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Sunset Overdrive's blacks are crushed =( - Insomniac reponse: Patch will fix issue

M

Metfanant

Member
L4nnist3r said:
Agree you will definitely lose some detail, but what Im saying is that tweaking the visual settings on the game made it look better on my TV.
Click to expand...

it may look "better" in the sense that the contrast is not all blown out, but if the black crush is occurring at the "source" (the GPU) then youre not going to get back any of the lost detail...

that is why people are arguing for MS to "fix" this issue (and their FUBAR gamma curve)...while MS may prefer the gamma curve they currently use, its not accurate. You can achieve the same "pop" with the settings on your TV, but you can't undo whats lost in the rendering process inside the Xbone...

look, i understand that people like the "pop" i have my TV calibrated with a slight over saturation and contrast slightly higher than ideal because i too like how it looks...but the way the Xbone does this actually does destroy the image...

the easiest way for MS to fix this is quite simple. leave the default setting the way it is. Obviously they have some evidence (focus groups, whatever) that indicates people like the "pop," so let it stay...then, in the display settings give us a "natural gamma" setting that adjusts the gamma curve to the proper levels..that way they people that are oblivious, stay oblivious and get to enjoy their "pop." And the rest of us can have the natural more accurate colors we want...
 
M

Mandoric

Banned
L4nnist3r said:
Who said that I'm restoring the details. Im just saying it looks a bit better than with the crushed blacks. Is that so hard to understand?
Click to expand...

It doesn't. The blacks are still crushed, and the rest of the picture is blown out, probably with added white crush too. It's even further irreparibly away from what's being rendered before the mystery final step that wrecks things on Xbone.

You're welcome to argue that it looks more to your taste, but better has a clear and useful definition of "unmolested". It's a lot easier to put a bottle of ketchup on the table than it is to scrape it off the T-bone with your fork.
 
F

Flachmatuch

Member
L4nnist3r said:
Who said that I'm restoring the details. Im just saying it looks a bit better than with the crushed blacks. Is that so hard to understand?
Click to expand...

You explicitly said that you believed the detail was there, in a post on this same page, here:

L4nnist3r said:
Im pretty sure the shadow detail is there, but the XBO is crushing the black but saying the shadow detail is not there is not accurate either.
Click to expand...

And you demonstrated your utter, complete, full, total, 100% lack of understanding of this issue multiple times in this thread. "Is that so hard to understand?" Wtf. And you pretend that you understand the issue? Seriously, do you seriously believe everyone's on your level?
 
E

Enter The 36 Chambers

Member
I've looked at all the pictures so far. Clearly there is a problem.

I don't think it's bad enough to freak out about, same with resolution.

I know some people are pissed about it, but may be making it to be a bigger deal than it is.

I'll still be buying an x1 next week. And it's very likely that without this thread I would never would have noticed.

I hope they fix it for the 20 or so people who voted ot on the feedback thing. But I really ain't bothered either way.
 
M

Mandoric

Banned
KINGofCRA5H said:
So I'm getting an XBone soon and it'll be hooked up to my monitor. I want to set it to RGB limited, yes?
Click to expand...

It can be set to limited and look washed-out, or it can be set to full and have crushed blacks. There is no properly-working solution, which is why people are mad about it.
 
W

wowzors

Member
It's a little off putting that this hasn't been spoken of or even acknowledged by Microsoft, I don't blame Insomniac at all.

Does JStevenson know about it? I imagine it would be hard to create something with a vision in mind of how it should look and having that vision never come to fruition due to Microsoft being a little soul crushing.
 
G

Gestault

Member
Mandoric said:
It can be set to limited and look washed-out, or it can be set to full and have crushed blacks. There is no properly-working solution, which is why people are mad about it.
Click to expand...

Am I mistaken that having it set at RGB-limited on a corresponding monitor avoids the problem? By this I mean are you misunderstanding what limited refers to, or am I mistaken about the extent of the problem? I know for sure that not all games are effected by the issue.
 
