• 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.

DF: Is Uncharted 4 the generational leap we were hoping for?

omonimo

Banned
I wonder why so many people think the graphics of a game is getting better near release, when nearly all games got huge downgrades between first gameplay clips and final game in the last few years.

I think Uncharted 4 does look good, but its clearly no big leap. Theres nothing that makes me go wow about it. Maybe Ryse set the bar too high for consoles, even through using kinda small areas
Because it's more a gameplay showcase than other. And ND typical up tons of details before the release. In all honesty I hoped they don't show anything because I'm expected couldn't be showed in the best fit but I suspect sony push them a lot to have this demo.
 
If people really want visuals consistently close to the teaser, they really should drop the 60fps dream now I think though

Probably. I wouldn't even mind. A constant 30 is fine with me for Uncarted.
Ofcourse.. they're pretty ambitious, so who knows. But it would surprise the hell out of me.

I wonder why so many people think the graphics of a game is getting better near release, when nearly all games got huge downgrades between first gameplay clips and final game in the last few years.

I think Uncharted 4 does look good, but its clearly no big leap. Theres nothing that makes me go wow about it. Maybe Ryse set the bar too high for consoles, even through using kinda small areas



asside from some rock geometry, the demo is a big leap compared to even Uncharted last gen. I was wowed constantly this demo.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
People would have to be crazy to expect the game to look like that with a year to go .
In fact the game having such a good frame rate this far from release is very rare .
Oh yes, absolutely. It's running well for being a year out but what's not clear is if they're still sticking with their statements about aiming for 60 fps or if they've decided to give that up.
 

system11

Member
To get it to 60 just to please a small nitch of players is lame. I bet the general public outside gaf would be fine with 30fps.

It would show care and attention to your craft along with an understanding that 60fps games play much, much better as well as looking far better outside of screenshots. You can try this with TLOU port, nobody in their right mind would pick the 30 lock option after seeing it at 60.

The public need educating, through exposure to more 60fps games. I think part of the depressing acceptance of low frame rates is an increasing number of people who don't know any better because they're newer than the days were 60 was normal.
 
"Pre-Alpha Version"



Imagine the final version now.

This is what AC: Unity beta version looked on the Xbox One.

Jesus, that first image.........

Fry5fJy.gif
 

Harmen

Member
It looks very good, but I am more impressed by the interactive features of this game (interactions with environments, animations, gameplay) than it's purely visual aspects at the moment. Purely visually speaking, The Order looks better as of now.

ND seems to make a big step in terms of a.i. and interactivity with this one, however.
 

omonimo

Banned
Oh yes, absolutely. It's running well for being a year out but what's not clear is if they're still sticking with their statements about aiming for 60 fps or if they've decided to give that up.
Isn't it the same thing happened to TLoU. They pratically push the fps to 60 almost the last week of development. The only difference, they haven't showed anything until it was 60 fps.
 

Toparaman

Banned
The video is a little dark is my only complaint. I think if it was popping with colors reactions would be different. This game looks fantastic and they'll only look better a few years from now. I bet it's going to have some of those "wow" moments that we haven't really seen much of yet this gen.

edit watch this video Amir0x posted and set it to 1440p and tell me that shit doesn't look good.

Wow. We really aren't worthy. Someone should tweet that video to Naughty Dog. I'm sure they'll appreciate that someone noticed all those details.

I too think that the lack of color diversity is why the reactions have been mixed. Hopefully we get some varied locales in the full game.
 
Oh yes, absolutely. It's running well for being a year out but what's not clear is if they're still sticking with their statements about aiming for 60 fps or if they've decided to give that up.

Yep it going to be interesting which ever way they go .
Or maybe they going to do it like TLOUR which would be great .
 
So just from today we have Driveclub looking "too gamey". And now UC4 looking great; just not great and next gen enough.

This is what we call "The Sony Effect" :)

By tonight, I fully expect to see, "Do Street Fighters fight too much? SFV Bad Influence For Our Youth" :D
 
"Pre-Alpha Version"



Imagine the final version now.

