PS4 and Xbox One resolution / frame rate discussion

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Transformers: Devastation is 1080p/60fps on Xbox One and PS4

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/transformers-devastation-is-60fps-across-all-conso/1100-6429823/

 

Digital Foundry has tested the framerate

[Polonium]

Ouch.. That is pretty bad. A locked 30 would have been better for the Xbox

[theyarecomingforyou]

Ouch.. That is pretty bad. A locked 30 would have been better for the Xbox

Dropping the framerate in an action game is a poor solution, as it impacts fluidity and responsiveness. As the video points out they could drop the resolution on XB1 so it can hit 60fps and that would have less of an impact. Either way the PS4 offers the better experience.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Ouch.. That is pretty bad. A locked 30 would have been better for the Xbox

 

900/60 would be the target, or something inbetween 900 and 1080 for this title. 30FPS isn't the aim Platinum Games tend to go for for their action based games.

Parity on framerate is better for console games, rather than parity on resolution. So when one is locked at 60, it's in the best interest for the other to be locked at 60 or thereabouts. Drops down to 40 is a bit too far off. Dips to 50~55 would be more acceptable at 1080, given that both consoles are not built equally or with the same hardware.

[LaP]

 

900/60 would be the target, or something inbetween 900 and 1080 for this title.

Might be wrong but i guess that Ideally you don't want something in between. 900 should be easier to interpolate. Might even look worse with a resolution in between.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Might be wrong but i guess that Ideally you don't want something in between. 900 should be easier to interpolate. Might even look worse with a resolution in between.

I know some games do ___ x 1080. So not 1920x1080 but a multiple below 1920 that can scale up okay.

[+Asmodai MVC]

Might be wrong but i guess that Ideally you don't want something in between. 900 should be easier to interpolate. Might even look worse with a resolution in between.

Ok you got me here... why would 900 be easier to interpolate?  As long as the aspect ratio is the same it shouldn't matter.  It's not like 900 is an nice fraction of 1080.  540 would be easier because you could just double it but that's sub-360 resolution.  1600x900 itself is a strange resolution, I don't see why it would be any easier to interpolate than say 1760x990. (1600x900 is 16:9 times 100, 1760x990 is 16:9 times 110, and 1920x1080 is 16:9 times 120)

[+Asmodai MVC]

 

I know some games do ___ x 1080. So not 1920x1080 but a multiple below 1920 that can scale up okay.

960x1080 is easy to interpolate because you just double the horizontal and the vertical remains the same.  It's actually a step down from even 900p though so is typically used by games that struggle to hit the target framerate at even 900p.  This is pretty much the worst resolution this generation of consoles should support (but can be worthwhile sometimes to hit 60fps and/or pump up other graphical features).  720p isn't much behind that and that's typically considered last gen consoles resolution of choice.

[George P Global Moderator]

If sticking to a fixed framerate is key to your game then the best option here is to use dynamic resolution for your game instead of a fixed one.  In the small/minor parts where you would get a frame dip just drop the res for that second or two, or less in most cases, when you need to and push it back up to full 1080p for the rest of the game. 

[+Asmodai MVC]

Assassin's Creed Syndicate is 900p@30fps on both consoles with identical effects but:

Assassin's Creed Syndicate shows genuine improvement here. In Unity, we could see extended periods of gameplay where the 30fps target was nowhere in sight. Its successor shows huge improvement on both platforms, but it's clear that the PlayStation 4 takes pole position. We have two videos below outlining the performance differential, concentrating on engine cut-scenes and gameplay. In the former, GPU load is significantly higher than it is during gameplay, and Xbox One's less capable graphics hardware has more of an issue coping with the load, with sustained drops in performance in some areas, dipping beneath the 30fps threshold while PS4 holds firm. In areas where the Sony console does drop frames, Xbox One lags still further behind.

Cut-scene performance is interesting in that it shows us how each console copes under very similar engine loads, but it's often not indicative of the gameplay experience. Unity's Xbox One performance lead has vanished, and this time it's the PlayStation 4 that offers the smoother ride throughout gameplay. Rapid traversal through environments can hit performance on both systems, but where the Microsoft box dips into the high 20s, PS4 has a better lock on its 30fps target - and when the Sony console dips to the 27fps area, Xbox One is a couple of fps further off the pace.

 

Source

[soniqstylz]

So......

Unity gets marketing from MS, sucks on PS4.

Syndicate gets marketing from Sony, sucks on X1.

[SnoopZ]

From the video all i see is the X1 drops a few frames compared to the PS4 mostly staying a 30, i wouldn't worry about that unless it affects gameplay, but from what i saw it looks fine.

