Support NeoGAF

[Chozofication_]

Yes. One gets loaded, not all at once.

The room you're in doesn't just vanish when it loads the next. Thats 2 not 1.

Tell me why we arent comparing fps to fps again?

 

[Chozofication_]

That's silly to say, normal maps are cool for sure but you do want as many polygons as you can push underneath too, if they could they would have used tons more so the models of Doom 3 for example would be closer to the PC version rather than so low poly and angular.

The pc version is hideously low poly as well.

 

[Alexios]

The pc version is hideously low poly as well.

Not as low poly as on Xbox. Why's this a reply to what I said anyway? That guy talked as if because you can do normal maps you don't have to push high polygon numbers when it's far from the truth, ideally you want both, even as normal maps were being used polycounts of later generations kept increasing too, and now normal maps are being phased out in favor of actual geometry enhancing techniques like tesselation too.

 

[Chozofication_]

Not as low poly as on Xbox.

I think it is I mean the guys you first meet on the ship have the same octagonal heads on pc. Maybe theres a subtle difference but not a big one

Alexios you're getting me confused with another poster. Polys > normal maps that gen.

 

[Alexios]

Right, page changed and I thought it was a continuation of the same discussion, soz. Edited to "that guy" instead of "you".

 

[EightBit Man]

The room you're in doesn't just vanish when it loads the next. Thats 2 not 1.

Did I ever say that? I'm talking about the moving in and out of data per part of a area; I'm talking about the amount of rooms that gets loaded, and that's one per moving towards said room.

 

[Chozofication_]

Did I ever say that? I'm talking about the moving in and out of data per part of a area; I'm talking about the amount of rooms that gets loaded, and that's one per moving towards said room.

So yeah, i guess i don't see your point.

It's still a less constrained game than a fighter so *shrug*

See you're making it seem like I'm downplaying doa because someone chose to make the silly comparison. In fact i may play doa 2 ultimate on my 360 tonight.

 

[Romulus]

That's silly to say, normal maps are cool for sure but you do want as many polygons as you can push underneath too, if they could they would have used tons more so the models of Doom 3 for example would be closer to the PC version rather than so low poly and angular.

I never said more polygons weren't better, they are like for like. You're completely missing my point. Do you have any comparisons for Doom PC and Xbox, because the ones I've seen are really close on low settings, no one expects much more considering the Xbox hardware.

My point is that normal maps are taxing, why do people expect Xbox to push more or even equal polys in addition to normal maps and typically higher resolution textures?

 

[EightBit Man]

So yeah, i guess i don't see your point.

We probably mean the same thing. Don't worry about it. It's not the amount of rooms or loadings then, but how much geometry the GameCube can handle at once. And that is far, far less than a single stage in Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate.

It's still a less constrained game than a fighter so *shrug*

We're not going to agree on this one! Certainly not in the case of the Xbox Dead or Alive games with their destructible geometry.

 

[Romulus]

We probably mean the same thing. Don't worry about it. It's not the amount of rooms or loadings then, but how much geometry the GameCube can handle at once. And that is far, far less than a single stage in Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate.



We're not going to agree on this one! Certainly not in the case of the Xbox Dead or Alive games with their destructible geometry.

Do you know based on the video, if it's just loading one room at a time or is the previous room still loaded? That's what I'm wondering about is the previous area. Not sure why they load more than one room, that actually makes the developer look less efficient.

 

[GorillaChilla]

IMO the dreamcast had the best launch out of all of the consoles during that gen. It died right after but that launch window has not bean beat. They say Software sells hardware but if that were the case the Dreamcast should have sold gangbusters.

 

[Alexios]

Do you know based on the video, if it's just loading one room at a time or is the previous room still loaded? That's what I'm wondering about is the previous area. Not sure why they load more than one room, that actually makes the developer look less efficient.

Loading takes time, they didn't want pauses and hitches and waiting so the game begins loading the next area in the background before you reach and open the door (and that still causes the door to take a while to open sometimes). That's not less efficient. Also loading it doesn't mean it's rendering it fully, culling could still take effect (dunno).