M

Mandoric

Banned
Gestault said:
Am I mistaken that having it set at RGB-limited on a corresponding monitor avoids the problem? By this I mean are you misunderstanding what limited refers to, or am I mistaken about the extent of the problem? I know for sure that not all games are effected by the issue.
Click to expand...

It apparently doesn't avoid the crushed blacks as noted above, and there's also a separate bug where limited content in limited mode is still compressed down for display.

Neither's likely to be all that relevant to him, though, as he apparently means his PC monitor and those only rarely have a limited option.
 
G

GreenFear

Banned
Blacks are crushed only in certain games people, this isn't an XBOX ONE SYSTEM ISSUE. It all depends on the game. I just played Alien Isolation on my xbox one and there are no crushed blacks, I then looked at a graphical comparison of Alien Isolation between X1 ps4 and pc and the black levels are essentially identical on all three platforms, and this game has A LOT of black levels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYVawbNmkZI


What this means is that Insomniac made a deliberate decision to make SSO have crushed blacks.
 
T

transformer

Member
Gestault said:
Am I mistaken that having it set at RGB-limited on a corresponding monitor avoids the problem? By this I mean are you misunderstanding what limited refers to, or am I mistaken about the extent of the problem? I know for sure that not all games are effected by the issue.
Click to expand...

Assuming your monitor/tv can take a limited signal, which pretty much all televisions can, and be calibrated (e.g. set the brightness, contrast, etc. properly) then yes you can avoid the problem. As I've stated before, this is how I have my tv setup and I resolve all light/dark areas on various test patterns (calibration blu-rays, xbox one built in calibration, and in game calibrations).
 
G

gruenel

Member
wowzors said:
It's a little off putting that this hasn't been spoken of or even acknowledged by Microsoft, I don't blame Insomniac at all.

Does JStevenson know about it? I imagine it would be hard to create something with a vision in mind of how it should look and having that vision never come to fruition due to Microsoft being a little soul crushing.
Click to expand...

He knows about it, he made a few posts in this thread.
 
M

Mandoric

Banned
GreenFear said:
Blacks are crushed only in certain games people, this isn't and XBOX ONE SYSTEM ISSUE. It all depends on the game. I just played Alien Isolation on my xbox one and there are no crushed blacks, I then looked at a graphical comparison of Alien Isolation between X1 ps4 and pc and the black levels are essentially identical on all three platforms, and this game has A LOT of black levels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYVawbNmkZI


What this means is that Insomniac made a deliberate decision to make SSO have crushed blacks.
Click to expand...

Most indications are that the crushing is an error in the SDK default scaler, which wouldn't apply to a title like AI that renders 1080p natively. It is present in many 900p/720p titles, but not Ryse which implements its own scaling.
 
K

Koobion

Member
I don't personally think it stands out much because of the stylized visuals - though overall the game does not look nearly as pleasing as I'd hoped.
 
SEGAvangelist

SEGAvangelist

Member
benny_a said:
What's your evidence that this is the case? Post #303 has posted limited/limited and it is crushed.
Click to expand...

Just for Internet Explorer, though. Blacks aren't crushed in certain games and apps. For instance, native 1080p games like the Forza games and Destiny and even 900p games like Killer Instinct after the recent Season 2 patch.
 
B

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
Team Vernia said:
Just for Internet Explorer, though. Blacks aren't crushed in certain games and apps. For instance, native 1080p games like the Forza games and Destiny and even 900p games like Killer Instinct after the recent Season 2 patch.
Click to expand...
Based on my reading #313 it seems that different developers assume different setups and then compensate for it to result in non-crushes blacks.

The claim however was that this is a system issue which that poster denied but I think post #313 shows an extremely convincing argument that it is a system issue.
 
T

transformer

Member
benny_a said:
What's your evidence that this is the case? Post #303 has posted limited/limited and it is crushed.
Click to expand...

My evidence is that I exhibit none of these issues on my xbox one/tv. I can crush the heck out of blacks or saturate whites by just adjusting my tv. However, when the tv is calibrated properly I don't have this issue when running in limited mode on my xbox one. There is an issue with full... I have also observed that my PS3, in comparison to my xbox, outputs a much brighter image. I actually require different calibrations for all of my devices because they all output slightly different levels. To perfectly calibrate a setup you should perform separate calibrations for each device.