This is what AC: Unity beta version looked on the Xbox One.
Congrats on comparing an open world gameplay image with a linear non-gameplay one.


The game looks good, I'll give you that but you're comparing two different things.
 
Well, the game to me looks nice and i'm sure it'll look incredible once released. We're talking almost a year from release, Naughty Dog have enough time to polish everything.

The thing i wasn't impressed with maybe is the fact that it didn't feel like a big upgrade and seemed to play exactly like past Uncharted games, which not bad but i was expecting a little more maybe... like some new moves, guns, art style...

I will still buy this game day one !
 

Paracelsus

Member
If you go beast mode in one gen it's hard to be even more impressive the following one. Remember Ninja Gaiden Black and RE4? Yeah. Right now it looks pretty good, maybe at release it'll look better than TW3, we'll see.
 

kinggroin

Banned
Let's just assume this game improves by some arbitrary percentage, say 50% more jibbly wibblies.

It already gets compared to the best, right NOW, with 50% less jibbly wobblies.



Imagine in a year.
 
Oh yes, absolutely. It's running well for being a year out but what's not clear is if they're still sticking with their statements about aiming for 60 fps or if they've decided to give that up.
Wouldn't the solid framerate indicate that it's running above 30fps? Perhaps they need more time to optimize 60fps.
 

Capella

Member
With the arrival of gameplay footage, the teaser can now be seen in context - we hope that the final game surprises us with a fidelity matching the teaser, but we suspect that the original footage may indeed have been rendered offline within the engine. That's a shame in some respects because, for some, the discussion now isn't about how great the game looks - and let's be clear here, Uncharted 4 is often stunning - but rather about how it falls short compared to its initial reveal. On a general level - and not singling out Naughty Dog in particular - perhaps it's time for an end to 'in-engine' trailers? Show us the visuals running as we'll actually see them in-game - it's what we really want to see.
I thought ND confirmed that this wasn't the case with Uncharted 4?
 
Not that anyone should stop complaining about it now. It's a far ways off from the teaser, just as I always said it would be. But I also don't think we're close to indicative of where we'll be. Interview said the game looked extremely differently only 2 or 3 weeks ago, and they probably tried to get this demo running at as solid a framerate as possible, prioritizing that over putting all the effects they're going to have in place up.

I wouldn't be too confident that they'll be pulling more / better effects and also doubling the framerate in a year. In fact I suspect they'll make a few minor cuts here and there to achieve that target refresh rate.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Its starting to feel a bit like devs are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to demoing stuff early. Show a set-piece which is of course where the tech can really shine and effects be iterated upon to the fullest and they get criticized for the lack of gameplay, show a stretch of straight-up gameplay and they get called out on the lack of flashy show-stopping effects...
 

Sid

Member
In a way, the demo flips our expectations somewhat. Naughty Dog may simply be keeping its powder dry for now, but the visuals seen in this gameplay segment aren't quite the jaw-dropping spectacle we had hoped for based on the immense promise of the E3 teaser. Clearly, the slice of gameplay seen here is very attractive, if a bit subdued overall. However, we are surprised by the large number of meaningful changes to the gameplay that the studio is showcasing in this segment. First impressions might suggest a visually upgraded 1080p Uncharted experience - something we would relish - but could it be that the real generational leap lies in how it plays?
Sums up my thoughts on the demo perfectly
 

Percy

Banned
There is no "generational leap". The PS4 is old year old midrange PC hardware.

I know this is just a driveby post, but...

There's a clear generational leap evident from PS3 when considering the stage of development the game is at.

In this particular scenario any configuration of PC hardware is completely irrelevant.
 
First impressions of the Uncharted gameplay reveal? By the standards set by existing titles on the current-gen consoles, Naughty Dog's sampler is exactly what we were expecting - dynamic, beautiful and technically brilliant. Unfortunately, for some, the focus is on a game that looks significantly different to the one revealed at E3. Put simply - has the game been downgraded? Has Naughty Dog under-delivered judged by the standards it set itself just a few months ago?

