• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

EuroGamer: More details on the BALANCE of XB1

N

nib95

Banned
LittleJohny, earlier you were arguing that all the lighting was 100% dynamic, including environmental, but that the sun was just in a fixed position. That simply isn't true. As I said earlier, the environmental light and shadow maps are all baked, and the lighting and shadows on the vehicles (including the interior) are dynamic. I also do think the sun moves slightly in the tracks for artistic effect (as I said before, to get certain overcasts, sun flares before at certain specific segments, a nice silhouette etc), but it doesn't always 100% map with environmental shadows because they would have been baked on a previously recorded sun position. So any changes thereafter would create a slight syncing issue between the two.

Dynamic environmental lighting and shadowing is a massively resource intensive addition. DriveClub devs actually claim they are using dynamic global illumination, which is a first for a racing game, and tremendously taxing. There's many other things that DriveClub does that makes it far more technically adept than Forza 5 (volumetric dynamically light affected smoke, much more condensed, geometrically complex physics based foliage etc etc), but that doesn't take away from the fact that Forza 5 is still a very pretty looking game, and runs at 60fps. Ultimately though, DC is just doing a hell of a lot more technically speaking, and the lighting differences between the two games are obvious even from brief comparisons.

Personally, I don't really care about the technical mumbo jumbo as much as I care about the features it brings. Dynamic time of day and night racing really ought to have been included with F5. As is, it doesn't seem like a particularly ambitious successor to F4, especially given the considerable boost in extra hardware grunt from the new console.
 
ethomaz

ethomaz

Banned
There are noting smart in what Turn 10 is doing... that was decision taken based in the tiny schedule to launch in November.
 
TrueGrime

TrueGrime

Member
EmptySpace said:
obviously lighting inside the vehicle is dynamic, just like any other racing game out there, that is nothing to brag about.

what matters? forza 'til this day still has no day/night cycle or weather. night racing alone makes a difference in the approach to the track gameplay-wise. "smart"? please. people bragging about forza's visuals but when faced with how technical driveclub is, suddenly forza team is smart and focusing on what matters? natural lighting adds to the experience of the game, period. no one has to go out of the vehicle to notice that.
Click to expand...

Forza Horizon had dynamic weather and a day/night cycle. Pretty sure is was just a design decision not to include it. Maybe it didn't fit the game.

One question though, isn't Drive Club an open world racing game?
 
M

Mastperf

Member
LittleJohnny said:
Right. PS4 doesn't have any hardware to match SHAPE. The audio processor in the PS4 is just a compression/decompression piece and does nowhere near what shape does, anything advanced to match and beyond has to be handled in software using CU, which has been estimated would drain 100-200 Gflops to match shape, or even more if your doing audio raycasting.
Click to expand...

Where is this full info on PS4 audio hardware and who are the people who estimated the requirement to match SHAPE?
 
N

nib95

Banned
JammerJammy said:
Forza Horizon had dynamic weather and a day/night cycle. Pretty sure is was just a design decision not to include it. Maybe it didn't fit the game.

One question though, isn't Drive Club an open world racing game?
Click to expand...

Not exactly, I think it was originally in concept, now it's a racer with very open ended and large scale tracks/environments. So the tracks and environments should have a greater scale to most racers, but it still isn't strictly open world. I don't think anyway.

And yea, strangely I'm more excited for Horizon 2 than I am Forza 5. Horizon 2 should look fantastic.
 
S

shinra-bansho

Member
LittleJohnny said:
Right. PS4 doesn't have any hardware to match SHAPE. The audio processor in the PS4 is just a compression/decompression piece and does nowhere near what shape does, anything advanced to match and beyond has to be handled in software using CU, which has been estimated would drain 100-200 Gflops to match shape, or even more if your doing audio raycasting.[/IMG]
Click to expand...
...

receipts.gif


The XB1's audio chip cannot do audio raycasting. And the suggestion that it provides as much compute performance as 2 CUs... umm.
 
