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The Multiformat Artshots Thread (formerly part of the PC screenshots thread)

Blizzard

Banned
BruceLeeRoy said:
Okay so this might be incredibly ignorant but if Enslaved isn't on PC how are you getting those absolutely sublime shots Octagon?
I don't know exactly how/why games journalists get them, but:

TheOctagon said:
360 debug kit. A rare pleasure of games journalism.

Maybe it's so they can take great screenshots and make people want to buy the game. It seems to be working on us. :lol
 

Haunted

Member
BruceLeeRoy said:
Okay so this might be incredibly ignorant but if Enslaved isn't on PC how are you getting those absolutely sublime shots Octagon?
From the last page:

TheOctagon said:
Debug code w/ hex edited coalesced.ini, 8xAF and custom mappings for various restored UE3 commands. Tiledshot x4 from 720p, then downsampled to 1080p.
Modified some settings on a debug unit, apparently.
 

Haunted

Member
Blizzard said:
Maybe it's so they can take great screenshots and make people want to buy the game. It seems to be working on us. :lol
Oh, it's totally working on me. I want that Enslaved however, not the versions we actually got. :lol
 

jediyoshi

Member
Blizzard said:
Maybe it's so they can take great screenshots and make people want to buy the game. It seems to be working on us. :lol

It's so they can run non retail code for preview/review purposes.

The screens are still using tileshots so it wouldn't necessarily look like that in real time on PC, but it would be nice to at least throw some extra aa in there (if the game had any at all).
 

jediyoshi

Member
fizzelopeguss said:
What is the debug kit, is it much more powerful hardware. (in otherwords is he playing with those settings at a decent framerate?)

In this case, they're units specifically given to press to run non retail code for preview/review purposes. Those shots aren't indicative of the game being played in real time.
 
Indeed not, though on PC you'd be talking about a much smaller gap between tiledshot quality and realtime. The enhanced textures and shadow filtering of the PC version would probably make it look better than these overall, assuming they actually put those textures in. If I'm right in thinking this is the dual-pipeline feature film/game project Ninja Theory were talking about a few years ago, then there should be CG quality textures somewhere for every surface in the game.

I won't lie and say the 360 version looks anything like these shots in terms of fidelity. It's a great action adventure game, though - about the best I've played since Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. So it's absolutely worth it on 360, especially if your sofa's far enough away that you don't notice the mad shimmering, jaggies and generally low-res look of everything. Consoles have a lot to answer for. If it wasn't for the likes of Crytek we'd have almost no concept of what modern gaming hardware could actually do.
 
I remember being sat outside Chelsea football club talking to the Remedy guys about Max Payne a while back, then Markus whips out the latest shots of what was then Alan Wake on PC. That game looked incredible. I haven't played the console version but I understand it's taken a considerable hit.

The really sad thing is that Remedy traditionally leaves its engines open in terms of debug functions. Despite the best efforts of Games For Windows Live to fuck everything up, I'd imagine no-clipping around Alan Wake would have been as easy as typing a command-line parameter and bringing down the debug console. There's nothing to say that couldn't still be done in the 360 code, but I doubt Remedy's wonderful textures would have survived the transition. We'll just have to hope against hope that part of Microsoft's 'apology' to PC gamers involves putting that game where it belongs - and maybe putting a pie in Kudo Tsunoda's gob.

Regarding 360 debug kit: yeah, it's so reviewers can enjoy preview and review code (a distinction publishers often have trouble with). It's not to be confused with a dev kit which is a substantially different animal, but it does share the benefit of using the Network Neighbourhood extension for Windows, which means easy access to the development volume and its files. So when you tiledshot in an Unreal game, it goes to whichever folder's specified in the config files and is easily transferred to PC. Running games by just double-clicking the XEX is quite a novelty, too.
 

Dennis

Banned
The problems with Alan Wake is not only the disappointing sub-HD visuals - its also the gameplay.

I remember when Alan Wake was used by MS to showcase the advantages of quadcore CPUs *le sigh*

Even if a PC version comes out, the game is a console game at heart.
 
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Highres_Screenshot_000012d.jpg
 
Yo Octagon, I need your genius once more.

So I'm messing around with Mass Effect 2, and I finally found the INI that completely disables the HUD (bshowhud). Now my question is, do you know a way to bind a key to bshowhud so I can disable it and enable it at will. It's kind of hard for me to play without a cursor :lol

Which reminds me, I need to increase the FOV, off I go!
 
jediyoshi said:
It's so they can run non retail code for preview/review purposes.

The screens are still using tileshots so it wouldn't necessarily look like that in real time on PC, but it would be nice to at least throw some extra aa in there (if the game had any at all).

Even on old hardware like the GTX 260 you can still get "better than console" performance out of UE3 with 2x2 supersampling so achieving something similar to those shots in real time on a modern GPU should be a breeze especially if you're happy to lock the framerate to 30fps (which all UE3 titles allow).

After playing the Enslaved demo I knew that it would look fantastic on the PC, those shots simply confirm that.
 
TheOctagon said:
Phew.

Am I right in thinking, btw, that Enslaved is the first commercial title to use Lightmass GI?

Its the first one that I know of, yeah. I recognised it was using Lightmass straight away once I booted up the demo, its such a fantastic light baking solution and incredible step up from UE3's prior solution. It produces a better result than BEAST imo, if only because the environment shadows cast over dynamic objects. Can't wait to see some PC titles using it (like Bulletstorm).
 

jediyoshi

Member
brain_stew said:
Even on old hardware like the GTX 260 you can still get "better than console" performance out of UE3 with 2x2 supersampling so achieving something similar to those shots in real time on a modern GPU should be a breeze especially if you're happy to lock the framerate to 30fps (which all UE3 titles allow).

I'm sure it's achievable just fine, fizzelopeguss just assumed they were literally real time shots is all.

I had some better shots but the built in compression didn't play nicely.

OxxwZ.jpg


4oqY0.jpg
 

forrest

formerly nacire
brain_stew said:
After playing the Enslaved demo I knew that it would look fantastic on the PC, those shots simply confirm that.

Man I feel the same way about Castlevania. I wish Konami was into the PC side of things as well.
 
Thought id give Fallout 3 (Vanilla) a quick playthrough before Vegas next week, wasnt really that hyped before but now i cant wait to roam around some wasteland once more :D Stepping out from the vault is still amazing.

fallout32010-10-1703-5fane.jpg


fallout32010-10-1703-54b17.jpg
 
It's F1 2010 by Codemasters. I used the ENB Series dll to liven up the tones, together with a lighting mod for each of the tracks. Then I made about 20 new cameras for the replay as the default ones aren't exactly made for taking pictures. Then it was just a case of adding sparse grid supersampling to overcome the game's nasty patches of deferred lighting.

More:

5087971293_6797237d5b_b.jpg


5088570974_f9eb92a9ee_b.jpg
 
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