[vcfan]

Digital Foundry vs console texture filtering

Pristine on PC, blurred on PS4 and Xbox One. What's actually going on?

 

Worse still, Face-Off comparisons show PS4 taking the brunt of the hit. While many PS4 titles offer a superior resolution and frame-rate to Xbox One by and large, recent games like Dishonored: Definitive Edition still show Sony's console failing to match its console rival in this filtering aspect. It's a common bugbear, and the effect of weak filtering on the final image can be palpable, blemishing the developer's art by smudging details close to the character.

Speaking to Marco Thrush, CTO and owner of Bluepoint Games (known for its excellent Uncharted: the Nathan Drake Collection remaster project), brings us closer to an understanding. Though PS4 and Xbox One bear many overlaps in design with modern PC architecture - more so than earlier console generations - direct comparisons aren't always appropriate. Integrating CPU and GPU into one piece of silicon, then giving both components access to one large pool of memory is an example of how PC tech has been streamlined for its migration into the new wave of consoles. It offers fundamental advantages, but it comes with challenges too.

"The amount of AF [anisotropic filtering] has a big impact on memory throughput," Thrush says. "On PCs, lots of memory bandwidth is usually available because it's fully isolated to the graphics card. On consoles with shared memory architecture, that isn't quite the case, but the benefits you get from having shared memory architecture far outweigh the drawbacks."

Either way, the precise reason why PS4 and Xbox One are still often divided like this is an issue that still eludes full explanation. However, certain points are clearer now; we know unified memory has immense advantages for consoles, but also that bandwidth plays a bigger part in texture filtering quality than anticipated. And while PS4 and Xbox One have a lot in common with PC architecture, their designs are still fundamentally different in ways that haven't yet been fully explained. Responses from developers here have been insightful, but the complete answer remains out of grasp - at least for now.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-vs-texture-filtering-on-console

 

that's been my theory all along

[President Devil]

Digital Foundry vs console texture filtering

Pristine on PC, blurred on PS4 and Xbox One. What's actually going on?

 

that's been my theory all along

Yep, underpowered.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Halo 5, it seems a dynamic resolution can indeed be a good choice

What works

Frame-rate: Without a doubt, the defining technical feature of Halo 5 is its frame-rate. Delivering a stable 60 frames per second across the board, Halo 5 feels marvellous to play. During normal gameplay, only the occasional duplicate frames manifesting at checkpoints have any impact on fluidity. [...]
The lowest resolution we've recorded is 1152x810, which you can see here (select view all for full res images). The impact on image quality is certainly immense and obscures finer details from view.

Dynamic resolution: It's clear that hitting 1080p while maintaining 60fps would not have been possible in Halo 5 but rather than simply opting to render at a low resolution across the board, 343 has implemented one of the most impressive dynamic resolution scaling systems we've seen to date. In Halo 5, X and Y values are adjusted independently enabling a wide range of values designed to maximize performance. The lowest recorded value we find is 1152x810 but we see arbitrary values such as 1168x810, 1440x840, 1344x972, and 1536x1080 as well. Halo 5 is able to make these adjustments on the fly while avoiding over budget frames throughout, ensuring silky-smooth performance.

Menu system: It may seem trivial, but the quality of the menu experience is a hallmark of the franchise under Bungie. [...]

Cut-scenes: Storytelling has always been a key element to the Halo experience and Halo 5 delivers the most technically impressive cut-scenes in series history. [...]

Audio: Halo 5 delivers an expertly constructed 7.1 audio mix that envelopes the player in a convincing sound-field. While weapon effects and general carnage all sound excellent, it's the smaller details that really stand out. [...]

Loading times: Getting into and out of multiplayer matches requires quick swift loading times and thankfully, that's exactly what Halo 5 provides. Both the campaign and multiplayer matches require no more than a few seconds to load keeping wait times to a minimum. While the loading screens themselves are not as lavish as Bungie's, the wait times are fast enough that this never sticks out.

Physically-based materials: Halo 5 adopts a physically based approach to rendering which takes into account the roughness of the material and how it interacts with light. Materials now exhibit more realistic diffusion and reflection properties, among other things, and the game benefits greatly from this. Metallic surfaces appear more realistic while highly diffuse materials, such as sand and stone, behave as you would expect. However, it's not completely successful across the board, with many materials exhibiting an overly plastic or polymer-like appearance.

 

What doesn't work

Image quality: While the dynamic resolution system is impressive, the reality is that the game spends the overwhelming majority of its time well under full 1080p. When combined with sparse anti-aliasing coverage this often results in scenes exhibiting aliasing and blurring artefacts simultaneously. This is further impacted by limited texture filtering, smearing surface textures at oblique angles. In fact, the selected texture filtering has a stronger impact on overall presentation than resolution.

