Alan Wake (PC/X360)

By Draken
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Grand Master

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For the graphics ######

Alan Wake: the sub-HD debate

Remedy has responded to online claims that upcoming Xbox 360 exclusive Alan Wake runs with a sub-HD resolution, releasing a statement saying that "modern renderers don't work by rendering everything to a certain final on-screen resolution".

Despite a review version of Alan Wake being sent out by Microsoft to the games media with a strict embargo that expires in early May, some websites have run videos and taken screenshots from which pixel counters reckon that the game's native resolution is 960x540. This appears to be a somewhat different state of affairs when compared with early Wake footage we took a look at back in August last year, which was definitely a native 720p.

Initial comments from Remedy expressed dissatisfaction with unauthorised movies, which it said were captured at 960x540, suggesting that they made the game look worse than it actually is. However, it's clear that the resolution analysis was actually performed on shots from German website videogameszone.de and the screens themselves were clearly taken at 720p settings. These shots have now been removed.

Posting on the Alan Wake community forums, Remedy's Markus Maki says that today's renderers use "a combination of techniques and buffers to compose the final detail-rich frames, optimising to improve the visual experience and game performance. Alan Wake's renderer on the Xbox360 uses about 50 different intermediate render targets in different resolutions, colour depths and anti-alias settings for different purposes."

Maki points out that the component parts of the image, including "cascaded shadow maps from sun and moon, shadow maps from flashlights, flares and street lights, z-prepass, tiled color buffers, light buffers for deferred rendering, vector blur, screen-space ambient occlusion, auto-exposure, HUD, video buffers" are all individual elements with their own individual resolutions which are then combined into one 720p image.

So, who is right - Remedy or the pixel counters? Perhaps the most crucial thing is that there is nothing in Maki's carefully worded statement that is at odds with what the pixel counters are saying. Native resolution of the actual framebuffer is never mentioned. That metric is indeed just one element in overall image quality, but it is also one of the most important. Remedy's argument is very similar to the one put forward by Bungie in the wake of Halo 3 being revealed as running at 640p. The bottom line there is that there's little doubt that the Master Chief epic is sub-HD, and would look significantly improved running at native 720p - indeed, the team's own shots confirm that.

Maki is quite right to point out that individual elements of the image operate at their own individual resolutions, but in most cases the opaque geometry usually operates at 720p. Killzone 2 has a 640x360-sized buffer for particles. Conversely, some of the textures on Kratos in God of War III are 2048x2048 in size, but both games are obviously 720p: no-one claims that these games are 360p or 2048p.

Moving on from that, when we select custom resolutions in PC titles, opaque geometry is the key metric being used to define the size of the framebuffer. It's the amount of pixels used to create the image: higher-resolution shadowmaps or textures can't change that, although they do of course play their own part in overall image quality. Regardless, it's also the case that going lower than 720p usually results in scaling artifacts (most noticeable on high detail and edges) and a blurrier image overall.

While the size of the framebuffer is pretty crucial, it is fair to say that there are a host of other factors that come into play - and this is the point that Remedy is putting across. In Tekken 6 on Xbox 360, players actually have the chance to play the game at sub-HD resolutions with motion blur enabled, or else at 1365x768, scaled down to 720p (with the blur removed).

In this case, Namco is using the additional power available with the lower resolution not just to calculate the extremely realistic per-object motion blur. It is also implementing more texture-filtering. Amazingly, despite the huge resolution gulf, Tekken 6 is resolving noticeably more detail running at its 1024x576 default.

Of course, it can also be argued that if Tekken 6 used the same quality of filtering at native 720p, it would offer the best of both worlds and would look better still, but working with consoles requires an acceptance of the reality that there is a finite level of resources available.

If, as the pixel counters say, Alan Wake is running at 960x540 with 4x multisampling anti-aliasing, we do have an existing example of how this looks. Sony's Siren Blood Curse remake on PS3 runs with exactly the same framebuffer set-up. It's another example of how overall image quality still looks very good, and it's pretty impressive just how much the 4xMSAA contributes to reducing the scope of the edge-aliasing. Look beyond the over-bearing grain filter and edge aliasing is virtually non-existent.

In short then, while native resolution is a defining factor, it is not the be-all and end-all of image quality. Where we have cross-format games and a direct comparison, usually the extra resolution we get from native 720p does make a difference. In the case of Alan Wake, there will be no such comparison, and bearing in mind the extended development time, you would hope that we would see something of the "Tekken effect", whereby any shortcoming in resolution there would be mitigated by processing being carried out elsewhere.

Look out for Digital Foundry's analysis of Alan Wake at review time.