U

USC-fan

Banned
LittleJohnny said:
Right. PS4 doesn't have any hardware to match SHAPE. The audio processor in the PS4 is just a compression/decompression piece and does nowhere near what shape does, anything advanced to match and beyond has to be handled in software using CU, which has been estimated would drain 100-200 Gflops to match shape, or even more if your doing audio raycasting.
Click to expand...

Ps4 hardware doesnt need to match shape. Shape main design is for kinect. Ms is not hiding that fact.

It was never design to off load audio or other tasks for gaming. It was design to support kinectv2. Sure game can use this if kinect is not being used but it was not design because game needed this processor.

Its silly to say ps4 even needs to match what shape can do....

Sword Of Doom said:
I thought shape was only for the kinect.
Click to expand...
it was deisgn for kinectv2 but we had some insider say games can use it for other things beside kinect. It is unknown how well suited it is for these tasks since it was design for kinect.

Mastperf said:
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess the estimates came from beyond3d.
Click to expand...
of course... lol
 
I

IN&OUT

Banned
I really have to laugh at the idea that SHAPE is rated at 200gflops. Thats twice the CPU, complete bullshit.

SHAPE block is there to handle Kinect commands along with Audio compression on X1. PS4 is free from such requirement.
 
N

nib95

Banned
USC-fan said:
Ps4 hardware doesnt need to match shape. Shape main design is for kinect. Ms is not hiding that fact.

It was never design to off load audio or other tasks for gaming. It was design to support kinectv2. Sure game can use this if kinect is not being used but it was not design because game needed this processor.

Its silly to say ps4 even needs to match what shape can do....
Click to expand...

I could be wrong, but I doubt it can use it much even if Kinect isn't being used in the game, because functionality and Shape resources will still have to be reserved in-case Kinect is used for non gaming features, e.g. for the OS and services related, voice commands, skype, snap split screen media and video (Blu-ray etc).
 
S

Sword Of Doom

Member
USC-fan said:
it was deisgn for kinectv2 but we had some insider say games can use it for other things beside kinect. It is unknown how well suited it is for these tasks since it wasnt design for kinect.
Click to expand...


So people are just assuming shape will do more for game audio than the audio chip the ps4 has even though we don't know exactly what shape will do
 
L

LittleJohnny

Banned
nib95 said:
LittleJohny, earlier you were arguing that all the lighting was 100% dynamic, including environmental....
Click to expand...



Really? there is such a thing as post history... you may have understood wrong but I clearly said that because Forza 5 uses a static light source, there's no reason to dynamically move environment shadows, and I specifically used an example of holding an object to a lamp, rotating the object, etc. all of the shadows cast by the object and lighting hitting the object is exactly what Forza 5 is doing, now the rest of the objects like your furniture or whatever will cast shadows as well but they won't move, so why do those need to be dynamic again? please explain why it matters unless you have day/night transitions? those shadows are baked by nature of the design. They're not moving and don't need to be moved so they can be baked, but visually there should be no difference even if using DC engine and stopping the sun, real or baked the shadow will always remain in the same place and look the same. smh

Using the same example, what DC is doing differently is also moving the lamp, not just the object around the lamp, NOW the shadows cast by your furniture also has to shift by the nature of you moving the lamp, this adds a whole new level of calculations and sure it is technically a lot more taxing on the hardware, but from the drivers perspective and not changing the time of day, the visual effects are the same to the viewer.
 
vpance

vpance

Member
What are the odds multiplat devs use SHAPE to it's full extent over PS4's extra 500 Gflops? Because if you don't believe in the latter then the former has even less of a chance to happen. Audio is and always will be second rung to graphics in terms of priority.
 
S

shinra-bansho

Member
I can basically see where it's meant to go...

