Water tech *spawn

[Shifty Geezer]

Now that is a very defining analogy the article gave over the two hardware types, so what is happening is that With all the resources at hand,
-PCs will always be bottle-necked in processing department due to small/weak information relay between its various components(smaller pipes, huge memories),

Poppycock! This isn't the 90's, and the transfer of data between processors isn't too important. GPUs are so versatile as long as they have access to enough BW, they'll be able to churn away through whatever code irrespective of the BW between it and the CPU. This will only improve over time, such that 'PCs will always be bottle-necked in the processing department' is invalid.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Thread spawned from 'desired next-gen effects' thread and 'cell advantages' thread. Given ps3rocks was discussing water in two different places, I felt it warranted its own thread.
Both water discussions have been merged here.

 

[Neb]

^^ To Nebula ^^

I read through all your post, its fairly convincing as it is but the difference in observation, study and thus a difference in opinion definitely exists which is a healthy thing to say the least... so I'd point out a few things here:

1. The Arstechnica article link that I posted above was to give a very impressive outlook they gave through it around the two conflicting hardware solutions. A memorable extract from the article was:

PCs = Small pipes and large buckets
while,
Consoles= Large pipes and small buckets

First the Ars article revolves around the '32MB TNT2 Ultra' which is a major turtle compared to the Geforce class.

Also you forget the 'pipes' bandwidth/perfomance for PC was greater for graphic cards being faster than for Xbox/PS2 with higher Geforce classes and also much faster than either machines graphical capabilities which was showcased in lots of games. While CPU has had less they still ended up with Nforce2 systems up to about 3.2-6.4GB/sec bandwidth for CPU.

Faster CPUs also being faster for handling gamelogic as opposed to EE being a hybrid CPU/GPU.

But main problem was DirectX API limitations hampering perfomance to a certain degree. And lets not forget Xbox was a PC, Nforce2 derivate mobo, 2x3.2GB/sec CPU/GPU connection, Geforce3/4 hybrid GPU, P3 Celeron CPU, Nforce2 Soundstorm APU. We clearly know where it positioned itself perfomance wise.

Ofcourse, the design structure needs o be changed on both, but considering how much same things(RAM, VRAM, Disc-Speed etc.) are utilized, we see a console much more optimized(in turn-around) to do a certain gaming application. The same hardware that ran ICO in 2001, also ran fur-shaders in Soul-Calibur 3 in 2007, or that it displayed all those feats like Primal, Ghosthunter(full 3D wter, cloth, rope physics, voumetric lights etc.), gow1-2, Colossus, Metal-Gears or GT4 etc. being the same fixed hardware of 2k.

Due to devs being able to code to metal. In return the quite more powerful Xbox based on PC design and sharing PC design limitations delivered well and had less API restrictions. In return the same PC with Geforce 3/4 or better and same CPU from that time still ran and run far more advanced games it is just PC visuals are constantly growing aswell as resolution target hence older hardware gets the backseat. Also take into consideration the 'awfully' low resolution all those PS2 games you mentioned run at even into 2007.

Your also listing features that where just a few done by Xbox system in many games and aswell PC games back then. I suggest widening your scope outside of PS 'landscape', there is quite a lot outside of it (no pun).

For example, a Pentium-III of 2000 would, under no circumstances be able to run 2005's Devil May Cry 3 even at a 5fps, actually a P4 with a good 2004 gpu might even give it a stuttering try, but one thing is certain, it will have a better resolution(bigger buckets of PCs).

That entirely depends on CPU speed and GPU type. Then factoring in how well ported the game is and also if it got visual enhancements. Something good from 2004 would be 9800pro/x800xt, P4/AMD 3.2GHz. Real world perfomance would be tremendously more than PS2, that is really not disputable. Also a faster PIII would most likely able unless game is awfully ported putting to much graphic rendering on CPU than GPU which would be signs of awfull port job not adapting to different architecture. Like some multiplatform games not being adapted to PS3 architecture and runs and looks worse than other console version.

So where PCs are stuck with processes, consoles have memory issues. Though, when comparing the result output in terms of processing, consoles do pack a punch, for with console-level resources, PCs would simply choke.

Yes but mainly due to API restrictions and having to run OS.

