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[bombshell]

Does the next-gen start when Naughty Dog says it does?

Uncharted 4 goes much further than any PS4 or Xbox One game we've seen in its use of physics, and the layering of world detail with shaders. Opening at the gates of a bustling Madagascan marketplace, what unfolds is unlike any major title seen on console to date. Where the December demo focused on wide spaces, foliage systems, and its more flexible AI, the E3 demo goes to town with object physics applied across the world, as flaunted brilliantly with a jeep chase to 'Sam's tower' at the bottom of the city.

As a bonus, motion blur is added since the PlayStation Experience demo, kicking in heavily during this chase, with both camera and per-object implementations. It adds a filmic touch sorely missing in the last showing, though a banding trail is also now left behind moving objects - likely an artefact of the temporal component utilized in Naughty Dog's chosen anti-aliasing technique. A recent post by Timothy Lottes (creator of the widely adopted FXAA algorithm) adds his two cents to this theory. The supreme, clear edge treatment in the December demo is seemingly swapped out in this E3 update, with Lottes suggesting a move to a "viewport-jittered neighborhood-clamped high-feedback temporal AA without MSAA."

Overall, it's a slight step back for Uncharted 4's image quality since the last demo, but the results are still ahead of most PS4 titles today. As a sign of future releases, it also suggests a native 1080p is still very much viable for PS4 releases pushing the envelope with a huge world, though developers are seemingly still keen to top this off with a post-process method of AA - and all the caveats that brings to absolute clarity.

The extent of Uncharted 4's use of physics goes much deeper than you'd expect. One of the more surprising applications of this is one that goes unnoticed; rice bags actually deflate using a mesh distortion system Naughty Dog has in place, as detailed during a recent Headspace panel with the team. It's an effect also applied on Nathan Drake's face when pressed against the floor during the game's first blue-hued E3 2014 reveal. In essence, for this demo, it allows each sack to sink as rice leaks out from bullet-holes, where each shot cues a physics-based impact on the bag, while deflation is simulated using mesh distortion.

Based on this latest footage, Naughty Dog once again opts for a locked 30fps in gameplay, and with v-sync engaged. This falls in line with the PlayStation Experience gameplay, another demo locked to a 30fps output, though at a time when the team's original 60fps promise hung in the balance. Alas, it has since been confirmed in an interview that a solid 30fps for single-player is now the team's committed target, and judging by our gameplay analysis that's precisely what we're getting.

Framerate test video: A frame-rate analysis of Uncharted 4's demo at E3 2015. It's a solid 30fps lock with only a few blips along the way; a consistent performer that maintains v-sync at all times.

But as a take-away, Naughty Dog's very first PS4 Uncharted is maturing nicely with each new demo, and it's fair to say this E3 2015 showing is the biggest crowd-pleaser yet. The decision to settle for 30fps means many things, and in particular for this Madagascar set piece it opens the gates to a bigger, denser world, with a heavy focus on physics that might have been tougher to achieve at 60fps. From a technical perspective, it's a real evolution over the PlayStation Experience gameplay demo we saw seven months ago - a feat in world design that demanded current-gen hardware to achieve at such a level.

A LOT more in the source --> http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-uncharted-4-pushes-ps4-tech-to-the-next-level

 

[John Bender]

God.... I love Naughty Dog so much ^_^

Amazing!

Does the next-gen start when Naughty Dog says it does?

Yup ;D

 

[Acquiescence]

It really does look spectacular. ND have managed to maintain almost the same graphical fidelity as The Order, but without all the extreme linearity and corridor funneling that goes with it. And come next year it's going to look even better, somehow.

 

[unknownstranger]

For Uncharted 4, the sheer speed of the descent shows just how effective Naughty Dog has been in this endeavor. Save for one brief texture flash just as Drake starts moving, no normal maps or geometry suffer from obvious pop-in, and draw distances are impressively broad across the horizon. All of which gives this sequence a surprising level of polish even in this early state, and it's a great example of a PS4 title handling a broad, detailed environment with few streaming issues - even if it does eventually lead to a funneling point.

Wow.

 

[ShamePain]

Gotta be DX12... oh wait, nvm.

 

[Aceofspades]

30 fps lock with v sync engaged all the time in a game almost 1 year away?!