Half-rate animation: While the game operates at 60fps, active entities within the world will actually animate at half-rate when they reach a set distance from the player. We're basically seeing 30 frames of animation per second while the game continues to operate at 60 in these situations. [...] It's successful but, more than any other sacrifice made, it looks rather jarring during normal gameplay. The distance in which enemies begin to animate at half-rate is just a bit too close to the player for our liking.

Lighting and shadows: Halo 5 makes heavy use of pre-calculated lighting in order to improve rendering speed with more dynamic shadows and light sources limited to active elements within the scene. In order to improve rendering speed, a number of tricks are employed here that have an impact on visual quality. [...]

Alpha effects: Smoke, fire and other alpha blended operations require more from the GPU and can drop the frame-rate in close proximity to the viewport. 343 has taken two different approaches to this problem. Firstly, alpha effects used during gameplay are rendered at a lower resolution much of the time. This requires less from the GPU and as a result, performance remains smoother. Environmental effects use a different approach - when the player's view is in close proximity to any sort of constant alpha effects, the effects in question are culled from view.

Texture quality: Despite the move to a more realistic materials system, the actual resolution of many assets leaves a lot to be desired. [...]

Level of detail: As in many games, object detail is adjusted based on proximity. This means that models use lower quality assets from a distance with higher quality models swapped in as players moves closer. The issue here is that these LODs often appear too close to the player and lack any sort of transition. [...]

AI: The Halo franchise has been known for its impressive artificial intelligence since the beginning and while the enemies in Halo 5 fare pretty well, there is a sense that enemies can't quite stand toe to toe with Bungie's best. Enemies feel less dynamic overall with a focus placed more on dealing with large numbers of them rather than individual, intelligent units. Friendly AI is generally pretty good but it does struggle with pathfinding while driving the player around in a Warthog. Ultimately, it's only when comparing to Bungie's work that we feel a bit of disappointment in this area.

Multiplayer map selection: The maps included in Halo 5's multiplayer mode left us a little disappointed as well. [...]

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-what-works-and-what-doesnt-in-halo-5-tech-analysis

[George P Global Moderator]

For a first go, 343i did a great job on the new engine, not perfect but it's basically a v1.0 job, we'll see how far they push it next time.

[1337ish]

Dynamic res is supposed to look great, I really haven't noticed any issues with it and Ars was the same:

Instead of just statically setting a low resolution ceiling for the entire game, though, Halo 5dynamically changes the resolution based on the detail of the current in-game scene. This on-the-fly adjustment takes place on both the X and Y axes, with resolutions jumping from as low as 1152×810 to as high as 1536×1080 in Digital Foundry's analysis. The apparent on-the-fly change in resolution wasn't even noticeable to my eye during some recent testing.

[George P Global Moderator]

Dynamic res is supposed to look great, I really haven't noticed any issues with it and Ars was the same:

I haven't noticed either, it's not the best looking game to date period but i'd say it looks good, and the solid 60fps is way more noticeable, specially when you're in the middle of a big firefight, it's butter smooth.

[Hedon]

For a first go, 343i did a great job on the new engine, not perfect but it's basically a v1.0 job, we'll see how far they push it next time.

I assume they will use Direct X12 for Halo 6 since they weren't able to for Halo 5.

[+Asmodai MVC]

I assume they will use Direct X12 for Halo 6 since they weren't able to for Halo 5.

It's not a PC game (or did I miss something?)  Halo 5 doesn't use DX11 or 12 it uses the Xbox One Development Kit (XDK) which while derived from DX11 (at launch) has most of the features of DX12 already added into it (via regular updates).

Here's an article going into detail of the rapid evolution but it's dated because MS (like Sony) doesn't share their Console SDK with the public (there are NDAs for developers).  We only even know this much because of a leak.  The point being though that MS rapidly evolves the XDK and pretty much everything that's going into DX12 for PC is already the XDK for Xbox One and has been for a while now.  As Halo 5 is a Xbox One only game there is no reason they wouldn't use all of the XDK features even if they haven't been released for PC yet (pending DX12).

The evolution of Xbox One - as told by the SDK leak

[1337ish]

 

It's not a PC game (or did I miss something?)  Halo 5 doesn't use DX11 or 12 it uses the Xbox One Development Kit (XDK) which while derived from DX11 (at launch) has most of the features of DX12 already added into it (via regular updates).

Here's an article going into detail of the rapid evolution but it's dated because MS (like Sony) doesn't share their Console SDK with the public (there are NDAs for developers).  We only even know this much because of a leak.  The point being though that MS rapidly evolves the XDK and pretty much everything that's going into DX12 for PC is already the XDK for Xbox One and has been for a while now.  As Halo 5 is a Xbox One only game there is no reason they wouldn't use all of the XDK features even if they haven't been released for PC yet (pending DX12).

