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Digital Foundry: Forza Motorsport 7 is Xbox One X's true 4K showcase

Gestault

Member
Because the way you phrased your statement was incontrovertibly wrong. His claim that car shadows do not project onto every trackside surface has been agreed upon by all observers, including yourself. Calling that claim flatly false, therefore, is not valid. Calling it false for most of the track, but true for at least one spot, is accurate. I felt confident putting words in your mouth because they were true words, and I assumed therefore that you accepted them.

Are you now saying that the evidence we've seen, showing car shadows both projected and not projected at different points, is false? Is your assertion that Digital Foundry has manipulated the footage to deceive the viewer?

Read my post, if you're curious. It specifically mentions what you seem confused about.

Is your assertion that Digital Foundry has manipulated the footage to deceive the viewer?

My last post suggested you were putting words in my mouth, and you follow up with this.
 

l2ounD

Member
I wish people would stop graphically comparing Driveclub/ForzaHorizon to Forza Motorsport/Gran Turismo.

People like to say something is the best looking ever!!
But you cant really say something is the best looking racer when there are cases that other racers that can look better. The problem is almost every game can look better than the others in a certain case setting/scenario. The games at certain times can have better fx, lighting, car models, animations, tracks models. And those can be broken down further, like this part of a track is better modeled but not on turn 3 compared to that game.. etc
 

Montresor

Member
Ambient occlusion is missing for most of the geometry.
Lighting is only right on photogrammetry assets.
Fhotogrammetry assets have really low resolution textures.
Most of reflections are not real time calculated.
Geometry reflections on the cars run at half the framerate.
Car shadows don't project over track assets.
Some tracks elements don't render at full resolution.

Are there other 4K 60fps games on the market (on consoles) that don't have those negative qualities?

Serious question.
 

l2ounD

Member
Well, I for one think shots like these are a terrible, terrible way to judge this game visually lol. In that same exact video, you have SIGNIFICANTLY more detail popping than what appears in this more subdued or washed out shot. Was it a texture load issue? I don't know, but go and watch the video and look again for yourself.

Check like 5:10 to 5:18 in the video. That looks great to me, but maybe I'm seeing things. And the car was moving at like 50 or 60mph.

I was just commenting on the resolution of them

fsPZOGy.png
YsxGOfU.png
 

Gestault

Member
Are there other 4K 60fps games on the market (on consoles) that don't have those negative qualities?

Serious question.

He's probably in a time-zone where this is dang-it's-late o'clock, if he doesn't respond. I do think it's maybe a bit early to ask that question, just because for the console space, we're still in year-one for the updated spec systems. I don't know of many, though. When SM finally debuts the Pro/1X enhanced versions of Project Cars 2, that'll be a good data point.
 
Ah, the filibuster part of the thread.

I'd be intersted to see DFs screen dumps when they're up so we can compare like for like scenarios with 6 and Apex.
 
Read my post, if you're curious. It specifically mentions what you seem confused about.
I've read your post, and it's not confusing. I'm confused about the reversal of position you seem to be claiming you've made. Here's exactly what you said, followed by how I quoted you:

"This is provably false, though there's at least one wall in the race that appears to be glitched."
"This is provably [true in at least one spot, though in most areas it's] false...."

These are logically the exact same statement: that car shadows do project most places, but not in at least one spot. Since the import of both is the same, your complaint that the second version is putting words in your mouth can only be taken as a rejection of both (identical) statements.

Has your position really changed? Do you now disagree with "This is provably false, though there's at least one wall in the race that appears to be glitched."? Since you're a good poster with a level head, I can't imagine you do. Which is why I can't understand why you're claiming that I altered the meaning (rather than just the wording) of your statement.
 

MaLDo

Member
Dark10x very likely didn't want to waste his time getting bogged down the minutiea of an insincere "throw mud and see what sticks" post, though with some fair points sprinkled in. They're generally designed so that people spend so much time responding to a plethora of half-thruths and outright misinfornation that is distracts from substantive discussion. Dark10x also made the overall point that his post was vapid, given proper perspective (though pointed out that Project Cars 2 is gonna be one to watch, and he's right). Since I have free time, I figure I might as well respond.

Ambient occlusion is missing for most of the geometry
- [This could easily be true, which is a common in many games as a performance balance]

Lighting is only right on photogrammetry assets
- [I'm not clear on what he means by this, but there's no obvious divide in lighting on assets.]

Fhotogrammetry (sic) assets have really low resolution textures
- [This is demonstrably false to anyone watching the footage. I'm sure there are exceptions from streaming or speed if you pause the motion., but simply looking at rock-walls as you pass, you can see they are generall standard resolutions. I legitimately know the still someone grabbed of a rock-wall that appeared glitched that he's basing this on.]

