-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
The Witcher 3 4K Patch for Xbox One X
- Thread starter Oynox
- Start date
Liabe Brave
Member
It's a little more complicated than that, which it seems I'm not explaining with enough clarity. Let me try to be as direct as possible.
Looking at screenshots, native rendering is almost always superior in accuracy to CBR. However, if the CBR implementation is excellent, the gap can become relatively narrow even with fast motion. Differences won't be present across the whole image, for example. Nevertheless, the gap does remain and CBR is visibly inferior in most cases.
But people don't play screenshots, and the physical realities of how games are consumed changes the scenario. For one, the displays used introduce approximations due to pixel switching speed, sometimes built-in post-processing, and sometimes chroma undersampling. The distorting effects of these factors are more pronounced for video streams, as opposed to a static image held on screen and perused with greater attention over longer times.
Further, the limitations of the perceptor in the setup become germane. Human persistence of vision elides transient artifacts, especially in high-framerate games. (Relying on this effect is fundamental to the success of multiple realtime rendering approaches, including CBR.) Visual acuity also comes into play, given the distances at which most TVs are watched, and the resulting arc subtension of individual pixels. This is especially pronounced with 4K displays, which is exactly where CBR is most used.
Given these and other factors, in practical terms I believe the superior accuracy of native rendering will not be noticeable for most people in a most cases. Of course, that superiority is still the underlying reality, so will be visible to some people almost all the time. And it can be made visible to others who were initially oblivious, by changes in the viewing environment (reduced glare, closer position, better TV settings, etc.) or in the image output itself (e.g. poorer implementations of CBR).
AbandonedTrolley
Member
The computational strain is huge, the resulting output isn't so. Which is why CB is the more efficient way to get to 4K
Self_Destructive
Member
Native is better. Checkerboard is smarter. The end.
Dictator93
Member
Kinda.
It is not necessarily "production" smart as it increases dev time and complexity.
I don't know about smarter (literally, don't know anything about development) but I think the processing power that is saved is totally worth it. I wouldn't mind if we continued to use CBR next gen instead of putting all the increased power into native 4K
Journey
Banned
And what happens when later games become so demanding that Xbox One X games have to move to using checkerboard rendering?
MetalGearZed
Member
They already are with AC Origins right?
dr_rus
Member
This isn't really a global choice, it's up to the developers to decide if they prefer to use decoupled shading for more graphics complexity or regular shading for crisper output with less artifacts.
The only reason PS4Pro is using CBR so often is because it tries to run PS4 1080p games in 4K with only twice as much processing power. If there would be a console which doesn't have to run anything from a previous machine in any kind of required resolution, it would be absolutely up to the developer to decide if their game would fare better with more complex shaders or with higher shading rates. Theoretically, one could go with 1080c30 (meaning rendering to a 960x1080 pattern) on XBX and spend the resulting power advantage on some crazy lighting tech for example instead of rendering to a 4K native and spending the same power on shading 8 times more pixels.
Journey
Banned
I'm not sure, but I found this with a quick google search
Assassin's Creed Origins runs at full 4K on Xbox One X without downscaling like PlayStation 4 Pro
The point is, saying native is better, checkeboard is smarter, is like saying 1080p is better, 900p is smarter.... no one was saying that during the PS4 vs Xbox One power debates, so why start now? X1X can also do checkerboarding, just like PS4 was also capable of going down to 900p when needed, but then Xbox One had to go down to 720p in those cases. The same will apply here, when X1X needs to use checkerboard because the game is too demanding to run native 4K, the PS4 pro counterpart will have to go even lower resolution which will not look as good.
Not at all. 900p is objectively worse at representing just about any content imaginable. Its a trade off that introduces software in a fairly obvious, predictable manner. In solid implementations CBRs limitations are far more subtle and situational. Its a legitimately clever technique where theres nothing the least bit clever about simply rendering at a lower resolution.
The attempt to frame this as a console war issue is short-sighted. As you observe, the 1X is perfectly capable of checkerboard rendering techniques and thats exactly the point. People shouldnt get so hung up on native rendering that they turn their nose up at a technique that could free up computational capability and bandwidth to devote to making much more obvious improvements. Im confident that developers wont be purists here, theyre going to do whatever makes their games look as good as possible. Titles that have already shipped are more likely to simply push for high resolutions to minimize the work required, but newer releases should use every trick in the book.
As Id mentioned earlier in the thread, its worth noting that HDMIs current bandwidth limitations mean that 4K 60Hz HDR content is already inherently compromised. At least half the pixels dont have full chroma information transmitted (4:2:0 has full color only for 1/4 of the pixels, 4:2:2 has full color for 1/2, and only 4:4:4 transmits every pixel uncompromised, but isnt available for 4K HDR at 60Hz over an 18Gbps connection.)