2. 2nd thing is gears2 water, that you said is actually 3D with a mesh involved. This I have to say I can't agree, first due to an observational reason, but we'll get it stay aside... secondly that its what Epic theirselves told, its an additional thing to basic UE3.0, called "Interactive fluid surfaces". That is plain old 2D surface and not the "volume" interaction like in Resistnce-2. Its a plain texture effect, very much like Uncharted, though uncharted boasts collisions as well(pool scene etc.). Moreover, this made-for-gears2 surface interaction thing was also give out to a 2D XBL swimming title where dev-interview explains how fluids behaviour seems changed since they incorporated gears 2 tech.

Oh I thought I saw an interview about Gears 2 using 3D water with 360 tesselation unit. It was clear in the tech interview it was 3D as IIRC they even showed it in wireframe mode.

3. Thirdly, its still about Outcast, I am totally sold to its world though I still don't think the 2D water ripples were procedural. I remember playing it so much and loving the water but the ripples were entirely circular, no matter in what direction you swim. They never did a 'V' to anywhere. Can you please give me a video link showing the V water movement?
Also, it would be a great favour if you can tell me where I can download that nostalgiac beauty

Well in the demo at the lake next to village you get to see the 'v' type ripples that push other ripples away and fairly well interact. You'll have to search Youtube videos, there should be some.

EDIT: Moved it.. or so I think!

 

[2real4tv]

You forgot Halo 3. That is certainly the best water I've seen on consoles, and it is not just 2D ripples.
http://www.breakitdownblog.com/evolution-of-water-in-games-best-is-halo-3/

Here is a better one did not know the water actually had fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37kdbpU75dY

 

[Mobius1aic]

Messing with Halo 3's water was always fun back when I had it.

 

[Turok]

Odd thing about Gears 2's water, not every water surface in the game appears to be tessellated. Some of the surfaces don't seem to have any sort of 3D displacement, instead opting for a relatively convincing animated texture. The "stomach acid" in the worm level is definitely tessellated though. I think the blood where you cut the arteries of the worm is too.

 

[ps2rocks]

^^ Nebula ^^

Your also listing features that where just a few done by Xbox system in many games and aswell PC games back then. I suggest widening your scope outside of PS 'landscape', there is quite a lot outside of it (no pun).

You are right in a lot of contexts, but my obsession with the PS2 is purely from a technicality point of view. I do love PS3, and it has defined some amazing technical benchmarks recently, still it has a big journey ahead of it to do more.
So, with PS2, we see lots of stuff that is done within its resources, "screen-resolutions" for me... are basically nothing more than extra memory for video.
e.g. Devil May Cry 3 in 2005, ran amazingly on PS2, but demanded a
2 GHz Pentium 4 with 512mb Video Memory on PC... same game, 2 systems, 1 built in 1999(rel. in 2000), other built in 2004... and the only difference is... Resolution! thats it! I used to think back then that they really give PCs too much credit... maybe to hype it up so that PC gaming may not die? whatever.
But really, I have yet to see a PC game that runs with "Dynamic Loading"(don't confuse it with streaming), that keeps the texture quality of an action/adventure but seamlessness of a sandbox(god of war, Jak, colossus, primal, ghosthunter etc.) This is something missing from a totally streaming games like GTA... and is also never been seen on xbox or PCs. I mean you have these simulations, gameplays, NPCs and physics running but also have a non-loading world!!!, never saw that on any other system during PS2's better years, you know, the talk of all that power, gpus and RAMs heh etc.

So, praising the design structures of PS2 and I have come to know... of PS3, I recently found out that what AGEIA was planning to build up in 2004, was already integrated in PS2's hardware... a "Physics Processing Unit"
This article discusses PPUs on wikipedia, and amazingly includes PS2's VU0 and the PS3's CELL as proper optimized for physics, way ahead of GPUs:

Here is the PS2 section:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_processing_unit#PS2_-_VU0

and here is CELL vs. the PC PPUs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_processing_unit#Cell_Processor_vs_PPUs

Also that both these systems inherit the extra "vertex processing" capabilities of the PPUs, which help them assist the CPU, and achieve above-normal results considering their assets/resources at hand.

So, maybe a little fanboyistic to sound, but I see the 10 years of PS2 as the most taxingly amazing for any hardware, I mean didn't we all thought since 2003, that this is the last year of this system, and then the next year of genre-defining iteration and then the next, and we had god of war 2 right in the middle of 2007, and has not the 'organic collision deformation' tech of Ueda's colossus game never attempted on any other system(yeah god of war 3 has soft-body collision for their huge titans but its just not as flexible as sotc). Thus, instead of one feat per game, a compactness of feats in a single game is something I haven't seen on other systems, and Vecter Unit 0 and CELL speak volumes about this.

