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[Bar81]

This seems more like an optimization problem and a game that's been delayed and gone through development hell more than anything else at least.

That is likely the issue and it's a shame that Ubisoft is not letting the game be properly polished and is instead continuing to focus the majority of its resources on (poorly) marketing the shit out of an unfinished game.

 

[R_Deckard]

I remember when only PC gamers cared about graphics over gameplay.

Never been true, ALL gamers care about Graphics just some don't know anything about what they are looking at and follow the herd, Resolution (and FPS) is the new easy thing to talk about and berate!

 

[big_z]

Nothing has changed. When I was a kid, we argued over whether Mode 7 was better than Blast Processing. Now it's just comparing pixel counts.

ive been gaming since the Atari days and the console wars have changed a lot. graphics were rarely brought up back in the day. sure there was the occasional this version looks or sounds better but it never got much deeper than that. most arguments were about which console has better games(exclusives typically unless 3rd party games differed like Aladdin). it was largely in good fun and even though you might be a Nintendo kid you would still play your sega friends consoles and enjoy yourself.

in the 32/64bit days specs were brought up a bit more but arguments usually fell back to the lineups since they varied quite a bit between consoles. the same can be said about the generation that followed. people would compare differences between versions but a vast majority didn't care enough and were fine with the ps2 version.

this generation however things have changed. people have focused on the hardware specs, resolution and frame rates. the games have taken a major back seat and people act like if they even come in contact with the opposing console they'll have to go home and lash themselves for sinning. childish behaviour and false entitlement runs rampant. things have become very polar and very negative. its like youtube comments, anywhere you go someone is trolling/dumping on your console and you feel bad about your purchase. it sucks the fun out of gaming.

 

[DrTrouserPlank]

woahh below £40! where did you pre-order it?

Tesco Direct with code TDX-HQ9T. New customers only (just make a new account)

 

[R_Deckard]

ive been gaming since the Atari days and the console wars have changed a lot. graphics were rarely brought up back in the day. sure there was the occasional this version looks or sounds better but it never got much deeper than that. most arguments were about which console has better games(exclusives typically unless 3rd party games differed like Aladdin). it was largely in good fun and even though you might be a Nintendo kid you would still play your sega friends consoles and enjoy yourself.

in the 32/64bit days specs were brought up a bit more but arguments usually fell back to the lineups since they varied quite a bit between consoles. the same can be said about the generation that followed. people would compare differences between versions but a vast majority didn't care enough and were fine with the ps2 version.

this generation however things have changed. people have focused on the hardware specs, resolution and frame rates. the games have taken a major back seat and people act like if they even come in contact with the opposing console they'll have to go home and lash themselves for sinning. childish behaviour and false entitlement runs rampant. things have become very polar and very negative. its like youtube comments, anywhere you go someone is trolling/dumping on your console and you feel bad about your purchase. it sucks the fun out of gaming.

War Has changed!!

 

[BuggeryBugz]

ive been gaming since the Atari days and the console wars have changed a lot. graphics were rarely brought up back in the day. sure there was the occasional this version looks or sounds better but it never got much deeper than that. most arguments were about which console has better games(exclusives typically unless 3rd party games differed like Aladdin). it was largely in good fun and even though you might be a Nintendo kid you would still play your sega friends consoles and enjoy yourself.

in the 32/64bit days specs were brought up a bit more but arguments usually fell back to the lineups since they varied quite a bit between consoles. the same can be said about the generation that followed. people would compare differences between versions but a vast majority didn't care enough and were fine with the ps2 version.

this generation however things have changed. people have focused on the hardware specs, resolution and frame rates. the games have taken a major back seat and people act like if they even come in contact with the opposing console they'll have to go home and lash themselves for sinning. childish behaviour and false entitlement runs rampant. things have become very polar and very negative. its like youtube comments, anywhere you go someone is trolling/dumping on your console and you feel bad about your purchase. it sucks the fun out of gaming.

Gamers have different priorities. While I agree with you, best thing to do is not read these resolution threads. Negativity galore in here.

 

[Cave Johnson]

That is likely the issue and it's a shame that Ubisoft is not letting the game be properly polished and is instead continuing to focus the majority of its resources on (poorly) marketing the shit out of an unfinished game.

Have you seen the company's new programme when it comes to game design? One of which is to focus on "long hours" and "low-cost features" for ALL of their upcoming open world games.

