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Digital Foundry: Unreal Engine 4 PS4 vs. PC

Domstercool

Member
It's impressive stuff, but we knew it was going to be like this anyway. This generation of consoles just won't have the jump on PC platforms that has happened before in the past.

Yeah, it's still in alpha development kit, but do you think the PC platform isn't going to evolve while we all wait for the final dev kits and experience to grow with the PS4? That would be silly to think that. It's just going to keep going forward, forward, forward, full STEAM ahead.
 

stryke

Member
All in all, it's a good leap from current gen, but a leap that probably should have happened last year.
 

Sentenza

Member
And that's why good graphics is more about art and smart use of ressources than raw rendering power. This demo is almost a living proof of how you use the most computing possible for a crappy graphical result.
It is also a tech demo made to show off technical features, not art, so your complaint is a bit pointless.
 

PetrCobra

Member
Does anyone honestly expect people to consider that PS4 is a new hardware and what was shown was an early demo after what we've seen with early Wii U software, where some still insist until today that it was indicative of the system's power?
 

Arucardo

Member
Yes, that must be it. Digital Foundry, who purposefully use a low-end PC in multiplatform comparisons, is secretly staffed by an army of horrible PC fanboys. Rather than just people who care about technology.

Have they explained their reasoning for this?

I get it if they think it's a fair comparison because only a small minority have high end PC's, but on the other hand why not show how good a game can actually look on a proper high end PC? It doesn't have to be an SLI Titan or a 690 pc but 670 and up for example.
 

Ce-Lin

Member
none of us nor Eurogamer nor the Epic guys have seen or developed a full game yet on final PS4 hardware but, somehow, we know beforehand that the demo shown is representative of the maximum power of the system and never will be topped, however the PC demo is taken for granted as the usual rendering power of current high-end PCs but very few if any games sport graphics like those in the demo...

reactions in this thread are a bit crazy if you ask me, personally I'll wait until the second wave of next-gen games before judging PS4/Durango tech.

Have they explained their reasoning for this?

trying to match pricepoint of consoles at launch, as for the 670, that GTX could cost on its own about 70% of a PS4, now get a motherboard, CPU, RAM...
 
UE4 PS4 demo is probably unoptimized, Killzone Shadowfalls looked better, and thats a real game. They have no excuse when PS4 Agni's Philosophy is exactly like the pc version.
 
I doubt EPIC put as much time and effort into this PS4 demo as they did the PC version, and this was likely done on an earlier PS4 dev kit, which makes it's value in evaluating the PS4 hardware quite dubious.
 
If the ps4 could run the demo in 720p with everything including SVOGI instead of 1080p, would it be able to run it consistently?
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
This demo is still really disappointing on PS4, no matter how you look at it. Hopefully with more time on the hardware results will be better but this makes me really nervous about what UE4 games are going to look like. I don't want another gen ruined by UE. We've already seen other stuff that looks significantly better so I'm not worried about the PS4's output, just UE4's.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
none of us nor Eurogamer nor the Epic guys have seen or developed a full game yet on final PS4 hardware but, somehow, we know beforehand that the demo shown is representative of the maximum power of the system and never will be topped, however the PC demo is taken for granted as the usual rendering power of current high-end PCs but very few if any games sport graphics like those in the demo...

reactions in this thread are a bit crazy if you ask me, personally I'll wait until the second wave of next-gen games before judging PS4/Durango tech.
I don't think Epic has claimed that their tech demo is the upper ceiling of what they expect. It was a target they were aiming for.
DigitalFoundry rightfully points out that much of the PS4 API stuff is considerable less mature than the DX11 API on which the PC demo was originally done.

I doubt EPIC put as much time and effort into this PS4 demo as they did the PC version, and this was likely done on an earlier PS4 dev kit, which makes it's value in evaluating the PS4 hardware quite dubious.
While that is probably true, they know enough about the approximate power when they made the decision to kick out SVOGI.
 
This demo is still really disappointing on PS4, no matter how you look at it. Hopefully with more time on the hardware results will be better but this makes me really nervous about what UE4 games are going to look like. I don't want another gen ruined by UE. We've already seen other stuff that looks significantly better so I'm not worried about the PS4's output, just UE4's.

Exactly robo, ue4 on ps4 needs to look as good as possible, since most games will probably use it like this gen.
 
This demo is still really disappointing on PS4, no matter how you look at it. Hopefully with more time on the hardware results will be better but this makes me really nervous about what UE4 games are going to look like. I don't want another gen ruined by UE. We've already seen other stuff that looks significantly better so I'm not worried about the PS4's output, just UE4's.

