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DF: Face-off The division

Caayn

Caayn

Member
Article: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-the-division-face-off

The Division appears well optimised for both consoles and PC, and on the whole the visual quality is almost identical on all formats, with most technical differences having little to no impact on gameplay. On consoles the PS4 has the edge, with a locked native 1080p resolution and slightly more stable performance. But all told, the experience on Xbox One is still excellent, and the game is a beautiful release across both consoles - Sony's system just provides added refinement here, but we'd happily play the game on either machine.
Click to expand...

But it's the ability to break the 30fps cap that truly makes the PC version stand out. The Division at 60fps is an often breathtaking experience, with the extra temporal resolution and fluidity of motion really allowing for the effects work and details to come to the forefront more clearly. Gameplay is also given a healthy boost via lower latency controls that make aiming with precision easier. Even when lowering settings to console level quality, at 60fps the experience just plays that much better. All round, the PC release is the best version of the game, but you are going to require serious hardware to match the console experience with the higher frame-rate.
Click to expand...

Videos:
The Division PS4 vs Xbox One vs PC Graphics Comparison + Analysis

The Division PS4 vs Xbox One Frame-Rate Test

The Division GTX 970 vs R9 390 Performance + GTX 980 Ti Analysis
 
S

Saucycarpdog

Member
But it's the ability to break the 30fps cap that truly makes the PC version stand out. The Division at 60fps is an often breathtaking experience, with the extra temporal resolution and fluidity of motion really allowing for the effects work and details to come to the forefront more clearly. Gameplay is also given a healthy boost via lower latency controls that make aiming with precision easier. Even when lowering settings to console level quality, at 60fps the experience just plays that much better.
Click to expand...
That 60 fpyes difference.
 
J

JP

Member
Not as much of a gain for the PC as I was expecting, it's certainly nicer but not by much. Not much between the two console versions either better draw in and a fixed 1080p resolution does give the PS4 version a boost.
 
G

Gormenghast

Member
Saucycarpdog said:
That 60 fpyes difference.
Click to expand...

The 30 -> 60 at console settings that requires at least a 970:

the GTX 970 and its Radeon R9 390 equivalent - a more measured approach to settings is required to hit 1080p60 on a regular basis. Here we needed to lower graphical quality close to console settings
Click to expand...

in the case of owners of cards such as the GTX 970 and R9 390, you can often get the same experience as console but with double the frame-rate.
Click to expand...

This is the RELEVANT news I was warning about a while a go and everyone was laughing at me.

Just a year ago to double the PS4 performance you needed a 770. You had that much of a headroom. Now a 770 you can BARELY reach console level performance at 30fps. And sometimes not even that.

Wait another year and you'll see the other prophecy come true: the 970 will be needed merely for parity with a PS4.

You'll see.

Console hardware is eating alive PC hardware year after year. And you need to constantly upgrade barely to keep up.
 
Q

qa_engineer

Member
It's clear that this game was developed for the consoles first then ported to PC. Not a bad thing because it runs great on all platforms.
 
O

OnionPowder

Member
On PC, has anybody notice how bodies flying after an explosion seem to have animations locked to 30FPS? They seem very off compared to the rest of the game.

Gormenghast said:
This is the RELEVANT news I was warning about a while a go and everyone was laughing at me.

Just a year ago to double the PS4 performance you needed a 770. You had that much of a headroom. Now a 770 you can BARELY reach console level performance at 30fps. And sometimes not even that.

Wait another year and you'll see the other prophecy come true: the 970 will be needed merely for parity with a PS4.

You'll see.

Console hardware is eating alive PC hardware year after year. And you need to constantly upgrade barely to keep up.
Click to expand...

Nope.
 
L

la_briola

Member
Gormenghast said:
The 30 -> 60 at console settings that requires at least a 970:



This is the RELEVANT news I was warning about a while a go and everyone was laughing at me.

Just a year ago to double the PS4 performance you needed a 770. You had that much of a headroom. Now a 770 you can BARELY reach console level performance at 30fps. And sometimes not even that.

Wait another year and you'll see the other prophecy come true: the 970 will be needed merely for parity with a PS4.

You'll see.

Console hardware is eating alive PC hardware year after year. And you need to constantly upgrade barely to keep up.
Click to expand...

