360 graphics
- Thread starter blueshift
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well possibly some are easier to please than others. Whilst it doesnt detract from my enjoyment i have to say the graphics (to me) were a let down. That should improve, but the step up from PCs/PS2 etc isnt huge really (not even a step up in some PC games)
I personally find that the 360 graphics are amazing. Ive been playing Fight Night 3 a lot recently at my friends on his Samsung high def tv and it looks fantastic.
Most normal people are stunned at the quality of the graphics
Most normal people are stunned at the quality of the graphics
Pug said:
I hear people say this quite a lot. Out of interest, which PC racing games look better than PGR3, TDU and Burnout on the 360 ? You specifically mention racing games in your earlier post as examples of poor 360 graphics.
As for not looking much better than PS2
We will just have to agree to disagree there. As for some PC games looking better (people mainly refer to FPS at this point), well thats not all that suprising when you look at the hardware and costs involved.
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well, i run on a 19" monitor, using the MS VGA Cable. Racing games as nice as TDU or PGR3? well, GT4 isnt that inferior tbh (it is worse, but not massively so).
As for PC games, Flatout 2 looks and plays nice, FEAR (FPS
) is graphically more sumptuous...
Its just the jaggies and washed out appearance that i would say detract from it...
Not moaning, just commenting
Havent played Burnout, but texture quality on PGR3 isnt amazing.
What i was saying (referring to PS2) is that the 360 is better, but not a massive leap in quality like the PS1 from SNES was, for example.
As for PC games, Flatout 2 looks and plays nice, FEAR (FPS
) is graphically more sumptuous...Its just the jaggies and washed out appearance that i would say detract from it...
Not moaning, just commenting
Havent played Burnout, but texture quality on PGR3 isnt amazing.What i was saying (referring to PS2) is that the 360 is better, but not a massive leap in quality like the PS1 from SNES was, for example.
Soldato
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i was impressed with the GFX on a SD, so when i moved to a HDTV i was chuffed, its replaced my pc for gaming, but then again im a recreational gamer
oweneades said:
What about saints row, PD0 and MotoGP '06 where they not xbox360 only and yet suffer some of the worst tearing and framerate dropping i have ever seen on a console.
PGR3 is only runing at 30fps (Dirtydog would be proud) and even then iirc its only runing at 480 and upscaled.
The severe lack of AA on 360 games is a total joke, poor dev tools or documentation or what? its supposed to have no performance hit, yet nobody can implement it, and the PS3 gets a bad rep for programing!
The 360 looks ok, but i do agree it isn't as mind blowing as the previous consoles have been. When the xbox came along with Halo, PC gamers, even higher end PC gamers wet themselves!
But now we are all getting excited about an engine thats what 2 years old?
The visuals are nothing compared to what we've yet to see. Gears of War, Blue Dragon, Lost Planet and many other big titles will blow the pants out of any gamer who doubts the 360's xenon gpu. Right now it's just lazy coding from developers hoping to make a quick buck while the 'next gen' talk is still alive and well amongst gamers.
I can name 3 launch titles that were pinpoint perfect:
Condemned - One very minor glitch, and an awesome looking game.
Kameo - Not a single glitch, containing some of the best visuals, gameplay I've ever seen on a game which appeared to be a kiddie one.
PGR3 - Possibly THE best utilisation of Live so far. Looks good, plays good and online it's brilliant if you can find a race without a single ferrari.
It took a solid year before the Xbox saw top quality titles utilising it's power. It'll be the same for the 360.
Not sure why the Sauce engine will change things on the graphics front. To me its just an average engine and Valve have a rep for going OTT on a lot of their comments regarding their games. Sauce never impressed me on the PC one bit due to it being so fragile and prone to crashing/locking up etc.
I can name 3 launch titles that were pinpoint perfect:
Condemned - One very minor glitch, and an awesome looking game.
Kameo - Not a single glitch, containing some of the best visuals, gameplay I've ever seen on a game which appeared to be a kiddie one.
PGR3 - Possibly THE best utilisation of Live so far. Looks good, plays good and online it's brilliant if you can find a race without a single ferrari.
It took a solid year before the Xbox saw top quality titles utilising it's power. It'll be the same for the 360.
Not sure why the Sauce engine will change things on the graphics front. To me its just an average engine and Valve have a rep for going OTT on a lot of their comments regarding their games. Sauce never impressed me on the PC one bit due to it being so fragile and prone to crashing/locking up etc.