Most of reflections are not real time calculated.
- [This is generally true of every game ever. Unless there are obvious mis-matches, it's something you assume, rather than observe. He doesn't point any out.]

Geometry reflections on the cars run at half the framerate.
- [This is true, I noticed it in all the 60 fps footage.]

Car shadows don't project over track assets.
- [This is provably false, though there's at least one wall in the race that appears to be glitched.]

Some tracks elements don't render at full resolution
- [I don't know what this means.]


I'm sorry that it escalated to this level. I often make observations of the negative parts because they are usually the ones that go unnoticed. It is much more common for people to be able to see all the good things about games, and Forza 7 has many and has been widely commented. I also have the problem that when I comment on any of the defects, I assume that people will already be able to see it. My fault. I will try to illustrate those points, but they are usually more evident in video than screenshots, at least for me (temporal resolution helps a lot in compressed footage).

Ambient occlusion is missing for most of the geometry
- [This could easily be true, which is a common in many games as a performance balance]

forza7-02kzugk.jpg


forza7-034kuo1.jpg


forza7-0535uue.jpg


Lighting is only right on photogrammetry assets
- [I'm not clear on what he means by this, but there's no obvious divide in lighting on assets.]

This is clearly visible for me but hard to show in screenshots. The desert track has right lighting values in mountains and in the tunnel entrance, but is not so right in the road and is totally wrong in the rainny track. As an example, take a look a this screenshot, you can see the lighting in the rocks is right, but the rest (sand, road, etc) is not. It seems a composition.

forza7-09f3uxb.jpg


Fhotogrammetry (sic) assets have really low resolution textures
- [This is demonstrably false to anyone watching the footage. I'm sure there are exceptions from streaming or speed if you pause the motion., but simply looking at rock-walls as you pass, you can see they are generall standard resolutions. I legitimately know the still someone grabbed of a rock-wall that appeared glitched that he's basing this on.]

The mountains have low res textures. Very low res.

forza7-041qu8h.jpg


forza7-089au74.jpg



Most of reflections are not real time calculated.
- [This is generally true of every game ever. Unless there are obvious mis-matches, it's something you assume, rather than observe. He doesn't point any out.]

Most racing games use SSR to avoid this kind of inconsistency. It's annoying to the eye. There are lots of examples in the footage but you can look at this screenshot if you need an example

forza7-019wuj9.jpg



Geometry reflections on the cars run at half the framerate.
- [This is true, I noticed it in all the 60 fps footage.]

Pretty clear in the video.


Car shadows don't project over track assets.
- [This is provably false, though there's at least one wall in the race that appears to be glitched.]

We would need more footage and surely this will be fixed in release version, but it seems shadows only project over static geometry but not over some type of assets like the fences.


Some tracks elements don't render at full resolution
- [I don't know what this means.]


Here may be interfering with the heat effect on the distance that exists in the desert footage, but I have the impression that the electric cables are not rendered at the native resolution. They used the same trick in Forza 6 so is not risky to say it.

forza7-06dcuw5.jpg


forza7-07j5uac.jpg
 

Gestault

Member
I may disagree on some of the specifics (or we're observing different aspects of the same stuff), but I super appreciate the clarification, MaLDo. Also, it's dang-it's-late o'clock.

Cheers, chums.
 
Fences and distant cables are likely to be 2D textures aren't they. Would it not be more trouble than it's worth trying to get shadows and heat effects to play with them?
 

anothertech

Member
Great deep dive once again John. Really interested to see how dynamic the systems really are in this game.

Edit: nice write up Maldo. Always interesting to see what it takes to get that 4k/60
 

Thank you MaLDo, I will go over this tomorrow after a good sleep and with a fresh set of eyes and hopefully learn something.

If I might ask though , out of all the negatives, was there any certain positive aspect that you appreciated or that impressed you most?
 

MaLDo

Member
Thank you MaLDo, I will go over this tomorrow after a good sleep and with a fresh set of eyes and hopefully learn something.

If I might ask though , out of all the negatives, was there any certain positive aspect that you appreciated or that impressed you most?

It may seem strange to you, but the visual aspect that I like the most, and that it shares with

Dirt 2
Forza 6 Apex
Forza 3 Horizon

is that it is beautiful. It reminds me of the old arcades (Out Run, Daytona, Scud Race, etc). Maybe it's because of the way it applies the technique to make it nice rather than realistic.

That and the framerate. I can't play 30 fps games, so is something that I have to applaud.
 
