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DF: Quantum Break PC vs XB1

Javin98

Banned
IIRC:
The volumetric shafts in Uncharted 3 in a number of scenes I looked at (I think the museum or temple scene at night? the one with all the guards that have it attached to their pistols) do not cast shadows and are not really spot light sources from what I saw. Rather, they are just screen space shafts eminating from a point on the screen. They only form intersectional rays and occlusion within screenspace boundaries facing the camera. So if the effect's source point is out of screenspace, or if the "light shaft" is perpendicular to the camera direction, it will not show off the "rays effect". Rather, it will just look like a coloured cone that can also go through geometry and look a bit weird. I think in those type of scenes where they have like 3 or 4 of them on screen, it is usually screen space effect. I have not seen all scenes in the game though!

Though! There is a traditional ray marched volumetric used in UC3. You can see it at the one boat area with all the waves at night or when you enter the ruins for the first time after coming out of the desert wandering area.

There appear to be two types: real and fake.
Yeah, I'm aware that there are screen space light shafts and true volumetric light shafts. Truth to be told, I'm now confused as hell by dr rus's earlier posts. I know how to tell screen space and volumetric light shafts apart, but his post was kinda complicated and now I'm confused if it's just that simple or if there's more to it than that. Just shows that I still have a lot to learn about all this. :p
 
Yeah, I'm aware that there are screen space light shafts and true volumetric light shafts. Truth to be told, I'm now confused as hell by dr rus's earlier posts. I know how to tell screen space and volumetric light shafts apart, but his post was kinda complicated and now I'm confused if it's just that simple or if there's more to it than that. Just shows that I still have a lot to learn about all this. :p

Which post of his?

And yeah, I am still learning new stuff all the time and being corrected by those who actually do this stuff for a living. :D No reason to be timid!

It should be nice though when this version presumably gets better (I hope!), and when UC4 is out, we can all post about their techniques and whatnot in the graphics thread.
 

Shin-Ra

Junior Member
If the overall impression is better, with minimal artefacting and great performance, losing some shadow casting situations seems like the way to go.
 

holygeesus

Banned
Is that 5/6th refresh rate fps cap for real?? watwatwat

Could that be because their desktop resolution is set to 50Hz. I have a display capable of 60Hz but if I set my desktop to 50 then that is the maximum framerate I get with v-sync enabled. UWP apps seem to run by default at your desktop resolution, maybe they also default to your displays refresh rate?
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Could that be because their desktop resolution is set to 50Hz. I have a display capable of 60Hz but if I set my desktop to 50 then that is the maximum framerate I get with v-sync enabled. UWP apps seem to run by default at your desktop resolution, maybe they also default to your displays refresh rate?
Definitely not the case (desktop being set to 50hz).
 

Javin98

Banned
Which post of his?

And yeah, I am still learning new stuff all the time and being corrected by those who actually do this stuff for a living. :D No reason to be timid!

It should be nice though when this version presumably gets better (I hope!), and when UC4 is out, we can all post about their techniques and whatnot in the graphics thread.
This post:

It would. But unless we're talking about some type of a pre-baked rendering (most of those in older games are pre-baked and can't be dynamic) the performance cost for such implementation would be enormous as you'll have to raytrace the whole scene with a pixel precision. There are other ways of doing this with better quality but they're not working well on GCN h/w.

Okay, maybe I misunderstood it completely. Is pre baked rendering referring to something else entirely? Or does it refer to screen space light shafts? I'm legit confused.
 

hawk2025

Member
I don't understand why super expensive lighting techniques is the way to go in a hyperlinear game like Quantum Break.

Certainly not at its current (apparent) cost.

It's cool to geek out over, but ultimately is it the best use of resources to enhance the game?
 
This post:



Okay, maybe I misunderstood it completely. Is pre baked rendering referring to something else entirely? Or does it refer to screen space light shafts? I'm legit confused.

I think he was talking about reflections in that post.
I don't understand why super expensive lighting techniques is the way to go in a hyperlinear game like Quantum Break.

Certainly not at its current (apparent) cost.

It's cool to geek out over, but ultimately is it the best use of resources to enhance the game?

Actually I think super expensive techniques usually make sense for small, tighter games as you can control the load more easily (open world games or less corridor'd experiences have incredibly varying load due to their more systemic nature). Also, things like dynamic GI and all the voumetric lighting enable a number of scenes in the first place in this game. Any time the Time of Day rapdiyl changes in the story for example. I think they made good use of the tech they dev'd here.
 

LostDonkey

Member
I was waiting for a friend to gift the PC code to me. But I've bitten and bought the Xb1 version for £35.