The post you reference seems to jump back and forth from PS4 to Xbox one. I know if I do this with my Xbox one to PS3, using the same calibration on my tv, then there will be problems. If I use my PS3 calibration on my xbox, crushed blacks. If I use my xbox calibration on PS3, then oversaturated whites. Correct calibration for the correct box resolves all light/dark details for both platforms on my setup. I stress again that the full range outptut on xbox one is buggered. However, in my setup I was able to eliminate black crush on test patterns by setting the tv and xbox to limited and calibrating my tv to that input.
 
SEGAvangelist

SEGAvangelist

Member
benny_a said:
Based on my reading #313 says that different developers assume different setups and then compensate for it to result in non-crushes blacks.

The claim however was that this is a system issue which that poster denied but I think post #313 shows an extremely convincing argument that it is a system issue.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, it's sort of a system issue and sort of not at this point now. I don't think there really is a fix at this point because fixing the system issue may screw up the games that don't have crushed blacks right now by washing them out. Who the hell knows?

EDIT: What's also strange is that fullscreen MP4 playback within Internet Explorer doesn't have crushed blacks like the actual website that load within the browser. Maybe the media player at this point is running on the uncrushed display plane?
 
B

Byron Bluth

Banned
Is there a guide online or possibly something a Gafer put together that helps reduce this crushed blacks issue?

I own a PS4, Xbox One and Wii U.

I've purchased all my multiplatform games for PS4 and the only other game I played on my One is Titanfall, which didn't have as much an issue with the blacks compared to SO.
 
SEGAvangelist

SEGAvangelist

Member
Byron Bluth said:
Is there a guide online or possibly something a Gafer put together that helps reduce this crushed blacks issue?

I own a PS4, Xbox One and Wii U.

I've purchased all my multiplatform games for PS4 and the only other game I played on my One is Titanfall, which didn't have as much an issue with the blacks compared to SO.
Click to expand...

If you're using a TV set the XB1 to TV (Limited), if you're using a PC monitor set it to PC (Full). That should work for most people. People who can manually choose full range mode on their TV can also choose the PC setting on XB1 alternatively.
 
I

Izuna

Banned
transformer said:
My evidence is that I exhibit none of these issues on my xbox one/tv. I can crush the heck out of blacks or saturate whites by just adjusting my tv. However, when the tv is calibrated properly I don't have this issue when running in limited mode on my xbox one. There is an issue with full... I have also observed that my PS3, in comparison to my xbox, outputs a much brighter image. I actually require different calibrations for all of my devices because they all output slightly different levels. To perfectly calibrate a setup you should perform separate calibrations for each device.

The post you reference seems to jump back and forth from PS4 to Xbox one. I know if I do this with my Xbox one to PS3, using the same calibration on my tv, then there will be problems. If I use my PS3 calibration on my xbox, crushed blacks. If I use my xbox calibration on PS3, then oversaturated whites. Correct calibration for the correct box resolves all light/dark details for both platforms on my setup. I stress again that the full range outptut on xbox one is buggered. However, in my setup I was able to eliminate black crush on test patterns by setting the tv and xbox to limited and calibrating my tv to that input.
Click to expand...

Not everyone's screen can even be set to limited, this is the issue. Mine cannot, it is calibrated to be as close tot he RGB Gamut as possible. Full space is broken, and setting mine to limited will make matters much worse.
 
SEGAvangelist

SEGAvangelist

Member
izunadono said:
Not everyone's screen can even be set to limited, this is the issue. Mine cannot, it is calibrated to be as close tot he RGB Gamut as possible. Full space is broken, and setting mine to limited will make matters much worse.
Click to expand...

Is full space actually broken for you across the board or do you not have a television with a manual setting? Full actually works fine for my monitor in my case. It doesn't change the fact that certain apps and games have gamma issues, though.
 
I

Izuna

Banned
Team Vernia said:
Is full space actually broken for you across the board or do you not have a television with a manual setting? Full actually works fine for my monitor in my case. It doesn't change the fact that certain apps and games have gamma issues, though.
Click to expand...