The evolution of Xbox One - as told by the SDK leak

Doesnt that preclude the possibility of kernel updates and other enhancements they decided to roll into the new OS along with XDK update which could require extensive testing. I would be surprised if the only enhancement in NXE is a new dashboard and I wouldnt expect dev's to target it until its live for all.

[vcfan]

 

It's not a PC game (or did I miss something?)  Halo 5 doesn't use DX11 or 12 it uses the Xbox One Development Kit (XDK) which while derived from DX11 (at launch) has most of the features of DX12 already added into it (via regular updates).

XDK is not the graphics api, that's the software dev kit. the graphics api is regular dx11 with some console specific stuff added to it. its called directx 11.x

[Hedon]

 

It's not a PC game (or did I miss something?)  Halo 5 doesn't use DX11 or 12 it uses the Xbox One Development Kit (XDK) which while derived from DX11 (at launch) has most of the features of DX12 already added into it (via regular updates).

Here's an article going into detail of the rapid evolution but it's dated because MS (like Sony) doesn't share their Console SDK with the public (there are NDAs for developers).  We only even know this much because of a leak.  The point being though that MS rapidly evolves the XDK and pretty much everything that's going into DX12 for PC is already the XDK for Xbox One and has been for a while now.  As Halo 5 is a Xbox One only game there is no reason they wouldn't use all of the XDK features even if they haven't been released for PC yet (pending DX12).

The evolution of Xbox One - as told by the SDK leak

Yeah, looks like you missed something. We are not talking about the XDK (it's not the graphics api), we are talking about the DX, (you can see more here https://channel9.msdn.com/events/Build/2013/3-062) which is currently running at 11, and that is what games are using now on XB1.  Microsoft already stated that they were not timed properly with getting Halo 5 to support Direct X 12 and it would have to wait for the next one. They are planning to get it into Fable Legends as their first game with DX12. I think we will see the DX12 update of Fable Legends closed beta once the new dashboard hits.

[+Asmodai MVC]

XDK is not the graphics api, that's the software dev kit. the graphics api is regular dx11 with some console specific stuff added to it. its called directx 11.x

The XDK absolutey includes the graphics API, did you even read the link I provided?

The graphics API in the Xbox One NOW is NOT "regular DX11".  It launched as pretty much that (though not exactly) and developers freaked out that it wasn't low level enough for a console API so they went back and modified it over a number of updates since launch.  Again the link I provided documents some of the early ones but it's based off of an old leak now and there have been several more updates since then.  Yes they called it DX 11.x because it's based on DX 11 and when they named it there wasn't a DX12 at all.  The "console specific stuff" they added is largely the same "stuff" they are adding to PCs in DX12.  A big part of DX12 is just MS taking that "console specific stuff" and releasing it for PCs in a manner that will work in a GPU vendor neutral way.  That's why many say DX12 is bringing low level CONSOLE LIKE graphics API to PC.  For example the XDK already has "command lists" support that allows developers to spread draw calls across CPU cores, it already has asynchronous compute which allows developers to use compute shaders and graphics at the same time (it was either/or in DX11), etc.  These are all things that are introduced in DX12 on PC.

Now DX12 has a bunch of stuff of mobile and VR and things that require hardware support that the Radeon 7000 series tech in the Xbox One and PS4 don't have anyway so it's more than JUST bundling up the "console specific stuff" from the Xbox One XDK but none of that is going to help the Xbox One because it doesn't have that hardware.  There IS supposed to be a much easier to use ESRAM API for Xbox One developers as part of the update which will help some but the vast majority of the DX12 enhancements are already in the Xbox One XDK and were already available to the Halo 5 developers.

[Hedon]

Just not true. DX12 is not fully implemented in the Xbox One, and we won't see our first DX12 game until Fable Legends. Phil Spencer has already confirmed that there will be improvements on the Xbox One once this is released on the Xbox One. He talked about it at the Inner Circle podcast:

 

As well as

"DirectX 12 will have a huge benefit to Xbox One. It is, essentially, unlocking its potential being held back by an age-old API's lack of understanding in how to utilise multiple threads and cores simultaneously."

http://www.developer-tech.com/news/2015/apr/24/directx-12-unlocking-xbox-ones-potential/

And it is hard to argue with game developers that are seeing improvments in performance that are currently programming with DX12 for Xbox One. 

I know you don't like the fact that the Xbox One continues to improve, but using your opinions against the facts that are out here will not do your argument any justice.