Let's see what all the fuss is about and then I'll try the PC version maybe when/if they fix it.

Ridiculous.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
I swear every game that tempts me to get back into PC gaming winds up being a complete botch job on the platform if it arrives at all.
 
Wow that explains why I was never able to see a consistent 60 fps 1080p on i7/32GB/Titan X

The maximum frame-rate seems to be limited to 5/6th of the refresh rate - this means, when using a 60Hz monitor, the game simply cannot go beyond 50 frames per second. We even tried it with a Core i7 system paired with Titan X running at 720p on the lowest settings, but 50fps was still the limit

Alsom LOL

This is a game that must be installed on a solid state drive. We tested Quantum Break on a fast 7200rpm HGST mechanical drive as well as a Samsung 850 EVO SSD and found that performance simply wasn't acceptable on the former when transitioning between areas. Huge stutters and skips appear, leading to a very jerky experience at select points.
 

I'm in the UK so I've got the 50hz enabled for TV but it only displays at 50hz if you've got TV running as the main app.

It doesn't display at 50hz if you're playing a game, even if you have TV snapped so that doesn't sound right. I'll take a look later and double check my settings but I haven't had any problems like that.

Yes, the game is good for XB1, but unfortunately not for PC. I believe wumster is talking about delaying the PC version. I'm pretty sure PC gamers wouldn't mind, especially knowing that this was an XB1 exclusive. Pushing the PC version to be released at the same time with XB1 is the mistake. It's rushed.

No argument here. I was just saying, more out of hope than any logic, that if the technical issues are able to be fixed then the game underneath is a very good one. I'm not saying for one second that the PC release isn't a shambles.
 
I just got a refund. The agent acknowledged there were known issues with the game and processed it without hassle, at least that's something!
 

Jude

Banned
Is that 5/6th refresh rate fps cap for real?? watwatwat

Nope as far i know, getting +50fps on a 60hz tv., something its weird tho. because it dosent cap at 60, it keeps on 57/58fps all the time, cutscenes are on a fixed 30 and menu on a fixed 60, i can cap the framerate at 30 from options and then it maintain that rate.
 

dmix90

Member
I'm in the UK so I've got the 50hz enabled for TV but it only displays at 50hz if you've got TV running as the main app.

It doesn't display at 50hz if you're playing a game, even if you have TV snapped so that doesn't sound right. I'll take a look later and double check my settings but I haven't had any problems like that.

Just checked, but enabling/disabling 50hz doesn't effect the fluidity. At least not that I can feel/see.

My TV also reports a 60hz incoming signal regardless of the 50hz setting in the XB1.
Thanks! Thought it would be somewhat related to 5/6th refresh rate lock in PC version. Looks like thats not the case.
 

Krakn3Dfx

Member
How's remedy's history in fixing pc ports? do they do it ever? will there be some kind of fix?

What history? They've never dropped such a steaming pile of shit of a port on PC gamers before, so we're kind of journeying into uncharted waters with QB.
 

cyen

Member
Whole thing leaves me pretty flat to be honest. First time in weeks I have a clear weekend and was looking to pump some time into this but its just not enjoyable with the stuttering and smoothness issues.

Me two, but since it was Remedy doing the port i was confident that at least would be in a playable state.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Nope as far i know, getting +50fps on a 60hz tv., something its weird tho. because it dosent cap at 60, it keeps on 57/58fps all the time, cutscenes are on a fixed 30 and menu on a fixed 60, i can cap the framerate at 30 from options and then it maintain that rate.
You sure? The overlays compatible with DX12 don't seem to report the correct frame-rate.
 
How's remedy's history in fixing pc ports? do they do it ever? will there be some kind of fix?

The community manager posted this on their forum:

I can guarantee that we're listening to you guys and trying to fix things the best we can. I've been forwarding the crash and performance issues you've reported to the dev team, so they're actual bug tickets in our QA system.
It just takes time to get the fixes into a build update candidate, get the candidate through certification process and finally delivered to the players. Thank you for your patience.

I imagine this certification thing MS has is making it more difficult to get patches out compared to Steam.
 
Surprised at the r9 390 vs gtx 970 results, I expected the 390 to have better fps in general, but I've never seen that much of a difference.
 
How's remedy's history in fixing pc ports? do they do it ever? will there be some kind of fix?

They've never had to really fix anything major before. Their PC track record before this is stellar. The Alan Wake port was incredible right at launch, for example.

I'm wondering if a PC version of this game was a last minute decision?
 

wiibomb

Member
They've never had to really fix anything major before. Their PC track record before this is stellar. The Alan Wake port was incredible right at launch, for example.