On the bright side i expect less AAA games to use UE4 since everyone making there own engines .
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
On the bright side i expect less AAA games to use UE4 since everyone making there own engines .
This is true but a ton of mid budget games will use it. I wonder if any devs are pissed about the SVOGI cut. I know a few devs licensed the engine based on that improvement alone.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
Where did they state that? The only remark from gdc I saw specifically referenced only the PS4.
Oh sorry, I just assumed when it's out for PS4 it's out for everything because I don't think there will be many, if any, exclusive PC games that will target above PS4's power for PC games. (At the start of the generation.)

They haven't stated anything but it was out of the GDC PC demo.
 

Arucardo

Member
trying to match pricepoint of consoles at launch, as for the 670, that GTX could cost on its own about 70% of a PS4, now get a motherboard, CPU, RAM...

Comparing PC and Console pricepoints isn't that straight forward though, is that TV that you have the console hooked up to free, etc?

You can get a competent pc without a gaming capable gpu (i5's and i7's kinda do but they're still no replacement for a proper gpu) for other things than gaming for a reasonable price and add a decent gpu later, which seems like a comparable situation to "adding" a console to your tv.
 

Ce-Lin

Member
I don't think Epic has claimed that their tech demo is the upper ceiling of what they expect.

I know, that's why I don't understand the debate about the PS4 vs GTX 680 + i7 hardware, everything based on a demo built on alpha hardware? let's at least wait until the first game is available on both platforms...
 
This is true but a ton of mid budget games will use it. I wonder if any devs are pissed about the SVOGI cut. I know a few devs licensed the engine based on that improvement alone.

IMO... it was very obvious what the Requirements for SVOGI were going to be when they revealed. At 1080p the PS4 was never going to have the required amount of power.

720p... perhaps... but Devs who bought it without thinking about that would be idiotic.

Epic made the power requirements of UE4 with SVOGI quite apparent in press releases and ppt. slides.
 
The way I see is why be so focused on a tech demo when actual PS4 games (and, yes, next Xbox games, too) will likely be considered more impressive than this demo when they hit their stride?
 
losing fully real time lighting isn't just significant from the end user perspective. it was one of the key benefits touted for developers as a time and money saver, helping to offset the higher costs of creating more detailed assets. if you could see exactly how the end result was going to look in engine without having to sit around waiting for the lighting to 'bake', that's a great thing for a dev.
 

vio

Member
Demo looked on ps4 like a quick port. Very low textures, missing shadows. DOF is totally missing at some points. Epic needs more time to get out more out of consoles.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
The way I see is why be so focused on a tech demo when actual PS4 games (and, yes, next Xbox games, too) will likely be considered more impressive than this demo when they hit their stride?
Several reasons:
- That's all we have right now.
- Some people are interested in tech.
- Some people are interested in specs.
- Why not Zoidberg?

They actually compared that? Why even go through the trouble?
It's DigitalFoundry. They serve a specific audience.
 

Arucardo

Member
The way I see is why be so focused on a tech demo when actual PS4 games (and, yes, next Xbox games, too) will likely be considered more impressive than this demo when they hit their stride?

This might sound unnecessarily harsh, but if you feel the discussion is not worth having yet why participate or complain about it?
 

Tacitus_

Member
The way I see is why be so focused on a tech demo when actual PS4 games (and, yes, next Xbox games, too) will likely be considered more impressive than this demo when they hit their stride?

Because if the upcoming consoles can't match the current top-end GPUs, they sure as hell won't match the ones that come out later.
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
losing fully real time lighting isn't just significant from the end user perspective. it was one of the key benefits touted for developers as a time and money saver, helping to offset the higher costs of creating more detailed assets. if you could see exactly how the end result was going to look in engine without having to sit around waiting for the lighting to 'bake', that's a great thing for a dev.

I don't see why it would be out from the editor since it doesn't have to run well there. The last thing before packaging a level should be where it bakes. Another 8 years of rebaking GI while tweaking lighting sounds fucking awful.
 
demo looked like crap on ps4, seems like it will be a repeat of this gen where ue3 games looked like dog poop compared to the sony exclusives on ps3.
 
It's disappointing to hear that the PS4 couldn't handle this demo properly.

It's already a bit sad knowing that UE4 games on either system will not look as good as the demo to begin with - history showing that demos are cheating a bit because they don't really have to process other computational elements like AI and physics.

What's worse is that the demo wasn't really visually impressive anyway.

