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Digital Foundry -- Halo 4 Tech Analysis
- Thread starter adamsapple
- Start date
NemesisPrime
Banned
Ugh,for these kinds of threads i may as well just read the OP and just leave it at that. The forza Horizon DF article was the same in the comments section , lots of salt and dowplaying. I've seen KZ2,GOW3, and UC2 on my TV, Halo 4 compares favorably with these games graphically and is the best looking game on the 360 atm. 343i are a clearly a talented bunch and got a lot out of the 360 hardware, i can't wait to see what they as well as devs like turn 10 and playground will do next gen with more power to work with. Also can't wait to see how the newer studios built up like MS Victoria will compare talent wise, with the likes of 343 and turn 10.
plagiarize
Banned
yep. and one isn't 'blatantly' better than the other technically. one isn't in a different 'ballpark' to the other technically. i'm not saying they're identical, just that they're in the same upper tier of console graphics if we're talking technically. anyone claiming otherwise is I think wearing fanboy goggles.
OK, this one bugged me a bit simply because I think it's completely ridiculous to suggest that Lords of Shadow is anywhere near matching God of War 3.One pushes incredible graphics and scale with a cinematic framerate. (Castlevania: LOS)
The other (Dante's Inferno) pushes good graphics at 60fps.
Seems like the games with a God of War camera system are easier to achieve good graphics on console.
None of the scale of God of War? Are you insane?
Take off your fanboy googles. We must have played a different game.
Lords of Shadow has two distinct issues that are not present in GoW3 - Tons of loading points and a very VERY low framerate
God of War 3 is fully streamed from beginning to end with each environment seamlessly feeding into the next. Every stage in Lords of Shadow is divided by a lengthy loading screen and each area is relatively small as a result. That boss you posted takes place within a very small stage, for instance.
More importantly we have the framerate. God of War 3 averages between 45-60 fps so, while there is a bit of judder present, the framerate generally stays very high. Lords of Shadow, on the other hand, spends most of its time under 30 fps and sometimes dips into the teens. It's an extremely choppy game despite its limited level size.
It LOOKS fantastic, but it has way too many severe technical issues. God of War 3 is on a whole different level.
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
nice job 343
People should listen to this man.
Exactly, they are both just making different trade offs. No different than any other high end console game.
plagiarize
Banned
one thing I do think is a shame, personally, is that Halo 4 does not feature the S3D support that UC3 and KZ3 have. especially since it has a split screen mode already and a lot of the required work has therefor already been done. Anniversary was really good fun in 3D, even if the resolution took a big hit.
PS3 vs 360 is irrelevant. There are better looking non-exclusive games on both consoles. Halo 4 does some cool things, however many people seem blind to the trade offs made to achieve them. It overreaches at the cost of consistency. Some areas look great, others are severely compromised by trying to achieve things that aren't possible on the current hardware.
Halo 4 pushes the envelope in the same superficially dazzling ways that Halo 2 did, that game didn't impress me at the time either.
Halo 4 pushes the envelope in the same superficially dazzling ways that Halo 2 did, that game didn't impress me at the time either.
^ You're comparing Halo 4 to Halo 2? Well that's quite silly.
I don't understand people hanging on the random low res texture or other minor artifact in a game. EVERY game has it's share of warts and minor graphical bugs. None of that takes away from the overall presentation when it's as consistent as Halo 4, KZ2, UC 2&3, GOW3, Gears 3, RDR, and so on.
They probably cut off adding features such as S3D to make sure the game was polished. Wonder if they can add it in with an update like theater mode. I have my doubts but who knows.
I don't understand people hanging on the random low res texture or other minor artifact in a game. EVERY game has it's share of warts and minor graphical bugs. None of that takes away from the overall presentation when it's as consistent as Halo 4, KZ2, UC 2&3, GOW3, Gears 3, RDR, and so on.
