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[Muppet of a Man]

He is right, you can fit a lot of p into the ESram cup, but it will only dribble out the end. Make sure to shake afterwards.

Wow, amazingly brilliant illustration. Should be showcased in every multiplat game thread that a pro esram/ddr3 argument arises in.

 

[jet1911]

That's more of a problem for those that want to be photographers instead of race car drivers!

"I bought Forza 5 to take pictures...look at dem trees. Need some TreesFX."

All the trees should look like that

 

[DasDamen]

why not? Is there a better looking title than it running in 1080p and 60 fps? On either console? And by 60, I mean completely locked, because you do have to compromise a lot more to be sure you will never dip below 60.

Locked 60 fps is quite nice, but the low frame rates for mirrors are jarring.

 

[CyberChulo]

Oh yeah, we're looking at it alright.

Reminds me of Road Rash from the 3D0


http://postimage.org/

 

[Muppet of a Man]

Someone needs to tell Phil Harrison that it would be a pure fucking miracle if F5 in this state would not hit 1080p60 on Xbone. Turn10 compromised a lot of things to acheve that rendering speed.



Disastrous anisotropic filtering [lack of texture bandwith to the GPU]
http://abload.de/img/ao067c8i.png

Insane track asset quality reduction
http://i.imgur.com/semvdyJ.jpg

Mortal Kombat crowd
http://abload.de/img/dat_3d_crowd_1akezo.jpg

Total reliance on ineffective shader-based AA techniques [aggressively semi-hidden by blur and dof]
http://abload.de/img/1920x-1g4enh.jpg

These things are immediately apparent when you play the game for the first time as well (especially if you followed the initial media released for he game); the downgrades to sacrifice resolution and performance are painfully obvious.

 

[Cragvis]

Wow, amazingly brilliant illustration. Should be showcased in every multiplat game thread that a pro esram/ddr3 argument arises in.

Yea, it was made by another gaffer a few months ago, i found it to be the easiest way for me to understand the differences between the ram of the two consoles, and saved it.

xb1 can initially hold more data from the start, but cant process that much to output, ps4 has more...balance....consistency with data flow. Easier to program for just like the devs say because you know exactly how much ram you can untilize at all times for the game.

Thats why some devs dont even utilize the esram because it seems kind of pointless. they just optimize the game to only be able to fit the amount of ram that goes through the bottleneck. They COULD utlize the ES ram so it holds more data to be processed, but...really...why bother if only x amount can still be filtered through the bottleneck?

Im no programmer, so i could be totally wrong though.

 

[Waaghals]

Yea, it was made by another gaffer a few months ago, i found it to be the easiest way for me to understand the differences between the ram of the two consoles, and saved it.

xb1 can initially hold more data from the start, but cant process that much to output, ps4 has more...balance....consistency with data flow. Easier to program for just like the devs say because you know exactly how much ram you can untilize at all times for the game.

Thats why some devs dont even utilize the esram because it seems kind of pointless. they just optimize the game to only be able to fit the amount of ram that goes through the bottleneck. They COULD utlize the ES ram so it holds more data to be processed, but...really...why bother if only x amount can still be filtered through the bottleneck?

Im no programmer, so i could be totally wrong though.

Being a complete layman I believe they have to use the ESRAM regardless. DDR3 does not have enough bandwidth to do the trick on its own. The problem appears when you run out of space on ESRAM. I.e. a framebuffer bigger than 32mb.

An additional problem is that even the ESRAM's badnwidth isn't as good as the PS4 total. So even in the best case scenario they can't match the PS4.

I could of course be wrong about all this.

 

[TheKastorian]

This Forza 5?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-23-digital-foundry-vs-forza-motorsport-5

Or this Forza 5?

Nothing good can come of statements like this. They just need to shut the hell up about stuff like this and not even respond to these things. It only makes them look bad. Just ignore it, put out your games. If you have compelling games people might still buy your system, but don't get into a fight you can't win.

