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[lefantome]

Take a look at some screens from the 2013 version.

http://www.gamersyde.com/news_images_of_the_witcher_3-13837_en.html

Textures were lower res in many places, character models for main characters, NPCs, and horses, were much less detailed.

What was leaps and bounds better was the lighting, particles, reflections, water, LoD, Draw Distance, and possibly vegetation density.



I expect when I go to that exact spot in the PC version, Ultra settings, the assets will be every bit as detailed as that 2013 screen.

I think you are mistaking the sharpening filter for asset detail.

The engine in 2013 was really awful.
It has improved a lot I don't think we can call it downgrade

Right now we have the PC 2014 version with an updated engine and assets vs the inferior release PS4 versione based on the same engine with lower quality assets and settings.

I expect a downgrade but a small one.

 

[Yahzi]

Apart from the stretched texture (it happens) the lighting itself looks really good and natural, he's in a shadow, it looks flat for a reason, but it's still vibrant and colourful. It's an open world game, you can't expect them to pay attention to every single little detail like that, so a texture snafu as pictured isn't really a huge deal. But that's not the angle you're going for, is it, Junior?

Like I said, there should be no complaints. It looks stunning in my mind.

 

[Dictator93]

980 is not the median-PC target I don't think.

Probably around GTX960, R9 270X or something.

Both of which are still more powerful than the PS4s GPU though and a larger amount than the difference between x1 and PS4 GPUs.

 

[BigTnaples]

Is it me or does this look worse than the Witcher 2? The art style looks horrendous.

This is a more criminal downgrade than Watch_Dogs, and it's almost as bad as Dark Souls II.

I'm shocked at the difference between the release day and E3 builds. I personally don't think TW3 looks like a 'next-gen' game anymore.

It's so disappointing to see how expectations for major games have come below par. Even the latest AC trailer doesn't look so hot.

edit: Just saw the PC v PS4 comparison. Console version looks pretty atrocious, but the PC footage isn't a patch of what we were seemingly promised.

What? No.

Lol

I am posting this from my phone as I play The Witcher 2 at 4K 60fps on a 65" curved display, with HD texture mods and the extreme flora mod.

Wild Hunt looks leaps and bounds better. Art direction choices aside.

Even on PS4 Wild Hunt looks better than TW2 by a mile. On PC it's not even a discussion.

Saying the console versions look atrocious is a little silly. The PS4 version looks fantastic, and at 1080p with most of the effects and nearly all of the assets intact, it's damned impressive.

 

[Easy_D]

C'mon don't start cherry picking screens. Every game can be made to look bad.

The skybox looks great in the youtube vid posted above but I'm still disturbed by the overuse of wind and bending trees while Geralt's hair remains undisturbed

Sexy flowing hair is a HairWorks exclusive. Sadly the effect is gimped on non Nvidia hardware

Spoiler

At least AMD plays it nice and gimps TressFX on their own hardware as well :lol

 

[BigTnaples]

Sexy flowing hair is a HairWorks exclusive. Sadly the effect is gimped on non Nvidia hardware

Spoiler

At least AMD plays it nice and gimps TressFX on their own hardware as well :lol

Actually, the hair only blows like that when hairworks is disabled. The hair blows much differently with Hiarworks enabled.

 

[Easy_D]

Actually, the hair only blows like that when hairworks is disabled. The hair blows much differently with Hiarworks enabled.

Does it look as weird and awkward as TressFX did in Tomb Raider? Like it looked good maybe 30% of the time and brought my locked 60 down to 40-45 ish fps. Way undercooked.

 

[Darkstorne]

Everyone hold your horses! The issues are being blown WAY out of proportion. Take a look at this :

Looks photo-realistic to me! Focus on the texture work in particular and lighting effects. There is no downgrade here! I can't wait to enjoy this next-gen graphics on my high-end system!