Well in the demo at the lake next to village you get to see the 'v' type ripples that push other ripples away and fairly well interact. You'll have to search Youtube videos, there should be some.

EDIT: Moved it.. or so I think!

Yeah I found it, thanks for directing, its the river video, and as simple as it looks the water I know would have been amazing back then, just that I wasn't so curious, did love it, but heart of darkness always won. Both circular and V waves are pretty simple, and bayou like areas in some videos give little to no interactions, maybe low setting for it? Anayways, amazing title of its time.
Water comes at 02:15 ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0qn8VBsrng&feature=related

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So, maybe a little fanboyistic to sound, but I see the 10 years of PS2 as the most taxingly amazing for any hardware, I mean didn't we all thought since 2003, that this is the last year of this system, and then the next year of genre-defining iteration and then the next, and we had god of war 2 right in the middle of 2007, and has not the 'organic collision deformation' tech of Ueda's colossus game never attempted on any other system(yeah god of war 3 has soft-body collision for their huge titans but its just not as flexible as sotc). Thus, instead of one feat per game, a compactness of feats in a single game is something I haven't seen on other systems, and Vecter Unit 0 and CELL speak volumes about this.

Two points. 1) It's wrong to assume the absence of a feature from another platform is indicative of an inability of that platform. Just because no other game has soft-body physics like SOTC (your words; I don't know enough about SOTC or other games to know this) doesn't mean no other hardware could pull it off. All it means is Team ICO were alone in choosing a game design that'd throw all resources at one monolithic creature and so have more to invest in simluating that creature.

2) Please stay on topic! So far your presence on this forum seems to be to cheer PS2's design, which is not positive discussion. This is a topic about water, created from a topic about next-gen game features and Cell's contributions to games where you wanted to talk about water, and now you're turning it into PS2's amazing and unequalled physics capabilities! If you want to talk about PS2's physics, please created a thread for it, and keep threads focussed on their subjects. Thanks.

 

[ps2rocks]

2) Please stay on topic! So far your presence on this forum seems to be to cheer PS2's design, which is not positive discussion. This is a topic about water, created from a topic about next-gen game features and Cell's contributions to games where you wanted to talk about water, and now you're turning it into PS2's amazing and unequalled physics capabilities! If you want to talk about PS2's physics, please created a thread for it, and keep threads focussed on their subjects. Thanks.

My only praise for it has been to iterate "Lowest resources, Maximum output" model, the most economic technology you know, the true next-gen thing. And a very good discussion above has been sustained pointing in a direction that systems with more powerful CPU solutions, are more capable of world-simulations as the wiki article reads:
"Nonetheless GPUs are built around a larger number of longer latency, slower threads, and designed around texture & framebuffer data paths; this distinguishes them from PPU's & the Cell as being less well optimized for taking over game world simulation tasks."
That might be the reason, we don't see no FFT implementation, or cloth physics, even normal rain and rope physics effects in Crysis(yup, rope is there, but yeah it passes through objects a lot). GPUs giving Crysis the ultimate resolution, texture and lighting details but less of the intricate, setting-apart features(also noting that like "Outcast", Crysis being the only really PC-tech showing game, and a long, long time in making and improving, and well unlike Outcast, its much too taxing)

You see, actually the conclusion was heading towards a contribution by CELL in the end, the focus has been to show that in the history there has been a system, that did maximum out of minimum, and was totally successful at that, and the system was totally built upon CPU structure (even its GPU was basically a CPU, and systems do wonders when they don't have processing bottlenecks i.e. small buckets are accounted for if you have large pipes to fill 'em up quickly, and its mostly not good the other way around!). With CELL its the same, the GPU is dependant on it, if you take the design style of PC, you won't get much out of PS3, but if you go the specific way, it has the legs of PS2.



Delivered my point, so as Shifty Geezer said, its Done!, no "focused" PS2 tech discussion in this thread anymore(though I hope we can post referential materials? can we!)


Anyways, ontopic, everyone seen the Halo: Reach water? I believe in so many years, and a fine iteration in Halo-3, its a major let down. They say its tessellation, if thats some kind of joke than I'm not laughing, and if its not... I think my point is proven, let the CPUs handle the waters people !, it ain't the job of GPUs anytime soon , Vid below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fziv9pXudSs

 

[Neb]

That might be the reason, we don't see no FFT implementation, or cloth physics, even normal rain and rope physics effects in Crysis(yup, rope is there, but yeah it passes through objects a lot). GPUs giving Crysis the ultimate resolution, texture and lighting details but less of the intricate, setting-apart features(also noting that like "Outcast", Crysis being the only really PC-tech showing game, and a long, long time in making and improving, and well unlike Outcast, its much too taxing)

I'll quote this ontopic part. Once again and after several persons already told you CRYSIS HAS FFT FOR WATER so does Warhead and so does Crysis Wars, that is fact.

