Microsofts Hunert Smoke
Banned
We'd prefer you didn't troll the forum.
It is widely known that the Base Xbox One is generally considered weaker than the PS4. In fact, the differences were over-blown during the early years this generation giving Microsoft a lot of flak and bad press. So this, was a big deal.
However, that's not the whole story, the Xbox One is actually more powerful in probably the area that counts the most, especially in still screenshots, foliage. Even Dynamic Foliage.
The graphics processing is a bit weaker, but not much weaker, than the PS4's, however the CPU is strong enough to make up the difference. One of the reasons why this advantage has been underutilized is because the tools in Xbox One Devkits are not too dissimilar to a closed PC dev kit, which like the 360, focused more on GPU than CPU, and Microsoft never really made a new kit from scratch focusing on CPU, hence why it was deemed cheaper and a better long-term strategy to release the powerful X which continued to focus on graphics instead of pure processing.
However, you can see the differences in power from how the Xbox One and PS4 handle dynamic foliage.
Here is an 2013 example comparing two 1st-part titles Ryse and Killzone:
Now you will notice that Ryse has several effects from lighting and more with it's foliage, which is also in various shades and the grass has dynamic animation. You can also see some shadowing.
The Killzone Screen mostly has minimal movement of foliage, and a lot of it is static, in some cases things move when you get near,. but generally stay static. There is an area in a more dense Forrest in Killzone with some incredible high resolution image quality and lighting, which is good for s still, however in motion that whole Forrest is still mostly just as static, and the lighting is baked going over the foliage in a pre-set pattern.
Here is a 2015 example comparing Uncharted 4 and Forza Horizon 3:
:
Uncharted 4's foliage looks like a very clean version of PS3 foliage. Very unrealistic looking, tons of static foliage that doesn't move, some have no lighting, heck Nathan running through the foliage is only met with maybe a 4-5 frame animation. Forza Horizon 3 has realistic trees blowing in the wind, and tons of shadow, lighting, and other effects, much more dynamic. Not to mention the wet effect from the water on the ground.
Of course those of you are likely still not yet ready to realize how the CPU is important for foliage based graphics, so here's a recent multi-platform game that's on both consoles, which will again show the major differences in foliage, Final Fantasy XV:
Now notice that on the PS4 screen on the right, the bushes don't animate anywere near as much, just only a slightly higher resolution. Some of the bushes don't animate at all during the actions. And the grass ground flooring isn't as detailed, less blades of grass overall. In fact, on the left Xbox shot the grass in patches are actually moving, while on the PS4 shot they move until a hit connects. and then stop.
Now you may be asking WHY AND HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?
Well simple, the Xbox One, as mentioned before, is actually around just as powerful than the PS4 with the CPU making up the difference, but the more powerful pure processing still has an advantage even then. Foliage changing shadows and lighting during rays or other environmental changes, detailed grass, trees, or bushes moving with the wind, this is all CPU intensive. GPU helps here sure, but all of the dynamic feature sets around foliage graphics are MOSTLY CPU bound.
This is why, that Foliage is better on average in Xbox games than PS4 games. While the PS4 will have in some cases, better image quality, and higher resolution models and even in cases, textures, in motion a lot of the environmental elements are generally static, have few frames of animation, or do have animations but they stop once things start happening on screen, or at least slow down. This is because the PS4's CPU isn't capable enough to handle a lot of CPU intensive tasks.
This is also why that Xbox One games that feature a ton of characters on screen usually run a bit better than the PS4 equivalent.
Foliage is very important, especially in exploration based games or RPGS. It really does add realism to the game world, and it seems that Microsoft aimed for that with the Xbox One. if Sony's 8GB GDDR5 luck hadn't have happened, that target would have had a greater effect. However, even with the PS4 currently more powerful than Base Xbox One the goal still shows in the results.
To be fair Sony has always had issues with foliage with their systems, usually focusing on resolution. While Xbox has always focused on trying to get as much going on in the environment as possible. Two different approaches, that aim to do two different things. Killzone Shadow Fall is still a great looking game even with its static elements, but Ryse is clearly the more dyamic game environmentally.