Not sure if serious.
thinking.gif
 
R

RAWRferal

Member
I play on Xbone and must say - despite many who will scream downgrade - it's great looking and performs well. Good job Massive.
 
C

Crimsonclaw111

Member
Gormenghast said:
The 30 -> 60 at console settings that requires at least a 970:





This is the RELEVANT news I was warning about a while a go and everyone was laughing at me.

Just a year ago to double the PS4 performance you needed a 770. You had that much of a headroom. Now a 770 you can BARELY reach console level performance at 30fps. And sometimes not even that.

Wait another year and you'll see the other prophecy come true: the 970 will be needed merely for parity with a PS4.

You'll see.

Console hardware is eating alive PC hardware year after year. And you need to constantly upgrade barely to keep up.
Click to expand...
A 60fps experience is already twice the performance of consoles lol.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
I'm playing in a 3440x1440 monitor with a 970, so I'm happy with 30fps rather than drop the details even further. And I'm playing with a controller which I think helps when you have a lower frame rate
 
S

Smokey

Member
I tried the last beta on consoles after playing on PC previously. The difference was huge. Granted I play at 2560x1440 with a GSYNC monitor, but the controls on the console versions seemed really off to me. M&KB works really well in the PC side.
 
G

Gormenghast

Member
Crimsonclaw111 said:
A 60fps experience is already twice the performance of consoles lol.
Click to expand...

That's what I said.

Roll back time to Battlefield 4 release, and a single 770 would double PS4 framerate while also maxing settings and resolution.

Now a 770 is, very barely and not always, at same level PS4 performance.

That performance was halved in a couple of years, and it's a fact.

What I say is that the same will happen to the 970 as soon the 970 will be replaced by some mainstream new hardware and within the next 1/1.5 years (as long Nvidia releases the x70 new model).
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
Gormenghast said:
That's what I said.

Roll back time to Battlefield 4 release, and a single 770 would double PS4 framerate while also maxing settings and resolution.

Now a 770 is, very barely and not always, at same level PS4 performance.

That performance was halved in a couple of years, and it's a fact.

What I say is that the same will happen to the 970 as soon the 970 will be replaced by some mainstream new hardware and within the next 1/1.5 years (as long Nvidia releases the x70 new model).
Click to expand...
I thought I read here that nvidia keeps nerfing their cards when new releases come.

It should be easy to check. How's the AMD equivalents holding up?
 
T

The Janitor

Member
Gormenghast said:
The 30 -> 60 at console settings that requires at least a 970:





This is the RELEVANT news I was warning about a while a go and everyone was laughing at me.

Just a year ago to double the PS4 performance you needed a 770. You had that much of a headroom. Now a 770 you can BARELY reach console level performance at 30fps. And sometimes not even that.

Wait another year and you'll see the other prophecy come true: the 970 will be needed merely for parity with a PS4.

You'll see.

Console hardware is eating alive PC hardware year after year. And you need to constantly upgrade barely to keep up.
Click to expand...

So PS4 will be able to play games in 4K all of a sudden? Cause a 970 can do that.
 
I

icecold1983

Member
LukasTaves said:
I thought I read here that nvidia keeps nerfing their cards when new releases come.

It should be easy to check. How's the AMD equivalents holding up?
Click to expand...

consoles have increased their performance relative to pc gpus over time this generation(more so for nvidia), but i dont think a 970 will regress so far to be required to match ps4.
 
T

teokrazia

Member
With 'console equivalent PC settings' suggested by DF, BTW, with my 970 I'm getting 75-95 FPS outdoor and 90-110 indoor.
 
G

Gormenghast

Member
icecold1983 said:
consoles have increased their performance relative to pc gpus over time this generation(more so for nvidia), but i dont think a 970 will regress so far to be required to match ps4.
Click to expand...

At the current pace the PS4 is eroding something like 30% every year. So it will take about three to ideally "double".

But my opinion is that we'll see a significant bump in hardware requirements as DX12 becomes more widespread and the new 16nm models are available for PC.

As soon there will be a cheap solution on PC that is available for a decent price we'll see that become the standard for 1080p/60fps. And that's when the 970 will see a very fast drop.

It can take a couple of years, or less if Nvidia and ATI do release affordable new models that offer quite a significant upgrade.
 
