The GT5 expectation thread (including preview titles)*

[Graham]

Anyone know the polycount these vehicles are hitting?

Curious.

I'd wonder how well they can maintain the detail when the car count bumps up to 8+..

 

[Capeta]

If you must use screenshots, compare similarly lit and exposed scenes from both engines, glamor-shot for glamor-shot, as it were.

I totally agree with you there and that's all I'm asking, unfortunatley I don't have a PS2 so I can't load up a GT4 replay running in 1080i on a HDTV to take nice screenshots from.:smile:

For the record, I think the realtime GTHD replays look awesome despite some mediocre background enviroments which I think will be improved when the game is released.

 

[rounin]

That still doesn't address the point I brought up. The pic I posted is "prerendered" according to you right? Well if it's prerendered and supposedly better looking than the realtime replays then how do you explain that pic looking so bad compared to all the other pics that someone keeps posting as evidence that it is such a huge jump from GT4? The pic I posted looks better than GT4 sure but I wouldn't say it's a huge jump. I 'd call it evidence of diminishing returns. It doesn't help when you take the crappiest GT4 shot you could find and compare it to some "prerendered" shot running at 30fps then claim it's a HUGE jump.

It doesn't help that you make at least 1 erroneous leap of logic in backing up your argument. I think you need to find it and correct it before expecting somebody to debate with you.

 

[Nesh]

Someone should post more pics. This thread needs more pics

 

[EricVonZipper]

Anyone know the polycount these vehicles are hitting?

Curious.

I'd wonder how well they can maintain the detail when the car count bumps up to 8+..

This is what I was wondering. if the demo is "only' running @60fps, adding 8-16 high poly cars(and cities, stadiums, pits, ect...) is going to bring the framerate down to 5 or 6 fps. Or this is the 'middle of the road' poly count car, then the demo had better be running about 400fps+. They might be running a million poly demo car and maxing the effects......so GT5 will not have this level of detail and this is simply a tech demo.

 

[Tap In]

Someone should post more pics. This thread needs more pics

from above are pretty cool.. in game too!

 

[Nesh]

This is what I was wondering. if the demo is "only' running @60fps, adding 8-16 high poly cars(and cities, stadiums, pits, ect...) is going to bring the framerate down to 5 or 6 fps. Or this is the 'middle of the road' poly count car, then the demo had better be running about 400fps+. They might be running a million poly demo car and maxing the effects......so GT5 will not have this level of detail and this is simply a tech demo.

???

Ahm....just because its running at 60fps you think that necessarilly the detail has to be reduced in order to keep the same framerate with 8 cars on screen for example?

Or that by adding more detail like 8 cars and more detailed backrounds the framerate will get to 5-15fps??

 

[JardeL]

Next-Gen starts when Polyphony Digital says so ?..

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

Next-Gen starts when Polyphony Digital says so ?..

next-gen racing, perhaps?

 

[almighty]

Here's a wireframe model of a car from GT4 on PS2

And here's a wireframe model of a car from GT-HD on PS3

 

[EricVonZipper]

???

Ahm....just because its running at 60fps you think that necessarilly the detail has to be reduced in order to keep the same framerate with 8 cars on screen for example?

Or that by adding more detail like 8 cars and more detailed backrounds the framerate will get to 5-15fps??

Hmmm....Yes if the demo is locked at 60....then who knows what the true frame rate is. Could be in the thousands........or in the low hundreds. But If the demo is running @ 60-80 fps then adding 8-16 high poly cars( 20-60 million triangles, LOD, Textures,vertex data, AI, collision detect, ect.....) IS going to drop the frame rate.....bigtime.

 

[Nesh]

Hmmm....Yes if the demo is locked at 60....then who knows what the true frame rate is. Could be in the thousands........or in the low hundreds. But If the demo is running @ 60-80 fps then adding 8-16 high poly cars( 20-60 million triangles, LOD, Textures,vertex data, AI, collision detect, ect.....) IS going to drop the frame rate.....bigtime.

Even if we assume PS3 can add 15 cars on screen with detailed backrounds and all the things you stated at 60fps all at the same time it doesnt necessarilly mean that GT:HD would have run at 120-400fps.

For example even some of the worst looking and most empty PS2 games may run at 60fps or even 30fps while some of the best PS2 games run at 60fps. Can you honestly remember a PS2 game even an ugly one reaching or surpassing 80fps? DOA2 run at steady 60fps. Just because the PS2 could do a lot better graphics that didnt mean DOA2 should have run at 100fps or that a better looking game than DOA2 should have suffered from a frame drop. Tekken4 and 5 raped it visually while running at 60fps.

