Xenos and its special features: Educated expectations needed READ: post #126!

[Todd33]

Did you DL the demo yet? Honestly I was expecting worse given all the negative opinions on the game. I thought it looked decent enough.

Though you are correct. It seems 4xaa @ 60fps is a pipedream this gen.

Yes, I DLed it the morning it was released. I really suck at driving sim games, so I just checked it out for the graphics. I think the game looks and sounds great, but they had to compromise for 60fps, which is fine.

Edit: I think we all agreed in the last few posts! *Group hug*

 

[AlNom]

Not globally applied it seems, lot of folks are complaining about the lack of AA on the reflections which stick out like a sore thumb.

That can't be helped by MSAA. That's a case of shader aliasing (I believe).

 

[scooby_dooby]

And half the framerate.

"Some motion blur" can be very costly as demonstrated by LostPlanet, where IIRC they spend 20% of frame time on it at 30fps - at 60, that would be nearly half the frame time just to do motion blur.

Ya, half the framerate. But, my point was that Zeck's claim they 'spent all the time on the photomode' seems ridiculous when you play the game and see how close the photomode is to gameplay. The motion blur in this case is very subtle, as is the additional AA.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Forza 2 was brought up because the cheerleaders have been promising 4x AA in it for months.

No the developers have been promising it for months. Big difference.

EDRAM's main selling point in the PR may have been free AA, but in reality the bandwidth it provided as integral to the entire system design of the 360. With it's very limited internal bandwidth, the only way it could have worked is with some sort of solution like EDRAM.

People ask where the results are from the edram, well, look at how the 360 is able to compete on equal footing, or above, with a more expensive Sony machine released a year later. That's your results right there. Sure, there is no free AA, but the system as a whole is extremely well balanced and a great engineering success, Xenos and it's EDRAM is an integral cog in that machine.

 

[pipo]

Honestly I am much more surprised by the 0xAA in Halo3 than the downgrade Forza2 got.

Yup. I was surprised by the dev comments too.

They probably use every last bit of EDRAM for other stuff...

Expect hardwired AA solutions next gen.

 

[Todd33]

No the developers have been promising it for months. Big difference.

EDRAM's main selling point in the PR may have been free AA, but in reality the bandwidth it provided as integral to the entire system design of the 360. With it's very limited internal bandwidth, the only way it could have worked is with some sort of solution like EDRAM.

People ask where the results are from the edram, well, look at how the 360 is able to compete on equal footing, or above, with a Sony machine released a year later. That's your results right there. Sure, there is no free AA, but the system as a whole is extremely well balanced and a great engineering success, Xenos and it's EDRAM is an integral cog in that machine.

Well people repeat the developers (ie. the echo chamber), I didn't mean to insinuate that random forum people knew the technical merits of a game they had never played or worked on.

If the EDRAM was sold as a method to overcome technical limitations from the beginning then fine, but it was held up as a major strength of the system, the mythical free 4x AA. MS does not get a pass on hype if Sony doesn't, sorry guys.

 

[pipo]

...the mythical free 4x AA. MS does not get a pass on hype if Sony doesn't, sorry guys.

If they've ever said 'free' I'm pretty sure it wasn't in a sentence with '4xAA'.

 

[Tap In]

If they've ever said 'free' I'm pretty sure it wasn't in a sentence with '4xAA'.

exactly ...it was free 2xAA (which has been confirmed by Devs on this very forum) and the 4xAA was a hit on resources (theoretically 5%+- according to Ati) but that was challenged on day 1 as pie in the sky by most in the know on this forum.

 

[Butta]

exactly ...it was free 2xAA (which has been confirmed by Devs on this very forum) and the 4xAA was a hit on resources (theoretically 5%+- according to Ati) but that was challenged on day 1 as pie in the sky by most in the know on this forum.

But is 2xAA free for 720p as it requires tiling?

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Man, i wish MS would have made a 14mb EDRAM. Then we could have atleast 1240x720p@2xAA without tiling.

 

[TheChefO]

Man, i wish MS would have made a 14mb EDRAM. Then we could have atleast 1240x720p@2xAA without tiling.

I wish they would have left it open as a variable and ship two models:
7mb edram (720p)
14mb edram (720p 2xaa)

...and later, add the Elite version with:
32mb edram (1080p 2xaa or 720p 4xaa)

Have the games coded open to take advantage of available hardware now and in the future (64mb FTW!)

 

[scooby_dooby]

If the EDRAM was sold as a method to overcome technical limitations from the beginning then fine, but it was held up as a major strength of the system, the mythical free 4x AA. MS does not get a pass on hype if Sony doesn't, sorry guys.

I'm not giving them a pass, MS said we've reached the end of jaggies, that was a load of BS, no two ways about it.