Here's hoping that Capcom's Deep Down engine is more impressive than this, but I'm not convinced by the way it was shadily presented at the PS4 meeting.
 

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
none of us nor Eurogamer nor the Epic guys have seen or developed a full game yet on final PS4 hardware but, somehow, we know beforehand that the demo shown is representative of the maximum power of the system and never will be topped, however the PC demo is taken for granted as the usual rendering power of current high-end PCs but very few if any games sport graphics like those in the demo...

reactions in this thread are a bit crazy if you ask me, personally I'll wait until the second wave of next-gen games before judging PS4/Durango tech.

You mean after PC received another few rounds of upgrades?

PS4 specs aren't going to be improving between now and a year and a half away.
 

Ce-Lin

Member
You mean after PC received another few rounds of upgrades?

PS4 specs aren't going to be improving between now and a year and a half away.

I'm not judging PC tech but PS4/Durango's... tech isn't improving, optimization is.

The way I see is why be so focused on a tech demo when actual PS4 games (and, yes, next Xbox games, too) will likely be considered more impressive than this demo when they hit their stride?

because that demo is the only software already running in both PS4 alpha dev kits and mature high-end PCs, people need something to get started, well I remember the PS3 launched with games the likes of Resistance Fom, compare its graphics to those of God of War, Infamous 2, Uncharted series...

of course PS4 is always going to be inferior to a high-end PC, you just need to keep SLI'ing Titan cards into your system, but that demo is not representative of the real power of the system, as shown in the new Killzone game for instance. I think the Eurogamer face-off is kind of neat but pointless as of today when the PS4 doesn't have a release date yet...
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
You mean after PC received another few rounds of upgrades?

PS4 specs aren't going to be improving between now and a year and a half away.
Specs do not, but if you read DigitalFoundry or the OP (and explicitly the parts he said to read) you'd know what he is talking about.
 

itxaka

Defeatist
Would the ps4 being a know arch will that mean that we will get some quality games from the start but won't be seeing as much difference between games from the start of the generation to the end like it happened this gen? I mean, they can start taking advantage of the arch from day one so...
 
I don't see why it would be out from the editor since it doesn't have to run well there. The last thing before packaging a level should be where it bakes. Another 8 years of rebaking GI while tweaking lighting sounds fucking awful.

true. I guess it'll only really be an issue for games where dynamic lighting is important, and having two different outputs could cause some issues (real time GI which can change dynamically vs baked GI which can't). maybe you'll have to bake less often, but you'll still have to bake to see the 'real' end result surely?

if this is indeed how it works though, that's a good indicator that we'll see real time GI as an option on PC versions of games, since that'd be how the developers spent the majority of the time looking at the game.
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
true. I guess it'll only really be an issue for games where dynamic lighting is important, and having two different outputs could cause some issues (real time GI which can change dynamically vs baked GI which can't). maybe you'll have to bake less often, but you'll still have to bake to see the 'real' end result surely?

if this is indeed how it works though, that's a good indicator that we'll see real time GI as an option on PC versions of games, since that'd be how the developers spent the majority of the time looking at the game.

I'm going to be pretty depressed if PS4 has ruined the one thing that had me the most excited for UDK4.
 

Ce-Lin

Member
Would the ps4 being a know arch will that mean that we will get some quality games from the start but won't be seeing as much difference between games from the start of the generation to the end like it happened this gen? I mean, they can start taking advantage of the arch from day one so...


a known architecture running under Windows' overhead (usually) with drivers overhead, DirectX overhead and software not optimized for some unique GPU+CPU combo but a range of them, I'm pretty sure most of the devs have little experience coding to the metal even if the architecture is known as you said, even if they don't code to the metal learning how to optimize for a certain GPU/CPU/RAM combo instead of coding to support a wide range of them is quite huge and we will see the usual jump between first wave games and sequels.
 

wazoo

Member
The next round of ps4 demos will be more impressive, especially because they will hide the PC versions for avoiding comparisons.
 

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
what is going to happen when the 7 series of cards come out?? its going to be a slaughter surely.

or the 8,9,10 etc series cards that will come out during the lifespan of a console. There never was a competition to begin with. There's no magic that turns a 500 dollar console into a several grand pc, performance wise.

Hell even I'm getting sick of all these fruitless comparisons and statements from devs/sites...
 
I'm going to be pretty depressed if PS4 has ruined the one thing that had me the most excited for UDK4.
dont blame ps4, not every pc gamer has a gtx 680...its not going to run on low or mid range gpus either. its funny how these pc extremists keep forgetting about, "minimum requirements"
 
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