HOLY crap! I had never observed this. They look like two different games!

 

[Cragvis]

Being a complete layman I believe they have to use the ESRAM regardless. DDR3 does not have enough bandwidth to do the trick on its own. The problem appears when you run out of space on ESRAM. I.e. a framebuffer bigger than 32mb.

An additional problem is that even the ESRAM's badnwidth isn't as good as the PS4 total. So even in the best case scenario they can't match the PS4.

I could of course be wrong about all this.

Ahh yes, like in the visual, the ES ram is on top, you cant pour water through the GDDR3 without pouring it through the es ram above it, so they must use it, but they dont have to fill it up with more data than the gddr3 can handle I believe, they can send just enough to fit through the gddr3 im guessing. Which of course is not enough for game to look good, which is why they need the es ram? But then they fill it up and ie; run out of space?

well, if the image is a good representation of what happens, thats all I need to remember. I get lost when things come to framebuffering and ram bandwidth .

 

[gruenel]

An additional problem is that even the ESRAM's badnwidth isn't as good as the PS4 total. So even in the best case scenario they can't match the PS4.

Time to dig out the latency secret sauce again!

 

[sueil]

Once in my life I want some PR guy to go off the rails and admit their product is shit/inferior.

 

[Cynn]

HOLY crap! I had never observed this. They look like two different games!

One's running on a PC pretending to be an X1 and the other is a real X1.

 

[RealityPales]

All according to plan, Agent Harrison.

 

[TheKastorian]

One's running on a PC pretending to be an X1 and the other is a real X1.

Well that explains it.

 

[Data Ghost]

Despite what Phil says I think as an intelligent gaming community we should just move on from this now. The point has been proven time and time again. Time to start appreciating each console for what they are.

I own both and I feel that they will both offer something unique during this generation.

 

[AbandonedTrolley]

HOLY crap! I had never observed this. They look like two different games!

One's next gen, the other is debatable.

 

[eso76]

Forza 5 is probably not the best game to use as an example...

And why wouldn't it be ?
FM5 is a mighty fine looking game and it is 1080 60p

Technically speaking the guy is right. Dev claim xbone's edram is too small to accomodate 1080 60p, PH says there are games out there doing that, so that's not the case.

Now, PH doesn't mention the tradeoffs, but neither Rebellion did, and it made it sound like the xbone had a hard time pushing 1080 60p regardless of what's being rendered which is obviously not correct (it never is, PS360 could output 1080 60p with simple enough graphics).

Also, it was confirmed several times that the E3 build was running on genuine xbone hardware, but the demo only had 2 cars on the track and old physics engine.

 

[Sushen]

Even entry level sales man knows this: never argue with your customers, you'll never convince them that way. They keep throwing jabs at consumer reactions will only harm their reputations; it's no friendly dinner party here. I really wonder how all those MS execs got up there high without knowing the basics.

 

[Leotarius]

I think people sometimes are just waiting for Microsoft to "admit" that it messed up or something.

From a business standpoint they will do everything in their power not to admit that they produced a console that is "weaker" and more "expensive". They will never do it and no one would, this early into the console life cycle. Maybe they will in a postmortem.

With that said, graphics are not the (end all be all), but they definitely do matter, and hopefully Microsoft will realize that next time.

 

[nib95]

And why wouldn't it be ?
FM5 is a mighty fine looking game and it is 1080 60p

Technically speaking the guy is right. Dev claim xbone's edram is too small to accomodate 1080 60p, PH says there are games out there doing that, so that's not the case.

Now, PH doesn't mention the tradeoffs, but neither Rebellion did, and it made it sound like the xbone had a hard time pushing 1080 60p regardless of what's being rendered which is obviously not correct (it never is, PS360 could output 1080 60p with simple enough graphics).