Lighting doesn't look so bad there. Sure, the texture on the wall isn't great, but the textures are the easiest part of a game to mod. And if you don't like the more saturated look compared to the 2013 version, SweetFX has everything you need. Nothing to worry about here =)

The only questions are, can we find a way to improve grass density through mods? And can we expect a DX11 version of ENB (or a competitor) to address the weaker AO?

 

[Easy_D]

Lighting doesn't look so bad there. Sure, the texture on the wall isn't great, but the textures are the easiest part of a game to mod. And if you don't like the more saturated look compared to the 2013 version, SweetFX has everything you need. Nothing to worry about here =)

The only questions are, can we find a way to improve grass density through mods? And can we expect a DX11 version of ENB (or a competitor) to address the weaker AO?

Durante said that GeDoSaTo is gonna support DX11 in the future. Maybe Witcher 3 will push him over the edge .

 

[Sanctuary]

Everyone hold your horses! The issues are being blown WAY out of proportion. Take a look at this :

Looks photo-realistic to me! Focus on the texture work in particular and lighting effects. There is no downgrade here! I can't wait to enjoy this next-gen graphics on my high-end system!

LOL. The textures look like wallpaper.

 

[DOWN]

That ain't Unity level of lighting, but that's the cost of dynamic time of day. It's not as bad as that cherry-picked shot in motion obviously.

 

[JBourne]

Everyone hold your horses! The issues are being blown WAY out of proportion. Take a look at this :

Looks photo-realistic to me! Focus on the texture work in particular and lighting effects. There is no downgrade here! I can't wait to enjoy this next-gen graphics on my high-end system!

Maxed out on PS4?

lol.

 

[Easy_D]

Like I said, there should be no complaints. It looks stunning in my mind.

Wait. You weren't sarcastic? Or is this sarcasm? You have bested me, good sir.

 

[nelsonroyale]

Everyone hold your horses! The issues are being blown WAY out of proportion. Take a look at this :

Looks photo-realistic to me! Focus on the texture work in particular and lighting effects. There is no downgrade here! I can't wait to enjoy this next-gen graphics on my high-end system!

Thanks for adding to the high level of discussion. Very mature of you. Rotten cherry picked screenshot.

 

[Einchy]

Seems legit. It's got bullet points and stuff

We didn't need a list to confirm those changes, we have footage confirming it already.

 

[flipswitch]

Maxed out on PS4?

lol.

Yeah, you can clearly see the PS button icons plus very low AF. Definitely not high end PC.

 

[Renekton]

Both of which are still more powerful than the PS4s GPU though and a larger amount than the difference between x1 and PS4 GPUs.

Though my feeling is that the gap between PS4 and 270X is probably not large enough to corroborate the narrative that the cutdown from build 2013 is caused by PS4/X1 alone. Furthermore considering GTX660 is the bare minimum and GTX980 is expected to ultra (45fps?). Unless it was a CPU constraint.

 

[Dictator93]

Though my feeling is that the gap between PS4 and 270X is probably not large enough to corroborate the narrative that the cutdown from build 2013 is caused by PS4/X1 alone. Furthermore considering GTX660 is the bare minimum and GTX980 is expected to ultra (45fps?). Unless it was a CPU constraint.

If the CPUs and GPUs of the consoles were better, then the baseline for which devs design their medium and high settings (on PC) would be higher. Or, if radically different, it could change their art authoring pipeline (aka, models are made with 80,000 polygons in mind instead of the 40,000 or so which most console games target) It seems reasonable to me to say a limiting factor in openworld graphical and systems design is by what the consoles can manage.

Or is that unreasonable?

 

[LiquidMetal14]

No ragdoll physics on nose hairs

No ass jiggle powered by licensed boob tech from Tecmo

No boob physics powered by Havoc™

And no procedural flatulence via PhysX

CDP isn't even trying anymore.

 

[Genio88]

Everyone hold your horses! The issues are being blown WAY out of proportion. Take a look at this :

Looks photo-realistic to me! Focus on the texture work in particular and lighting effects. There is no downgrade here! I can't wait to enjoy this next-gen graphics on my high-end system!