GT:HD except from the extremely detailed cars, there are so many things missing that its guaranteed that it can get much much much better without necessarilly dropping below 60fps. Just because they are missing in GT:HD this wouldnt imply that the PS3 should have run the demo at 200fps. Its absurd

 

[EricVonZipper]

Even if we assume PS3 can add 15 cars on screen with detailed backrounds and all the things you stated at 60fps all at the same time it doesnt necessarilly mean that GT:HD would have run at 120-400fps.

For example even some of the worst looking and most empty PS2 games may run at 60fps or even 30fps while some of the best PS2 games run at 60fps. Can you honestly remember a PS2 game even an ugly one reaching or surpassing 80fps? DOA2 run at steady 60fps. Just because the PS2 could do a lot better graphics that didnt mean DOA2 should have run at 100fps or that a better looking game than DOA2 should have suffered from a frame drop. Tekken4 and 5 raped it visually while running at 60fps.

GT:HD except from the extremely detailed cars, there are so many things missing that its guaranteed that it can get much much much better without necessarilly dropping below 60fps. Just because they are missing in GT:HD this wouldnt imply that the PS3 should have run the demo at 200fps. Its absurd

Honestly, Graham and I are only wondering if these are the GT5 cars running on a GT4 course.

The point is: The frame rate is LOCKED @60fps. Noone but PD knows the true frame rate. I've watched many of the video and I would say the PS3 is running this demo in the high 200's, so they probably have some legroom.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

GT:HD except from the extremely detailed cars, there are so many things missing that its guaranteed that it can get much much much better without necessarilly dropping below 60fps. Just because they are missing in GT:HD this wouldnt imply that the PS3 should have run the demo at 200fps. Its absurd

The question is more a matter of targetting. Did PD say unto themselves, 'we'll release a demo, and blow our GT5 game poly count on a few good looking cars. Of course for the real game we'll have to scale back massively,' or did they say 'let's start work on GT5. Make the car assets all ready for that, with up to 16 cars per track and moderately detailed backgrounds. Now let's create a demo with just one of those cars and some older GT4 type backdrops' ?

We don't know what target this demo's assets are - demo only and beyond the real game, like various realtime demos, or actual game assets as will feature in game.

 

[Ho_un_Cazzo_Enorme]

The question is more a matter of targetting. Did PD say unto themselves, 'we'll release a demo, and blow our GT5 game poly count on a few good looking cars. Of course for the real game we'll have to scale back massively,' or did they say 'let's start work on GT5. Make the car assets all ready for that, with up to 16 cars per track and moderately detailed backgrounds. Now let's create a demo with just one of those cars and some older GT4 type backdrops' ?

We don't know what target this demo's assets are - demo only and beyond the real game, like various realtime demos, or actual game assets as will feature in game.

Shitty Geezer this is getting a bit out of hand. To be fair, there are a lot of ******s on both sides of this thread. Xbox fans are trying to put the game down but PS fans are crowding the forum trying to force the issue.

I'll be honest and say this, I'm an Xbox fan and I do not plan on getting a PS3 at the moment as not many games on it really interest me. But... GTHD/GT5 is probably the most realistic looking racing game I've ever seen. I don't merit this on the PS3's capabilities, instead I'll have to congradulate PD and their artistic skill. I'll try not to sound like an "Xbot" when I say this but yes, this can be done on 360, you just need the developer with the skills. Now, I'm no game developer, I've just done some simple mods for PC games but this is the way I see things and if I'm completely wrong then go ahead and correct me. This game is the perfect example of resource management at its best. I think Polyphony does an incredible job with their photosourcing, that's why everything looks so realistic. Photosourcing is the reason why PGR3's cities look so good. Unlike BC and Team Forza, Polyphony does more photosoucring on their cars to determine color and lighting. Bizarre and Team Forza rely on more computer generated data for things like color and lighting and that's where (I think) the whole "cartoony" look comes from. To add to that, I'm guessing PD does more research and referencing with photograph sources for their cars. Another guess as well: PD does more manual tweaking of their cars interactions with the environment while BC and Team Forza creates the overall "look" of their cars and environmental interactions (like reflections) straight from the game engine (again, these things can go waaayy beyond things I can fully understand so if I'm wrong then please correct me). Racing games don't require a tremendous amount of polygons and crazy Gears of War-textures to look good. You could go polygon-skimping for many backgrounds as long as you have decent (photosourced) textures, which is what I think Polyphony did for this demo. This saves a lot of resources and looks just as good. The cars themselves probably have a similar or even lower polygon count than PGR3 or F2, it doesn't need to have a higher count to necessarily look better. Heck, I'd even say that Forza 2 has more detailed textures than GTHD (just looking from a glance though). GTHD simply looks better (IMO) because of the approach and techniques PD uses to display their cars. PD has hit a home run with this one visually and has come out with what is the most realistic looking racing game on the planet (IMO again). Sony fans should be proud they have such a talented developer on their side. Gameplay is another story though... but I haven't played it so I guess I really shouldn't say much right now

