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Digital Foundry: Gears of War 4 Tech Analysis

If only all future Microsoft First Party PC games have the same quality and performance.

Then, we'd only have to work at fixing all the problems with UWP and the Store.
 
Game is absolutely gorgeous. Playing in HDR on my One S it regularly blows me away. It's one of the best looking games I've ever played in some sequences. The lighting and particle effects are downright incredible looking. With this, Uncharted 4 and FH3 we've had an awesome year for visuals.
 
I'm looking forward to seeing this running on my S and testing it with my 1070, but I'm also very excited to find out TheLastSword's opinion on this matter!
 
Honestly speaking I don't think its much of a tech showcase. I Think many games look better than this even on xbox
 
black070 said:
The Order 1886 is definitely the king in the graphics department.
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Eh, not really impressed with that. There is a lot more happening in Gears moments than there is in The Order. I'd put Uncharted over the Order, honestly. Hell, 3D Mario World for art and 60FPS alone.
 
Looking forward to watching this when I get home.

Do they look into splitscreen performance at all? I found Gears 1 Ultimate Edition to be quite disappointing last year, it didn't run great in split screen co-op.
 
I switched between the PC and XBO versions this weekend and am impressed with both. Play Anywhere has been a great feature as well.
 
tumblr_nq7sgvAqZB1r41iwho3_250.gif


It's beautiful
 
IcyRhythms said:
Eh, not really impressed with that. There is a lot more happening in Gears moments than there is in The Order. I'd put Uncharted over the Order, honestly. Hell, 3D Mario World for art and 60FPS alone.
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Uncharted 4 is the top dog in consoles right now. And from what I saw, Horizon Zero Dawn will take the crown next year.

Anyway, Gears 4 is awesome.
 
IcyRhythms said:
Eh, not really impressed with that. There is a lot more happening in Gears moments than there is in The Order. I'd put Uncharted over the Order, honestly. Hell, 3D Mario World for art and 60FPS alone.
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I loved graphics in The Order. I even enjoyed the game. But there is really no comparison. Gears of War 4 is a stunner. I actually think it beats Uncharted 4 as well and that is just on Xbox. On the PC running 1440p with ultra settings on an IPS screen it is fucking mind bending.
 
That post-run benchmarking feature in the PC version looks fantastic. Having just bought a new gaming tower, I'm looking forward to some time in there.
 
corin7 said:
I loved graphics in The Order. I even enjoyed the game. But there is really no comparison. Gears of War 4 is a stunner. I actually think it beats Uncharted 4 as well and that is just on Xbox. On the PC running 1440p with ultra settings on an IPS screen it is fucking mind bending.
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Only seen my room mate play a little chunk of it on the XB1, but can't say I agree. It's a good looking game, but it didn't wow us like Uncharted or The Order did. Looking forward to jumping into it myself though, been jonesing to play a Gears of War, last one I played was the third 4 years ago.
 
The HDR effects on XB1 are stunning at times, but overall I'm not exactly blown away by the graphics across the board. It's one of the best-looking console games so far but not THE best.

Although I will say that the further into the campaign I get, the better and better it looks.
 
shandy706 said:
That's one clean shot.

Good AA on that, wow.

I mean that may be the cleanest looking console game I've ever seen IQ wise.
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It's one of the most impressive AA solutions indeed.
I'm very very impressed with the IQ it is able to achieve on an Xbox.

Some screenshots look right out of the Downsampling thread here on GAF. Unreal 4 wizardry. It's not perfect of course, but damn.
 
I've been really, really impressed with what the X1 can do after playing Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4. Both are technical marvels I didn't really expect to run that well on this machine.
 
It's absolutely gorgeous in-person. It's certainly the cleanest IQ on Xbox One, and one of the best looking console games hands-down.
 
It looks to be a very solid package. To me, it isn't the graphical pathbreaker that Gears was on Xbox360, but it is good to see they have delivered a very polished package across the board.

IcyRhythms said:
Easily the best looking linear game on consoles.
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I can't see how this game looks as impressive, let alone better, than U4 at all. The difference is pretty clear to me. Would be happy for someone to link to footage that proves otherwise though.
 
nelsonroyale said:
It looks to be a very solid package. To me, it isn't the graphical pathbreaker that Gears was on Xbox360, but it is good to see they have delivered a very polished package across the board.



I can't see how this game looks as impressive, let alone better, than U4 at all. The difference is pretty clear to me.
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Uncharted 4 looks very good but sometimes the animation priority makes things look goofy or feel very odd.

And to be honest I am more impressed with Gears 4 visuals but it may be because Gears 4 is taking me on a fun ride, uncharted 4 was trying and succeeded several times at putting me to sleep.
 
I've been playing it on PC with early access, and I LOVE how great it runs and all the work the devs put in for PC benchmarking and settings.

However, I'd be ever so slightly disappointed if the game didn't run really well. It's not exactly a graphical benchmark. It looks pretty good, just not anything amazing. At times it can really shine with some nifty particle effects going on but even then it's not winning any awards. And then there are times where the game falls short of it's otherwise great-but-not-amazing graphics, lots of muddy textures throughout. Playing it on ultra settings at 1080p 60fps locked btw.

However all that being said, I will gladly take this games combinations of visuals and performance (on PC) over a graphical showcase that runs like junk and doesn't scale well. Major props to The Coalition. I really wished other PC developers put this much thought into PC versions of multiplats.
 
vatstep said:
The HDR effects on XB1 are stunning at times, but overall I'm not exactly blown away by the graphics across the board. It's one of the best-looking console games so far but not THE best.

Although I will say that the further into the campaign I get, the better and better it looks.
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Yes, the second half of the game does actually look significantly more impressive. That's why their E3 demo was from Act IV part 5, I suppose. ;-)
 
hogendaz85 said:
Uncharted 4 looks very good but sometimes the animation priority makes things look goofy or feel very odd.

And to be honest I am more impressed with Gears 4 visuals but it may be because Gears 4 is taking me on a fun ride, uncharted 4 was trying and succeeded several times at putting me to sleep.
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Hmm, I can only partly understand the animation complaint. Overall from what I have seen, the animations look smoother and more nuanced (less jarring) in U4 compared to Gears 4, but yes, they can be a tad over engineered.

On visuals I respect your opinion. I think U4 looks a decent step up from anything I have seen on Gears 4. I've only completed the first gears and played a bit of the second, but I prefer Uncharted games. Find them more varied and more compelling narratively speaking. I liked the fact that U4 had less combat, although I think they need to rethink how they impliment challenge (no more bullet sponge enemies unless there is a justifiable scenario).
 
nelsonroyale said:
Hmm, I can only partly understand the animation complaint. Overall from what I have seen, the animations look smoother and more nuanced (less jarring) in U4 compared to Gears 4, but yes, they can be a tad over engineered.

On visuals I respect your opinion. I think U4 looks a decent step up from anything I have seen on Gears 4. I've only completed the first gears and played a bit of the second, but I prefer Uncharted games. Find them more varied and more compelling narratively speaking. I liked the fact that U4 had less combat, although I think they need to rethink how they impliment challenge (no more bullet sponge enemies unless there is a justifiable scenario).
Click to expand...

In a lot of instances the animations in uncharted feel like they remove me from control of Nate. Granted this is improved in U4 but there's still something about when I press a button and the character moves or jumps or rolls etc that doesn't feel right.

As for Gears what helps regarding animation and control is simply the camera placement. I have always preferred the Gears games so I'm sure my opinion is bias but they are opinions and I respect yours.
 
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