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[Kralamoonard]

Frame Rate Comparison And Technical Analysis

Rainbow Six Siege PS4 vs Xbox One Frame-Rate Test

Graphical Comparisons And Technical Analysis

Rainbow Six Siege PS4/Xbox One/PC Graphics Comparison

Read The Full Article For More Info

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-rainbow-six-siege-face-off

...but to summarise:

"The real star of the show here is Realblast - this technology enables fully destructive environments on a micro scale. Rather than leveling whole buildings a la Battlefield, players are instead able to procedurally destroy structures piece by piece. You can chip away at drywall with a pistol, blow holes in the floor beneath your enemy with a shotgun, or simply plant an explosive charge and blow down an entire barricade. Bullet penetration is also in full effect here and the sound effects of rounds piercing different surfaces vary greatly based on material composition.

This technology truly changes the game here and leads to one of the most dynamic shooters we've ever played. It's fascinating to see the ways in which this can be used. Popping holes in the ceiling to monitor an entrance, taking out enemies through the wall while hanging upside down from the roof, or simply confusing the enemy by triggering simultaneous explosions around them. Even when it felt as if we had a grasp of the basic strategy for a map, we were regularly surprised by what creative players could pull off. Crucially, Realblast is present and accounted for in all three versions of the game but how do the rest of the visuals stack up?

Image quality is typically a pretty cut and dried affair but we see an interesting trick employed here that enables stable performance with a minor compromise to image quality. At its core, the PS4 version operates at 1080p while the Xbox One is 900p - but that's not the whole story. Ubisoft makes use of a "temporal filtering" feature that has a pretty interesting impact on the game.

Essentially, this feature renders the game with half the number of pixels on each axis with an ordered grid MSAA pattern before reconstructing the image to match the final output. This is then coupled with a post-process temporal anti-aliasing solution to minimize artefacts in motion. So, at 1080p, we're technically seeing 960x540 with 2x MSAA. Interestingly, it would appear that the image is processed before being upscaled on Xbox One resulting in blurrier HUD elements and menu text.

This trick has its drawbacks, but when combined with temporal AA, it helps produces a soft yet stable image in motion. If you slowly pan the camera around you can certainly spot edge artefacts but, during normal gameplay, this is much less apparent. The resulting image is actually more temporally stable than many other console titles. It's a fantastic trade-off here that really helps keep performance up without a significant impact on image quality.

As for texture filtering, we actually see a clear improvement over the pre-release beta version of the game. When we first looked at Siege, it was discovered that the PS4 version was lacking anisotropic filtering completely. In the final game, this has been corrected and both versions sport 8x anisotropic filtering. When combined with the aforementioned anti-aliasing solution, the game looks very smooth and clean on both platforms.

Both console versions manage to hold 60fps the majority of the time but we did encounter some drops in certain situations. Performance dips tend to crop up either at the beginning of a map during the outdoor infiltration sequence, particularly at night, or while engaged in a firefight with plenty of destruction and alpha effects visible on screen. That said, it's entirely possible to play through a number of matches without a single hitch in performance. In comparison, the terrorist hunt and single player modes all turn in a very steady 30fps throughout our testing.

Outside of resolution, there is little here to tell the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game apart. Both versions appear to use identical settings and, thanks to the temporal filtering, both look very clean in motion..."

How The Consoles Stack Up Against PC

Shading Quality: This setting impacts lighting, shading, and the interaction of light and materials. Console versions operate with the medium setting but the high setting on PC brings a number of improvements, the most notable of which is the addition of relief mapping which adds extra depth to textures using a heightmap. On PC, the performance impact increases alongside texture filtering. So while 16x AF normally incurs a very small hit to performance on the platform that's not the case here. Essentially, when using higher levels of filtering with the high shading settings, relief maps are drawn out further from the viewport. This texture information is not present in distant mip-maps though, so by reducing texture filtering quality the distance in which the relief maps are rendered is decreased.

Ambient Occlusion: To handle contact shadows, Ubisoft has crafted its own solution known as SSBC, which first appeared in Far Cry 4 last year. This solution is used on consoles and it generally looks very good. SSBC tends to produce slightly darker contact shadows that can actually look more aesthetically pleasing in certain circumstances but there are still some inaccuracies in detailed, brightly lit scenes. This is where HBAO+ comes into play on the PC which produces a different look that is technically more accurate.

Shadow Quality: There are four different settings for shadow quality on the PC and we've found the console versions to be a match for the high setting. On medium and low, shadows lose a tremendous amount of definition but the high setting is still very clean. Using the very high option on PC simply pushes the resolution of shadows up a notch resulting in additional clarity. We feel that shadow quality is solid across all three versions of the game.