This screen is either photoshopped or taken while the camera was rotating causing motion bloor on the walls

 

[Asgaro]

Everyone hold your horses! The issues are being blown WAY out of proportion. Take a look at this :

Looks photo-realistic to me! Focus on the texture work in particular and lighting effects. There is no downgrade here! I can't wait to enjoy this next-gen graphics on my high-end system!

I didn't know they were putting efforts in a Wii U port.

 

[ufo8mycat]

How many of you when you get the game and load it for the first time are going to obsess and look at every wall, ground, tree and be like "argh not enough detail here" etc? Because seriously I think you need to stop being so obsessed about graphics, as it's going to ruin your enjoyment.

The level of nit-picking etc about graphic detail has me shaking my head.

Just relax, you will enjoy it more.

 

[Renekton]

If the CPUs and GPUs of the consoles were better, then the baseline for which devs design their medium and high settings (on PC) would be higher. Or, if radically different, it could change their art authoring pipeline (aka, models are made with 80,000 polygons in mind instead of the 40,000 or so which most console games target) It seems reasonable to me to say a limiting factor in openworld graphical and systems design is by what the consoles can manage.

Or is that unreasonable?

Hmm maybe. The official minimum requirement for PC is i5-2500K + GTX660. Regardless of how developers pad the minspec safety margin, any higher and it shuts out a good portion of PC gamers (even if we no-true-scotsman the lower spec users). In a hypothetical scenario where consoles sales are outstripped enough by Steam/GOG to justify a PC-centric build, they are probably still somewhat constrained by the above spec.

My 7970 am cry though where is the friggin 390X sob

 

[Gbraga]

the stupid sharpening feature is ugly. the 2015 screens look much better.

Yep, definitely. I prefer the recent PC builds by far in the way it looks overall, but the downgrade in certain assets can be objectively pointed out, like the foliage, it has nothing to do with an optional sharpening filter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLRDsMwS4Vs

Dat downgrade. I guess this is PS4

Goddamn dat skybox, man. So good.

hot damn, that's pretty amazing

Sorry for the off topic but your avatar looks amazing. Where is it from? Reminds me of Axiom Verge.

 

[Z3M0G]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLRDsMwS4Vs

Dat downgrade. I guess this is PS4

hot damn, that's pretty amazing

 

[KingSnake]

The game looks great (for PS4, we don't know yet for PC), not doubt about it. It's still questionable how well it runs, but this is not the point. The point is the communication from the developer. If they have shown something and they promised that something to be in the final product and that's not true, there is a big issue. The lack of willingness in showing footage to dismantle the discussion is very similar to Ubisoft's approach and it's not a good sign.

I still hope the PC version will redeem itself.

 

[samurai1226]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLRDsMwS4Vs

Dat downgrade. I guess this is PS4

Why are people impressed by that? The clouds are good, but besides that the lightning and environment look way worse than shown in older footage.

It's not looking way better than the day/night cycle in Skyrim or RDR

This is how the sky should look like. Look at the draw distance, how the mustains stand out of the atmospheric fog, how the light shines through the trees.

 

[PSiCHO]

I am posting this from my phone as I play The Witcher 2 at 4K 60fps on a 65" curved display, with HD texture mods and the extreme flora mod.

Pic or it didn't happen.

 

[0racle]

I just watched the IGN video review- it was playing on the PS4 version.

and it 100% completely and utterly looks like a different game from the trailers.

 

[Marvel]

The great characters and story will get me through this, but I am a little disappointed. Can't help it.

 

[BigTnaples]

Pic or it didn't happen.

Haha, for a second when I posted that, I entertained the thought. But it was too much like bragging.

 

[Gbraga]

Why are people impressed by that? The clouds are good, but besides that the lightning and environment look way worse than shown in older footage.