Yup, Naughty Gods

 

[Impulsor]

It really does look spectacular. ND have managed to maintain almost the same graphical fidelity as The Order, but without all the extreme linearity and corridor funneling that goes with it. And come next year it's going to look even better, somehow.

Jesus, I ended up so angry with The Order.

I'm not worried about this game at all though, it has three games before it and we know its going to be largely similar, so I'm pretty confident the game is going to be good.

Its Naughty Dog too.

 

[Koobion]

It's incredibly exciting to finally see what Naughty Dog is able to pull off with next gen hardware.

I'd love to think that this would be akin to Uncharted 1 in terms of how far it's pushing the hardware to its limits - where that implies that a 2nd and 3rd game by Naughty Dog on the PS4 would see great leaps in tech as we witnessed going from Uncharted 1 to 2 and 3 on PS3. Sadly I'm far more inclined to believe that this is already pushing the limits of the hardware at the same level UC3 pushed PS3 so far into the generation (or even TLoU, arguably the most demanding game that the PS3 runs).

I hope I'm at least a little bit wrong though! Either way, man does this get the hardware/PC nerd side of me so pumped up!

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Ctrl-f: anisotropic filtering

Huh, nothing?

Uh oh.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

This sounds really impressive. Sheesh.

 

[bombshell]

It's incredibly exciting to finally see what Naughty Dog is able to pull off with next gen hardware.

I'd love to think that this would be akin to Uncharted 1 in terms of how far it's pushing the hardware to its limits - where that implies that a 2nd and 3rd game by Naughty Dog on the PS4 would see great leaps in tech as we witnessed going from Uncharted 1 to 2 and 3 on PS3. Sadly I'm far more inclined to believe that this is already pushing the limits of the hardware at the same level UC3 pushed PS3 so far into the generation (or even TLoU, arguably the most demanding game that the PS3 runs).

I hope I'm at least a little bit wrong though! Either way, man does this get the hardware/PC nerd side of me so pumped up!

I think they are pushing the PS4 more with U4 than they were pushing the PS3 with U1, for a couple of reasons. They used the TLoU:R port to gain experience with the PS4 and the PS4 is much easier than PS3 to develop for.

 

[Aceofspades]

Ctrl-f: anisotropic filtering

Huh, nothing?

Uh oh.

What about you read the analysis instead of fishing for concerns ?

 

[ShamePain]

It's incredibly exciting to finally see what Naughty Dog is able to pull off with next gen hardware.

I'd love to think that this would be akin to Uncharted 1 in terms of how far it's pushing the hardware to its limits - where that implies that a 2nd and 3rd game by Naughty Dog on the PS4 would see great leaps in tech as we witnessed going from Uncharted 1 to 2 and 3 on PS3. Sadly I'm far more inclined to believe that this is already pushing the limits of the hardware at the same level UC3 pushed PS3 so far into the generation (or even TLoU, arguably the most demanding game that the PS3 runs).

I hope I'm at least a little bit wrong though! Either way, man does this get the hardware/PC nerd side of me so pumped up!

Well, Uncharted 2 was 3 years after ps3's launch and Uncharted 4 is 3 years after ps4's launch. Given ps4 simple architecture they're probably already pushing it to the max.

 

[Brutuspedia]

. ND have managed to maintain almost the same graphical fidelity as The Order.

I think is really far from the graphical fidelity of The Order, buy like you said, it's not a corridor game, so...

Still a masterpiece.

 

[Drencrom]

Ctrl-f: anisotropic filtering

Huh, nothing?

Uh oh.

They didn't mention it but there's definitely AF, just like in TLOU:R

 

[Black_Stride]

Not to thread jack or derail.
But Watching NX Gamers tech analysis on Uncharted 4 made me a believer, I was impressed watching it live, impressed watching the stream over again.

But listening to NX Gamer talk about Uncharted 4 makes me lose it.

NX Gamer E3 2015 Demo Breakdown

NX Gamer E3 2015 Demo Part 2 Breakdown



Uncharted 4 was fucking impressive as shit at E3.
Dont know which game I would place higher, this one or Ghost Recon, but it being Ubisoft I dont know if Ghost Recon will actually be at the level they are claiming.