EDIT:

Ocean Simulation Overview

Based on Jerry Tenssendorf’s paper “Simulating Ocean Water”
*Statistic based, not physics based
*Generate wave distribution in frequency domain, then perform inverse FFT
*Widely used in movie CGIs since 90s, and in games since 2000s

In movie CGI: The size of height map is large
*Titanic, 2048x2048
*Water World, 2048x2048

In games: The size of height map is small
*Crysis, 64x64
*Resistance 2, 32x32

All simulated on CPU (or Cell SPE)

Performance Issues
*The simulation is required to generate the displacement map in real-time

Computing FFT on CPU becomes the bottleneck when the displacement map gets larger
*Larger texture also takes longer time on CPU-GPU data transfer
*However, large displacement map is a must-have for detailed wave crests

GPU computing is really good at FFT
*Multiple 512x512 transforms can be performed in trivial time on high-end GPUs
*Demo uses multiple 1024x1024 transforms, clearly affordable for high quality real-time rendering

http://www.hotchips.org/archives/hc...3.250.Lamb-NVIDIA-OpenCL--for-NVIDIA-GPUs.pdf


Answer this below in a PM or rather not at all. There is really nothing more to discuss about it.

Spoiler

Rope physics is quite fine with barely any clipping (see also demo video by Crytek or just pop down bridges with ropes). Rain drop physics as in real physics... is there even a game that has that?

GPUs giving Crysis the ultimate resolution, texture and lighting details but less of the intricate, setting-apart features.

Yeah state of the art SSS like no other game, tons of soft flesh used, great dynamic animations/blending and IK (yeah with some bugs), advanced AI, POM, OB motionblur blah blah pretty much everything special in other games all collected in Crysis.

I would like you to visit my YT channel and have a look at videos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/VideoTubeStation

Crysis being the only really PC-tech showing game, and a long, long time in making and improving, and well unlike Outcast, its much too taxing).

Only if it has been all you focus on as a non PC player Crysis is the only game on their lips. Hence tons of other stunners are not known to them. Also to taxing as in for what it does, how to judge it correctly?

How a 8800GTX and 3.0GHz dual-core managed the game fine at 25-40fps @720p all 'very high setting' back in 2007 (2006 hardware btw). The 'taxing' comment is purely based on resolution set after such a system is exceeded.

Outcast was also very taxing on highest settings, 2xAA, soft particles, depth of field, bump mapping, fully voxel based rendering, upto or more than 1000 of particles rendered at once (falling snow consists of 1000 particles), volume effects and more. Was incredibly taxing on CPU back then.

 

[L. Scofield]

e.g. Devil May Cry 3 in 2005, ran amazingly on PS2, but demanded a 2 GHz Pentium 4 with 512mb Video Memory on PC... same game, 2 systems, 1 built in 1999(rel. in 2000), other built in 2004... and the only difference is... Resolution! thats it! I used to think back then that they really give PCs too much credit... maybe to hype it up so that PC gaming may not die? whatever.

Yeah, let's ignore the fact that DMC3 for PC is one hell of a crappy port...

That might be the reason, we don't see no FFT implementation, or cloth physics, even normal rain and rope physics effects in Crysis

Crysis does support cloth physics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCqrS-vK-4o

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

I don't believe ps2rocks used the word "support". Are "FFT implementation, or cloth physics, even normal rain and rope physics effects" in Crysis? If it is, he doesn't have a point. If it isn't, he doesn't have one.

 

[homerdog]

Are "FFT implementation, or cloth physics, even normal rain and rope physics effects" in Crysis?

Yes, not to my knowledge, and yes.

 

[KKRT]

Crysis does support cloth physics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCqrS-vK-4o

Its not a Crysis, its CryEngine 2.
Why are You guys still trying to compare engines with games?

 

[Neb]

Its not a Crysis, its CryEngine 2.
Why are You guys still trying to compare engines with games?

Define guys becouse FFT, rope physics and almost all other features from CE2 are present in Crysis game, Warhead and Crysis Wars. Only things left out are couple of shader effects for mainly skin and GI in CE3 style (commented out in shaders).

Now I dont think I have noticed soft cloth as in non organic material in Crysis games though Far Cry had it for banners. But one could think how to classify that the gran majority of green vegetation is soft... like soft cloth.