With that said, this thread is more interesting if we talk about all of Xenos's special features and potential, rather than focus on a single feature that was touted by MS PR, and rehashing the same old complaints...

 

[swaaye]

Personally, I'm really bummed that 4X AA is apparently rather unachievable. I had let myself be convinced by MS and the B3D Xenos overview that the machine would get games with 4X AA rather often. I'm really used to playing games with 4X AA on the PC.....

I don't know if it will reduce my chances of buying the console. There are a few games I want, Forza 2 being one of them.

But yea, even w/o 4X AA, I think the GPU is a lot more interesting in basically every way than the G7x in PS3......

 

[scooby_dooby]

Personally, I'm really bummed that 4X AA is apparently rather unachievable. I had let myself be convinced by MS and the B3D Xenos overview that the machine would get games with 4X AA rather often. I'm really used to playing games with 4X AA on the PC.....

I don't know if it will reduce my chances of buying the console. There are a few games I want, Forza 2 being one of them.

But yea, even w/o 4X AA, I think the GPU is a lot more interesting in basically every way than the G7x in PS3......

Well in fairness, it's still early on, and it was always stated that the engine would have to be built from the ground up with tiling in mind in order to achieve the low cost AA.

I don't think many games have done that yet, MS has concentrated many of their first party titles on UE3. Forza was hoped to be doing it, but it really seems like they ported over alot of the Forza1 engine.

I do think it will be years 3, 4 and 5 when we really start to see Xenos used to it's full potential, when developers have truly had enough time to build 360 engines from the ground up.

There are some notable exceptions I'm looking forward to, Banjo Threeie from RARE, Fable 2 from Lionhead, Halo 3 singleplayer and PGR4 among others. Also very interested to see what Ubisoft does with their new engine for Assassin's Creed, and the new Splinter Cell.

 

[-tkf-]

I dunno about you guys, but i would always take 60hz over eye candy in the kind of games thats been mentioned here. If the developers are pushing the envelope and they have to do something to keep the framerate going i think a dynamic aproach as featured in Forza (and maybe Halo 3 SP as well?) is the way to go. Rather that than 30hz.

What i would like to know is where is the bottleneck and do you think it´s going to get better with the next round of games? Or is this just a limitation that can not be "broken" ?

 

[Tap In]

seriously

those PR pieces have no place in a technical discussion and have been acknowledged as such by most reasonable people on this site. (they were a PR counter to a serious PR attack on 360 by Sony at E3 '05 if you are playing along at home). In fact PR pieces are banned at B3D if I remember correctly.

they certainly have nothing to do with a thread about the benefits of Xenos which are numerous even when not considering how the EDRAM works within the system.

 

[joker454]

It seems 4xaa @ 60fps is a pipedream this gen.

Our last years 360 sports title was 30fps with some elements getting 4xmsaa. This year, we so far have it running 60fps with no msaa, and almost 60fps with everything getting 4xmsaa. We're very close!

 

[Cheezdoodles]

^^ Are you making Fifa? If not im not interested

Thanks for the info tho.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

seriously

those PR pieces have no place in a technical discussion and have been acknowledged as such by most reasonable people on this site.
.

If people here would be refering to PR pieces all the time, this would be a non-stop "OMG WHERE IS MY 4D SONY?? WHERE IS MY 120FPS@ DUAL 1080p??? Bbla blabla" board

 

[Cyan]

Yes, I DLed it the morning it was released. I really suck at driving sim games, so I just checked it out for the graphics. I think the game looks and sounds great, but they had to compromise for 60fps, which is fine.

Edit: I think we all agreed in the last few posts! *Group hug*

So, you do need a hug, eh?

Back on topic. There is some AA in-game (2x most of the time perhaps), that's for sure. It seems to be some kind of adaptative AA. Try this and you'll see what I mean.

Before the end, on the outside of the last bend (the downhill one) there is a parked van blocking the pass (filling a "gap"). It's surrounded by tires. Get there and put the car in front of it, with the bonnet pointing at the side. You will notice a line that gets *wrinkled* sometimes. Stop the car, then start accelerating, stop the car again, repeat the process if you want. You will notice that the *wrinkled* line sometimes looks perfect.

I am not a techie, I am just trying to make me understood.

As for the AA in the final game. Well, some guy (who is going to write the review for a spaniard magazine known as the most famous online magazine in Spain) claimed that the game looks better polished in the final version, which he has been playing for a while now. He tried to demonstrate that the game looks pretty good taking two photos of New York circuit with a mobile phone.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s224/Juantxi/12052007035.jpg
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s224/Juantxi/13052007036.jpg

Che already confirmed that the demo is based on the final build, so I am confused. Anyways, to my way of thinking the game looks good enough, all things considered.

Good evening.