We suspect that the developer would view such comments with disappointment bearing in mind the incredible attention to detail seen in such a small sample of in-game action. However, the gameplay seen here clearly demonstrates a different, less detailed Drake model that doesn't appear to be lit with quite the same level of fidelity as in the trailer. Then there's the fact that the gameplay runs at 30fps right now - not the absolutely flawless 60fps seen in the E3 trailer, and the target Naughty Dog set for itself. It's still not entirely clear if this is the new target or whether the developer is still aiming for 60fps as originally stated.

Still, as beautiful as the game's foliage is, the rock formations do leave a bit to be desired at this point. While texture work is impressive, we note many hard geometric edges visible across the world, reminiscent of Naughty Dog's work on the original Uncharted. We suspect that this is a compromise between aesthetics and gameplay - the developers need some way of highlighting traversable areas, otherwise the player could get lost. The trade-off is that these edges look almost artificially enhanced, literally standing out in a way that doesn't feel realistic. It's not helped by the fact that so many of these areas appear to lack proper occlusion properties, with bits and pieces fitting together without any sort of contact shadow.

OP missed some interesting stuff from the article. Hopefully this is all stuff that is improved upon in the final game. I thought the game had a softer and less detailed look to it and seems DF can explain why a whole lot better than I can.
 
the game looks great but people expectations were too high, partly because of the teaser nd released.

i would be 100% happy if the visuals stayed exactly like this upon release, thing im worried about is the inevitable a.i. downgrade which is going to happen. in the tlou demo the a.i. seemed awesome but in the actual game it rarely behaved that way.

like the df article concluded, im too am more impressed with the gameplay improvements than the graphical improvements which i never expected
 

Amir0x

Banned
I wouldn't be too confident that they'll be pulling more / better effects and also doubling the framerate in a year. In fact I suspect they'll make a few minor cuts here and there to achieve that target refresh rate.

I don't think they'll do it either, I'm just giving those who are holding onto the 60fps dream hope.

I have said from the start this game is going to be 30fps, and I believe that. But... you think they're going to tone down some effects from where it's at currently @ 30fps? I wasn't clear on that. I definitely think we're going to see improvements to the visuals from where it is currently @ 30fps. I just don't think 60fps is going to be one of those improvements
 

watership

Member
Things must be slow at old DF. Maybe they should ask this question when the games not in a pre alpha state

They received huge traffic this past year, due to the X1/PS4 resolutiongate stuff, but once that settled down, I am sure their traffic normalized. You're going to see lots of baity, reaching articles in the next year, especially during lulls.
 

valkyre

Member
I wouldn't be too confident that they'll be pulling more / better effects and also doubling the framerate in a year. In fact I suspect they'll make a few minor cuts here and there to achieve that target refresh rate.

One could very well argue that in its pre alpha stage the game cant deliver a proper 60 fps locked performance.

And since this is a showing and you want your game to look at its current best, you wont do a showing were your game averages 45 fps for example causing dips and judder all over the place. The correct decision is to render the demo at a locked 30 fps so it looks smooth and consistent.

I really dont get how so many people seem to be fairly sure that this showing is the end of 60 fps Uncharted 4.

Do we honestly expect a pre alpha version of such a demanding game to run at a locked 60 frames per sec?!
 

Niven

Member
In what way specifically? Being irritated by the analysis of a demo or just defending Uncharted? Because if it's the former, that happens in every demo/beta/alpha analysis thread. If it's latter, well yea, ND's got some passionate fans.

I think it's a bit of both! I'm glad tho because I think it's stupid!
 
By the way, if anyone wants to see a truly amazing dissection of the demo in both gameplay and tech watch this video.

He catches all sorts of shit I missed the first time, really gives you an appreciation of what Naughty Dog is already accomplishing. It's infinitely more useful than this Digital Foundry article, but your mileage may vary.

And he brings up some great points about the framerate as well.