Reflection Quality: With reflection quality we see consoles operating at medium settings. Siege uses a combination of cube-map and screen-space reflections throughout its environment to great effect. The high setting simply impacts the resolution and accuracy of the screen-space reflections used in a number of environments. On medium, we still see SSR used throughout the game, but there is a noticeable drop in quality. When using the low setting, only cube-map reflections are displayed.

Texture Quality: Then we have texture quality and here we believe the console versions are operating with the high setting. When comparing medium to high we can see a noticeable drop in asset clarity in test screens. On the PC, increasing texture quality ups the VRAM requirements so those with less GPU memory available can stick with medium and low settings in order to avoid hitching issues. The improvement in detail when using the highest setting on the PC is subtle, but at higher resolutions, definitely improves visual quality. When coupled with the aforementioned height maps, there's little doubt that the PC takes the lead here.

Lens Effects and Zoom-in Depth of Field: These two settings available in the PC version appear to have little to no impact on performance and are both present in the console releases. The lens effects essentially consist of light bloom and the dirty screen effects when the screen passes in front of high intensity light sources. Depth of field is applied to the player weapon while aiming down sights. We do appreciate the inclusion of these options as effects like this are not something all gamers appreciate and choice is exactly what PC gaming is all about.

LOD Quality: At first glance, it's nearly impossible to tell the various settings apart. However, when looking more closely at the game in motion, it becomes evident that the console versions are at least using the high setting. Essentially, the low and medium settings reduce the quality of the skybox replacing the dynamic sky with a static one instead. As the dynamic skybox is present on consoles, it stands to reason that the high or above settings are used here. The difference between high, very high, and ultra is extremely minimal, however, and the impact on performance is somewhat minimal.

TLR

• PS4 has jumped from a tri-linear texture filtering method seen in the beta to an 8x AF texture filtering method, with Xbox One jumping from 4x AF to 8x AF.
• PS4 runs a native 1080p display, with the Xbox One outputting a 900p display.
• The game targets 60fps, however, the 'Terrorist Hunt' mode is locked to a very stable 30fps due to complex AI.
• PS4 runs slightly slightly better than Xbox One, but no problem recommending any of the versions.
• Image quality has improved a lot with an interesting but effective temporal filtering solution.
• This interesting AA solution means at 1080p, we're technically seeing 960x540 with 2x MSAA.
• This is because the image is processed before being upscaled on Xbox One resulting in blurrier HUD elements and menu text.
• Game runs Ubisoft's custom in-house ambient occlusion solution, SSBC which looks very good.
• Consoles operate at the equivalent of a medium shading preset, high settings preset for shadows, medium settings preset for reflections which sees the use of SSR and cube maps, also using lens effect and zoom-in depth of field, and high settings preset for LOD quality.

Screenshots Comparing The Graphics

Personal Thoughts

Well my thoughts have definitely changed a lot since the beta. I think the biggest thing that stands out to me is the big increase in the texture filtering implementation going from a tri-linear on PS4 in the beta to an 8x AF. I'm glad it got called out early so developers can change it; it shows it's not always the hardware's fault; optimization can do wonders!

The other areas of the game look great too, and the 60fps target on most of the modes is an essential one that is essential for first person shooters IMO. However, the switch to 30fps in the terrorist hunt game mode can be jarring, and I would have like to see how the consoles would have fared at an unlocked frame rate (and perhaps some visual features dumbed down/variable resolution) considering it's a very stable 30fps.

Otherwise, it's a very technically competent game and I'd like to see how this engine fares in other Ubisoft titles.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

Looks like PC was a good choice for this game.

 

[Kezen]

So subhd native on both consoles then ?

Love the use of HBAO+ in this game, makes a great difference compared to Ubi's SSBC.
http://images.nvidia.com/geforce-com/international/comparisons/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege-ambient-occlusion-interactive-comparison-001-hbao-plus-vs-ssbc.html
http://images.nvidia.com/geforce-com/international/comparisons/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege-ambient-occlusion-interactive-comparison-002-hbao-plus-vs-ssbc.html
http://images.nvidia.com/geforce-com/international/comparisons/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege-ambient-occlusion-interactive-comparison-005-hbao-plus-vs-ssbc.html

 

[Hoje0308]

Edit: never mind

 

[Kralamoonard]

You... didn't leave much that would give anyone any reason to click the link.