Source: http://www.eurogamer...b-hd-blog-entry

Grand Master

Hedon

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Earlier this evening, it was reported on NeoGaf that upcoming Microsoft Xbox 360 exclusive, Alan Wake, was only running at the resolution of 547p -- which will be sub-HD levels. Well, to counter these claims, Remedy has clarified the situation with an official statement on the Alan Wake forums.

Community Manager stated: "The game is 720p. Those screenshots are based off footage captured at 960x540 like cocorenut pointed out, of course there will be some downsampling involved.

As has said before Videogameszone and Gamepro both released footage without approval and due to the fact that we don't know how many compressions their videos went through or what process they took it's best not to use those videos as sources."

My link

Grand Master

Hedon

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720p images (not sure why they don't show up)

http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2010/04/16/alan_wake/2132412603_full.jpg

http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2010/04/16/alan_wake/2132412616_full.jpg

http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2010/04/16/alan_wake/2132412615_full.jpg

http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2010/04/16/alan_wake/2132412618_full.jpg

http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2010/04/16/alan_wake/2132412619_full.jpg

http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2010/04/16/alan_wake/2132412602_full.jpg

http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2010/04/16/alan_wake/2132412601_full.jpg

http://www.andriasang.com/galleries/2010/04/16/alan_wake/2132412614_full.jpg

2132412614_full.jpg

2132412601_full.jpg

2132412602_full.jpg

2132412619_full.jpg

2132412618_full.jpg

2132412615_full.jpg

2132412616_full.jpg

2132412603_full.jpg

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Draken

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From B3D:

The contrary. Their comments avoids saying native res and says the obvious that applies to all games. Different buffer sizes like shadowmap res, PP etc. Their response is well written but clearly in a manner to confuse the non tech oriented people in an attempt to avoid touching final native res/framebuffer.

Some example with say Far Cry 2. Lets say I set it to 1440x900 res which will be framebuffer size. The amount of pixels to display graphical data. Now I have shadowmap res at 2048x2048, reflection map at 1024x1024 and say HDR render target at 1024x1024 and PP at 1280x720. Still the native res is 1440x900 and the other effects res are downscaled or upscaled by engine and/or can be stretched/cover into a larger area without loosing quality. Now my GPU then finally uscales it to my monitors native res of 1680x1050.

Grand Master

.KICK

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Welcome to ?Bright Falls,? the Chilling Live-Action Film Prequel to ?Alan Wake?

Turn down the lights but keep your flashlight and batteries handy, as Xbox 360 unveils ?Bright Falls,? a six-part live action series that serves as a thrilling prequel to the mystery unfolding in ?Alan Wake.? Each episode will bring you to the edge of your seat and spur your curiosity with the same eerie and suspenseful cliffhangers as in the game. TV fans will find that the series evokes the same ghostly chills as ?Twin Peaks? did when it premiered 20 years ago this month.

The first two episodes of ?Bright Falls? will be available for viewing exclusively on Xbox LIVE for Gold members starting April 25 and for all Xbox LIVE members on April 26, before debuting at BrightFalls.com on April 27. A new episode will be released each week thereafter, leading up to the shocking conclusion with the final two episodes on May 17.

Shot on location in Oregon, ?Bright Falls? is directed by Philip Van, whose short films have won over a dozen awards in festivals including the Sundance Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival and more. ?Bright Falls? also features notable actors such as Tom Noonan who recently appeared on FX?s ?Damages,? and Cooper Huckabee who joins the cast of HBO?s ?True Blood? this season.

Fans of the highly anticipated psychological action thriller are invited to check-in for this thrill ride before Alan Wake?s search to unravel the mystery officially begins on May 14 in Europe, May 18 in the Americas, and May 27 in Japan. For those who can?t wait, you can secure your Bright Falls Bonus Pack by pre-ordering the game now from participating retailers. A must-have for anyone intrigued by the game, the pack includes Avatar gear like the ?I Am Awake? T-shirt and an Xbox LIVE ?Bright Falls? theme based on the game. For the ultimate ?Alan Wake? collection, the Limited Collector?s Edition, designed to resemble a hardcover novel and packed with special bonus content, is the perfect addition to your bookshelf.

Bringing a new style of storytelling in this dynamic new title exclusively for Xbox 360, ?Alan Wake? is developed by Remedy Entertainment, the renowned original developers of the successful ?Max Payne? series. ?Alan Wake? immerses players in an intense and expansive cinematic world that enables players to explore the hyper-realistic and interactive environments. ?Alan Wake? is episodic-based with a deeply engaging and suspenseful storyline unveiling new twists and profound character revelations at every turn, rated T for Teen.

GamerScoreBlog

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