 

[Romulus]

Loading takes time, they didn't want pauses and hitches and waiting so the game begins loading the next area in the background before you reach and open the door (and that still causes the door to take a while to open sometimes). That's not less efficient. Also loading it doesn't mean it's rendering it fully, culling can still take effect (though who knows maybe it does).

And when it shuts, the previous area isn't rendered?

 

[EightBit Man]

Do you know based on the video, if it's just loading one room at a time or is the previous room still loaded? That's what I'm wondering about is the previous area.

One. Imagine a room with three doors; when you move towards one, the previous one (the one you entered the three-doors room with) gets out of memory to make room for the one you're moving towards to. So, Chozofication_ is right when he refers to two rooms at once (the one you're about to leave and the one you're about to enter). These doors are cleverly masking the GameCube's memory limitations by restricting you with them.

 

[Romulus]

One. Imagine a room with three doors; when you move towards one, the previous one (the one you entered the three-doors room with) gets out of memory to make room for the one you're moving towards to. So, Chozofication_ is right when he refers to two rooms at once (the one you're about to leave and the one you're about to enter). These doors are cleverly masking the GameCube's memory limitations by restricting you with them.

And that makes sense, what would the developers have to prove by loading more rooms, except for arguing points on forums almost 20 years later.

 

[Aintitcool]

Metroid prime is citizen kane of vidja games. What is halo?

 

[V4skunk]

But you've failed to prove anything is pushing more polygons than Xbox on a like for like basis. You keep saying "more polygon pushing power" without any real comparison. All the Xbox games we talk about are using normal maps, which are very taxing but greatly reduces polygons, so how would that even make sense to have games built around normal maps with more polygons? You don't have a basic understanding of how it works. It's like bragging about your car using more gasoline to someone with a hybrid car, yet the electric car, in this case, is faster and more efficient with better range. Btw I prefer gas.

Yeah the xbox takes advantage of its superior gpu tech and directx sfx to do things like normal maps. It is also why multiplats looked much better with Splinter cell being a good example. Directx was very easy to use and all of the graphical effects were ready to go and did not need to be programmed like on ps2 and GC saving huge amounts of time and money.

I'll post some xbox videos tomorrow for a comparison showing GCs superior polygon pushing power.

 

[Negotiator]

all of the graphical effects were ready to go and did not need to be programmed like on ps2 and GC saving huge amounts of time and money.

Uhm, that's the exact opposite of a programmable pixel shader pipeline.

Pixel shaders are not "canned" visual effects, unlike the fixed-function T&L pipeline (GeForce 2 series).

 

[Trimesh]

And when it shuts, the previous area isn't rendered?

I can't think of any reason to render it, since once the door closes you aren't going to be able to see it - but you just won't throw it away immediately in case the player turns around and goes back through the door they just entered through. For a trivial example, suppose you have a room "A" connected via a door to a corridor "B" with another door at the far end going to another room "C".

You start in A, so obviously the geometry has to be loaded for that - since in our contrived example, the only exit is to B, you can immediately start to preload that too, so you have A and B in RAM - now assume you go through the door to "B" - there is no load time, since it's already cached. At this point, the engine has no way of knowing if you are going to carry on down the corridor or turn back, so it maintains the status quo. If you DO turn back, then nothing needs to be done - the areas on both sides of the AB door are already loaded. If you instead walk down the corridor, then at some point the code will decide you are probably going to go through the door to C, so it will discard A and preload C. At this point, you will either go through the door to C or turn back - at which point the code will preload A again.

If you had more memory then you could get rid of the doors and just load sections of the map based on potential visibility from the current player location.

 

[polybius80]

That's silly to say, normal maps are cool for sure but you do want as many polygons as you can push underneath too, if they could they would have used tons more so the models of Doom 3 for example would be closer to the PC version rather than so low poly and angular.

diferent games allow more polygons than others they may be low poly but the detail on the surface its very good

a game like area 51 have more rounded models but that doesn't make it "look better" than doom

 

[Romulus]

Yeah the xbox takes advantage of its superior gpu tech and directx sfx to do things like normal maps. It is also why multiplats looked much better with Splinter cell being a good example. Directx was very easy to use and all of the graphical effects were ready to go and did not need to be programmed like on ps2 and GC saving huge amounts of time and money.