There are still many paragraphs in the main body of the article that I did not include in the OP.

I also do a summary because at some workplaces or schools and colleges, gaming websites are banned (like at my school), however GAF isn't, so sometimes people would find it useful to see a summary of the article in the OP where otherwise they wouldn't be able to visit the website. People who want to watch the videos can still access them from the OP.

Besides, I'm sure if people had the choice, they'd prefer DF's format anyway as it is more readable, user friendly and has a better thumbnail comparison tool for the graphics.

However, I do appreciate the repercussions of what you imply. If John or anyone at DF does have any concerns, I'll gladly to change anything in the OP

 

[dark10x]

Seems like the interest in R6S is quite low. A shame as the game itself is really damn good.

 

[Noobcraft]

Seems like the interest in R6S is quite low. A shame as the game itself is really damn good.

I think it launched too closely to Battlefront and Fallout. I haven't seen much advertising for it in the States either outside of YouTube.

 

[nOoblet16]

Seems like the interest in R6S is quite low. A shame as the game itself is really damn good.

Haven't read the article yet as I am on phone. But is this MSAA reconstruction similar to the one seen in PS3 Ratchet and Clank games where they use MSAA buffer to reconstruct a 720P image out of a sub HD rendering resolution?

I've never quite understood how that worked.

 

[icecold1983]

Seems like the interest in R6S is quite low. A shame as the game itself is really damn good.

youre John right? mind giving us your opinion on how the AA options in the pc version compare to each other? txaa v the taa option in particular.

 

[Dictator93]

OP left out the most interesting and important finding from Dark10x!

Essentially, this feature renders the game with half the number of pixels on each axis with an ordered grid MSAA pattern before reconstructing the image to match the final output. This is then coupled with a post-process temporal anti-aliasing solution to minimize artefacts in motion. So, at 1080p, we're technically seeing 960x540 with 2x MSAA. Interestingly, it would appear that the image is processed before being upscaled on Xbox One resulting in blurrier HUD elements and menu text.

Very interesting. I wonder how many other games will be doing something similar soon enough. If it helps clears up framerate drops for 60fps games, then I can see the appeal.

 

[Maintenance]

Seems like the interest in R6S is quite low. A shame as the game itself is really damn good.

Isn't the game just online play? Offline with bots but no story mode like old R6.

 

[Rhys Wilde]

Fantastic game that looks and runs absolutely beautifully on PS4. Unfortunate that there doesn't seem to be much interest, it wouldn't appear that this game has very long legs.

Regardless I'll be playing it for quite some time. It fills a gap in the PS4's library of a hardcore competitive shooter that's more about positioning than it is simply outgunning.

 

[Sky Saw]

So subhd native on both consoles then ?

Love the use of HBAO+ in this game, makes a great difference compared to Ubi's SSBC.
http://images.nvidia.com/geforce-com/international/comparisons/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege-ambient-occlusion-interactive-comparison-001-hbao-plus-vs-ssbc.html
http://images.nvidia.com/geforce-com/international/comparisons/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege-ambient-occlusion-interactive-comparison-002-hbao-plus-vs-ssbc.html
http://images.nvidia.com/geforce-com/international/comparisons/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-siege-ambient-occlusion-interactive-comparison-005-hbao-plus-vs-ssbc.html

Love me some HBAO+.

 

[Always-honest]

Fantastic game that looks and runs absolutely beautifully on PS4. Unfortunate that there doesn't seem to be much interest, it wouldn't appear that this game has very long legs.

Regardless I'll be playing it for quite some time. It fills a gap in the PS4's library of a hardcore competitive shooter that's more about positioning than it is simply outgunning.

Yep.

It's not a game you will use to show off the PS4 capabilities but the graphics are great for playing the game. Clean and it runs well.
The destruction is awesome!

I'm so in love with the Terrorist hunt in this game.

 

[Sky Saw]

Yep.

It's not a game you will use to show off the PS4 capabilities but the graphics are great for playing the game. Clean and it runs well.
The destruction is awesome!

I'm so in love with the Terrorist hunt in this game.

Isn't that mode 30fps on consoles? Seems really odd.

 

[Gold_Loot]

Isn't the game just online play? Offline with bots but no story mode like old R6.

No traditional story mode, but handful of missions to play and alot of terrorist hunt missions you can solo play.

This game is nothing short of fantastic. Anyone with Socom itch needs to pick this up, like now!

 

[Kralamoonard]

OP left out the most interesting and important finding from Dark10x!

I didn't leave it out, it's in the main body of OP lol, look:

I'll add it to the TLR though.