I can't speak for everyone, of course, but the comparison images made the skyboxes look like shit, so I was very happy to know that they look great, even if not as great.

 

[Gold_Loot]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLRDsMwS4Vs

Dat downgrade. I guess this is PS4

Yes that's the PS4 version.. Man that music reminded me of Shadow of the Colossus. Now I'm depressed about Last Guardian.

 

[mickcenary]

Everyone hold your horses! The issues are being blown WAY out of proportion. Take a look at this :

Looks photo-realistic to me! Focus on the texture work in particular and lighting effects. There is no downgrade here! I can't wait to enjoy this next-gen graphics on my high-end system!

My biggest issue with this image is what you can gleen of the art style. That tunic, bru. Everything I've seen so far - especially Geralt's garb - is so mish-mashy and colourful for the sake of being colourful.

 

[BigTnaples]

Why are people impressed by that? The clouds are good, but besides that the lightning and environment look way worse than shown in older footage.

It's not looking way better than the day/night cycle in Skyrim or RDR

This is how the sky should look like. Look at the draw distance, how the mustains stand out of the atmospheric fog, how the light shines through the trees.

Eh, that gif is not the most flattering, but the way the storm rolls in and out and the way the sun rises are both super beautiful. Looks stunning even on a PS4 at 1080p.

My mouth is watering at the thought of these scenes rendered at 4K on my PC, with Ultra settings.

[PostProcess]
AllowBloom=true
AllowShafts=false
AllowAntialias=false
AllowMSAA=false
AllowBlur=true
AllowDOF=false
AllowVignette=true
AllowSharpen=false
AllowRain=true
AllowSSAO=true
AllowMotionBlur=false
AllowCutsceneDOF=true
AllowBillboards=true
AllowSoftLight=true
AllowFog=true
AllowUnderwater=true
AllowChromaticAberration=false
[Rendering]
MaxTextureSize=2048
MaxAtlasTextureSize=2048
MaxCubeShadowSize=512
MaxSpotShadowSize=512
TextureDownscale=0
DetailTextureDownscale=0
AtlasTextureDownscale=0
TextureMemoryBudget=500
TextureMemoryGUIBudget=80
TextureTimeBudget=10
TextureInFlightBudget=128
DecalsChance=1.0f
DecalsSpawnDistanceCutoff=10.0f
TextureStreamingDistanceLimit=40000.f
TextureStreamingCharacterDistanceLimit=50.f
TextureStreamingHeadsDistanceLimit=10.f
TextureStreamingReduceGameplayLOD=true
UberSampling=0
TextureMipBias=0
MsaaLevel=0
DynamicDecalsLimit=30
MeshRenderingDistanceScale=1.0f
MeshLODDistanceScale=1.0f
TerrainScreenSpaceErrorThreshold=2.0f
TerrainErrorMetricMultiplier=10
ForceInstantAdaptation=false
ForceInstantEnvProbeUpdate=false
EnableTemporalAA=true
CascadeShadowFadeTreshold=1.0f
CascadeShadowmapSize=1024
CascadeShadowQuality=0
MaxCascadeCount=4
MaxTerrainShadowAtlasCount=3
GlobalOceanTesselationFactor=10
UseHairWorks=false
HairWorksAALevel=8
TerrainReadAheadDistance=200.0f
ForcedDebugPreviewIndex=-1
[TextureStreaming]
MaxResidentMipMap=6
[LevelOfDetail]
MeshLodGameplayDownscale=0
CharacterLodGameplayDownscale=0
DecalsHideDistance=30
StripeHideDistance=60
SwarmHideDistance=200
DimmerHideDistance=60
[Budget]
DecalBudget=100

Bolded some settings that were interesting to me. Really can't wait to dig into the settings and make this game as beautiful as it can be.

 

[tuxfool]

My mouth is watering at the thought of these scenes rendered at 4K on my PC, with Ultra settings..

