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PS4's AF issue we need answers!
- Thread starter pixlexic
- Start date
alexandros
Banned
Yes. When even inferior hardware like the Xbox One manages to offer better AF it is completely reasonable to expect answers. AF is a very important effect and it drastically improves image quality.
Thanks for the reply and understand you cannot go into detail.
On your previous post you mention AF and the ALU latency issue which is all clear and anyone with a clue would now that AF does have an impact and uses bandwidth.
But if we take a game like Strider which on a machine with half the TMU's and around the same bandwidth at the same framerate and resolution it does seem odd that the machine with the worse "Specs" can implement this which can only be down to 2 things Bandwidth being lower on PS4 (Overhead) or API/Engine compatibility issues. As you say DX11 code will work fine on GNM or GNMX.
flipswitch
Member
There were even comparison screens of the unfinished Swan on PS3 and PS4 which showed the PS3 having AF while the ps4 had none.
I still didn't play Driveclub. I'm not really into racing games, so I wouldn't get it full price. The PS Plus version would be perfect to convince me.
But I do have 40 bucks on my PSN wallet, if only Sony would put it on sale for 40 this week...
Sony pls
Diablo Rosso
Member
I think the most incredible thing is how no one at the developer notices the lack of AA.
Actually, The Order is one of the very few cases where I could really see it (that is, lower AF levels on some surfaces) being done specifically, intentionally and on purpose in order to maintain performance in a given scene.
Monty Mole
Member
Of course they do
thunder_snail
Member
Considering the number of other effects (especially the insane number of alpha effects) on The Order, compared to the games that are suffering from complete lack of AF (last-gen ports for example), It's definitely a software problem. Most likely with psGL and its wrappers.
thunder_snail
Member
But there are an increasing number of games that inexplicably have better AF on Xbox One than they do on PS4. In some cases better on the PS3 version than PS4. There are plenty of games with fine AF, and a larger list of games with identical AF on both platforms, so it seemingly defies reason. I'd like to know why the games that have a problem have it.
NXGamer has an interesting hypothesis about this. It's just a guess but it makes most sense to me. He thinks a lot of devs are porting over from DX11 and are using the higher level API on PS4, which has added overhead, because that makes the porting process easier since it emulates DX.
No there aren't. Read the thread. I work with a PS4 everyday of the week so I think I know what is and isn't better than people only guessing stuff according to anecdotal evidence and various websites full of misinformation.
So they say they use gnmx instead of gnm? Do you have a link for this?
There is a problem. It might not be with the PS4 hardware or software, but there is an increasing list of games that have better AF on Xbox One than they do on PS4. That is a fact. The cause of the problem is up for debate, but there is a problem with certain games and AF on the platform.
thunder_snail
Member
Dictator93
Member
I really do not think you should give credence to that theory. It really doesnt make sense why overhead (which the xb1 version would have as well) would cause the game to completely skip out on AF whilst the x1 version would have it.
Zombie James
Banned
flipswitch
Member
I'm a rendering programmer.
It was just a guess, not based on dev quotes.
XBO's API has less abstraction when utilizing DX functions. I don't think it explains everything but is the only guess I've seen that makes any sense.
I don't know how credible the site is in any way, to be honest. But what "load" does AF have inherently? It seems computing wise there isn't much. Is it bandwidth heavy? Perhaps a congestion issue on the bus?
I don't think devs are to blame here as they manage to impelement on the Xbone so there isn't any lack of knowledge and I don't think that professional game devs leave AF out intentionally without any reason. So we can only guess what can be the cause by looking at what exactly AF does while rendering.
I think this is something Digital Foundry should investigate. They are one of the only outlets these days that actually looks at all versions of a game. Most places frankly don't know what to look for, and they only review one version of any given game anyways, and as such wouldn't notice anything.
Try to talk to devs that have made the problem games. Try to talk to someone at Sony. Maybe it would spur conversation between the two and resolve the issue in some of these games.
Try to talk to devs that have made the problem games. Try to talk to someone at Sony. Maybe it would spur conversation between the two and resolve the issue in some of these games.
Nice to know, please do give us some insight, why is it that even games with "good AF" don't really have good AF, just better than the ones that are bad?
