What games have exploited consoles' graphics the most?

[Grall]

Ico and VF4 are extremely different games. Fighter games all take place within enclosed arenas, the designers of the game have total control of all aspects including poly counts, fillrate use, etc. Free-roaming games like Ico and many others are completely different in that regard.

Makes me wonder what kind of engine Metroid Prime uses to occlude unseen geometry, since so many rooms are so detailed there's no way the game should be able to handle it at 60Hz if one could do a "flymode 1" from the console (assuming it had a console hehe) and hover 100 meters above the area to have it all in view...

Assume a corner of a wall blocks off half a room, does Flipper still have to chew through all the unseen geometry you think? Are there any GC programmers in here? We have the mighty Archie and Faf on PS2, but other consoles seem a bit deserted in the technical department... Well Archie has GC experience too, right?

What IS average/max polycount per frame anyway in MP, any guesses?


*G*

 

[Tagrineth]

Assume a corner of a wall blocks off half a room, does Flipper still have to chew through all the unseen geometry you think? Are there any GC programmers in here? We have the mighty Archie and Faf on PS2, but other consoles seem a bit deserted in the technical department... Well Archie has GC experience too, right?

It still crunches geometry, but it doesn't texture what isn't visible (usually) thanks to virtual texturing.

 

[London Geezer]

Makes me wonder what kind of engine Metroid Prime uses to occlude unseen geometry, since so many rooms are so detailed there's no way the game should be able to handle it at 60Hz if one could do a "flymode 1" from the console (assuming it had a console hehe) and hover 100 meters above the area to have it all in view...
What IS average/max polycount per frame anyway in MP, any guesses?


*G*

i'm pretty sure some LOD systems are used in a game like that, i mean it's the simplest way to optimise performance i guess... the little details on the walls and all that are only rendered once u get to a certain distance from them. like J&D and other games that let u see for miles and miles, u can do a flymode thing from 100 meters away but the small details would only be seen once u get close enough to them, at which point the amount of "small details" seen are only the ones close to u, while the rest of the environment is rendered at a lower LOD.

 

[Bohdy]

Nope, no *noticeable* LOD in MP. If there is, its the most subtle I've seen.

There is a fog wall set at quite a long distance from the camera though, so you would not be able to see the *really* big rooms wholly from a birds eye view.

You can see a good chunk of geometry at once in the "Secret Worlds" though

Its just a really clean polly engine, with some great use of texturing to lighten the load.
The only time the game ever really slows down is with a lot of transparencies, so I expect you could look at most areas fully without any framerate hit.

I expect some big things from the sequel

 

[London Geezer]

Nope, no *noticeable* LOD in MP. If there is, its the most subtle I've seen.

There is a fog wall set at quite a long distance from the camera though, so you would not be able to see the *really* big rooms wholly from a birds eye view.

You can see a good chunk of geometry at once in the "Secret Worlds" though

Its just a really clean polly engine, with some great use of texturing to lighten the load.
The only time the game ever really slows down is with a lot of transparencies, so I expect you could look at most areas fully without any framerate hit.

I expect some big things from the sequel

call me stupid, but NOT using a LOD engine of some sort would be pretty stupid. it's a very cheap way to send your performance right up. the fact that it is not noticeable doesnt mean it's not there.... it just means it's very "clean". still, someone with some good info wouldnt hurt...

 

[Grall]

London:

Good polly lodding is DIFFICULT to do without things starting to pop or deform or otherwise look weird when you approach them from a distance. Why would the devs even need to invest developing time in a lodding system if the engine is powerful enough to run the room as it is in one frame?

Note that a fog barrier only comes into place in a handful of rooms in the entire game, and then usually only in the vertical axis (like a tall shaft leading upwards into infinity etc). One room that is fogged is the reactor core of the space pirate frigate after it has crashed, and I bet that is only for increased visual immersion, as it does not seem overly polly-rich.


*G*

 

[London Geezer]

London:

Good polly lodding is DIFFICULT to do without things starting to pop or deform or otherwise look weird when you approach them from a distance. Why would the devs even need to invest developing time in a lodding system if the engine is powerful enough to run the room as it is in one frame?