O

OnionPowder

Member
LukasTaves said:
He means that for future releases a 970 won't be able to run ps4 games with an increase of performance or resolution, not the other way around.
Click to expand...

everybody is going to continually optimize their PS4 engine and not work on their PC versions at all / actively make it worse is what I'm getting from his post. Because that's the only way that's going to happen.

The Janitor said:
That doesn't make sense (unless you're VRAM limited)
Click to expand...

At that point the PS4 would be VRAM limited as well.
 
R

RenegadeXV8

Banned
Gormenghast said:
That's what I said.

Roll back time to Battlefield 4 release, and a single 770 would double PS4 framerate while also maxing settings and resolution.

Now a 770 is, very barely and not always, at same level PS4 performance.

That performance was halved in a couple of years, and it's a fact.

What I say is that the same will happen to the 970 as soon the 970 will be replaced by some mainstream new hardware and within the next 1/1.5 years (as long Nvidia releases the x70 new model).
Click to expand...

Well sure, if you're going to use the 770 with its 2GB VRAM and Kepler architecture as an example, then it doesn't hold up well.

Compare it to AMD's equivalent, the 280X: it performs almost 40% better in this game.
 
K

Kosma

Banned
Gormenghast said:
The 30 -> 60 at console settings that requires at least a 970:





This is the RELEVANT news I was warning about a while a go and everyone was laughing at me.

Just a year ago to double the PS4 performance you needed a 770. You had that much of a headroom. Now a 770 you can BARELY reach console level performance at 30fps. And sometimes not even that.

Wait another year and you'll see the other prophecy come true: the 970 will be needed merely for parity with a PS4.

You'll see.

Console hardware is eating alive PC hardware year after year. And you need to constantly upgrade barely to keep up.
Click to expand...

Ive said the same before the gen started I think :)
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
The Janitor said:
That doesn't make sense (unless you're VRAM limited)
Click to expand...
Well, it's kinda already happening, though I suspect it's more due nvidia artificially gimping older cards via drivers on new releases when new ones come out.

When came reports that tomb raider on the windows store outperformed the steam version on the same configs I assumed that's the case given the store restrictions might be preventing whatever nvidia does bia driver, or even they simply didn't bothered with that version.
 
G

Gormenghast

Member
RenegadeXV8 said:
Well sure, if you're going to use the 770 with its 2GB VRAM and Kepler architecture as an example, then it doesn't hold up well.
Click to expand...

The RAM is not a performance factor.

These were PC requirements in the Battlefield 4 era:

Minimum: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or higher

Recommended: NVIDIA GeForce GT 660 or higher

The Division:

Minimum: current equivalent NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760

Recommended: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970

Do you see how the "recommended" have become the minimum? That happened without the jump to 16nm. I simply say this will accelerate as soon we have new tech.
 
E

Easy_D

never left the stone age
280x pulling a minimum 42 FPS on Ultra? That's pretty impressive. Glad I didn't decide to go with a 960 back when I upgraded :p
 
O

oakenhild

Member
mrklaw said:
I'm playing in a 3440x1440 monitor with a 970, so I'm happy with 30fps rather than drop the details even further. And I'm playing with a controller which I think helps when you have a lower frame rate
Click to expand...

I do the same thing. I have everything overclocked so I'm at about 40fps as far as I can tell. Not sure if I'd be better off locked at 30fps, but everything feels really smooth to me. My previous card was an old Radeon 6850, so I got used to terrible framerates.
 
D

Durante

Member
Gormenghast said:
Wait another year and you'll see the other prophecy come true: the 970 will be needed merely for parity with a PS4.
Click to expand...
What utter bullshit.

You need a 970 to double PS4 performance because a 970 is just about exactly double a PS4 in GPU performance.

There's no magic console factor, no mystery, just hard numbers. And those numbers won't change next year.
 
T

Tagyhag

Member
Kezen said:
The 7870 still beats the PS4 by a very hefty margin.

To me it's a matter of scaling and not console vs PC efficiency, otherwise the 7870 would be left behind.
It takes more to reach 60fps than the number of tflops indicates.

So from my perspective the close PC equivalent of a PS4 still does better, and DX12 will only narrow that gap.
Click to expand...

Wait, so not only is the 770 pulling 30fps, but that's in Ultra Quality as well? A quality that the PS4 is NOT reaching mind you.