I'll post some xbox videos tomorrow for a comparison showing GCs superior polygon pushing power.

I mean we already know the main Xbox games. If there are examples where they didn't use normal maps to compare, that would be great.

 

[JordanN]

That's silly to say, normal maps are cool for sure but you do want as many polygons as you can push underneath too, if they could they would have used tons more so the models of Doom 3 for example would be closer to the PC version rather than so low poly and angular.

I agree with this.

People always assume normal maps is always a substitute for more polygons, but that's not true.

Even in VFX/Cinematic Movie production, characters with millions of polygons are still given bump maps to help improve shading quality.

It's true that games still use normal maps to cope for the fact they can't render the same dense geometry found in film, but it displays an obvious weakness when you look at the silhouette of an object.

The object on the left has a bump map whereas the one on the right is using real geometry to displace the objects' surface. Look at the shadows of both objects and the normal maps don't actually alter the sphere's shape whereas the sphere that does have a high poly surface does.

Also, in some cases, it's actually cheaper to render objects with more geometry than use bump maps. You need to increase texture resolution detail which consumes more memory and requires more calculations depending on how complex a shader/material network is.

 

[Romulus]

I agree with this.

People always assume normal maps is always a substitute for more polygons, but that's not true.

Even in VFX/Cinematic Movie production, characters with millions of polygons are still given bump maps to help improve shading quality.

It's true that games still use normal maps to cope for the fact they can't render the same dense geometry found in film, but it displays an obvious weakness when you look at the silhouette of an object.

The object on the left has a bump map whereas the one on the right is using real geometry to displace the objects' surface. Look at the shadows of both objects and the normal maps don't actually alter the sphere's shape whereas the sphere that does have a high poly surface does.

This is 100% true in film and games.

And normal maps can cut down a scenes polygon count dramatically.

 

[Esppiral]

I don't get why everyone is assuming that because the Xbox can use bump maps it automatically renders less polys on screen lol., that's absurd.

 

[V4skunk]

Uhm, that's the exact opposite of a programmable pixel shader pipeline.

Pixel shaders are not "canned" visual effects, unlike the fixed-function T&L pipeline (GeForce 2 series).

I worded it wrong. On xbox things like normal and bump mapping are part of the direct library. Much easier to implement than programming effects from scratch,like on GC and ps2.

 

[V4skunk]

I mean we already know the main Xbox games. If there are examples where they didn't use normal maps to compare, that would be great.

But what is the point in comparing a weak xbox game that doesn't utilise the gpu? It's like using multiplats as a power benchmark.

 

[Chozofication_]

I don't get why everyone is assuming that because the Xbox can use bump maps it automatically renders less polys on screen lol., that's absurd.

When normal maps are used, the games will have less geometric detail.

The whole point of normals is to get a *lower* approximation of a geometric mesh.

In the case of Riddick for example, they use that processing savings on stencil shadows.

 

[Romulus]

But what is the point in comparing a weak xbox game that doesn't utilise the gpu? It's like using multiplats as a power benchmark.

I understand, it's just hard to get a like for like to really make a comparison.

 

[Romulus]

I don't get why everyone is assuming that because the Xbox can use bump maps it automatically renders less polys on screen lol., that's absurd.

It's not automatically. But many of the big name titles are full of normal maps. Normal maps can allow a low poly asset more detail.

It has nothing to with xbox's capabilities to render high poly games though, there are examples of that.

 

[Journey]

Gamecube came the closest, but when it comes to visual effects, it could not match Xbox lighting, shadow and just sheer horsepower.

What made Xbox stand out? Its GeForce 3 lighting architecture which was above anything else at the time. Self shadowing, was probably what stood out the most in Xbox games, the world just looks alive when lighting behaves closer to what we see around us, that's why Ray Tracing is such a big deal, it's all about the lighting and nothing in the 6th gen comes close to Xbox.

