Thief Resolution is 1080p on PS4, 900p on Xbox One

[brendanvb]

I'm glad Sony is winning the war so far, but it's starting to seem a bit petty to compare the resolutions of the 2 consoles with every new release.

 

[PsychoFish]

I'm glad Sony is winning the war so far, but it's starting to seem a bit petty to compare the resolutions of the 2 consoles with every new release.

And on the PS3 it was "We have Blu-Ray"...always reminds me of

 

[XbatousaiX]

And on the PS3 it was "We have Blu-Ray"...always reminds me of
View attachment 9915

0.5/10 try harder.

 

[James]

Psychofish, I don't think you are grasping how game engines work.

Firstly, they are iterative toolsets for building games. The Unreal 3 engine used for BioShock Infinite in 2013 was a different build to that used for Gears of War in 2006.

On top of this, the performance of the game largely depends on how the developers implement the tech the engine is capable of, and the engines are often customised to some extent by each developer according to what they want to achieve.

Inifnity Blade (mobile), Zumba Fitness, and Dungeon Defenders all use Unreal Engine 3, and those games look vastly different from one another.

It is easily demonstrable how throwing more powerful hardware at a game engine makes a game look better. Unreal 3 isn't the best case in point because games developed using it are often cross-platform and so the developers optimise for running on consoles and PC gamers are lucky if we get some advanced graphics options implemented (as provided by the engine) and some higher resolution textures. When this doesn't happen, it's why PC gamers moan about sloppy ports and lazy devs.

A good example is Battlefield 4 - it's the same Frostbite 3 engine at the core, and it's a vastly different visual experience across the old and new consoles, with the PC offering the best visual experience if you have enough hardware to throw at it.

That's not 5 different engines, the console versions are just locked to certain feature sets because the hardware limits the performance. I could crank Battlefield 4 up to max settings on my PC, but it would be near unplayable. Consoles gamers simply don't have the option to try.

Suggesting "Changes had to be made to the engines to get it working on the next gen hardware" is false. The latest versions of the commonly used game engines were always capable of running on the next-gen console hardware (afterall, it's basically an AMD APU - there's really nothing special about the internals of the new consoles). The feature set that these AMD APUs are capable of running has been around for quite some time actually (think DirectX 11 tech for the Xbox, while Sony has its own custom yet similar 3D graphics API).

Now, I'll agree with you that many games are straddling the line between old and new, and because of that you may assume the next-gen console version is gimped, but that isn't necessarily the case (if the developer hasn't been lazy to create a version of the game that capitalises on the improved hardware). Tomb Raider Definitive Edition is a good example of this being done (business practices aside) - it's the same game, same engine at the core, but the developer worked on taking advantage of the next-gen console's power.

For those who reckon that the batch of games in the console transition are being gimped on next-gen for the sake of old-gen; welcome to the PC gamer's world, we've been sucking up crap ports for years.

I'd also disagree that there is barely any difference between 720p and 1080p. I'd be willing to participate in an experiment challenging me to discern between games running in 720p versus 1080p and I reckon I'll easily be able to tell which is which. Couple resolution with framerate and it's a no brainer. Bottom line at this stage, PS4 is outperforming Xbone.

Anyway, I went all over the place with this rant: bottom line, I agree that developers and hardware are limiting game performance on next-gen, but disagree that it's to do with the 3D engines being used.

The first proper exclusives for PS4 should prove an interesting test. Killzone Shadowfall was a visually impressive game, despite being a mundane experience I'm looking forward to InFamous Second Son and The Order: 1886.

 

[PsychoFish]

Psychofish, I don't think you are grasping how game engines work.

Firstly, they are iterative toolsets for building games. The Unreal 3 engine used for BioShock Infinite in 2013 was a different build to that used for Gears of War in 2006.

Agreed, this I do understand. Minor code tweaks will change the build of an engine, but not the major revision.

On top of this, the performance of the game largely depends on how the developers implement the tech the engine is capable of, and the engines are often customised to some extent by each developer according to what they want to achieve.

This I also agree with and understand, however the developers cannot get an engine to do anything if it does not suppport. Example here is FrostBite 1.0 that does not support DX 11, whereas Frostbite 1.5 has limited support for it. Same applies to the Frostbite 2 engine in that you will not be able to run a FrostBite 2 title in Windows XP due to there being no DX9 support.

Inifnity Blade (mobile), Zumba Fitness, and Dungeon Defenders all use Unreal Engine 3, and those games look vastly different from one another.

This does come down to the developer and how they make use of the engine.

It is easily demonstrable how throwing more powerful hardware at a game engine makes a game look better. Unreal 3 isn't the best case in point because games developed using it are often cross-platform and so the developers optimise for running on consoles and PC gamers are lucky if we get some advanced graphics options implemented (as provided by the engine) and some higher resolution textures. When this doesn't happen, it's why PC gamers moan about sloppy ports and lazy devs.

Agreed, U3 is not the best engine to raise that point, but it's an easy engine to use as it's very widely used

A good example is Battlefield 4 - it's the same Frostbite 3 engine at the core, and it's a vastly different visual experience across the old and new consoles, with the PC offering the best visual experience if you have enough hardware to throw at it.

Again it comes down to the combination of Engine and Developers.

That's not 5 different engines, the console versions are just locked to certain feature sets because the hardware limits the performance. I could crank Battlefield 4 up to max settings on my PC, but it would be near unplayable. Consoles gamers simply don't have the option to try.