- Oh, did you know that 12 CUs at 853 MHz is better than 14 CUs at 800 MHz.
- Oh, and the PS4 can only really use 14 of it's CUs for graphics processing.
- Oh, and the XB1 has this audio chip that provides like 200 GFLOPs, that the PS4 is going to have to match with its GPU.
- Oh, and the XB1 has other fixed function hardware.
- So, when you think about this altogether it's basically a wash.
 
N

nib95

Banned
shinra-bansho said:
I can basically see where it's meant to go...

- Oh, did you know that 12 CUs at 853 MHz is better than 14 CUs at 800 MHz.
- Oh, and the PS4 can only really use 14 of it's CUs for graphics processing.
- Oh, and the XB1 has this audio chip that provides like 200 GFLOPs, that the PS4 is going to have to match with its GPU.
- Oh, and the XB1 has other fixed function hardware.
- So, when you think about this altogether it's basically a wash.
Click to expand...

This. Further obfuscation.

I found it funny when Penello said that the Xbox One is doing stuff that Sony don't know about, and that the PS4 is doing stuff Microsoft don't know about, and then implied it was a wash. How can you call it a wash when the numbers and facts are against you, and you yourself admit you don't know the ins and outs of your competitors customisations and extras? Nice guy and all, but that particular comment was hilarious.
 
C

CLEEK

Member
IN&OUT said:
I really have to laugh at the idea that SHAPE is rated at 200gflops. Thats twice the CPU, complete bullshit.

SHAPE block is there to handle Kinect commands along with Audio compression on X1. PS4 is free from such requirement.
Click to expand...

At the recent Hotchip event, is was confirmed that SHAPE is the equivalent of one CPU core.

Jaguar 8-core in the Xbone is rated 109 GFLOPS, so SHAPE would be ~13GFLOPS.
 
B

Brad Grenz

Member
LittleJohnny said:
Really? there is such a thing as post history... you may have understood wrong but I clearly said that because Forza 5 uses a static light source, there's no reason to dynamically move environment shadows, and I specifically used an example of holding an object to a lamp, rotating the object, etc. all of the shadows cast by the object and lighting hitting the object is exactly what Forza 5 is doing, now the rest of the objects like your furniture or whatever will cast shadows as well but they won't move, so why do those need to be dynamic again? please explain why it matters unless you have day/night transitions? those shadows are baked by nature of the design.

Using the same example, what DC is doing differently is also moving the lamp, not just the object around the lamp, NOW the shadows cast by your furniture also has to shift by the nature of you moving the lamp, this adds a whole new level of calculations and sure it is technically a lot more taxing on the hardware, but from the drivers perspective and not changing the time of day, the visual effects are the same to the viewer.
Click to expand...

So the problem is you don't even understand what prebaked lighting means? When lighting is "baked" it means no shadows are being cast. All the shadows you see in the environment are just textures "prebaked" to look like they are in a shadow. The whole point of dynamic lighting is to allow change. You don't choose prebaked lighting because you don't want the sun to move, you choose to not have your sun move because you've chosen prebaked lighting. They had certain design goals with Forza 5 and designed the engine around that (1080p, 60fps, done by launch) and the inherent limitations of the platform. Saying, "oh, well, they didn't want the sun to move anyway!" is patently absurd.
 
U

USC-fan

Banned
shinra-bansho said:
I can basically see where it's meant to go...

- Oh, did you know that 12 CUs at 853 MHz is better than 14 CUs at 800 MHz.
- Oh, and the PS4 can only really use 14 of it's CUs for graphics processing.
- Oh, and the XB1 has this audio chip that provides like 200 GFLOPs, that the PS4 is going to have to match with its GPU.
- Oh, and the XB1 has other fixed function hardware.
- So, when you think about this altogether it's basically a wash.
Click to expand...

You left out the cpu overclock so REALLY is xbone more powerful....


lol so easy to see through this stuff. 2 months to we see the results. Now its going to get crazy if someone took MS on the moneyhat to make the games even like the rumors is going around.
 
