a more intense SPU usage thus the reason why an open world game would never look as good as a linear game period.
That's really no different than any architecture. Also I doubt that's the peak utilization.
Lucid_Dreamer
Veteran
I understand what was said just fine. I just don't think it adds up. That statement would mean that there are NO performance spikes in any other type of game, besides open world games. Unless you guys are saying the ND interview was a bunch of lies. If not, the open world statement just doesn't fly.
Lucid_Dreamer
Veteran
I'm sure it's not peak utilization. It said average.
Its most probably "at least". As keeping 65% SPUs utilized all the time (other source mentioned 80%).
I really don't think you guys are getting the point we are making.
Either way, I'm happy to see what they are doing with Far Cry 3. Hopefully now we won't see anyone making lazy dev comments.
I think it's hard to estimate the value of this effort unless you are really close to the matter in technical expertise. Spurs for instance is a pretty 'default' Cell job management option as far as I know, but triggering them from the GPU rather than from the main game loop or other SPUs is something I haven't heard very often before. Having so many different jobs isn't necessarily efficient, as there would be a lot of context switching, but they seem to have done some optimisation work for keeping longer running jobs in memory until done.
We also can't really tell much from the end result other than that from what the developer is saying is it has helped them to achieve parity between PS3 and 360, which typically means that the game has made trade-offs on both ends to compensate for their respective weak-points. It will then be a matter of comparing how well the game does versus other multi-platform games first and foremost, and for academic purposes it would be possible to compare to similar games on either platform, but considering this is open-world, that's not easy - few open world fps exclusives on either platform.
We also can't really tell much from the end result other than that from what the developer is saying is it has helped them to achieve parity between PS3 and 360, which typically means that the game has made trade-offs on both ends to compensate for their respective weak-points. It will then be a matter of comparing how well the game does versus other multi-platform games first and foremost, and for academic purposes it would be possible to compare to similar games on either platform, but considering this is open-world, that's not easy - few open world fps exclusives on either platform.
Darksiders 2 WiiU vs. PS3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GJpMoZ6Z9rw#t=71s
looks like wii u version missing lightshafts ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GJpMoZ6Z9rw#t=71s
looks like wii u version missing lightshafts ?
Similar threads