Agreed

Suggesting "Changes had to be made to the engines to get it working on the next gen hardware" is false. The latest versions of the commonly used game engines were always capable of running on the next-gen console hardware (afterall, it's basically an AMD APU - there's really nothing special about the internals of the new consoles). The feature set that these AMD APUs are capable of running has been around for quite some time actually (think DirectX 11 tech for the Xbox, while Sony has its own custom yet similar 3D graphics API).

I was referring to the older generation here; the moves between PSOne and PS2 / XBOX & XBOX 360. Vast changes had to be made.

Now, I'll agree with you that many games are straddling the line between old and new, and because of that you may assume the next-gen console version is gimped, but that isn't necessarily the case (if the developer hasn't been lazy to create a version of the game that capitalises on the improved hardware). Tomb Raider Definitive Edition is a good example of this being done (business practices aside) - it's the same game, same engine at the core, but the developer worked on taking advantage of the next-gen console's power.

For those who reckon that the batch of games in the console transition are being gimped on next-gen for the sake of old-gen; welcome to the PC gamer's world, we've been sucking up crap ports for years.

I'd also disagree that there is barely any difference between 720p and 1080p. I'd be willing to participate in an experiment challenging me to discern between games running in 720p versus 1080p and I reckon I'll easily be able to tell which is which. Couple resolution with framerate and it's a no brainer. Bottom line at this stage, PS4 is outperforming Xbone.

This also largely depends on the size of the screen, i.e. the difference between 720p and 1080p on a 32" will be less noticeable than on a 60" at the same distance from the screen. When moving further away from the screen the difference will also be less noticeable. I hate to agree, but PS4 is winning the resolution war.

Anyway, I went all over the place with this rant: bottom line, I agree that developers and hardware are limiting game performance on next-gen, but disagree that it's to do with the 3D engines being used.

The first proper exclusives for PS4 should prove an interesting test. Killzone Shadowfall was a visually impressive game, despite being a mundane experience I'm looking forward to InFamous Second Son and The Order: 1886.

Same here, I'd love to see something that will tax these new systems the way Skyrim taxed the PS3/XB360 to finally put all these whole Playstation / XBOX agruments into perspective.

 

[brendanvb]

The first proper exclusives for PS4 should prove an interesting test. Killzone Shadowfall was a visually impressive game, despite being a mundane experience I'm looking forward to InFamous Second Son and The Order: 1886.

I agree I hope Infamous lives up to the hype of being the first true next-gen title.

 

[Dohc-WP]

Agreed, this I do understand. Minor code tweaks will change the build of an engine, but not the major revision.

the unreal engine in bioshock infite is a major revision gears 1 ran UE3.0 Bioshock Inf uses UE 3.5 the same with the old unreal engines u had 2.0 which ran UT2003 and Epic did some major mods and a year later UE 2.5 was born which powered UT2004

This I also agree with and understand, however the developers cannot get an engine to do anything if it does not suppport. Example here is FrostBite 1.0 that does not support DX 11, whereas Frostbite 1.5 has limited support for it. Same applies to the Frostbite 2 engine in that you will not be able to run a FrostBite 2 title in Windows XP due to there being no DX9 support.

if an engine does not support certain features it can be updated to support those features, Eg source did not support dx 11 natively so respawn upgraded the engine to support dx 11, same applies with the iw engine which treyarch updated to support dx 11 with black ops 2.

Windows xp supports all iterations of dx 9, it does not support dx 10 natively but it is capable of supporting dx 10 (if microsoft wanted it to), as people where able to run dx 10 exclusive titles in xp after modifying a few xp dll's.

 

[PsychoFish]

the unreal engine in bioshock infite is a major revision gears 1 ran UE3.0 Bioshock Inf uses UE 3.5 the same with the old unreal engines u had 2.0 which ran UT2003 and Epic did some major mods and a year later UE 2.5 was born which powered UT2004

Versioning = [MAJOR].[MINOR]; i.e. v2.0 and v2.5 is of the same major version. v2.5 is a minor revision of v2.0

if an engine does not support certain features it can be updated to support those features, Eg source did not support dx 11 natively so respawn upgraded the engine to support dx 11, same applies with the iw engine which treyarch updated to support dx 11 with black ops 2.

Windows xp supports all iterations of dx 9, it does not support dx 10 natively but it is capable of supporting dx 10 (if microsoft wanted it to), as people where able to run dx 10 exclusive titles in xp after modifying a few xp dll's.

You need to read my statement again. Frostbite 2 does not support DX9, which is why games developed with a vanilla Frostbite 2 engine will not run on Windows XP. Gears of War is a good example here of modified engines. The original Gears of War ran on a virtually vanilla UE 3; Gears 2 ran on a greatly modified UE 3 version this was modified by Epic games under their licence agreement; Gears 3 also ran UE 3 but with a heavily modified engine. It really depends on the development efforts of the studio. While it's easier to modify up it's virtually impossible to modify down. However, even with modifications there are limits. Generally the modifications that individual studios make are not included in the base package (similar to version branching in Linux). The IW engine is a branch of the ID Tech 3 engine and was so heavily modified that it became essentially its own engine. Engines are modular in design and are built to be customized, however you only see major engine modifications from the larger game studios. As I also stated earlier (and as James pointed out) it's a combination of Engine, Developer skill and hardware. A skilled development team can take an average engine and milk it, whereas a less skilled dev team might end up with something that performs exceptionally poorly even though they use the same engine and the target hardware is similar.