Full simply doesn't work on the Xbox One. It messes up Netflix and games. Some games are alright, but regardless there is a system wide issue and an even bigger issue with scaled games.

I can watch the exact same clip hooking up my Surface Pro to my monitor and it has almost perfect colour representation. Sunset Overdrive needs whatever KI did.

Evolved Alpha seems aright, little black crush in game it seems...
 
SEGAvangelist

SEGAvangelist

Member
izunadono said:
Full simply doesn't work on the Xbox One. It messes up Netflix and games. Some games are alright, but regardless there is a system wide issue and an even bigger issue with scaled games.

I can watch the exact same clip hooking up my Surface Pro to my monitor and it has almost perfect colour representation. Sunset Overdrive needs whatever KI did.
Click to expand...

Right. It's not that just PC (Full) is broken in this case. That's quasi-working as it should but the XB1 doesn't trigger the auto-switch on some TVs AND many apps and games do not account for the strange gamma curve OR games that use the scaler have issues because of something likely with the multiple display planes on the console. It's FUBAR at this point and I'm not sure how MS should even go about fixing it. The best thing Insomniac can do is whatever Iron Galaxy did (possibly a software scaler like Ryse?) , and hopefully more developers do that.
 
L

L4nnist3r

Member
Flachmatuch said:
You explicitly said that you believed the detail was there, in a post on this same page, here:



And you demonstrated your utter, complete, full, total, 100% lack of understanding of this issue multiple times in this thread. "Is that so hard to understand?" Wtf. And you pretend that you understand the issue? Seriously, do you seriously believe everyone's on your level?
Click to expand...

I understand the issue buddy, I get what you guys are saying, maybe I did not express myself the right way (happens when English is not your first language). What I mean to say was that I don't think it loses all the detail completely and that tweaking the visual settings on the game made it look better on my end not perfect but better.

No need to get all nasty, you guys need to relax :)
 
SEGAvangelist

SEGAvangelist

Member
L4nnist3r said:
I understand the issue buddy, I get what you guys are saying, maybe I did not express myself the right way (happens when English is not your first language). What I mean to say was that I don't think it loses all the detail completely and that tweaking the visual settings on the game made it look better on my end.

No need to get all nasty, you guys need to relax :)
Click to expand...

No worries. We're just fed up with the problem. Raising in-game brightness does help a bit but still doesn't restore the darkest details in the game. Hopefully a fix is incoming.
 
J

jstevenson

Sailor Stevenson
ok guys, I've chased this down and around and have a solid understanding. It may surprise some of you that I'm actually pretty into display calibration, but there's so many different pieces I wanted to make sure I had it all right before I gave the details.

Firstly - we DO have an issue with our gamma correction slider/menu in the game. So if you set it based on the logo just barely appearing at the start of the game, it's wrong, and it'll be way too dark. So don't do that, we're going to patch it ASAP. That's on our end. You may just want to set it to default (middle) or slightly higher if you use a PC Monitor as your display.

That said we're using HDTV standard called rec-709 for color space display. That standard uses a gamma curve that's darker, especially in very dark colors, and expects colors to be in the limited range (ie 16-235).

We use that standard by default, and it's the XB1 default and it is the encouraged range by MSFT since its HDTVs are what most people will be playing on.

What this means that if you're watching on an HDTV, and you've calibrated that TV with the XB1 calibration utility (or any blu-ray calibration disc in your XB1), Sunset Overdrive will look the way we intended the game to look.

Of course, if you're playing on a PC monitor or your TV was calibrated to give a PC-like response or is expecting the sRGB/PC standard (Full), then Sunset Overdrive will look darker than intended. For folks like this, we have gamma correction in the game, but it's not working quite right, as noted above (so again, use default or maybe a notch or two above).

Also - I know some of you noted something about earlier games having had issues. A couple issues of gamma were corrected earlier on in the XDK / upscaler etc. Regardless, those issues shouldn't effect us as we don't use the hardware upscaler: SO renders at 900p early in our rendering pipeline and then it's switched to 1080p later in the pipeline and that's how we output.

hope that helps.
 