 

[AbandonedTrolley]

Gotta be DX12... oh wait, nvm.

No it's the 7th core!

 

[Putty]

It's incredibly exciting to finally see what Naughty Dog is able to pull off with next gen hardware.

I'd love to think that this would be akin to Uncharted 1 in terms of how far it's pushing the hardware to its limits - where that implies that a 2nd and 3rd game by Naughty Dog on the PS4 would see great leaps in tech as we witnessed going from Uncharted 1 to 2 and 3 on PS3. Sadly I'm far more inclined to believe that this is already pushing the limits of the hardware at the same level UC3 pushed PS3 so far into the generation (or even TLoU, arguably the most demanding game that the PS3 runs).

I hope I'm at least a little bit wrong though! Either way, man does this get the hardware/PC nerd side of me so pumped up!

Nah, we'll see a jump.....Maybe not on a scale of going from U1 to U3, but yes, we will see further improvements no doubt about it. Better tools, newer libs, more efficient algorithms.

 

[hesido]

As for streaming assets without pop-in, Naughty Dog perfected their streaming on the PS3 on just 256 + <256MB's of RAM. No surprise that they can be so efficient with 6GB available RAM. Continuing reading the piece.

 

[Summer Haze]

Yeah, I noticed the lack of pop-in during the E3 footage too, save for some very rare and small instances. I honestly don't know how they do it.

Great read, btw. Thanks for posting.

 

[ps3ud0]

Looking forward to Sony first partys pushing the PS4 during the generation like last gen. Hopefully more gameplay impacting flourishes will be the norm

ps3ud0 8)

 

[CaptainLoveline]

As I stated before in another thread, I'm still amazed. But can I ask a question, is the main 3 Uncharted games better than Golden Abyss? Because I've played about an hour and got bored, I wanted to get into it but just couldn't. I don't wanna be that guy who missed out, but if its anything like Golden Abyss then I won't bother.

 

[Javin98]

Finally! So it took DF a whole month to release their analysis... Anyway, this was a great article, but I feel as if they weren't thorough enough with their analysis of some of the visual features. Physics was mentioned a lot, but I wish they also went more in detail with the impressive lighting.

Also, it's impressive how this is already running at a locked 30FPS 9 months from release. I wonder what kind of improvements we'll see in the final release.

I think is really far from the graphical fidelity of The Order, buy like you said, it's not a corridor game, so...

Still a masterpiece.

I disagree. Uncharted 4 looks as good, if not, better than The Order IMO.

 

[Yautja_Warrior]

Naughty Gods strike again. All that going on, even when the Jeep goes down the steps smashing through stuff with physics in play it still holds a solid 30fps, same with the rest of the demo, there were only 2 or 3 small blips down to 29fps for like a second each, something you would never notice in normal play, that's some impressive shit right there.

Will be interesting to see how the second part of the demo holds up, knowing ND, probably a similar level of performance.

 

[DonMigs85]

Excited for 4K Uncharted 4 at 60FPS on PS5

 

[Putty]

Finally! So it took DF a whole month to release their analysis... Anyway, this was a great article, but I feel as if they weren't thorough enough with their analysis of some of the visual features. Physics was mentioned a lot, but I wish they also went more in detail with the impressive lighting.

Also, it's impressive how this is already running at a locked 30FPS 9 months from release. I wonder what kind of improvements we'll see in the final release.


I disagree. Uncharted 4 looks as good, if not, better than The Order IMO.

I have to disagree with this. The image quality on the order is simply phenomenal. This is up there though, and still plenty of time to try different methods.

 

[GnawtyDog]

Does the next-gen start when Naughty Dog says it does?

 

[driver116]

Ctrl-f: anisotropic filtering

Huh, nothing?

Uh oh.

 

[JumPeRJumPzZ]

Funny that U4 already has Resolution and fps locked so many months before release. But a game like Halo 5 that is out in 3 months still struggles with more than 720p and a lot of Aliasing and 60fps.

 

[aussiedude08]

god damn it Naughty Dog. why do you tease us so much with the magic you produce in the games. and Uncharted 4 is still so long away.

the stuff in the article is just crazy.