Xbox games and their texture quality just stand out.

Art style is subjective and the only cubers defense since games can't compare on a technical level.

 

[Romulus]

For me, the xbox's lighting gave it one of the biggest advantages in any console generation. Just toggling the flashlight at night In halo, and seeing the way the light hit the textures was mind blowing at the time, and halo's lighting isn't as good as some other examples.

 

[pawel86ck]

For me, the xbox's lighting gave it one of the biggest advantages in any console generation. Just toggling the flashlight at night In halo, and seeing the way the light hit the textures was mind blowing at the time, and halo's lighting isn't as good as some other examples.

It wasnt necessary to use flashlight in halo 1, but I was using it anyway because textures with bump mapping looked jaw dropping that way. DX8 features were groundbreaking and could turn low poly game like Riddick into one of the most visally stunning games on 6'th gen. GC fans try to downplay DX8 importance because GC just cant compete in that area and it was evident when Splinter Cell games were ported to GC.

Metroid Prime 2 is a corridor shooter, without shaders, without dynamic shadows, with low resolution textures, and some really low poly character models (and there's no bump mapping to mask low poly models in this game) and yet some people consider it the most impressive 6'th FPS game. I have asked for metroid prime 2 screenshots two times already, and where are these impressive screenshots?

 

[V4skunk]

It wasnt necessary to use flashlight in halo 1, but I was using it anyway because textures with bump mapping looked jaw dropping that way. DX8 features were groundbreaking and could turn low poly game like Riddick into one of the most visally stunning games on 6'th gen. GC fans try to downplay DX8 importance because GC just cant compete in that area and it was evident in Splinter Cell games the most.

Metroid Prime 2 is a corridor shooter, without shaders, without dynamic shadows, with low resolution textures, and some really low poly character models (and there's no bump mapping to mask low poly models in this game) and yet some people consider it the most impressive 6'th FPS game

Metroid Prime 2 destroys Riddick and pretty much every other xbox game out there in geometry/polygon count. Even you just admitted Riddick is low poly.

 

[pawel86ck]

Metroid Prime 2 destroys Riddick and pretty much every other xbox game out there in geometry/polygon count. Even you just admitted Riddick is low poly.

Yes, Riddick has low poly models, but with DX8 featues these low poly models are masked and looks good (sometimes like real)

And with advanced lighting possible thanks to DX8 even simple room look extremely impressive

I was playing Riddick yesterday and it looks like an early 360/ps3 era game. On the other hand Metroid Prime 2 looked like PS2 game to me. I have provided screenshot to show what I mean and if these screenshots looks good to you then we have nothing to talk about because it looks like you can only ignore the reality. I have asked you for impressive metroid prime 2 screenshots, and you have posted videos from mario games.

 

[Esppiral]

I don't see the low poly anywhere in Riddick if anything looks higher poly than the average 6th gen game, but I guess we have to downplay Xbox somehow

 

[EightBit Man]

Metroid Prime 2 destroys Riddick and pretty much every other xbox game out there in geometry/polygon count.

Uhmmm.....no. It's a great game, don't get me wrong, but from a technical point of view this is absolute nonsense. Esppiral has shown this on the previous page already.

 

[Vorg]

I don't see the low poly anywhere in Riddick if anything looks higher poly than the average 6th gen game, but I guess we have to downplay Xbox somehow

But dude, have you SEEN Rogue Leader?

Jokes aside, this conversation is getting ridiculous. Riddick and Doom 3 look a generation beyond anything on gamecube. And for the people complaining about the graphics in Doom 3 PC, please get a grip. That game looked way beyond anything at the time and people were upgrading their PCs just to play it.

 

[Chozofication_]

Nasty modeling, same size or smaller environments, and runs at a not so stable 30fps compared to echoes 60. Prime 1 looks better.

Prime looks better in motion while riddick will look worse due to frame rate.

Not that this is the same situation, but it reminds me of 2007 with people posting their crysis screens at 2fps lol.