It may seem strange to you, but the visual aspect that I like the most, and that it shares with

Dirt 2
Forza 6 Apex
Forza 3 Horizon

is that it is beautiful. It reminds me of the old arcades (Out Run, Daytona, Scud Race, etc). Maybe it's because of the way it applies the technique to make it nice rather than realistic.

That and the framerate. I can't play 30 fps games, so is something that I have to applaud.

Ugh... this reminds me that all the arcades near me shut down. Sigh.

Anyway, that's not strange in the slightest. I actually feel the same way.

How do you (or anyone else for that matter) feel about photogrammetry becoming more pronounced? I don't know if it was even used in Forza before but this is the first time that I can recognize it at first glance. I run into it a lot in some of the VR games that I play like the LAB. It would seem that in VR at least, it makes a huge difference. I think it looks great here in Forza specifically when in motion. I wonder if the PC version will sport higher texture/resolution Photogrammetry?

Anyway, it's cool to see the evolution of certain techniques that grow to have big impacts visually. Especially when it's something like photogrammetry, where if I'm not mistaken it also makes creating landscapes easier?... Or something like that.

I really need to sleep lol. See you all later.
 

darkinstinct

...lacks reading comprehension.
I'm sorry that it escalated to this level. I often make observations of the negative parts because they are usually the ones that go unnoticed. It is much more common for people to be able to see all the good things about games, and Forza 7 has many and has been widely commented. I also have the problem that when I comment on any of the defects, I assume that people will already be able to see it. My fault. I will try to illustrate those points, but they are usually more evident in video than screenshots, at least for me (temporal resolution helps a lot in compressed footage).

Ambient occlusion is missing for most of the geometry
- [This could easily be true, which is a common in many games as a performance balance]

forza7-02kzugk.jpg

The sun is almost directly in the center of the sky (look at the car shadows). Why would there be ambient occlusion on the track sides?
 

MaLDo

Member
Ugh... this reminds me that all the arcades near me shut down. Sigh.

Anyway, that's not strange in the slightest. I actually feel the same way.

How do you (or anyone else for that matter) feel about photogrammetry becoming more pronounced? I don't know if it was even used in Forza before but this is the first time that I can recognize it at first glance. I run into it a lot in some of the VR games that I play like the LAB. It would seem that in VR at least, it makes a huge difference. I think it looks great here in Forza specifically when in motion. I wonder if the PC version will sport higher texture/resolution Photogrammetry?

Anyway, it's cool to see the evolution of certain techniques that grow to have big impacts visually. Especially when it's something like photogrammetry, where if I'm not mistaken it also makes creating landscapes easier?... Or something like that.

I really need to sleep lol. See you all later.


Photogrammetry is easy for little assets, and not so easy for big assets. In Forza 7, it produces a big, maybe too big, difference between standard tracks and tracks with something created this way. Even into those tracks, creates a big difference between traditional assets and those. Every Forza has a iconic track. For Forza 6, imo, was Brazil. In Forza 7, maybe will be that desert track in Dubai. We don't know the scope for it in the game. For me, photogrammetry implies really good resolution too, and is not the case in Forza 7. Being a racing game where you can't stop to see the textures in detail is an advantage, but I have to see the final game to decide if the decision was correct. They opted to put a really big photogrammetry asset so they had to sacrifice resolution.
 

MaLDo

Member
The sun is almost directly in the center of the sky (look at the car shadows). Why would there be ambient occlusion on the track sides?

Look a this then. Plants in the shadows (left) have the same lack of ambient occlusion than plants under the sun (right).

forza7-089au74.jpg
 

JimiNutz

Banned
Very impressive and I always knew the Forza 7 would be the Scorpio showcase game, it's just a shame that there weren't more games (Crackdown?) that could showcase the power of the new console as well.
 
Aside from the fact that the headlights are missing (not like it is a technical challenge in the first place, unless their shadowmap atlas is a bit too busy but I doubt this is the case here), I had the opposite reaction in that we are finally seeing games that do not rely on (mostly) any type of rim/fake lighting, which tell a lot about the confidence they have in their lighting model since only actual light sources (point/spot/directional/area lights and probes) can lit the scene and nothing else. This is great.

???

There is literally no lighting in that image.
 

TLZ

Banned
Saw the df video and it was gorgeous. I wish I could get a wheel and seat just for this game.
 

leeh

Member
It looks like a next gen step up between FM6 to FM7 to me but I suppose im not looking for the flaws or shortcuts.
Its a mainline Forza game. Its not allowed to be pretty, it has to have flaws which need to be discussed in every single Forza thread.
 