 

[aibaby]

Not to thread jack or derail.
But Watching NX Gamers tech analysis on Uncharted 4 made me a believer, I was impressed watching it live, impressed watching the stream over again.

But listening to NX Gamer talk about Uncharted 4 makes me lose it.

NX Gamer E3 2015 Demo Breakdown

NX Gamer E3 2015 Demo Part 2 Breakdown



Uncharted 4 was fucking impressive as shit at E3.
Dont know which game I would place higher, this one or Ghost Recon, but it being Ubisoft I dont know if Ghost Recon will actually be at the level they are claiming.

Haven't seen this before, thanks! This is amazing!

 

[tbd]

It's 30 frames alright.

 

[Javin98]

I have to disagree with this. The image quality on the order is simply phenomenal. This is up there though, and still plenty of time to try different methods.

Aside from image quality, Uncharted 4 does other things as well, if not better IMO, especially physics.

 

[Aceofspades]

As I stated before in another thread, I'm still amazed. But can I ask a question, is the main 3 Uncharted games better than Golden Abyss? Because I've played about an hour and got bored, I wanted to get into it but just couldn't. I don't wanna be that guy who missed out, but if its anything like Golden Abyss then I won't bother.

Yeah, they are easily better than Golden Abyss. I didn't bother to finish GA myself but I enjoyed the other games a lot.

 

[crinale]

GDDR5 baby, GDDR5.

 

[CouchMaster]

There were people who said physics is baked during the chase because its impossible to pull of that much debris and destruction without framerate tanking.

Impossible you say?

 

[Aceofspades]

There were people who said physics is baked during the chase because its impossible to pull of that much debris and destruction without framerate tanking.

Impossible you say?

Nothing is impossible when tackled by ND.

 

[dead monkey uk]

Funny that U4 already has Resolution and fps locked so many months before release. But a game like Halo 5 that is out in 3 months still struggles with more than 720p and a lot of Aliasing and 60fps.

I would think a first party developer for a PS4 game aims for 1080 from day one, while a first party developer for Xbox One will often have to compromise on resolution.

But its clear both consoles often compromise on fps, I am sure the U4 framerate would still be all over the place if they were pushing for 60.

 

[JordanN]

Well, Uncharted 2 was 3 years after ps3's launch and Uncharted 4 is 3 years after ps4's launch. Given ps4 simple architecture they're probably already pushing it to the max.

Sony has discussed their to plan to get more out of the PS4 over the next 4 years.

The PS4 wont be maxed for a long time (but I'll agree they're farther along than the first Uncharted was).

 

[JumPeRJumPzZ]

Sony has discussed their to plan to get more out of the PS4 over the next 4 years.

The PS4 wont be maxed for a long time.

Lol you really believe that?

 

[Javin98]

Lol you really believe that?

Well, technically, all games max out the console, but there are always ways to make the game run more efficiently and look better.

 

[DonMigs85]

Lol you really believe that?

I want to believe it's true since the GeForce 750 Ti keeps matching or outperforming the PS4 despite lesser specs. Maybe Sony is actually holding back or the architecture/drivers just aren't as efficient.

 

[Sami+]

Yeah the E3 demo really was stunning. The attention to detail here is unparalleled. Reminds me of what MGS2 must have been like back when that first launched.

 

[fedexpeon]

Lol you really believe that?

I believe it.
It has always been like this for every console during and after the NES era.
SNES was crazy good near its death.

 

[KORNdoggy]

Lol you really believe that?

given how games always look significantly better as time passes even on the same console...yeah. i have no doubt in my mind last of us 2 will look a lot better then uncharted 4.

 

[JumPeRJumPzZ]

I believe it.
It has always been like this for every console during and after the NES era.
SNES was crazy good near its death.

But this consoles are not some kind of special made hardware. They are basicly lowend PCs...

 

[Nibel]

Yeah, getting Gears Of War vibes from this in terms of 'Oh shit, this new console is capable of some magic'.

I showed the trailer to family and friends, and most thought it was a movie.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

This is why I have no issue with 30.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

Lol you really believe that?

Halo 4 came to the 360 in 2012 didn't it?

 

[fedexpeon]

But this consoles are not some kind of special made hardware. They are basicly lowend PCs...

Same with the XB and 360.
They did fine over the course of their era as low-end spec PC.