"EnableTemporalAA=true"

sweet. I figured it had to be the case, so far there has been surprisingly little aliasing.

 

[EatChildren]

Notice at 1:47 we still see the amazing footage being advertised which is actually kinda jarring when we have more recent footage mixed in that doesn't hold up to it.

Irrespective of downgrade arguments, CDPR has been completely inconsistent with footage cut into trailers and promos. They're still using footage from the Sword of Destiny trailer which is no longer relevant due to aesthetic redesigns, downgrade aside.

Bolded some settings that were interesting to me. Really can't wait to dig into the settings and make this game as beautiful as it can be.

I said it elsewhere, but I'll note that while some of these will be tweakable, if TW2 is anything to go by many will have hardlocked caps in the engine and tweaking wont make a difference.

I'll be interested to see if FoliageDistanceScale= makes a difference. Uber used 1.0, but it wasn't capped and could be increased dramatically. It didn't change LOD scaling, but it did increase rendering distance of foliage assets as a whole, so you at least got the low quality LOD for grass and bushes further.

 

[Imp the Dimp]

PS4 version honestly looks nowhere near as good as 2013 PC footage. Will have to wait and see what the PC version offers at max details. CDPR's vague press statement was shady though.

 

[Sodding_Gamer]

Bolded some settings that were interesting to me. Really can't wait to dig into the settings and make this game as beautiful as it can be.

I'm looking forward to what modders and peeps can come up with. Really hope some things can be easily fixed and get the PC version looking even better. Although it seems a lot of the downgrade is from the assets themselves and the lighting.

 

[Inkvoterad]

I was thinking a bit about the water that we saw in earlier 2013-2014 footage. Big waves that looked better than even Black Flag (and black flag has insanely nice water) and i noticed how the only time they've shown the boat sequences have been that specific area. So i'm starting to wonder if thats the only area in the game with that kind of water, while the rest is the flat shit we've seen in the latest footage.

I'm probably wrong and wouldnt be suprised if some reviewer already posted footage of same area but damn it i want that water. Water in games is a really big deal for me, i don't know why.

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

HW isn't exclusive to Nvidia, but it is PC only.

All Nvidia GameWorks (except VXGI) are planned for other platforms than PC (even Flex) when non CUDA/direct compute versions of them are available and now the first feature called WaveWorks is available for all platforms.

It seems very similar to TressFX. I think Hairworks does a better job making the hair look right in different lighting conditions. Something I felt that TressFX (at least in the PC version of TR) or something like Unity did not do very well.

First AC Unity didn't use TressFX since when a video game company get a partnership with a certain GPU manufacturer, it will include their specific tech in their game and they won't incorporate techs from the other company (eventhoughAC Unity didn't use HairWorks either). Well, you are partially right. Tomb Raider PC used first version of TressFX which wasn't very advanced at that time. Current-gen Consoles version of Tomb Raider Used the more optimized TressFX 2.0 which had both Kajiya-Kay and Marchner lighting models which give you all the realistic light interactions and this is the same technics current HairWorks use (The Order 1886 used same technics too but without the need of Tress FX or HairWorks and it looked phenomenal). Now TressFX 3.0 has fur support and other advanced technics that may surpass the current HairWorks and it will be used in the upcoming Rise Of The Tomb Raider and Deus Ex Mankind Divided. TressFX (now Tress FX 3.0+) is extremely optimized and works well on all GPUs and works better even on NVIdia GPU than HairWorks on NVidia GPU. CDProjekt should have used TressFX 3.0 so all platforms could have benefited from it but they couldn't because of the previous mentioned reason. I hope I explained this well for both of you and orochi91 .

 

[nelsonroyale]

Why are people impressed by that? The clouds are good, but besides that the lightning and environment look way worse than shown in older footage.

It's not looking way better than the day/night cycle in Skyrim or RDR

This is how the sky should look like. Look at the draw distance, how the mustains stand out of the atmospheric fog, how the light shines through the trees.