Also, it was confirmed several times that the E3 build was running on genuine xbone hardware, but the demo only had 2 cars on the track and old physics engine.

You can get 1080p games on there, just as you can on the PS2 or even weaker hardware for example, that point was never contested. The main point is that you have to potentially cut corners to get it there. Using a deferred renderer, getting a 1080p frame buffer on 32mb is basically a no go. So concessions will have to be made I'd imagine, and if Forza 5 is anything to go by, that point is further highlighted.

I don't know what your point is about the F5 downgrade either. Are you trying to justify the downgrade or making a point that the game looks that good now with fewer cars on the screen? Because it doesn't. The game was clearly downgraded, in a big way, just as Dead Rising 3 was as well in-fact. Bare in mind, Microsoft also made a claim that certain other games were running on genuine Xbox One hardware, when it actual fact they were running on PC's with GTX 680's and Titans. Later Microsoft seemed to lay claim that these were typical for dev kits. This is also somewhat shady as final dev kits are usually almost exactly the same as retail hardware, but a GTX 680 or Titan is the furthest thing from the GPU in the Xbox One.

Whatever the reasons are for the downgrades, I don't know, but next time Microsoft would do well not to mislead people. Saying that, some of the insiders already predicted this would happen, so maybe we shouldn't have been that surprised.

I just know I'll be waiting to actually play or see the retail versions of Forza Horizon or Forza 6 before taking Microsoft's media at face value next time around.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Am I blind because the main thing I see different in that huge comparison pic is the right side is darker color. Everything else looks the same. Some of the screens aren't exact replicas either so the lighting could be at a different angle.

 

[nOoblet16]

A 1080p buffer in itself only costs 5.93MB but when you consider other factors you will realise that a 32MB ESRAM is too small to accommodate a 1080p framebuffer with high precision HDR and the size increases even more when you include in shadow buffers, triple buffering and of course MSAA (if it's 2*MSAA you pertty much multiply the entire framebuffer by 2 and 4 if it's 4*MSAA and so on). Then the cost is even higher if you want to do 60FPS because it's too much calculations to be done in too little time, so they have to make cutbacks to make it faster.

It's for this reason why Forza 5 has a very simplistic lighting engine, no MSAA and lacks advanced shaders (outside of cars) and post processing. If they want to have a framebuffer that's larger than the ESRAM memory they'll probably have to do tiling and that comes with it's own set of disadvantages, there's a slight loss of performance because you render some things more than once and then there's the fact that the DDR3 RAM is much much slower than the ESRAM.

He is right, you can fit a lot of p into the ESram cup, but it will only dribble out the end. Make sure to shake afterwards.

In fact if you want to be fully accurate then even the ESRAM cup should be narrower the GDDR5 because it's bandwidth is only 109GB/s compared to 176GB/s of PS4..no?

 

[Easy_D]

Forza 5 the racer with the paper cut-out crowd?

Edit: Lol yes, I saw the third post.

somebody needs to tell these guys about fighting on your enemies home turf, they should just stop talking about tech.

It's kind of amazing how MS only manages to highlight how the Xbone is worse than the PS4 when it also has its strengths.

 

[phosphor112]

Speaking of Forza 5...

Spoiler

The word is 128mb esram, unlocked later this year

 

[skyfinch]

Obviously should have used Peggle 2 as a better example.

Pop up crowd and craptacular frame rates.

 

[nOoblet16]

Speaking of Forza 5...

What actually matters is the quality during the races. You can pull out impressive looking shots from GT5/GT6's car view mode as well. Even more so when you use the photo mode, and that's on a hardware 10 times less powerful.

 

[CSX]

Speaking of Forza 5...

this is amazing lol

 

[derFeef]

It's kind of amazing how MS only manages to highlight how the Xbone is worse than the PS4 when it also has its strengths.

Huh, have I been asleep or something? If MS highlights it's strengths it's also getting ridiculed.

 

[Chobel]

Speaking of Forza 5...