J

JaggedSac

Member
nib95 said:
I could be wrong, but I doubt it can use it much even if Kinect isn't being used in the game, because functionality and Shape resources will still have to be reserved in-case Kinect is used for non gaming features, e.g. for the OS and services related, voice commands, skype, snap split screen media and video (Blu-ray etc).
Click to expand...

That is correct. Kinect is using a set amount of resources at all times. The input is there for devs to use just like a controller. Audio, skeleton, engagement, expression, heart rate etc. Whether that is worth it is another question.
 
L

LittleJohnny

Banned
IN&OUT said:
I really have to laugh at the idea that SHAPE is rated at 200gflops. Thats twice the CPU, complete bullshit.

SHAPE block is there to handle Kinect commands along with Audio compression on X1. PS4 is free from such requirement.
Click to expand...


I don't think anyone here is suggesting that SHAPE is rated at 200GFLOPS, it's actually rated at 15GFLOPS. What was said is that if one were to emulate what shape does using CU, it would be equivalent to 100-200 Glfops required to do so.

See post #3410. Again I said "what's being said"
http://beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1736869
 
G

Guerilla

Member
LittleJohnny said:
Right. PS4 doesn't have any hardware to match SHAPE. The audio processor in the PS4 is just a compression/decompression piece and does nowhere near what shape does, anything advanced to match and beyond has to be handled in software using CU, which has been estimated would drain 100-200 Gflops to match shape, or even more if your doing audio raycasting.
Click to expand...


Where are you getting this info from?
 
N

nib95

Banned
LittleJohnny said:
Really? there is such a thing as post history... you may have understood wrong but I clearly said that because Forza 5 uses a static light source, there's no reason to dynamically move environment shadows, and I specifically used an example of holding an object to a lamp, rotating the object, etc. all of the shadows cast by the object and lighting hitting the object is exactly what Forza 5 is doing, now the rest of the objects like your furniture or whatever will cast shadows as well but they won't move, so why do those need to be dynamic again? please explain why it matters unless you have day/night transitions? those shadows are baked by nature of the design. They're not moving and don't need to be moved so they can be baked, but visually there should be no difference even if using DC engine and stopping the sun, real or baked the shadow will always remain in the same place and look the same. smh

Using the same example, what DC is doing differently is also moving the lamp, not just the object around the lamp, NOW the shadows cast by your furniture also has to shift by the nature of you moving the lamp, this adds a whole new level of calculations and sure it is technically a lot more taxing on the hardware, but from the drivers perspective and not changing the time of day, the visual effects are the same to the viewer.
Click to expand...

I don't believe the sun always is in a fixed position in Forza, (I could be wrong, but I'm basing it off the videos and how the sun position sometimes compared to the baked shadows in the environment) if you read my post you'd see that I thought they moved it slightly for artistic affect. And it matters because you don't always get accurate shadows (pillars and rail guards leaving shadows where they should be etc) and gives you other shadow glitches such as shadows just being planted on top of vehicles and so on. They are minor issues, but they do affect overall immersion and realism. Luckily the vast majority of the time it isn't that noticeable. But yea, ultimately the lack of changing light, time of day etc, is the biggest issue. Essentially you're just getting one fixed light position and strength. So the track looks the same every time you race on it and doesn't have much dynamism to it.

Hopefully they at least offer one or two different time of day options for each track. The every track must have scorching sunlight and mass sun flare in your face thing is kind of getting a bit boring and samey. They need to switch it up both in terms of lighting and art.
 
Q

qa_engineer

Member
JaggedSac said:
That is correct. Kinect is using a set amount of resources at all times. The input is there for devs to use just like a controller. Audio, skeleton, engagement, expression, heart rate etc. Whether that is worth it is another question.
Click to expand...


Is that confirmed? I would imagine so but would like to read it myself.
 