They probably cut off adding features such as S3D to make sure the game was polished. Wonder if they can add it in with an update like theater mode. I have my doubts but who knows.
BigDaddyFatSack
Banned
Will fav this thread and dig it up next year.
plagiarize
Banned
I don't know that they really value the feature. The way they described it getting added to Halo Anniversary was like it was just some happy accident that the way they built that made it really simple for them to add 3D. I doubt enough people will be interested, either internally or externally to convince them to add it post launch, not looking at more important missing features like theater mode, or the hyped smartglass battle viewer thing, and so on.
but even said, UC3 and KZ3 had 3D as a feature (and render target) all along. 3D works best that way too, rather than as a last minute addition (even though Anniversary did turn out really nicely in 3D).
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
One is a PS3 exclusive, while another one is a 360 exclusive, what's not to understand? But yeah, I agree.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
Yeah same here.. Was hoping to play input in 3D on my D8000.. halo CEA UC3 and KZ3 were all great in 3D..
I've only read the last couple pages, do you really think Halo 5 will be on the 360 and next gen isn't launching next year? If so it's probably a good thing you save this thread as a reminder. =p
Also that Bungie contract isn't fake btw. It's all public knowledge due to the trial.
Yeah, you're probably right.
Regarding UC3 and KZ3, Sony pushed for the mode to be added because they had a vested interest in 3D unlike MS.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Man screenshots aren't doing any of these games a favor.
Go ahead, always fun to pull out the I WAS RIGHT card I guess or whatever you are up to. If I am wrong I am wrong, but it would be silly to ignore everything we know.
Interesting. What makes you say that?
Pai Pai Master
Banned
Game looks gorgeous, but let's quit the bickering. Gears and Halo are the 360's God of War and Uncharted. All four franchises have some of the best looking games I've ever seen. Let's celebrate that there are awesome looking games on both platforms.
gollumsluvslave
Member
It is interesting with the whole exclusive debate, but I'd put Red Dead Redemption up there with anything on BOTH consoles. It's not an exclusive, but looks amazing.
Again YMMV.
Again YMMV.
infinityBCRT
Member
Year-to-Year console sales are down. Some hardcore gamers are shifting to Steam. Some casual gamers are being satisfied enough by iOS games because iterative sequels are just not attractive to them anymore.
I've seen it first hand, I've bought way more Steam games than I have in the past. This may be the first year where I've purchased more Steam games than console games. And my brother who used to game once in a while only uses his 360 as a hulu/netflix box now and is okay playing games on his iPhone/iPad instead because he prefers the price model there and there's not really anything majorly new and exciting on consoles. 90% of retail games coming out now are just iterative or imitations of other games. And most of those are probably overpriced in his eyes. And he has no interest in buying digital games on XBLA (where the creativity actually is) because he hates the whole MS points system.
Horse Armour
Member
720p will never look good in screenshots. It looks good in 300p GIFs but not in screenshots.
JonathanPower
Member
The problem is that you can do this with any game. You can always find a shot that looks worse than how the game looks when you play it.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
All you can do is stare at all the flaws? They look ridiculously small on my screen, the sheer amount of aliasing is impossible to look past and the dithering and lack of AF becomes more and more apparent.
Also, my memories of all those games looked quite a bit better. These screens are tainting my memories.
staticneuron
Member
Agreed.
And to put a finer point on "why" it may have taken a MS first party so long to grind to the metal is simply..... IT WASN'T NEEDED.
Sure it helps in opinions of some hardcore and helps fuel forum debates but in terms of returns, the market has proven they didn't need to go that far to get fantastic returns.
Something inside me dies every time you say 'steam games' and not 'PC games' :'(
plagiarize
Banned
I guess. I'm damn glad they seemed to have changed their minds now though.
Elginer
Member
That's what they do and I think it's the best. Next-gen Halo is going to look fucking amazing with all the tech of 3 and 4 with DX 11 goodies.