 

[SapientWolf]

ive been gaming since the Atari days and the console wars have changed a lot. graphics were rarely brought up back in the day. sure there was the occasional this version looks or sounds better but it never got much deeper than that. most arguments were about which console has better games(exclusives typically unless 3rd party games differed like Aladdin). it was largely in good fun and even though you might be a Nintendo kid you would still play your sega friends consoles and enjoy yourself.

in the 32/64bit days specs were brought up a bit more but arguments usually fell back to the lineups since they varied quite a bit between consoles. the same can be said about the generation that followed. people would compare differences between versions but a vast majority didn't care enough and were fine with the ps2 version.

this generation however things have changed. people have focused on the hardware specs, resolution and frame rates. the games have taken a major back seat and people act like if they even come in contact with the opposing console they'll have to go home and lash themselves for sinning. childish behaviour and false entitlement runs rampant. things have become very polar and very negative. its like youtube comments, anywhere you go someone is trolling/dumping on your console and you feel bad about your purchase. it sucks the fun out of gaming.

I remember getting a death threat on Usenet for saying that Zelda looked better than Metal Gear Solid.

 

[Kintaro]

People have had a pretty reasonable expectation of PS4 games being 1080p.

Including Watch Dogs being 900p and the rest of the games releasing in May there's only 2 out of roughly 67 PS4 games released in NA that are 900p with the rest being 1080p. The other one of those was a 900p 60fps launch title. That's a huge streak that Ubisoft is breaking. It's completely acceptable that anyone who bought a PS4 up to this point would be surprised by this. Not to mention that at this point Watch Dogs is not a particularly impressive looking game graphics-wise.

This seems more like an optimization problem and a game that's been delayed and gone through development hell more than anything else at least.

It is still perfectly reasonable to expect that PS4 games coming out will continue to be 1080p unless there is a drastic shift in the average resolution in games. 2 out of 67 not being 1080p is not a trend.

How many of those games feature as big of an open world Watch Dogs does with as much content as Watch Dogs seems to offer? Don't even let "InFamous" slip out of your mouth either.

First open world game. These games push consoles. It's not a surprise.

 

[Its Quite Toasty]

So it's either sony lied, has marketers that don't know how to read or type, or was given false information by ubi. Anyway you cut it the situation is just shitty.

 

[geordiemp]

How many of those games feature as big of an open world Watch Dogs does with as much content as Watch Dogs seems to offer? Don't even let "InFamous" slip out of your mouth either.

First open world game. These games push consoles. It's not a surprise.

Correct, first open world game other than infamous 1080p and Creed black flag 1080p.

hmmm, dos not read right, so OK,

"first open world game where we cannot mention the other 2 open world 1080p games..."

That's better.

 

[Kintaro]

Correct, first open world game other than infamous 1080p and Creed black flag 1080p.

hmmm, dos not read right, so OK,

"first open world game where we cannot mention the other 2 open world 1080p games..."

That's better.

And Assassin's Creed was 900p (which no one noticed) until patched. But sure, throw in Assassin's Creed. Got me there. With its empty water and....yeah.

Do we really want to argue that AC4 does as much on screen as Watch Dogs does? Neither inFamous or AC4 looks as dense as WD does right now.

 

[NHale]

So it's either sony lied, has marketers that don't know how to read or type, or was given false information by ubi. Anyway you cut it the situation is just shitty.

People that write that text are usually someone that don't even know what they are writing. So probably copy-pasted thinking it was always the same.

I doubt Sony would lie just to get the backlash when the truth come out or that Ubisoft would give wrong info to Sony.

 

[danwarb]

wow hahahaha

did not expect 900p for this game on PS4. This game has just had bad (on a technical level) written on it since its re-reveal.

Nah, it looks pretty good. You'd think it'd be console CPU limited with it being a fairly complex game. 30fps makes sense. There's obviously much more going on than in AC or SS.

There's no need to shit on it without playing it. I'll go for the cheaper PC version at 60fps, 1080p, extra detail.

 

[In-Famous]

Tesco Direct with code TDX-HQ9T. New customers only (just make a new account)

Thank you.
I just placed my order and cancelled my previous order from Game.
I Cant believe how shops here in the UK are charging more for PS4 / XO games.

Anyways cant wait to try Watch Dogs, the resolution doesn't really bother me, as long as the story and the experience are solid, 900p is fine with me.

 

[travisbickle]

ive been gaming since the Atari days and the console wars have changed a lot. graphics were rarely brought up back in the day. sure there was the occasional this version looks or sounds better but it never got much deeper than that. most arguments were about which console has better games(exclusives typically unless 3rd party games differed like Aladdin). it was largely in good fun and even though you might be a Nintendo kid you would still play your sega friends consoles and enjoy yourself.

in the 32/64bit days specs were brought up a bit more but arguments usually fell back to the lineups since they varied quite a bit between consoles. the same can be said about the generation that followed. people would compare differences between versions but a vast majority didn't care enough and were fine with the ps2 version.

this generation however things have changed. people have focused on the hardware specs, resolution and frame rates. the games have taken a major back seat and people act like if they even come in contact with the opposing console they'll have to go home and lash themselves for sinning. childish behaviour and false entitlement runs rampant. things have become very polar and very negative. its like youtube comments, anywhere you go someone is trolling/dumping on your console and you feel bad about your purchase. it sucks the fun out of gaming.

do you know what also happened over this period?