In motion they are fine and I think they look great past 150 m, but once they get close to the car they fall off. Could be a setting they have on there now and can turn it up later but just from these e3 videos they arent like 'omg 4k rock texture, I'd want to stop my car here and take a cool photo' quality.
Is that dfeed or a video capture?

You definitely can't judge texture quality on moving video capture.

Before the race begins, if there are footage around these rocks would be a better way to gauge the resolution.
 
I'm sorry that it escalated to this level. I often make observations of the negative parts because they are usually the ones that go unnoticed. It is much more common for people to be able to see all the good things about games, and Forza 7 has many and has been widely commented. I also have the problem that when I comment on any of the defects, I assume that people will already be able to see it. My fault. I will try to illustrate those points, but they are usually more evident in video than screenshots, at least for me (temporal resolution helps a lot in compressed footage).

Ambient occlusion is missing for most of the geometry
- [This could easily be true, which is a common in many games as a performance balance]

Lighting is only right on photogrammetry assets
- [I'm not clear on what he means by this, but there's no obvious divide in lighting on assets.]

This is clearly visible for me but hard to show in screenshots. The desert track has right lighting values in mountains and in the tunnel entrance, but is not so right in the road and is totally wrong in the rainny track. As an example, take a look a this screenshot, you can see the lighting in the rocks is right, but the rest (sand, road, etc) is not. It seems a composition.

Fhotogrammetry (sic) assets have really low resolution textures
- [This is demonstrably false to anyone watching the footage. I'm sure there are exceptions from streaming or speed if you pause the motion., but simply looking at rock-walls as you pass, you can see they are generall standard resolutions. I legitimately know the still someone grabbed of a rock-wall that appeared glitched that he's basing this on.]

The mountains have low res textures. Very low res.

Most of reflections are not real time calculated.
- [This is generally true of every game ever. Unless there are obvious mis-matches, it's something you assume, rather than observe. He doesn't point any out.]

Most racing games use SSR to avoid this kind of inconsistency. It's annoying to the eye. There are lots of examples in the footage but you can look at this screenshot if you need an example

Geometry reflections on the cars run at half the framerate.
- [This is true, I noticed it in all the 60 fps footage.]

Pretty clear in the video.


Car shadows don't project over track assets.
- [This is provably false, though there's at least one wall in the race that appears to be glitched.]

We would need more footage and surely this will be fixed in release version, but it seems shadows only project over static geometry but not over some type of assets like the fences.


Some tracks elements don't render at full resolution
- [I don't know what this means.]


Here may be interfering with the heat effect on the distance that exists in the desert footage, but I have the impression that the electric cables are not rendered at the native resolution. They used the same trick in Forza 6 so is not risky to say it.

I agree with a lot from your post.

Regarding the low-res textures of the environment, just as it shows on one of your screenshots, I think is it mostly a texture streaming problem, as some parts of the rocks appear normal and some other appear very low-res indeed. If it is a bandwith problem, might not be so easy to correct at such a resolution and framerate. But they have time until release.

For the reflections not being rendered in real time, we can easily understand that the rendering cost of SSR at 4K (they could halve the resolution and even more, but still, raymarching algorithms are not cheap) might be too great to support such a feature.
They could maybe try to do better parallax correction on the envmap so that even if it does not reflect what it actually on screen, it does not look as "off" as it does right now under certain angles.

This is the cost of a 60FPS target on console guys, we can't have the best of everything at 4K and 60FPS. Going from 60 from 30FPS would surely help a lot, but that is definitely not what Microsoft would want as a flagship for their new console.

And correct me if I am wrong, but this "there is 30% of GPU power still available" thingy was about the straight port of the Forza 6 engine from One to One X at 4K, right ? Not Forza 7.
I very highly doubt that they have that much power to spare here...
 

nekkid

It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
And correct me if I am wrong, but this "there is 30% of GPU power still available" thingy was about the straight port of the Forza 6 engine from One to One X at 4K, right ? Not Forza 7.
I very highly doubt that they have that much power to spare here...

That was said during the press demos during E3.
 

hesido

Member
I'd be totally fine with a solution like this if it 'costs less' with a close enough sensation of time advancement.

Baking different lighting conditions is a valid way of portraying different times of day. And it explains the gigantic download size, which is the caveat.

Having said that, if it wasn't for the pixel fetish, for example with a checkerboard or 1440p rendering, they 'might' have achieved realtime dynamic time of day. But this time, where does this leave the original Xbox One with its 60fps goal? So then they might have needed two very different rendering paths.

This 4k desire sort of makes the decision easy: Just pump out more of similar pixels, shaded with not-more complex shaders. The gpu cycles wasted to brute forcing for spatial fidelity.
 
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