 

[Geo]

A great many things. . .

Duuuude. Banned is banned. Take it nicely or we'll reach for sterner measures.

 

["Nerve-Damage"]

Why can’t the original subject, be about the original subject?????

Duuuude. Banned is banned. Take it nicely or we'll reach for sterner measures.

There should be a rule or immediate action for banning people with tread derailment fan*** baiting material. Such as introducing non-subject photos, materials, and false PR claims not dealing with the thread topic.

 

[phat]

This is what I was wondering. if the demo is "only' running @60fps, adding 8-16 high poly cars(and cities, stadiums, pits, ect...) is going to bring the framerate down to 5 or 6 fps. Or this is the 'middle of the road' poly count car, then the demo had better be running about 400fps+. They might be running a million poly demo car and maxing the effects......so GT5 will not have this level of detail and this is simply a tech demo.

The impact of adding more cars depends on the game's frame budget. If 50% of the budget goes into rendering the single car in the demo, and there's only 10% compute headroom left, then it's going to be extremely difficult to maintain 60fps with more cars on the field. But we could also be looking at 20-25% going into the highest LOD car, 30-40% of headroom, and additional cars re-using some of the work for the 1st car (e.g. environnment maps), and only one car having the highest LOD in any one frame, etc., in which case additional cars would not degrade the framerate or graphics much at all.

Another factor that might be even more important is memory. Is there going to be enough RAM to hold the vertex and texture data at the level of detail seen in the demo for a full field of cars?

 

[EricVonZipper]

The impact of adding more cars depends on the game's frame budget. If 50% of the budget goes into rendering the single car in the demo, and there's only 10% compute headroom left, then it's going to be extremely difficult to maintain 60fps with more cars on the field. But we could also be looking at 20-25% going into the highest LOD car, 30-40% of headroom, and additional cars re-using some of the work for the 1st car (e.g. environnment maps), and only one car having the highest LOD in any one frame, etc., in which case additional cars would not degrade the framerate or graphics much at all.

Another factor that might be even more important is memory. Is there going to be enough RAM to hold the vertex and texture data at the level of detail seen in the demo for a full field of cars?

Oh yeah, my head spins just thinking about the large amount vertex/texture data.

I haven't messed around with OpenGL 2.0.....yet, but Vertex Buffer Arrays (VBOs) sound rather neat:

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/using_VBOs.html
http://hacksoflife.blogspot.com/2006/10/vbos-pbos-and-fbos.html
http://www.g-truc.net/article/vbo-en.pdf

Ahh still love GL_VERTEX_ARRAY still brings a smile to my face.

Unsure if VBO's will help the Ps3's......have to ask a dev......may not help at all, but for PC stuff it sounds great!


I do expect GT5 to run at 720p@60fps , But if they can get it running at 1080@60/30!!! Holy Crap!

 

[Graham]

phat is pretty much spot on there, however of course other things like extra shdow maps are required, etc. The game does have an advantage (in it's current state) that the amount of driveable area is very limited, so memory storage requirements for physics data is probably quite low. This is probably my main critisism, simply it's still a closed, simple track. (At least from what I've seen). But thats besides the point

The other side is load times
If it takes 5 seconds to load a car, then it's 40 seconds to load 8. not counting the track, etc (I'm thinking load via disk, not hdd)

Also memory storage could actually be a big problem. It wouldn't be hard to imagine each car being 20mb of graphics resources. Thats 160mb of your 256mb of video ram... Subtract the huge frame buffers (~30mb?), the OS requirements, and not too much is left.

250k vertices @ 24bytes/vertex (say) is 6mb.. Add in 4mb of indices, normal maps, colour maps, etc.. It adds up

Of course every game this gen will face the same hurdles. While sure, the gpu can probably realistically pump out 50m/tris/second, the bigger challenge is going to be storing that data