Note that a fog barrier only comes into place in a handful of rooms in the entire game, and then usually only in the vertical axis (like a tall shaft leading upwards into infinity etc). One room that is fogged is the reactor core of the space pirate frigate after it has crashed, and I bet that is only for increased visual immersion, as it does not seem overly polly-rich.


*G*

yeah i never said it was EASY.... i just think it would be stupid to let the hardware render every little hole and crack on the walls if u're not gonna see it from a distance....

 

[jvd]

man can one of u smart people whip up a sea battle for the pc with net play. I would love to kick some peoples buts ..

 

[Grall]

yeah i never said it was EASY.... i just think it would be stupid to let the hardware render every little hole and crack on the walls if u're not gonna see it from a distance....

Why is it stupid? It's not as if you're wearing out the graphics hardware or anything. A LOD system might even lead to LESS complicated scenery like Faf explained... Anyway, PS2 lends itself to such engines due to its powerful vector processors, but GCs T&L can't handle flexible polygon meshes, it would probably be a huge hit on the CPU to have it do that by itself. Gekko isn't much of a floating-point monstrer to begin with anyway.

If the game runs full throttle with full detail, why bother with lodding the geometry? Please note that extremely few games do this, J&D, R&C on PS2 are like the ONLY examples in recent history. Messiah on the PC did it too but I heard it looked weird when the engine adjusted LOD in realtime to keep the framerate steady.

If it works without it, adding it is just giving yourself extra development headache.

*G*

 

[London Geezer]

yeah i never said it was EASY.... i just think it would be stupid to let the hardware render every little hole and crack on the walls if u're not gonna see it from a distance....

Why is it stupid? It's not as if you're wearing out the graphics hardware or anything. A LOD system might even lead to LESS complicated scenery like Faf explained... Anyway, PS2 lends itself to such engines due to its powerful vector processors, but GCs T&L can't handle flexible polygon meshes, it would probably be a huge hit on the CPU to have it do that by itself. Gekko isn't much of a floating-point monstrer to begin with anyway.

If the game runs full throttle with full detail, why bother with lodding the geometry? Please note that extremely few games do this, J&D, R&C on PS2 are like the ONLY examples in recent history. Messiah on the PC did it too but I heard it looked weird when the engine adjusted LOD in realtime to keep the framerate steady.

If it works without it, adding it is just giving yourself extra development headache.

*G*

i'm not extremely familiar with GC's hardware therefore i wouldnt know how taxing it would be, but i was just thinking that by not rendering loads of polygons that are not seen in the distance, u can improve the detail close to u, where u can see it and appreciate it.... i dont think we are already at the stage where we can just "throw everything at the hardware and let it render just like that".... bandwidth and poly counts saving techniques are always welcome that's all

 

[Bohdy]

As Grall said, scaling LOD is *quite* complex to implement.

A few set lod's are much more common. Prime doesn't even use that as far as I can see.

Retro just didn't think it was worth the effort I guess, or they felt the extra detail was worth it, so increased the efficiency in other ways.

As I said, its a very clean engine, probably some very good z-culling is going on, as well as other tricks.

So its not like they are wasting resources...

 

[Grall]

It might LOD the enemy models, I really haven't checked that out too much. Landscapes certainly don't seem to LOD at all, all the rubble and bits and bobs seem to stay intact even if one moves away. I only have composite signal for my GC at the moment, makes it difficult to check for real since it kinda smears everything. I'd get an RGB cable, but that one doesn't have separate audio leads - stupid Nintendo!

In fact, the biggest fault of MP is there's too few enemies overall, and those that don't die in one or two shots are really quite dangerous (with some notable exceptions - super pirates for example, they're such pushovers hehe). If there were more enemies of medium/high power that didn't cause so much damage you have to finish them off immediately with a big gun, then the battle aspect of the game would be more enjoyable. I don't think I ever really used the charge weapons other than super missiles for example.


*G*

 

[Tagrineth]

I'd get an RGB cable, but that one doesn't have separate audio leads - stupid Nintendo!