 

[Romulus]

Prime looks like it should run higher than 60fps actually considering all the tricks its using with low quality assets.

 

[Chozofication_]

But dude, have you SEEN Rogue Leader?

Jokes aside, this conversation is getting ridiculous. Riddick and Doom 3 look a generation beyond anything on gamecube. And for the people complaining about the graphics in Doom 3 PC, please get a grip. That game looked way beyond anything at the time and people were upgrading their PCs just to play it.

You're the one that needs a grip and are arguing like this is some war lol. You dont want to look outside your box.

 

[Vorg]

You're the one that needs a grip and are arguing like this is some war lol. You dont want to look outside your box.

Actually this is pure projection on your part, and pretty ironic too. I'm familiar with all of these games and I think metroid prime is a much better game than either Riddick or Doom 3. That said, when it comes to graphics, it's not on the same league. You're the one who refuses to acknowledge that when it's been shown multiple times with screenshots in the thread. Even with your own screenshots above, even if it wasn't intentional.

 

[Chozofication_]

Vorg

Get a grip yet?

This thread needs shut down if you're all going to argue like shouting baboons

 

[Vorg]

Nice cherrypicking.

 

[Chozofication_]

Actually this is pure projection on your part, and pretty ironic too. I'm familiar with all of these games and I think metroid prime is a much better game than either Riddick or Doom 3. That said, when it comes to graphics, it's not on the same league. You're the one who refuses to acknowledge that when it's been shown multiple times with screenshots in the thread. Even with your own screenshots above, even if it wasn't intentional.

Which one of us has praised xbox games like gaiden, ralli, conker, doa?

Blocked.

 

[Vorg]

Guess I hurt your feelings. I'm sorry .

 

[Romulus]

I'm going to boot up Riddick again. To me, it seemed to hit above 30fps at times, not below the other day. Not sure if this is one of those things were people "sneak" in a negative aspect hoping it's not confirmed.

 

[pawel86ck]

Nasty modeling, same size or smaller environments, and runs at a not so stable 30fps compared to echoes 60. Prime 1 looks better.

Prime looks better in motion while riddick will look worse due to frame rate.

And you suggest Metroid Prime 2 models looks better?

.

Levels in Metroid Prime 2 are also small

And now lets look at textures

Stone texture in Metroid Prime 2 and Halo 1

Ground texture

Metroid Prime 2 is not the best looking FPS game on 6'th gen, IMO even "Black" on PS2 looks better than Metroid Prime 2. If you want to talk about graphics there's no comparsion to halo games, not only halo games use DX8 to the extreme but also feature much bigger levels so it's possible to use vehicles and even flying ships sometimes unlike metroid prime 2.

 

[Romulus]

I always thought Republic Commando and Metroid had a similar look. This is a game with larger levels, and a squad shooter with more enemies on screen, but lower framerate. Some of the effects were really good at the time. It used some of the more modern shader tech and normal maps.

One thing that really bothered me is one of the levels had strange, almost unfinished texture work. Other than that, a really good looking and playing game for the time. Now, both it and Metroid look kinda to me, that visual style just didn't hold up well imo.

 

[Romulus]

I just tested Riddick, this is an unlocked framerate. It's hitting 60fps pretty damn well with a few dips in the 6-7 combat encounters I had. I'd guess 50-60fps The biggest problem is the controls are kinda jerky which hinders the smoothness.

But lol 30fps with dips. No way.

pawel86ck I'd be interested to see if your results are similar.

 

[pawel86ck]

I just tested Riddick, this is an unlocked framerate. It's hitting 60fps pretty damn well with a few dips in the 6-7 combat encounters I had. I'd guess 50-60fps The biggest problem is the controls are kinda jerky which hinders the smoothness.

But lol 30fps with dips. No way.

pawel86ck I'd be interested to see if your results are similar.

I have played Riddick yesterday and I dont remember performance problems although resolution dips below >480p if you will use flashlight. When it comes to aiming in this game, shooting mechanics has some weight to it to make aiming harder.

BTW. guys have you tested xbox emulator? It looks like some games are playable already