P

phosphor112

Banned
LittleJohnny said:
Not saying Shape can do ray casting but a processor architecture designed specifically for audio can be 15GFLOPS while at the same time it could take another non audio processor 100-200 GFLOPS to emulate it's functions... just sayin, you can't take those Gflops at face value.
Click to expand...

So, you are trying to say that Shape can do similar functions.

Fixed function > general processor. You need a lot more in general processing to emulate those things.

Also, everyone has already said the car casts dynamic shadows and self shadowing. Everything else is baked. Everything.
 
L

LittleJohnny

Banned
Brad Grenz said:
So the problem is you don't even understand what prebaked lighting means? When lighting is "baked" it means no shadows are being cast. All the shadows you see in the environment are just textures "prebaked" to look like they are in a shadow. The whole point of dynamic lighting is to allow change. You don't choose prebaked lighting because you don't want the sun to move, you choose to not have your sun move because you've chosen prebaked lighting. They had certain design goals with Forza 5 and designed the engine around that (1080p, 60fps, done by launch) and the inherent limitations of the platform. Saying, "oh, well, they didn't want the sun to move anyway!" is patently absurd.
Click to expand...


Nope, that's not the issue, I know exactly what it means and that's not what I'm saying. The problem is that most people don't know what it means and immediately assume that all of the lighting and shadows in F5 are prebaked, so when they look at things like shadows on the dashboard of Drive Club and they quip how Forza 5 can't do that because shadows are baked just makes me cringe. Nib95 is guilty of this himself.
 
C

CLEEK

Member
USC-fan said:
hes getting it off of b3d.

all in this thread.
http://beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=63677
Click to expand...

If he's getting it from there, he's obviously not reading what people are posting. The ex-MS dude who actually worked on the Xbone states very clearly the SHAPE is approx 18 GFLOPS.

the fixed function blocks were calculated, per the hotchips presentation, to be 18 GOPS equivalent.
Click to expand...

He also states that devs have little of this power available to them, as most of it is reserved to power Kinect,

Unfortunately, Devs only have access to a small part of it. Most of it is reserved for Kinect processing. As a bonus though, it means devs don't have to ask the question "do I have the resources to spare for adding Kinect?" like they did in the last console. Kinect is free(*). _Not_ using it is leaving processing power on the table. I hope this encourages them to be more liberal in their kinect integration this time around.
Click to expand...

http://beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1787843#post1787843
 
U

USC-fan

Banned
SPE said:
If he's getting it from there, he's obviously not reading what people are posting. The ex-MS dude who actually worked on the Xbone states very clearly the SHAPE is approx 18 GFLOPS.



He also states that devs have little of this power available to them, as most of it is reserved to power Kinect,



http://beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1787843#post1787843
Click to expand...

wow good find! I didnt see that before.
Unfortunately, Devs only have access to a small part of it. Most of it is reserved for Kinect processing.
Click to expand...

Well so much for that.

Audio might be another advantage for PS4 since its reserved just for gaming.

nib95 said:
I could be wrong, but I doubt it can use it much even if Kinect isn't being used in the game, because functionality and Shape resources will still have to be reserved in-case Kinect is used for non gaming features, e.g. for the OS and services related, voice commands, skype, snap split screen media and video (Blu-ray etc).
Click to expand...
You were correct.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Starfield Q&A on Discord Details
15
2K
balls of snow replied
  • Poll
11 (non technical) design flaws with Helldivers 2...
47
2K
Dacvak replied
  • Poll
PLAYSTATION 6: Potential Innovations, Features, Business Strategies & More (Speculation)
Opinion Analysis Platform 2 3 4
181
13K
hussar16 replied
IGN’s GOTY 2023 is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Opinion 2 3
124
6K
Hudo replied
Baldur's Gate 3 PC - DF Tech Review - Graphics Analysis + Optimised Settings
Opinion Analysis
25
5K
Mister Wolf replied
Top Bottom