It is looking way better than Skyrim...watching that looped fog continuously rolling in...very short loop as well. It looks dated in comparison.

 

[Kinthalis]

All Nvidia GameWorks (except VXGI) are planned for other platforms than PC (even Flex) when non CUDA/direct compute versions of them are available and now the first feature called WaveWorks is available for all platforms.



First AC Unity didn't use TressFX since when a video game company get a partnership with a certain GPU manufacturer, it will include their specific tech in their game and they won't incorporate techs from the other company (eventhoughAC Unity didn't use HairWorks either). Well, you are partially right. Tomb Raider PC used first version of TressFX which wasn't very advanced at that time. Current-gen Consoles version of Tomb Raider Used the more optimized TressFX 2.0 which had both Kajiya-Kay and Marchner lighting models which give you all the realistic light interactions and this is the same technics current HairWorks use (The Order 1886 used same technics too but without the need of Tress FX or HairWorks and it looked phenomenal). Now TressFX 3.0 has fur support and other advanced technics that may surpass the current HairWorks and it will be used in the upcoming Rise Of The Tomb Raider and Deus Ex Mankind Divided. TressFX (now Tress FX 3.0+) is extremely optimized and works well on all GPUs and works better even on NVIdia GPU than HairWorks on NVidia GPU. CDProjekt should have used TressFX 3.0 so all platforms could have benefited from it but they couldn't because of the previous mentioned reason. I hope I explained this well for both of you and orochi91 .

I don't recall the order having any tessellated hair that could react to physics implemented at all.

 

[Lady Siara]

They're in a bit of an awkward situation now. They refuse to talk about rumors and they refuse to post evidence to back up earlier statements. Is this a matter of pride in refusing to admit it, confidence in their product (like the review embargo lifting so early), or something else entirely? It's very bizarre, to the point that I'm curious how this stance benefits them.

Crossing my fingers for a DX12 patch if the claims are true.

 

[Kintaro]

The downgrade is quite obvious. That said, the game does still look pretty darn good. Well, good enough for this gen's standard for good anyway. I managed a good deal for the PC version of the game though, so that helps take the sting of a downgrade off. Let's hope the PC version is up to snuff.

On a side note, its baffling to me that the PS4 version was made available first for reviewers and not the PC version...which is being made by a PC centric company. Huh?

 

[Tovarisc]

Crossing my fingers for a DX12 patch if the claims are true.

Afaik all CDPR has said on DX12 is that it won't improve XBO performance that much and for PC implementation they maybe look into it once it's out for masses to utilize.

 

[PLASTICA-MAN]

I don't recall the order having any tessellated hair that could react to physics implemented at all.

Lol look at the Order Threads, filled with gif showing Hair inetaracting to wind (the first showing didin't have advanced hair, the final game had).

Edit: Found one at this thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=985163

There are more if you search more.

 

[EatChildren]

There's not going to be a graphics upgrade patch. Again, The Witcher 2 was gorgeous, but memory is rose tinted. When the Enhanced Edition was announced fans were clamouring for a DX11 patch that would fix the awful shadow dithering, 1m foliage pop-in, almost total absence of anisotropic filtering, middle ground AA like MSAA instead of having to chose between FXAA and SSAA, and maybe add in some bells and whistles like tessellation.

It got shit fuck all of any of this. Which is not a dig against CDPR, just reality that they didn't upgrade fuck in the engine and left most of the assets unchanged, instead preferring to add new content.

 

[Cave Johnson]

Why are people impressed by that? The clouds are good, but besides that the lightning and environment look way worse than shown in older footage.

This is how the sky should look like. Look at the draw distance, how the mustains stand out of the atmospheric fog, how the light shines through the trees.

Pre-rendered "gameplay" CG: The latest dishonest marketing trend.

 

[Jhn]

About that sky comparison: for whatever reason, they've removed the volumetric atmospherics completely since 2013. That alone causes a pretty big part of the visual discrepancies.