The reason that CBR is smarter is because it has the same amount of pixels as native 4K but they are smart enough to sample the color buffer in a alternating checkerboard pattern while getting the full 4K depth samples & they are able to use the 4K ID buffer to get the color information for the color samples that they miss. plus PS4 Pro has some other hardware changes in the texture units that help with checkerboard rendering.
There is no difference in the resolution the deference is in the accuracy in the color samples & then there is the artifacts from using checkerboard rendering. Using the word native to differentiate from CBR is wrong but it's what people know so it's the simple way to talk about it but it also cause confusion for people who can't seem to understand that CBR 4K has the same amount of pixels as "Native 4K"
Dredd97
Member
I assume things have changed since it was previewed.. didn't Digital Foundry say the XboxX footage was CBR?
professor_t
Member
All I know is that people are just trying to have an objective discussion about the merits of different applications of technology and are not at all motivated by an inexplicable desire to promote/defend their console of choice which is NOT AT ALL tied to their feelings of self-worth.
Colbert
Banned
Just stop to spread this nonsense with "same amount of pixels".
The actual drawn pixels in the frame buffer are half the pixels with CBR compared to a full frame buffer. The other half of those pixels are derived by extrapolation or TI.
By rule this method is less accurate per pixel than drawing to a full frame buffer! That fact stands true even if you do a lot of post-processing to reduce those inaccuracies.
There is a reason why the performance requirements are much lower for 2160 CBR and the quality of the resulting image is subpar to a native output even with extra post-processing.
That said CBR delivers a decent quality and is an appropriate method to render a frame if the hardware is not able to fulfill the performance requirements for a native output.
This is the only response to you as I do not want to derail the thread again!
His response reminds of that time when Greenberg insisted that 1080p output was the same as native res.
OnQ is almost always playing the strong (il) logical downplay game, failing that a strawman argument to shift focus. I can't quite figure out why though?
There are CBR versions which do rasterize full sized Z and ID buffers.
This means that opaque surfaces can have perfect edges without sawtooth artifact.
Would be interesting to see such version without temporal reprojection step, just a hole filling using ID buffer.
Colbert
Banned
I am sorry that I responded to him. And you are right that discussion shouldn't be in this thread!
Get a master in derailing threads?
Indeed this would be interesting also in terms of performance requirements!
Thats a Greay Area
Member
Any new news on what type pixels TW3 will run at? Smart pixels, or Highest quality pixels?
Everytime I see a bump I'm hoping for new info
Everytime I see a bump I'm hoping for new info
Colbert
Banned
TW3 will be based on "smart ass quality pixels"!
funkystudent
Member
This dumb debate got me thinking I wonder what looks better. 1800p native or 2160p checkerboard. Both obviously not true full 4k but I wonder what the best compromise would be.
That would the case regardless of CB or native.
Thats a Greay Area
Member
So dynamic resolution then?
Colbert
Banned
900p scaled in a 1080p TV has the same amount of pixels than native 1080p. Just saying.
It depends. Panel resolution? What device and how the scaling is done for the 1800p source? How is the checkboard implementation? what kind of game is?
Anyway, 2160CBR needs a lot less resources than 1800p.
PsihoPerihelion
Member
Don' spread fake news about 900p having the same amount of pixels as 1080p if you upscale the image. You are comparing 2 resolutions that render natively to what CBR does. It is not a simple upscale method like what your TV does. There's a reason you can still pixel count a full 4K buffer on a 4K Checkerboard solution. If you try to pixel count a 900p image into a 1080p upscale (or even a 4k upscale) you are still getting 1600*900 on your count.
Here's Deus Ex MD running at 4K CBR on PS4Pro:
Does this look like something that you can reduce to a simple "lol guys it's like 900p lmao"? Pixel count that image. You are gonna get a full 4K image resolution. I get you guys have no idea what the difference between upscaling and things like CBR, Temporal Injection or Image Reconstruction are, but that's no reason to misinform people.
Dictator93
Member
I think maldo was joking, just a bit
Also, isn't Deus Ex dynamic resolution CB? So 1800cb to 2160cb.
That isn't a completely fair comparison. If you look at the "fully rendered" pixels, you get
3.200 * 1.800 = 5.760.000
3.840 * 2.160 / 2 = 4.147.200
That's a 39% difference, but the checkerboard-pass will not need anywhere near the resources as 39% more pixels. So a better comparison would be 2160p checkerboard vs. 1620p (4.665.600 pixels). I'd love to see Sony releasing some sort of comparison demo where we could play around with such rendering modes, but I can't see that coming.