NemesisPrime
Banned
Very true.
BigDaddyFatSack
Banned
So yeah guys. How about them Xbox 720 and PS4 this year?
http://www.gamespot.com/news/next-xbox-in-2012-ps4-dev-ramping-up-report-6346197
Next-gen NOT coming next year. There's no need for MS and Sony to upgrade their systems considering Wii U isn't even that much powerful than those other 2.
Halo 5 on 360, bring it on!
http://www.gamespot.com/news/next-xbox-in-2012-ps4-dev-ramping-up-report-6346197
Next-gen NOT coming next year. There's no need for MS and Sony to upgrade their systems considering Wii U isn't even that much powerful than those other 2.
Halo 5 on 360, bring it on!
shinobi602
Member
Not sure why you're stuck on these next gen launch dates, but lol ok.
You'll see next year, just make sure to save this thread. ;p
"An incorrect rumour from 2011 pegged the Nextbox with a 2012 release so therefore it is most definitely not releasing in 2013"?
BigDaddyFatSack
Banned
More update on Next Bungie game, 'Destiny.' Its release date has been pushed back to 2014. This discredits their supposed 'leaked' contract entirely.
I believe the 2014 release date refers only to the potential PS3 version:
Eurogamer said:
Edit: The contract was brought to light as a consequence of the Acti vs. West/Zampella lawsuit, and Acti has completely avoided discussion on the matter, so I'm not sure why you're trying to downplay its legitimacy.
higherARC05
Banned
This game is simply top notch quality status.
This game has so much more dynamic lights then in Reach which I thought was impossible.
Jackal shields are dynamic light sources as well as every plasma bullet.
But the inclusion of lights on weapons allow them to illuminate anything around them. So I was up on a wall and saw the red lights on the Promethean weapons light up the surroundings including Chief himself. AMAZING
This scene blew me away.
This game has so much more dynamic lights then in Reach which I thought was impossible.
Jackal shields are dynamic light sources as well as every plasma bullet.
But the inclusion of lights on weapons allow them to illuminate anything around them. So I was up on a wall and saw the red lights on the Promethean weapons light up the surroundings including Chief himself. AMAZING
This scene blew me away.
BigDaddyFatSack
Banned
Nope. They clearly said Destiny game might not even make it to the original 2013 release.
Source? And if that's what was said, how does it completely discredit the contract when it references the 2013 release date, the source of which is said contract?
Edit: Also, "might not even make it to the original 2013 release" is less than definitive, so, if true, the game hasn't actually been delayed -- at least, not yet.
Yeah, because I don't think it'll affect gameplay much anymore.
I agree that they are quite similar, but I think the IQ in both is lackluster. Good for console games of this level of complexity I guess, but on an absolute scale? Even on consoles, games like Forza Horizon are incredibly far ahead in terms of IQ.
Yeah, pretty much. And that's when looking at them as tiny windows on the screen, not scaled to full size.
Just looking at this:
I can't see anything other than the aliasing.
Oh well that's another discussion. Most gameplay from games this generation weren't all that affected by the graphics bump either. In fact most sequels came out dumber and more stripped down.
base shagohod
Member
It's a good thing the game doesn't look like that.
higherARC05
Banned
Well it looks so much better directly on a HDTV then a low res camera phone pic.
No, it illustrates how plans change over a span of two years. You really, really don't know what the hell you're talking about. You didn't even read the contract. Also, nobody has ever disputed its legitimacy.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Durante said:
IQ is mostly just a product of GPU bandwidth though. If you have cycles/memory to spare for larger buffers and more AA/post passes of course the image is going to improve, but its hardly technically impressive as its mostly a product of hardware capacity and less of the coders' ingenuity.
The next generation of console hardware will have a much higher memory and fillrate capacity so these issues should be solved pretty much by default, technique and art will then be able rightfully reclaim centre-stage.
Where are you pulling your infos out of?