You grew up.

Kids are still kids, my nephews don't care who has what console, they occasionally argue which one has the best games, and they had a few funny jokes about the Xbox One at Christmas but that's it.

You're on a forum with predominately adult males who bitch and complain about the games industry, and trust me adults bitched and moaned back in the Atari days, my mother worked in IT she's talked about it.

Adults are going to criticise other people's choices in tech, from TVs to games consoles, because they would choose the product for certain reasons, but you choose it for other reasons. You are never going to buy the best of the best there is no such thing.

 

[KORNdoggy]

And Assassin's Creed was 900p (which no one noticed) until patched. But sure, throw in Assassin's Creed. Got me there. With its empty water and....yeah.

Do we really want to argue that AC4 does as much on screen as Watch Dogs does? Neither inFamous or AC4 looks as dense as WD does right now.

what is this extra stuff watchdogs does that warrents the excessive CPU usage and that apparently looks so much more impressive? i'm genuinely curious becasue i'm not seeing it. maybe it's their calculated wind system that pushes a can or leaf every once in a while? we've had fake wind systems that look better...one of which in AC4 black flag.

if you can fake it with better results, what do you gain from caluculating it dynamically?

 

[Scottiths]

Gamers have different priorities. While I agree with you, best thing to do is not read these resolution threads. Negativity galore in here.

But watching people fight over this is so entertaining! I dont really care about graphics much, but watching people who do count blades of grass and "jaggies" is hilarious.

 

[Chitown B]

You know, this actually brings up a very valid point. I'd like to see someone here take a stab at this?

Why are current gen consoles so much less powerful over their previous iterations. compared to console generations before. Especially given the incredibly wide gap between these consoles and the last gen.

In previous console generations, newer consoles were substantially more potent than past consoles and time elapsed between console generations was shorter, which makes the discrepancy even more egregious.

Because of the law of diminishing returns.

 

[Kinthalis]

what is this extra stuff watchdogs does that warrents the excessive CPU usage and that apparently looks so much more impressive? i'm genuinely curious becasue i'm not seeing it. maybe it's their calculated wind system that pushes a can or leaf every once in a while? we've had fake wind systems that look better...one of which in AC4 black flag.

if you can fake it with better results, what do you gain from caluculating it dynamically?

We won't know for sure until we get our hands on the game, but JUST going by what we know of infamous and the trailers we've seen of Watch_Dogs:

• The city appears much more dynamic, with lots of interactive elements thanks to the hacking mechanic. I don't recall any such interactivity in I:SS, with the exception of a few areas featuring destructible structures.
  
• The city is a lot more dense in terms of AI. There are a ton of cars and pedestrians, all running pathfinding algorithms, AI, animations, as well as having hooks in generated data that ties into the hacking system and likely quest based mechanisms in the game. This NPC density and complexity is probably the biggest difference, IMHO.

So you have a limited amount of CPU resources. You know some of it will be used up purely by managing the rendering systems. Everything else that requires the CPU will have to run on whatever is left. But it's very difficult to have these processes always be balanced, specially in an open world game where complex interactions cna arise at any moment.

Unless you are willing to hire 1,000 guys and spend the next 10 years in development in order to keep these things as balanced as possible, and even then, likely still have to make cut backs in terms of game/level design/mesh/lighting/shadowing complexity, there are going to be times when one system is asking too much of the CPU and the other system will suffer.

 

[SapientWolf]

We won't know for sure until we get our hands on the game, but JUST going by what we know of infamous and the trailers we've seen of Watch_Dogs:

• The city appears much more dynamic, with lots of interactive elements thanks to the hacking mechanic. I don't recall any such interactivity in I:SS, with the exception of a few areas featuring destructible structures.
  
• The city is a lot more dense in terms of AI. There are a ton of cars and pedestrians, all running pathfinding algorithms, AI, as well as having ties in to in depth data that ties into the hacking system and likely quest based mechanisms in the game. This is probably the biggest difference, IMHO.

P2P drop in multiplayer might have a hand in that too.

Going from 1080p to 900p is a little harder to justify though. Maybe they have a really sexy anti aliasing solution, because 900p with no jaggies will look far better than 1080p with aliasing on an HDTV. Doesn't make me optimistic about the PC performance either.

 

[GameSeeker]

We won't know for sure until we get our hands on the game, but JUST going by what we know of infamous and the trailers we've seen of Watch_Dogs:

• The city appears much more dynamic, with lots of interactive elements thanks to the hacking mechanic. I don't recall any such interactivity in I:SS, with the exception of a few areas featuring destructible structures.
  