Just use a composite cable's audio and don't plug in the video cable. That's what pretty much everyone else does.

They CAN'T offer a component/RGB cable with audio headers, unless it plugged into both ports - the alternate port on the console is a pure digital signal, and contains video only.

 

[Steve Dave Part Deux]

I suspect that memory limitations played a big role in the decision to forgo implementing an LOD system for the characters or environments.

 

[flipswitch]

As you have an Xbox already, I'll concentrate on the other two.
I generally agree with what's arealy been said, but here's some more:

PS2:

SH3 - 30FPS, very good image quality, *really* great character models, textures and art direction. Suffice to say that half of this board had at one point thought that cut scenes in this games were pre-rendered, when in reality they aren't. It also has some pretty weird (in a good way) looking effects and generally weird, extremely detailed graphics to look at, with some dramatic lighting and shadowing.

Baldur's Gateark Alliance - 60FPS, extremely good image quality, very detailed backgrounds, character models and textures, very impressive lighting (uses per pixel lighting and some form of bumpmapping), a host of multitexturing effects, and has really well done rippling water.

Metal Gear Solid 2 - 60FPS, very good image quality, has perpixel lighting in some of it's levels, very solid geometry, really complex particle effects, and effect overall, fantastic animation and art direction. Has realtime rendered cut-scenes.

Zone Of the Enders 2 - 60FPS, very good image quality, even more complex particle effects, very likely the most complex in any game today, actually. Very subtle, but high quality lighting and shading, moves amazingly fast and has really good animation. Has realtime rendered cut-scenes mixed with hand-drawn anime, with seamless transition between them. Again, really impressive art direction.

Primal - 30FPS, impressive on the technical level - pretty good textures, solid modeling, very good lighting (has instances of perpixel lighting) good particles, streaming world that almost never pauses to load. But the game never manages to look really good IMO.

I agree with all those games but you mentioned per pixel lighting on some of those ps2 games.How do you know that? Do you have an url or somthing because i'm very inerested to see the ps2 doing per pixel lighting.

 

[zurich]

Nod, I'm skeptical about the PS2 doing perpixel lighting, lack of DoT3 calcs and all. Wouldn't mind seeing a Gamasutra post mortem on MGS2 or something to back that up. Also doesn't sound like the sort of thing you can tack onto an engine for 'minute, specific circumstances'.

 

[marconelly!]

DOT3 is not necessary to do one form of per pixel lighting, where the light texture is blended with the background.

Games I mentioned clearly have it, it's plainly obvious. MGS2 is easiest to verify - just get to the dark corridor on the tanker and see how the light from Snake's Socom gun behaves.

 

[darkblu]

DOT3 is not necessary to do one form of per pixel lighting, where the light texture is blended with the background.

Games I mentioned clearly have it, it's plainly obvious. MGS2 is easiest to verify - just get to the dark corridor on the tanker and see how the light from Snake's Socom gun behaves.

light maps (ala quake1/2/3) are not considered 'per-pixel' lighting by today standards, as you don't have a (per-pixel) normal map in the equation, so you don't have a pixel-level granularity (or near so) of the lighting on the surface side.

 

[marconelly!]

light maps (ala quake1/2/3) are not considered 'per-pixel' lighting by today standards, as you don't have a (per-pixel) normal map in the equation, so you don't have a pixel-level granularity (or near so) of the lighting on the surface side.

Well, I don't remember Q1,2,3 having anything like what I saw in those games. Remember, I'm not talking about static, pre-baked light maps, but about light maps that actually move over the place as you move your character's light source. If games like Silent Hill 2 Xbox/PC are considered to have per-pixel lighting for your movable lightsource (and I've heard PC version's very developer to say so), then so should games that I've mentioned.

 

[Tagrineth]

Well, I don't remember Q1,2,3 having anything like what I saw in those games. Remember, I'm not talking about static, pre-baked light maps, but about light maps that actually move over the place as you move your character's light source.

In any Quake game, did you ever look at the walls/floor when you shot a rocket down a hallway?