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Unfortunately, with every console and PC, there don't seem to be very well laid down quality controls. Some games companies really seem to make quite poor games engines, that then turn out to run like a dog on the systems and generally look crap, then you get others that come out and look amazing and run perfectly. We'll get exactly the same on the PS3 as well as the Wii.
You can just about get away with it on the PC, as you can always say get more memory, better CPU etc, but a console should have constant framerates. I was shocked at how bad some games ran on the 360, two being Tomb Raider and Saints Row, but others look better and run perfectly fine. It's only really acceptable to me when the game is actually so good the slowdown doesn't bother me.
You can just about get away with it on the PC, as you can always say get more memory, better CPU etc, but a console should have constant framerates. I was shocked at how bad some games ran on the 360, two being Tomb Raider and Saints Row, but others look better and run perfectly fine. It's only really acceptable to me when the game is actually so good the slowdown doesn't bother me.
The irony is people will **** off the developers for poor graphics/framerate one minute and then talk about the lack of original gameplay the next. Guys, you often have to prioritise, either because of time and/or money. Something like Saints Row is a great example, the graphics are good, perhaps not amazing, but the gameplay is key, and that is rather good.
JUMPURS: The lack of AA is nothing to do with poor tools (!) or documentation (!!!). Are you seriously suggesting that AA is not used because the devs haven't read that far in the docs?
Davey: As for the "quality controls", the quality controls are very strict on all consoles, but there are limits on how much you can test a game. Besides, some programmers are better than others, some publishers are better than others etc.
JUMPURS: The lack of AA is nothing to do with poor tools (!) or documentation (!!!). Are you seriously suggesting that AA is not used because the devs haven't read that far in the docs?
Davey: As for the "quality controls", the quality controls are very strict on all consoles, but there are limits on how much you can test a game. Besides, some programmers are better than others, some publishers are better than others etc.
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JUMPURS said:
Saints Row I will agree did have some issues with the framerate although iirc this was sorted in the final release, havn't noticed any slowdown on PD0 or motoGP although I will agree tearing is bad (However a pc can be just as bad if you don't turn v sync on)
PGR3's framerate may be capped at 30fps yet it is consistant. This is THE single most important factor when looking at framerates. If a framerate stays constant you will not notice if its only 30fps or 60fps. You only register changes in the framerate.
At a quick glance, Lego star wars 2, TD:U*, GOW, kameo all show excellent use of AA. One thing to remember is decent coding is the key to unlocking the 'free' AA on the 360. PGR3 I believe ran out of time before AA could be properly implemented this is why it suffers from quite bad jaggies.
*I believe TD:U due to its scale is only running 2xAA however it is definately used well with jaggies being kept to a minimum most of the time.
However I will envisage the PS3 will suffer quite badly both from lack of AA, AF and also shoddy coding leading to poor framerates and tearing. Possibly even more so if developers can't get the most out of the complicated cell design.
Of course with time and this applies to all formats games will looks better and play smoother as developers will get to grips with getting the most out of each console.
I have no doubts that say in 2-3 years time we will see brilliant looking games from both leading consoles (leaving the WII out as its doesn't focus mainly on the graphics as its number 1 priority).
Whilst I will agree some of the games we have seen have not looked that great I will say take a look at the upcoming games (the X06 trailer on the marketplace is a good place for this) just to see what is instore.
oweneades said:
Ohh no MotoGP is probably the worst i have seen on the 360 for the slowdown, it seems to jump from over 60 down to about 20 round some corners.
Yeah it is pretty constant, i honestly can say i dont think i have seen any slowdown. but it still isnt as smoothe was you would expect, when it would be running a full 60fps you know? i still played it and enjoyed it, but if it has 60fps it would look a lot better. Also is it only 480 upscaled? because that is probably what contributes a lot to the jaggies.
Yeah Lego star wars and kameo seem to be using good AA, i think GRAW and Condemned (iirc its been that long since i played it) do a good job too. GoW probably will.
IIRC from hearing on here its the whole engine needs to be built from the ground up using tiling for the AA to be 'free'. But the problem is no games are doing it, GoW will probably be the first we see if it. But all we hear about is the great development tools etc about the 360, yet people building games on their system, can't build the engines correctly on it?? u know? Why are we having to put up with it? is it devs just churning them out and not caring? are the MS tools and support etc just not quite as great as they say? i dont know.