So I hope that I helped clarify just WHY the base Xbox One is the more powerful consoles for foliage and CPU bound effects.
However, that's not the whole story, the Xbox One is actually more powerful in probably the area that counts the most, especially in still screenshots, foliage. Even Dynamic Foliage.
The graphics processing is a bit weaker, but not much weaker, than the PS4's, however the CPU is strong enough to make up the difference. One of the reasons why this advantage has been underutilized is because the tools in Xbox One Devkits are not too dissimilar to a closed PC dev kit, which like the 360, focused more on GPU than CPU, and Microsoft never really made a new kit from scratch focusing on CPU, hence why it was deemed cheaper and a better long-term strategy to release the powerful X which continued to focus on graphics instead of pure processing.
However, you can see the differences in power from how the Xbox One and PS4 handle dynamic foliage.
Here is an 2013 example comparing two 1st-part titles Ryse and Killzone:
Now you will notice that Ryse has several effects from lighting and more with it's foliage, which is also in various shades and the grass has dynamic animation. You can also see some shadowing.
The Killzone Screen mostly has minimal movement of foliage, and a lot of it is static, in some cases things move when you get near,. but generally stay static. There is an area in a more dense Forrest in Killzone with some incredible high resolution image quality and lighting, which is good for s still, however in motion that whole Forrest is still mostly just as static, and the lighting is baked going over the foliage in a pre-set pattern.
Here is a 2015 example comparing Uncharted 4 and Forza Horizon 3:
Uncharted 4's foliage looks like a very clean version of PS3 foliage. Very unrealistic looking, tons of static foliage that doesn't move, some have no lighting, heck Nathan running through the foliage is only met with maybe a 4-5 frame animation. Forza Horizon 3 has realistic trees blowing in the wind, and tons of shadow, lighting, and other effects, much more dynamic. Not to mention the wet effect from the water on the ground.
Of course those of you are likely still not yet ready to realize how the CPU is important for foliage based graphics, so here's a recent multi-platform game that's on both consoles, which will again show the major differences in foliage, Final Fantasy XV:
Now notice that on the PS4 screen on the right, the bushes don't animate anywere near as much, just only a slightly higher resolution. Some of the bushes don't animate at all during the actions. And the grass ground flooring isn't as detailed, less blades of grass overall. In fact, on the left Xbox shot the grass in patches are actually moving, while on the PS4 shot they move until a hit connects. and then stop.
Now you may be asking WHY AND HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?
Well simple, the Xbox One, as mentioned before, is actually around just as powerful than the PS4 with the CPU making up the difference, but the more powerful pure processing still has an advantage even then. Foliage changing shadows and lighting during rays or other environmental changes, detailed grass, trees, or bushes moving with the wind, this is all CPU intensive. GPU helps here sure, but all of the dynamic feature sets around foliage graphics are MOSTLY CPU bound.
This is why, that Foliage is better on average in Xbox games than PS4 games. While the PS4 will have in some cases, better image quality, and higher resolution models and even in cases, textures, in motion a lot of the environmental elements are generally static, have few frames of animation, or do have animations but they stop once things start happening on screen, or at least slow down. This is because the PS4's CPU isn't capable enough to handle a lot of CPU intensive tasks.
This is also why that Xbox One games that feature a ton of characters on screen usually run a bit better than the PS4 equivalent.
Foliage is very important, especially in exploration based games or RPGS. It really does add realism to the game world, and it seems that Microsoft aimed for that with the Xbox One. if Sony's 8GB GDDR5 luck hadn't have happened, that target would have had a greater effect. However, even with the PS4 currently more powerful than Base Xbox One the goal still shows in the results.
To be fair Sony has always had issues with foliage with their systems, usually focusing on resolution. While Xbox has always focused on trying to get as much going on in the environment as possible. Two different approaches, that aim to do two different things. Killzone Shadow Fall is still a great looking game even with its static elements, but Ryse is clearly the more dyamic game environmentally.
So I hope that I helped clarify just WHY the base Xbox One is the more powerful consoles for foliage and CPU bound effects.