 

[Dictator93]

I didn't, it's in the OP lol

I'll add it to the TLR section if you want?

Oh yeah, I meant the summary section. Sorry hah.

 

[Aceofspades]

Great efforts by devs.

PS4>X1

 

[Sky Saw]

Great efforts by devs.

PS4>X1

You forgot a platform.

 

[Kralamoonard]

My biggest takeaway from this article though, and what I'm most happy with lol, is the AF increasing to 8x AF on PS4. It shows if things can get caught early on and bought to the attention of developers before release, things can change for the better.

 

[Shin-Ra]

From an image quality PoV I think this looks a lot better than Guerrilla's earlier perf-saving solution in Killzone: Shadow Fall multiplayer.

This'll also help push games toward UHD resolutions sooner.

edit: Shadow filtering is excellent too, even at lower resolutions it still looks good.

 

[Aceofspades]

You forgot a platform.

A capable PC will always be better than both, hell even better than their next gen successors.

 

[Halph n Halph]

Seems like the interest in R6S is quite low. A shame as the game itself is really damn good.

If it means that the sort of players that jump from AAA big budget to AAA big budget shooter while maintaining that ever important Kdr skip this game, I'm happy with that.
A solid community that play the game as intended is hopefully what we will end up with.
The destruction makes this the most next gen shooter out of them all and really adds a unique element to gameplay.

 

[cakely]

I'm relieved to see that the previously missing AF on the PS4 version was added in in the final version.

 

[Shin-Ra]

The quarter-res (4x)MSAA trick is detailed in this PDF:

http://advances.realtimerendering.c...siggraph2015_combined_final_footer_220dpi.pdf

 

[Anno]

LAN available on PC? That's a neat addition we don't see often enough anymore. Seems like it could be a fun LAN party game.

 

[Deleted member 325805]

I think it launched too closely to Battlefront and Fallout. I haven't seen much advertising for it in the States either outside of YouTube.

And Black Ops III, I generally only play one shooter at a time and CoD is always winning that battle.

 

[Always-honest]

Isn't that mode 30fps on consoles? Seems really odd.

Yes it is. Lots of ai i guess.
But i'm fine with 30 fps.

 

[t0rment]

are the graphics the same or better than the beta?

 

[Kralamoonard]

are the graphics the same or better than the beta?

Well the texture filtering on PS4 has improved which saw an increase from tri-linear in the beta to 8x AF, and Xbox One seeing an increase from 4x AF to 8x AF. Performance has also improved greatly. Other than that, nothing else stood out to me as being a big improvement. Others can correct me if I missed anything else.

 

[etta]

Did they measure input latency?
Th beta felt really laggy for me when it came to aiming. Slow ADS I understand, but the actual aiming, the moving of the R3 was really weird.

 

[Always-honest]

are the graphics the same or better than the beta?

It has improved. But don't expect Killzone graphics.

 

[Fezan]

Is it me or the PS4 footage looks washed out

 

[Javin98]

Great on the devs to implement 8x AF on both consoles. Perhaps DF should interview the devs soon as this is a very interesting case, especially on PS4. Would be nice to know what they did to get to 8x AF from trilinear filtering. Maybe we can finally get a definitive answer on what is really going on with the missing AF in several PS4 games.

 

[Hugh Swank]

"So, at 1080p, we're technically seeing 960x540 with 2x MSAA. Interestingly, it would appear that the image is processed before being upscaled on Xbox One resulting in blurrier HUD elements and menu text."

Really DF? I guess I gotta get my magnifying glass out and take a closer look at that HUD & text, cause in the many hours of play I've logged in R6, the HUD & text has looked pretty darn sharp & focused to me.

 

[HTupolev]

The quarter-res (4x)MSAA trick is detailed in this PDF:

http://advances.realtimerendering.c...siggraph2015_combined_final_footer_220dpi.pdf

Sebbbi's talk that you linked is about storing UVs instead of sampled texture in g-buffer, eliminating the issue of fat g-buffer and, since the UVs can be interpolated, allowing you to (to an extent) use MSAA samples instead of full pixels.

The description in the DF article sounds like they're just talking about using temporal reprojection to reconstruct a 1080p buffer. Although, it's not entirely clear; I'm not sure what "2x ordered grid MSAA" means (split each pixel into a quad and alternate between kitty-corner pairs each frame?), and of course sampling for shading and texture filtering could get problematic if the samples are just ordinary MSAA samples.