The PS3 i am very very curious to see what the AA and framerates are like. The videos showen at TGS etc look good and i hope they have been done right. I seen the video of F1 on the PS3 and it is probably one of the prettiest racing games i have seen on the next gen. This was in game racing video at a stand at TGS. The framerate didnt seem to drop, but couldn't see the AA. Also i might be a bit blinded because i am an F1 fan, and a PS fan lol
a lot of people using the PS3, especially at first, will be a lot of Sony's big names who worked on the PS2 and will have a good relationship with Sony and their way of thinking. The main person people reffer the PS3 difficulty in programing to is John Carmack, but naturally the 360 will suit him and his style, the PC was his bread and butter. Maybe i missed all the other ones, i have seen other programmers saying, yeah its strange to program for, its tricky but once you get used to it its fine.
Is it possible a load of PC programmers assume they know how to use the 360 so dont really tinker enough with it to get all the power out of the system, but with the PS3 you are forced into looking at doing things in some ways and in doing so find some pleasant surprises?
I hope the PS3 grows in a way that the PS2 did, the PS2 just looked better and better and better, the xbox came in at a high level, so maybe thats why we didnt see the big leap we did in the PS2. I mean it was Halo to what Halo 2 on the xbox. But the PS2 we had like x-squad/RR5 to MGS3 and GoW (God of War lol)
With official x360 magazine giving just about every game that comes out an 8 or a 9 i honestly worry about the future. If these are 8 and 9 games, there has already been a 10!. surely by that logic they can't get any better, and that upsets me
i want the 360 to get better as time goes along, but i honestly can't see it. we are now a year along and from the launch titles, there hasn't been a whole lot recently which is just mind blowing.I am looking forward to GoW but have a feeling its going to be a letdown, i am looking forward to lost planet, as i liked the demo, but dont know much about the game. Then again it could be that its just a bad magazine full of so many fanboys it is unreal and i really should stop buying it. It has always annoyed me about xbox magazine, but thats another thread. lol
I am (to say the least) mildly miffed about Peter Moore running his gob about "the age of jaggies is over" and yet a load of 360 games still have no anti aliasing in them. Id like to see it used more AND some anisotropic filtering, the performance hit for aniso is tiny so why not make use if it?
Soldato
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The whole AA thing is a bit confusing.
A while ago, Microsoft touted the Xenos as being able to do X4AA for free.
What they actually meant, was that X4AA could be implemented with an extremely low performance hit if tile rendering was used by the games engine.
From what I understand, the image is broken up into tiles so that it fits into the 10MB on-GPU memory.
The problem with this is that the engine would have to be designed from the ground up and bulit for the 360 in mind, its not something that can easily be added onto an exisiting engine.
As far as I'm aware, theres currently no game on the 360 that makes use of tile rendering. All the AA you see in games that have it has been achieved through standard multi-sampling AA, which carries quite a high performance hit.
If you're EA for example, you want the game to appear on multiple formats. Can you imagine the time it would take to build a game engine from the ground up for the 360, another one for the PS3, Wii, etc? Much easier just to build the one engine and tweak it accordingly. Want to get a game rushed out through the door as quickly as possible? Sod learning the tile rendering method. Lets stick to what we know with the traditional way. At least that way we can port it to other platforms easily.
The jaggies problem with PGR3 is due to the game being rendered at 600p and then upscaled to 720p. Quite naughty seeing as MS said every game would be rendered at 720p and then scaled up/down accordingly.
A while ago, Microsoft touted the Xenos as being able to do X4AA for free.
What they actually meant, was that X4AA could be implemented with an extremely low performance hit if tile rendering was used by the games engine.
From what I understand, the image is broken up into tiles so that it fits into the 10MB on-GPU memory.
The problem with this is that the engine would have to be designed from the ground up and bulit for the 360 in mind, its not something that can easily be added onto an exisiting engine.
As far as I'm aware, theres currently no game on the 360 that makes use of tile rendering. All the AA you see in games that have it has been achieved through standard multi-sampling AA, which carries quite a high performance hit.
If you're EA for example, you want the game to appear on multiple formats. Can you imagine the time it would take to build a game engine from the ground up for the 360, another one for the PS3, Wii, etc? Much easier just to build the one engine and tweak it accordingly. Want to get a game rushed out through the door as quickly as possible? Sod learning the tile rendering method. Lets stick to what we know with the traditional way. At least that way we can port it to other platforms easily.
The jaggies problem with PGR3 is due to the game being rendered at 600p and then upscaled to 720p. Quite naughty seeing as MS said every game would be rendered at 720p and then scaled up/down accordingly.