I

Izuna

Banned
jstevenson said:
ok guys, I've chased this down and around and have a solid understanding. It may surprise some of you that I'm actually pretty into display calibration, but there's so many different pieces I wanted to make sure I had it all right before I gave the details.

Firstly - we DO have an issue with our gamma correction slider/menu in the game. So if you set it based on the logo just barely appearing at the start of the game, it's wrong, and it'll be way too dark. So don't do that, we're going to patch it ASAP. That's on our end. You may just want to set it to default (middle) or slightly higher if you use a PC Monitor as your display.

That said we're using HDTV standard called rec-709 for color space display. That standard uses a gamma curve that's darker, especially in very dark colors, and expects colors to be in the limited range (ie 16-235).

We use that standard by default, and it's the XB1 default and it is the encouraged range by MSFT since its HDTVs are what most people will be playing on.

What this means that if you're watching on an HDTV, and you've calibrated that TV with the XB1 calibration utility (or any blu-ray calibration disc in your XB1), Sunset Overdrive will look the way we intended the game to look.

Of course, if you're playing on a PC monitor or your TV was calibrated to give a PC-like response or is expecting the sRGB/PC standard (Full), then Sunset Overdrive will look darker than intended. For folks like this, we have gamma correction in the game, but it's not working quite right, as noted above (so again, use default or maybe a notch or two above).

Also - I know some of you noted something about earlier games having had issues. A couple issues of gamma were corrected earlier on in the XDK / upscaler etc. Regardless, those issues shouldn't effect us as we don't use the hardware upscaler: SO renders at 900p early in our rendering pipeline and then it's switched to 1080p later in the pipeline and that's how we output.

hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for this. This makes you the first dev to come here and speak up for this issue. I hope the patch will help reveal certain detail that is otherwise lost on full atm (like the bins in the screenshot in the OP).

EDIT: Increasing the Brightness setting only made the black crush more apparent for me. The pants on my character are completely like a black blob in most areas outside during the day. No matter how much I increase this setting, dark areas have so many voids of 0 black and no detail.
 
SEGAvangelist

SEGAvangelist

Member
jstevenson said:
ok guys, I've chased this down and around and have a solid understanding. It may surprise some of you that I'm actually pretty into display calibration, but there's so many different pieces I wanted to make sure I had it all right before I gave the details.

Firstly - we DO have an issue with our gamma correction slider/menu in the game. So if you set it based on the logo just barely appearing at the start of the game, it's wrong, and it'll be way too dark. So don't do that, we're going to patch it ASAP. That's on our end. You may just want to set it to default (middle) or slightly higher if you use a PC Monitor as your display.

That said we're using HDTV standard called rec-709 for color space display. That standard uses a gamma curve that's darker, especially in very dark colors, and expects colors to be in the limited range (ie 16-235).

We use that standard by default, and it's the XB1 default and it is the encouraged range by MSFT since its HDTVs are what most people will be playing on.

What this means that if you're watching on an HDTV, and you've calibrated that TV with the XB1 calibration utility (or any blu-ray calibration disc in your XB1), Sunset Overdrive will look the way we intended the game to look.

Of course, if you're playing on a PC monitor or your TV was calibrated to give a PC-like response or is expecting the sRGB/PC standard (Full), then Sunset Overdrive will look darker than intended. For folks like this, we have gamma correction in the game, but it's not working quite right, as noted above (so again, use default or maybe a notch or two above).

Also - I know some of you noted something about earlier games having had issues. A couple issues of gamma were corrected earlier on in the XDK / upscaler etc. Regardless, those issues shouldn't effect us as we don't use the hardware upscaler: SO renders at 900p early in our rendering pipeline and then it's switched to 1080p later in the pipeline and that's how we output.

hope that helps.
Click to expand...

So it was the old XDK. More recent games like Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and Killer Instinct Season 2 don't seem to have the issue. Makes sense. Glad to know a fix is working with the gamma slider.

izunadono said:
Thank you very much for this. This makes you the first dev to come here and speak up for this issue. I hope the patch will help reveal certain detail that is otherwise lost on full atm (like the bins in the screenshot in the OP).
Click to expand...