 

[Shin-Ra]

"So, at 1080p, we're technically seeing 960x540 with 2x MSAA. Interestingly, it would appear that the image is processed before being upscaled on Xbox One resulting in blurrier HUD elements and menu text."

Really DF? I guess I gotta get my magnifying glass out and take a closer look at that HUD & text, cause in the many hours of play I've logged in R6, the HUD & text has looked pretty darn sharp & focused to me.

I noticed it in the console screenshots thread, there's clearly extra scaling with sharpening artefacts on the Xbone HUD.

 

[nOoblet16]

I noticed it in the console screenshots thread, there's clearly extra scaling with sharpening artefacts on the Xbone HUD.

*Cue post about how you have zoomed in 400% to nitpick.*

 

[Ushay]

Looks like the team did a very good job with this one, some clever implementations of MSAA and scaling that appears to have paid off, well done.

I noticed it in the console screenshots thread, there's clearly extra scaling with sharpening artefacts on the Xbone HUD.

Obviously to compensate for the lower resolution, but's very nicely done.

 

[Hugh Swank]

I noticed it in the console screenshots thread, there's clearly extra scaling with sharpening artefacts on the Xbone HUD.

As I said, lemme run and grab my magnifying glass and inspect the HUD on my TV screen from about 2" away.

But I suppose that's the point of a technical analysis, so it is what it is. I just find it amusing.

 

[Shin-Ra]

As I said, lemme run and grab my magnifying glass and inspect the HUD on my TV screen from about 2" away.

But I suppose that's the point of a technical analysis, so it is what it is. I just find it amusing.

Stuff like the HUD crosshairs tends to be quite noticeable if you just play regular monitor-distance.

 

[VanWinkle]

So, I feel like I must be having a little trouble understanding the resolution stuff. The game is running at 540p with 2xMSAA? Am I reading that right? Like, PS Vita resolution? Surely that can't be right? I mean, the image quality doesn't look great, but it certainly looks better than a Vita game with 4xMSAA on a TV.

As I said, lemme run and grab my magnifying glass and inspect the HUD on my TV screen from about 2" away.

But I suppose that's the point of a technical analysis, so it is what it is. I just find it amusing.

It's not amusing. It's just a technical detail and a difference, so they put it in. It's a negligible difference, but it's technically there.

 

[Hugh Swank]

Stuff like the HUD crosshairs tends to be quite noticeable if you just play regular monitor-distance.

That's my point though, I've played many hours of R6 Siege (46" HDTV about 6' away) and the HUD looks perfectly clean & clear to me.

I just feel that DF calling it "Blurry", is reaching a bit to find problems. I would venture to say that most people playing the game on a TV from an average distance of 6' - 10' would say the HUD looked just fine. Just my opinion, again, I realize it is a technical analysis.

 

[Beer Monkey]

RS Vegas was sooo good last generation. Interest level rising.

 

[Shin-Ra]

That's my point though, I've played many hours of R6 Siege (46" HDTV about 6' away) and the HUD looks perfectly clean & clear to me.

I just feel that DF calling it "Blurry", is reaching a bit to find problems. I would venture to say that most people playing the game on a TV from an average distance of 6' - 10' would say the HUD looked just fine. Just my opinion, again, I realize it is a technical analysis.

Most people probably haven't set their TV to not overscan so the difference would be even less noticeable.

But for those playing on monitors it's a worthy mention.

 

[etta]

So, I feel like I must be having a little trouble understanding the resolution stuff. The game is running at 540p with 2xMSAA? Am I reading that right? Like, PS Vita resolution? Surely that can't be right? I mean, the image quality doesn't look great, but it certainly looks better than a Vita game with 4xMSAA on a TV.



It's not amusing. It's just a technical detail and a difference, so they put it in. It's a negligible difference, but it's technically there.

I believe they render the resolution at 540p, apply 2xMSAA, then reconstruct it to render at 1080p.
AA is "built in" the render, instead of applying it afterwards. But I only glanced over the article, so not 100% sure.

 

[The Elite]

RS Vegas was sooo good last generation. Interest level rising.

It's less like Vegas and more like Rogue Spear and R6-3.

 

[Halph n Halph]

Is it me or the PS4 footage looks washed out

PS4 and pc colour palette are identical. What you are seeing is xbox suffering crushed blacks, killing detail and popping colours.
It's actually detrimental to this game due to the many darkened corners where enemies can hide.

 

[Broadbandito]

Seems like the interest in R6S is quite low. A shame as the game itself is really damn good.

It was much lower before release, word of mouth has been really good for this game. A bunch of friends I never expected to get into a game like this bought it and love it.