• The city is a lot more dense in terms of AI. There are a ton of cars and pedestrians, all running pathfinding algorithms, AI, as well as having ties in to in depth data that ties into the hacking system and likely quest based mechanisms in the game. This is probably the biggest difference, IMHO.

None of that is next-gen gameplay. Remember the game runs on both the 360 & PS3 and plays the same. Next-gen only gives you a few extra NPC's, trees, cars etc. for flavor, it doesn't change the gameplay. And the hacking elements, from the trailers, isn't much. You identify a target (ATM, phone, computer, etc) and press your Hack button.

 

[nynt9]

None of that is next-gen gameplay. Remember the game runs on both the 360 & PS3 and plays the same. Next-gen only gives you a few extra NPC's, trees, cars etc. for flavor, it doesn't change the gameplay. And the hacking elements, from the trailers, isn't much. You identify a target (ATM, phone, computer, etc) and press your Hack button.

Actually the blog post I linked in the OP says that several gameplay elements like certain multiplayer modes are next gen only.

 

[DrROBschiz]

None of that is next-gen gameplay. Remember the game runs on both the 360 & PS3 and plays the same. Next-gen only gives you a few extra NPC's, trees, cars etc. for flavor, it doesn't change the gameplay. And the hacking elements, from the trailers, isn't much. You identify a target (ATM, phone, computer, etc) and press your Hack button.

DAT Cross Gen curse

Its clear that this game was never intended to get the resources need to maximize every version of the game

Get the PC Version i guess?

 

[Kinthalis]

P2P drop in multiplayer might have a hand in that too.

Going from 1080p to 900p is a little harder to justify though. Maybe they have a really sexy anti aliasing solution, because 900p with no jaggies will look far better than 1080p with aliasing on an HDTV. Doesn't make me optimistic about the PC performance either.

Yep that seamless multiplayer is yet another system that has to share CPU cycles with everything else.

You're right about dropping the rez. Usually resolution increases are hardest on the GPU, not the CPU. They might be using GPU compute resources maybe, and are freeing them in that way? I don't know.

 

[-griffy-]

And Assassin's Creed was 900p (which no one noticed) until patched.

Not even close to true. They said it was 900p before release, with a patch coming for 1080p. We all knew before, and comparing pre and post patch only made the 1080p benefit more apparent.

In fact, the one game that did have an unknown resolution issue at release, COD: Ghosts, was picked up on this very board before it was reported on or admitted to and fixed by Infinity Ward. Because people could tell it was a lower resolution than 1080p. So stop with that crap.

 

[Kintaro]

what is this extra stuff watchdogs does that warrents the excessive CPU usage and that apparently looks so much more impressive? i'm genuinely curious becasue i'm not seeing it. maybe it's their calculated wind system that pushes a can or leaf every once in a while? we've had fake wind systems that look better...one of which in AC4 black flag.

if you can fake it with better results, what do you gain from caluculating it dynamically?

As this point, I don't know what to tell you. I see Watch Dogs footage and I see a game that is packed with more npcs, more buildings, more objects, and more interactivity than either AC or I:SS. With integrated multiplayer (which I:SS lacks completely). And it looks great. As good as 2012? No. But it still looks great nonetheless.

It's really pretty clear to me and I really don't care too much for the game (will pick up at $20 maybe). Maybe they should have bumped it up to 1080p but added black bars or something.

Not even close to true. They said it was 900p before release, with a patch coming for 1080p. We all knew before, and comparing pre and post patch only made the 1080p benefit more apparent.

You know, you're right. We did know. My mistake. Know what is funny though? The bitching about the patch. Company fixes things and people still bitch.

AC4 still doesn't pack in as much as what WD is doing though. Who knows though. Maybe another patch is in the works for WD? That thread would be hilarious too.

 

[nynt9]

Seriously guys, read the link in the OP. Two gamemodes are missing in previous gen, one of which is pretty significant imo (seamless multiplayer)

The only missing modes on PS3 and Xbox 360 are the Decryption competitive multiplayer mode and the ability to free roam with multiple players (which Morin describes as more of a “bonus” than a core gameplay experience). But all the other online modes are fully intact.

 

[Kinthalis]

None of that is next-gen gameplay. Remember the game runs on both the 360 & PS3 and plays the same. Next-gen only gives you a few extra NPC's, trees, cars etc. for flavor, it doesn't change the gameplay. And the hacking elements, from the trailers, isn't much. You identify a target (ATM, phone, computer, etc) and press your Hack button.

We haven't seen the last gen versions yet. For all we know they might be fog worlds with 3 NPC's per block.