I'm wondering if a PC version of this game was a last minute decision?

thanks for giving me actual info, I don't have any kind of tracking of Remedy since I don't follow them or what they do, so this is my first with them

sad to see this happening and this is surely a last minute decision, unfortunately they could have been pushed because of MS demands

The community manager posted this on their forum:



I imagine this certification thing MS has got is making it more diffcult to get patches out compared to Steam.

ugh... This is kinda like Nintendo's eShop patching system, they will last days or weeks to approve a patch for their platform.

this is kinda killing UWP right from the start isn't it? I wonder if there is a chance this will eventually get on Steam
 

vcc

Member
Okay, maybe I misunderstood it completely. Is pre baked rendering referring to something else entirely? Or does it refer to screen space light shafts? I'm legit confused.

Pre-baking is doing the calculations for light and what not before hand and saving it into the level data.
 

KainXVIII

Member
Bluepoint did a nice job bringing U3 up to speed.

23327346700_87036c424f_o.png

Also Condemned (and FEAR)
condemned_settings_volumetrics_3.jpg
 

dr_rus

Member
Okay, maybe I misunderstood it completely. Is pre baked rendering referring to something else entirely? Or does it refer to screen space light shafts? I'm legit confused.
Screen space is screen space, that's another type of rendering altogether. You can have god rays in screen space and they'll even be dynamic but due to the nature of how they are rendered there will be issues with proper occlusion which Dictator93 already described.
What I was talking is more like the ones from Condemned screenshot above where it's just a set of alpha textures fixed in their place in the game world. There are other examples like for example in Rage these rays are done by transparent triangular meshes which are simply a part of static level geometry.
This is different to how it's done in modern engines where there is actually a volumetric light calculation happening for each light in the scene. But since it's a rather complex calculation most tend to do it rather coarse - hence the artifacts you're seeing in QB.
 
What I was talking is more like the ones from Condemned screenshot above where it's just a set of alpha textures fixed in their place in the game world. There are other examples like for example in Rage these rays are done by transparent triangular meshes which are simply a part of static level geometry.

The ones in Condemned (screenshot above!) and Fear are actually real time (not hand placed geometry entities made to look like medium in air)! Old and low low resolution, but real time.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
The ones in Condemned (screenshot above!) and Fear are actually real time (not hand placed geometry entities made to look like medium in air)! Old and low low resolution, but real time.
Yeah, when I went back to Condemned for the XO BC article, I was stunned by this. I had completely forgotten that they included the feature all the way back in 2005 but there it was.

I do think Jupiter Engine games suffer from incredibly squared off geometry and horrible character models (next to the competition of the day), but the lighting, effects, and techniques were off the charts for that era.

Have you tried injecting SSAO into those games? I think FEAR would benefit tremendously from this.
 
A terrible port onto a terrible platform and it will still be used to say "Well we tried to give you guys exclusive Xbox games but people didn't buy them on PC, obviously the audience isn't there, so that's that!"
 

dr_rus

Member
The ones in Condemned (screenshot above!) and Fear are actually real time (not hand placed geometry entities made to look like medium in air)! Old and low low resolution, but real time.

My bad, don't really remember how it was back then.
 

Javin98

Banned
Screen space is screen space, that's another type of rendering altogether. You can have god rays in screen space and they'll even be dynamic but due to the nature of how they are rendered there will be issues with proper occlusion which Dictator93 already described.
What I was talking is more like the ones from Condemned screenshot above where it's just a set of alpha textures fixed in their place in the game world. There are other examples like for example in Rage these rays are done by transparent triangular meshes which are simply a part of static level geometry.
This is different to how it's done in modern engines where there is actually a volumetric light calculation happening for each light in the scene. But since it's a rather complex calculation most tend to do it rather coarse - hence the artifacts you're seeing in QB.
Ah, I think I finally get it now. This seems to be much more complex than I originally thought. I didn't know that there were different types of volumetric lighting. Thanks for explaining!
 

GHG

Gold Member
I imagine their certification must be pretty quick and painless considering how they passed this turd through in its current state.

This is where it all doesn't make sense. The certification process is there to try and make sure people have an amazing experience but yet this slips through and then they can't even respond quickly to fix it up. It's quite ironic actually.

I bet they find a way to prevent people from pirating the game before they actually fix it.
 

Xater

Member
This is where it all doesn't make sense. The certification process is there to try and make sure people have an amazing experience but yet this slips through and then they can't even respond quickly to fix it up. It's quite ironic actually.

I bet they find a way to prevent people from pirating the game before they actually fix it.

This is again a misunderstanding of what cert is. Cert exists to make sure your shit doesn't break, but it can run like shit and they won't care.
 
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