Also... what he said. Glad to not be left in the cold this time!
 
P

Primethius

Banned
jstevenson said:
ok guys, I've chased this down and around and have a solid understanding. It may surprise some of you that I'm actually pretty into display calibration, but there's so many different pieces I wanted to make sure I had it all right before I gave the details.

Firstly - we DO have an issue with our gamma correction slider/menu in the game. So if you set it based on the logo just barely appearing at the start of the game, it's wrong, and it'll be way too dark. So don't do that, we're going to patch it ASAP. That's on our end. You may just want to set it to default (middle) or slightly higher if you use a PC Monitor as your display.

That said we're using HDTV standard called rec-709 for color space display. That standard uses a gamma curve that's darker, especially in very dark colors, and expects colors to be in the limited range (ie 16-235).

We use that standard by default, and it's the XB1 default and it is the encouraged range by MSFT since its HDTVs are what most people will be playing on.

What this means that if you're watching on an HDTV, and you've calibrated that TV with the XB1 calibration utility (or any blu-ray calibration disc in your XB1), Sunset Overdrive will look the way we intended the game to look.

Of course, if you're playing on a PC monitor or your TV was calibrated to give a PC-like response or is expecting the sRGB/PC standard (Full), then Sunset Overdrive will look darker than intended. For folks like this, we have gamma correction in the game, but it's not working quite right, as noted above (so again, use default or maybe a notch or two above).

Also - I know some of you noted something about earlier games having had issues. A couple issues of gamma were corrected earlier on in the XDK / upscaler etc. Regardless, those issues shouldn't effect us as we don't use the hardware upscaler: SO renders at 900p early in our rendering pipeline and then it's switched to 1080p later in the pipeline and that's how we output.

hope that helps.
Click to expand...

That sounds great. Thanks for taking the time to get it checked out and replying!

Enjoying the game too so far, it's a blast!
 
3

3rdamention

Member
transformer said:
My evidence is that I exhibit none of these issues on my xbox one/tv. I can crush the heck out of blacks or saturate whites by just adjusting my tv. However, when the tv is calibrated properly I don't have this issue when running in limited mode on my xbox one. There is an issue with full... I have also observed that my PS3, in comparison to my xbox, outputs a much brighter image. I actually require different calibrations for all of my devices because they all output slightly different levels. To perfectly calibrate a setup you should perform separate calibrations for each device.

The post you reference seems to jump back and forth from PS4 to Xbox one. I know if I do this with my Xbox one to PS3, using the same calibration on my tv, then there will be problems. If I use my PS3 calibration on my xbox, crushed blacks. If I use my xbox calibration on PS3, then oversaturated whites. Correct calibration for the correct box resolves all light/dark details for both platforms on my setup. I stress again that the full range outptut on xbox one is buggered. However, in my setup I was able to eliminate black crush on test patterns by setting the tv and xbox to limited and calibrating my tv to that input.
Click to expand...



Problem is, and again there are images in this thread as examples, when you set the One to limited to compensate for the crushed blacks, you washout other colors. It's not fixed when you do that, your just accepting one issue to cover another..



Edit: but jstevenson is saying you should never put the Xbox One on limited when you play on an HDTV, but the images posted here with limited on appeared washed out...
 
I

Izuna

Banned
I will probably hold off playing this until the patch, but I will have a blast when it comes. Thank you again.
 
P

Primethius

Banned
jstevenson said:
it only effects the slider if you need to adjust, for most TVs / users / calibrated displays, leaving it at default is fine.
Click to expand...

So, on my TV I have it set to PC mode (which removes all the artificial stuff I suppose), would you suggest setting it to the Game mode and doing Limited/Limited on TV/XB1?
 
J

jstevenson

Sailor Stevenson
koshunter said:
So, on my TV I have it set to PC mode (which removes all the artificial stuff I suppose), would you suggest setting it to the Game mode and doing Limited/Limited on TV/XB1?
Click to expand...

yes, I believe that's correct. We're outputting in the limited colorspace, so you'd ideally want to match that.
 
I

Izuna

Banned
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