Some interesting tech for surface and underwater rendering.

http://www.crytek.com/fileadmin/use...ations/gdc2008/GDC08_SousaT_CrysisEffects.ppt

http://www.crytek.com/fileadmin/use...tations/gdc2008/SousaT_GDC_water_720_xvid.zip

 

[ps2rocks]

I'll quote this ontopic part. Once again and after several persons already told you CRYSIS HAS FFT FOR WATER so does Warhead and so does Crysis Wars, that is fact.

Yeah I noticed someone showed the name of a file that had .fft as an extension, and what have you accounted here really tells there are good hi-res grids in there and it would make a really impressive showcase if these hi-res grids with all their completeness give wave-interaction that is questionably missing. Though I do like to see an example of it, if you can point to a vid or something. My doubts are that I heard some where ffts are going to be included in CE2 and aren't in 1.

(Mod snip)

Still waiting for interactive water (+FFT ofcourse, which it may already have) and like to see that cloth stuff and other "visual physics" effects for a game that has so much resources and is modded and being improved ever since.

 

[user542745831]

Seems like this:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2008-hydrophobia/36194
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/illusion-of-hydrophobia/63672

hasn't been mentioned in this thread, yet?

Also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEi7o2Z10aY&hd=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6U3aMo1LdA&hd=1

 

[ps2rocks]

Seems like this:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2008-hydrophobia/36194
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/illusion-of-hydrophobia/63672

hasn't been mentioned in this thread, yet?

Well, Hydrophobia has been a let down since it totally belongs to and based around water/fluid simulations and much less and basic of it thegame shows in actuality. We already have Crysis and Half-Life 2 like games for the "invisible" effects of fluid physics like buoyancy, upthrust etc. There is a lack of games this gen that show or try to show character interaction wave generation or ripple effects even in 2D, let alone in 3D...

Also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEi7o2Z10aY&hd=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6U3aMo1LdA&hd=1

Not bad, vegetation is good, not much focus on water/fluids it seems, don't know if it does even 2D rippling or not. Though its a tech demo yet, when its a game with the rest of the game-stuff like NPCs, AI, world connectivity, frame-rates, particles, probable deformations.. it would be a feat if much of this remains intact as it is.
Though, the in-game real-time Uncharted-1 looked just as good 3 years back, on a much younger PS3 (1 year old), and having to face the difficulties of programming for the then new and complicated Cell and quite cumbersome planning of limited memory resources, so I don't see a reason why this couldn't be done on a much revised and improved systems of today . Its amazing that they gave special focus even on water interactivity back then, with all that much running around!

Is there a video of such a new tech that is really licensed and has Fluids and other soft-body based elements incorporated that are really coming up in games?

 

[Neb]

Yeah I noticed someone showed the name of a file that had .fft as an extension.

No someone showed you the FFT engine command to enable/disable FFT. FFT in Crysis is part of 'very high' water setting. FFT has been shown by Crytek, is present in Crysis, is present in shaders and algorithm is present, is active is visible. Dont know why you still are questioning it. You are after talking about a game that runs fine on tremendously more powerful hardwaresince 2006 (hardware year).

...and what have you accounted here really tells there are good hi-res grids...

No a 64x64 grid aint so big but it is decent. Atleast it is about 4x bigger area to apply FFT than other games but still 512x512 would be much nicer and that could be called a good grid size.

in there and it would make a really impressive showcase if these hi-res grids with all their completeness give wave-interaction that is questionably missing.

Well the water has physics based collision detection so waves moving/blending will make objects floating react to the wave morphing. But it lacks ability to deform water geometry mesh by player or obejct input.

Though I do like to see an example of it, if you can point to a vid or something.

Just go to Crytek site.. no wait scratch it. Look didn't I just post a link one post above yours to Cryteks water tech talk in both PowerPoint format and video that talks about the water in Crysis? Watch it.

If you for some reason dont want to watch that video or presentation then just find a video at Youtube of Crysis 'very high' water. Alternatively for water shots search the PC screenshot thread backwards (it is image heavy btw).

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1430437#post1430437

My doubts are that I heard some where ffts are going to be included in CE2 and aren't in 1.

Facts override hearsaying.

EDIT: Wait CE2 is engine for Crysis, Warhead, Crysis Wars. CryEngine1 is Far Cry's engine (first FC game by Crytek)

 

[user542745831]

not much focus on water/fluids it seems

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3mOqO3vrYo#t=3m30s