AbandonedTrolley
Member
Yep, everytime someone else toots their Native v CBR horn I think it's been patched, shuddup till it comes!
Lol, this.
Journey
Banned
Shouldn't that also be another thread? I thought we were discussing the Xbox One X? lol
I keed.
I think maldo is talking out the image being sent out to the display. You're right that conventional up scaling isn't the same as CBR or TI. However when a system upscales a 900p game to 1080p, all the TV sees is a 1080p signal. OnQ is right that 2160c displays the same amount of pixels as 2160p but those comments are unnecessary when people like Colbert are referring to the amount of pixels within the framebuffer. This can lead to confusion for some, so it's puzzling why he insists on keeping with this narrative.
Edit:
We really should open a CBR and native resolution thread, sorry guys! I'm sure that thread would be over flooded with warriors though and not people looking for a real discussion.
LukasTaves
Member
I'm not sure that image proves your point, perhaps there's CA on top of checkerboarding, but the IQ is not really great in that image.
Though that was not what he is saying. He merely said that when the console upscales the signal is still a 1080p image, without any compression or something, so saying CBR is native because its output is a 4k image is incorrect.
Colbert
Banned
I vote for you as a well respected instance to create such a thread! Even if it gets a warriors thread it is contained there and not a off-topic discussion in every 4K thread in the future!
Would it be true that if PS4 Pro and Xbox One X GPUs each had 64 ROPs (instead of 32) even with clock speeds staying the same, that pure native 4K / 2160p would be much easier to reach without any CBR ?
Opps, momentarily forgot about bandwidth, 218 GB/s (PS4 Pro) and even 326 GB/s (XB1X) would bottleneck dealing with 2x the pixels per clock, nevermind.
Opps, momentarily forgot about bandwidth, 218 GB/s (PS4 Pro) and even 326 GB/s (XB1X) would bottleneck dealing with 2x the pixels per clock, nevermind.
I would respond to you but you claimed that you put me on your ignore list last time I gave you a fact so I'm not wasting my time replying to you
Right. Which is why spending computational resources generating detail that can't be transmitted to the display is of limited value.
thelastword
Banned
2160Cb would look sharper and more resources can go to a better framerate and better graphical settings with 4K CB..I would choose 4k CB everytime...You should google 4k CB vs 4k native comparison for watchdogs 2 on PC...Most people could not make the distinction and you get 50-60 fps with CB vs 30fps and below at 4K native...
NO, they don't have the same number of pixels. You will still count 900p as opposed to CB where you count 2160p....
The pixels in CB are not rendered in the traditional fashion, but the coverage is there unlike 900p which is quite blurry compared to a 1080p image in comparison...That is why CB is placed in such high regard, because no other technique is able to keep the image as sharp and intact like CB can vs Native...That is why the reprojection stuff Guerilla did was not as good. We've been looking for something that supercedes upscaling for the longest time whilst maintaining the integrity of the image and CB is that.....It's so good, that to the common eye it's well nigh indistinguishable from native, in motion and in comparison shots as well.....Tech sites most times have to zoom 800% to show people the differences, so who's going to see that in motion?
Of course native 4k is better, but we don't have the hardware to give us Native 4K consistently on ambitious titles this generation. Hell, even a 1080ti that's $800.00 can't give us native 4k in quite a few titles at the best settings, far less hybrid RX 480's in $400-500 consoles.
I must say though, if all this this discussion is simply warrioring because XBONEX may have a few more native first party games, then I think we will conclude that most of these native games on XBONEX are not that taxing...Forza 7 can run at 4k on PRO as well, looking at the specs...so will Super Lucky, Recore and Killer Instinct.
I think people are actually going to be surprised what the spec differences are in upcoming titles built at the same time for these machines.....I mean, ROTTR got the benefit of more dev time and focus of only one platform for that conversion, but for upcoming games, devs are going to use the strength of each console to make the best version possible in a typical development timeline. These two consoles have their own strengths and so that may not translate to as big a gap as some people are anticipating.
This is the most vague article I've ever read......At E3, the dev said it was running at 4K. That was proven to be CB.....Even now they say it's dynamic resolution, dynamic CB perhaps? Nothing is clear or conclusive from these quotes...When they started the playthrough at MS's conference....They said "Play it in 4K Ultra HD and HDR". The only time we will be getting the real/final receipts on this one, beyond all the marketing hubbub from Ubisoft, is when the title hits storeshelves and the full product is analyzed....
Yes, they have. That's why you need to do some maths to know the real number of rendered pixels. If wasn't the same you could know the real resolution counting pixels instead of searching for angled lines.