LOL!!!

What actually matters is the quality during the races. You can pull out impressive looking shots from GT5/GT6's car view mode as well. Even more so when you use the photo mode, and that's on a hardware 10 times less powerful.

You're missing the joke. Read what's written on the car.

 

[phosphor112]

this is amazing lol

Directly from the man itself. It has to be some sort of joke. Reading his joke of a site (with adblock, because fuck giving him money lol) shows that he's giving himself a deadline by saying this huge update with "128mb" of eSRAM and 50% boost coming this year.

So once this year is up, it'll be impossible for him to spin it. It really is hilarious.

 

[RetroStu]

I don't know if this thread existed, i posted this in the MGS thread -

To be fair, you really have to see Forza in person to appreciate it. It looks average to awful in screen shots and crappy Youtube vids but i was blown away when i saw it on a big tv in my local GAME. It was the same thing with Fifa which looks god damn awful in screens and Youtube vids but i couldn't believe how good it looked when i actually saw the game in person.

If you have seen Forza with your own eyes and still think it looks shit then fair play to you but if your judging it soley on screens and Youtube vids then don't as they really don't do the game justice. I actually think Forza is one of the most impressive next gen games.

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

What a awful response. Well that will do nothing to allay peoples fear

 

[Easy_D]

Speaking of Forza 5...

Spoiler

The word is 128mb esram, unlocked later this year

Spoiler

No Power of The Cloud™?

Huh, have I been asleep or something? If MS highlights it's strengths it's also getting ridiculed.

Well. Haven't they just used them to try to downplay the power gap? "Well the PS4 might or might not have more powers, but here, look, you can watch TV while you play your games, can you do that on a PS4? Have you seen Titanfall???"
It's the comparisons that hurt them more than anything imo

 

[TheHater]

Agent Phil is at it again.

Speaking of Forza 5...

.

Spoiler

The word is 128mb esram, unlocked later this year

Spoiler

#DEAD

 

[Kiant]

That's not really fair. The crowd is the way it is because you drive by it so fast it doesn't need to be really detailed. It's not really because of the XBO's limitations. Overall F5 looks great. It's 60fps and 1080p... AND it is a launch title. The man has a point.

You can't be serious, surely?

 

[Melchiah]

Yea, it was made by another gaffer a few months ago, i found it to be the easiest way for me to understand the differences between the ram of the two consoles, and saved it.

xb1 can initially hold more data from the start, but cant process that much to output, ps4 has more...balance....consistency with data flow. Easier to program for just like the devs say because you know exactly how much ram you can untilize at all times for the game.

Thats why some devs dont even utilize the esram because it seems kind of pointless. they just optimize the game to only be able to fit the amount of ram that goes through the bottleneck. They COULD utlize the ES ram so it holds more data to be processed, but...really...why bother if only x amount can still be filtered through the bottleneck?

Im no programmer, so i could be totally wrong though.

How ironic, considering the pre-launch Digital Foundry articles.

 

[Cragvis]

In fact if you want to be fully accurate then even the ESRAM cup should be narrower the GDDR5 because it's bandwidth is only 109GB/s compared to 176GB/s of PS4..no?

Hah, you know what, thats probably right. lesser bandwith so technically it should be thinner itself than the ps4's tube...lol

 

[BibiMaghoo]

Well he is correct right? It is not to small for the resolution, just everything else that comes with that. If they have gash textures, lighting, animations etc, then I'm sure it's pretty easy to do.

So he didn't lie. The wrong question was asked.

 

[PaNaMa]

Why are we still having this conversation.
Have you seen Titanfall?
Conversation OVER

Remember?

Oh wait that has super crap graphics too.
But at least it looks fun. And you can't play it on PS4.

And that's what Microsoft should be concentrating on. Their exclusive games.
And all the stuff XB1 can do, that PS4 can't. Sony's sittin pretty on hardware, but has no apps, and no sick games out, and their "cool" executives are not so engaging on the social media anymore when asked about it.