What is Ghormengast talking about hten?
 
Caayn

Caayn

Member
Easy_D said:
280x pulling a minimum 42 FPS on Ultra? That's pretty impressive. Glad I didn't decide to go with a 960 back when I upgraded :p
Click to expand...
AMD cards looking more and more future proof than their NVIDIA counterparts.
Tagyhag said:
Wait, so not only is the 770 pulling 30fps, but that's in Ultra Quality as well? A quality that the PS4 is NOT reaching mind you.

What is Ghormengast talking about hten?
Click to expand...
30fps = 30fps, graphical settings? What's that?
 
S

see5harp

Member
Gormenghast said:
The 30 -> 60 at console settings that requires at least a 970:





This is the RELEVANT news I was warning about a while a go and everyone was laughing at me.

Just a year ago to double the PS4 performance you needed a 770. You had that much of a headroom. Now a 770 you can BARELY reach console level performance at 30fps. And sometimes not even that.

Wait another year and you'll see the other prophecy come true: the 970 will be needed merely for parity with a PS4.

You'll see.

Console hardware is eating alive PC hardware year after year. And you need to constantly upgrade barely to keep up.
Click to expand...

LOLOLOL
 
I

icecold1983

Member
Kezen said:
The 7870 still beats the PS4 by a very hefty margin.
1920_u.png


http://gamegpu.com/mmorpg-/-onlayn-igry/tom-clancy-s-the-division-test-gpu.html

To me it's a matter of scaling and not console vs PC efficiency, otherwise the 7870 would be left behind.
It takes more to reach 60fps than the number of tflops indicates.

So from my perspective the close PC equivalent of a PS4 still does better, and DX12 will only narrow that gap.
Click to expand...

keep in mind their benchmark sequence is the absolute best case performance scenario
 
G

Gormenghast

Member
Durante said:
What utter bullshit.

You need a 970 to double PS4 performance because a 970 is just about exactly double a PS4 in GPU performance.

There's no magic console factor, no mystery, just hard numbers. And those numbers won't change next year.
Click to expand...

Tell me the 770 and 960 with 970 numbers then.

The 770 has 20% or so better performance than a 960, and the 970 is 20-30% better than a 770 *at release*. Dig up all the actual benchmarks.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8568/the-geforce-gtx-970-review-feat-evga/7

970: 78fps
770: 57fps (the fabled 1080p/60fps at Ultra quality that is factually halved today)

Now see something like: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/hitman_2016_pc_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,6.html

970: 55fps
960: 35fps
770: 25fps

Do you see that the 770 performance has been slaughtered even if its hardware numbers didn't change? It's planned obsolescence and it's due to a mix of factors like Nvidia engineers shifting focus on driver optimization toward new models, and game developers shifting their reference point to the 970.

Durante said:
And those numbers won't change next year.
Click to expand...

Computer graphic programming is a tad more complex than tflops.

Right now the 970 has inherent flaws (the flaws being lack of DX12 support in hardware and the 3.5Gb memory thing). These flaws, right now, are irrelevant. But they are irrelevant because Nvidia takes care of those cases directly in the drivers. Optimizing carefully to avoid issues. As soon the engineers will shift focus those flaws will start to have a significant impact. And you'll see 970 performance FALL in the same way you see the 770 performance falling *right now*.

These are, I think, just "facts". What I instead added to the recipe is the fact Pascal/16nm will be a significant step on PC, and it will have an even more dramatic impact on hardware requirements. We are at a very interesting moment where not only we'll see that huge step from 28nm -> 16nm, but also the DX12 support that will be much better as soon we'll have hardware built for it. At that point the 970 will be so far behind that the deteriorating performance observable on the 770 right now will be so much comparably WORSE.
 
K

KKRT00

Member
Gormenghast said:
Now see something like: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/hitman_2016_pc_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,6.html

970: 55fps
960: 35fps
770: 25fps
Click to expand...
MAX DETAIL =/= console settings

Comparison between two different games on different engines is also great.
BF 4 also run in 60fps on ps4 in SP.
---
Gormenghast said:
Wait another year and you'll see the other prophecy come true: the 970 will be needed merely for parity with a PS4.
Click to expand...
I think this is the best sentence in the thread.

How about those 8800GT "prophecies" from last-gen btw?
 
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