Apart from whether he is right about certain technologies used or not, this video showed me a lot of details I missed the first time around.
Little details in animation, the particle effects when bullets hit stones or wood, the dust that comes from this and how it reaction to drakes motion. How detailed the foliage reacts to interaction.

When I watched the gameplay for the first time I missed a lot of details and thought it looked pretty good, but not neccessarily better than Ryse for example.
After watching it a couple more times I notice so many more things and I'd say now that it is considerably better looking than any other next gen game.
Compared to Ryse I see more details in the environement, a more reactive environment, more detail in animation, better more realistic lighting and I'd also say the policount is cconsiderably higher.
Also compared to very good looking games like Infamous or Quantum Break, we just don't see these huge flat poligons in Uncharted, everything is detailed and had geometry.

I'm not quite sure how this new gameplay compared to the short glimpse they showed at E3. The hair looks definitely worse to me, but everything else looks actually pretty comparable. All the differences I notice are pretty much caused by Drakes face beeing bruised and dirty, his clothes beeing wet and the whole scene beeing in direct moonlight.
And in this new footage he is dry, not bruised and without a direct lightsource in the beginning.

Look at this:
Add dirt, bruises, wetness and moonlight and it would look exactly like the E3 teaser.
mnpbvn.gif
 

Servbot24

Banned
It absolutely bewilders me that people can watch this gameplay and their first reaction is to complain. Oh well. The internet I guess.

Looks amazing to me and I'm very excited to play.
 

foxbeldin

Member
Its starting to feel a bit like devs are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to demoing stuff early. Show a set-piece which is of course where the tech can really shine and effects be iterated upon to the fullest and they get criticized for the lack of gameplay, show a stretch of straight-up gameplay and they get called out on the lack of flashy show-stopping effects...

Show nothing and everyone says you're stuck in dev hell. Can't win with early demos.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
At this point, I'd just like an answer from ND if they're still going for 60fps with the final game or not. If they are, this is an incredible standard for 60fps visuals. If not, they should through some high quality object motion blur in there.
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
By the way, if anyone wants to see a truly amazing dissection of the demo in both gameplay and tech watch this video.

He catches all sorts of shit I missed the first time, really gives you an appreciation of what Naughty Dog is already accomplishing. It's infinitely more useful than this Digital Foundry article, but your mileage may vary.

And he brings up some great points about the framerate as well.

Wow those details, everything was moving so fast that I didn't notice most of it. The white indicator that someone is about to see you especially. Interesting.
 

Hermii

Member
It looks extremely good and if they can get t running at 1080p 60 it will look leaps and bounds better than last gen in motion and I gladly take that before some pointless extra graphical details.
 
He gets the terms wrong often, but he does spot a lot of details that I missed. Particularly about the lighting in the cave and some of the gameplay minutiae.

But he's wrong about a shit ton of it. It doesn't matter if he's catching things when he's wrong about it. He's catching shit that just isn't there.
 

barit

Member
SP 30fps MP 60fps

I could live with that

I mean for pre-alpha it already looks stunning in motion. Just imagine what ND can do with another year of development
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
The great AA is making me happy. The shitty AA in so many console games is currently to number one thing that makes me consider to buy a HTPC.
 
The game is pre-alpha. If they can maintain or improve on the graphics while hitting native 1080p 60fps I'll call it a real generational leap.
 

dr guildo

Member
Okay scratch what I said in the other thread, if this is lacking per object motion blur it seems like it's a fairly old but stable build they've used for the demo. I don't expect gigantic lighting overhauls but the final product should look a fair amount nicer.

Many tests have proven that per object motion blur, or motion blur are less efficient @60fps than @30.
That's why I still believe that ND is targeting 60fps...
 
Kudos to DF for pointing out how exciting the gameplay looks.

ND could have easily gone for a spectaculair set-piece, but instead they showed incredibly dynamic moment-to-moment gameplay. If that's the meat of the game with a few set-pieces thrown in for good measure, it's gonna be a very exciting game to play indeed.
 
Top Bottom