Microsoft has Titanfall, and the COD kids are going to go berserk for it.
Stop trying to tell knowledgeable fans lies. You just lose credibility. Focus on your strengths!

 

[SummitAve]

You can't be serious, surely?

He's got a point, but I figured the reason they chose to design the crowd that way was because they wanted to make something funny and charming. It's a pretty meaningless part of a racing game that they added a little "reward" to if you slowed everything down and spent the time to check them out.

 

[derFeef]

Why are we still having this conversation.
Have you seen Titanfall?
Conversation OVER

Remember?

Oh wait that has super crap graphics too.
But at least it looks fun. And you can't play it on PS4.

And that's what Microsoft should be concentrating on. Their exclusive games.
And all the stuff XB1 can do, that PS4 can't. Sony's sittin pretty on hardware, but has no apps, and no sick games out, and their "cool" executives are not so engaging on the social media anymore when asked about it.

Microsoft has Titanfall, and the COD kids are going to go berserk for it.
Stop trying to tell knowledgeable fans lies. You just lose credibility. Focus on your strengths!

If I may ask what did Phil lie about in his response?

 

[PaNaMa]

If I may ask what did Phil lie about in his response?

Just implying that their ESRAM is not inhibiting 1080p rendering, I guess.

 

[TheRealTalker]

24 bit deferred lighting engine.

Killzone Shadow Fall:
1080p
1920 x 1080 = 2,073,600
2,073,600 x 8 bit colors x 24 bit = 398,131,200 bits
Divide by 8 to turn into bytes: 49,766,400 Bytes
Divide by 1024 = 48,600 KB
Divide by 1024 = 47.46 MB
~48 > 32

BF4 PS4 (uses same bit depth)
900p

1600 x 900
(((1,440,000 x 8 x 24) / 8 ) / 1024) / 1024 =
32.96 MB
32.96 > 32

BF4 XB1 (uses same bit depth)
720p
1280 x 720
(((921,600 x 8 x 24) / 8 ) / 1024) / 1024 =
21.1 MB

21.1 < 32

Moral of the story, eSRAM is a limit for game engines with dynamic lighting,

EDIT: All of this excludes MSAA which would increase this even more.

and depth of field



we well see these two things become a major problem later on

 

[nOoblet16]

LOL!!!



You're missing the joke. Read what's written on the car.

Oh lol !! Brain fart there..haha

 

[RedNumberFive]

Speaking of Forza 5...

Spoiler

The word is 128mb esram, unlocked later this year

Spoiler

This made my day. Bravissimo!

 

[phosphor112]

and depth of field



we well see these two things become a major problem later on

Yep. Except we won't see it being a problem because 128mb of eSRAM. LOL.

Seriously though, BF4 at 900p (which is what PS4 version is at) is already over the 32mb of eSRAM.

 

[velociraptor]

I'm no fan of Forza's visuals but to be honest I don't think 2D crowds are that big of at deal. 3D crowds always felt like a waste of resources to me. In a racing game, you're not going to notice the crowds.

 

[PdotMichael]

I think the 2D crowd aren't even the worst offender but that they used pictures of random bored office workers instead of people who look like they are watching a race.

 

[SummitAve]

I think the 2D crowd aren't even the worst offender but that they used pictures of random bored office workers instead of people who look like they are watching a race.

That's the joke...

 

[phosphor112]

I'm no fan of Forza's visuals but to be honest I don't think 2D crowds are that big of at deal. 3D crowds always felt like a waste of resources to me. In a racing game, you're not going to notice the crowds.

You need a combination of both. 3D up front, 2D in back. That's how most games do it. Hell, all 3D really looks amazing. Look at the fucking power of the PS2 on GT4.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UVIL4VAgao

Having people run off the track was super fun. It really added to the experience.