I can see why the extreme cases would be the dev's fault, but when even the good cases aren't as good as they should be, I can't help but think it's platform related.
Monty Mole
Member
Because the fact that AF has no performance impact is a misconception? Re-read my previous posts, I've given plenty of information about how AF can impact performance.
Now, this does not explain why AF is not present in some of the games listed here, but it can be AN answer. Obviously, only the devs of said games can give the real answer,
Monty Mole
Member
thunder_snail
Member
There's definitely some level of AF, the degree to which I'm not sure.
But yea, the anomaly with other games really needs to be sorted. AF is not such an expensive feature that it deserves omission.
That weird; the filtering looks way better there than in other screens that I've seen.
I don't really know much about the technicalities of graphics (I sure ain't a graphics programmer), is AF something that is applied per texture? The filtering was really bad in some screens, almost to the point of not being there at all, but here it actually looks pretty ok, especially in the top and bottom screen. Or is it just not at noticable because of the angle?
Then he should be able to tell us which changes occur if you "turn on" AF. Is it relying on fast response time? CPU power/cycles? GPU power/cycles? Bandwidth?
Edit: According to wikipedia, it can be heavy on bandwidth. But I am not sure if it is actually bandwidth or bandwidth combined with latency.
Also I wonder if it could be caused by the unified ram. Both CPU and GPU can access the main ram and according to http://wccftech.com/sony-ps4-effective-bandwidth-140-gbs-disproportionate-cpu-gpu-scaling/, the effective bandwidth is a lot lower than what is the theoretical max of the specs. And you can see that when CPU bandwidth increases, the whole bar decreases, meaning even less bandwidth available for the GPU.
According to http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-how-the-crew-was-ported-to-playstation-4 the CPU bus is capable of getting up to 20GB/s from the main ram. So for a game that is heavy on CPU and especially if the CPU needs a lot of bandwidth there isn't *that* much left over for the GPU in PS4.
That said Xbox One's GPU has exclusive access to the whole esram and all of its speed as the CPU can only get data from DDR3 and doesn't take away bandwidth from the esram which could lead to more bandwidth for GPU.
Just a theory and I am gladly proven otherwise
Zombie James
Banned
I'll have to go back and catch up on the thread then, but I'm looking at benchmarks like these - which were done on a GTX 460, a card released nearly five years ago - and I have to scratch my head.
Because this isn't exactly true. There have been cases of PS4 AF > XB1, or poor texture flitering on XB1.
.
I won't say for who I work here publically but I'd be happy to confirm it with a mod.
The most logical answer would be bandwidth.
Xbone uses less bandwidth due to lower resolution in most games and has higher theoretical bandwidth if ESRAM and DDR3 is used right.
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Absolutely. Something like no AF is even more noticeable in motion to me.
It doesn't.
Different ports, by different teams, at different resolution, choosing to cut corners at different places, an artist mistakenly switching AF off on a given texture...
There are plenty of reasons that can explains what's seen here. None of them have anything to do with an hypothetical hardware or software issue.
Okay, but there IS an issue. If it's not with the PS4 hardware/software then it's with the devs choosing not to use it for whatever reason, resulting in games with poor AF for no explicable reason. Which is what I've been saying since the thread was created. The PS4 not being at fault doesn't erase the issue that some games are having.
It's possible, but as you point out it doesn't explain every situation we've seen. And there are several games that would seem to defy that idea. In a case like DMC it especially doesn't make sense, seeing as it's essentially using last gen assets at a higher resolution and framerate. The Last of Us had no problem hitting 60 at 1080p with something like 16xAF with better character models. Tomb Raider
E likewise had decent AF with improved assets and effects in addition to resolution and framerate. We haven't gotten a concrete reason/statement from any of the devs of the specific games with the problem, so it's really hard to do anything but speculate and scratch your head.Zombie James
Banned
It definitely improves image quality.
I do believe The Order uses variable AF a la Killzone ShadowFall. The examples floating around typically highlight the textures where poor AF was an issue but, in general, it doesn't look bad in the game.Älg;155346220 said:
DmC should serve as a reminder of just how bad trilinear filtering really looks.
Forza Horizon 2 has AF, it's just not a particularly good solution. Same with Driveclub.
