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[>-Baron-Spamedi-<]

This was a terrible, terrible idea. They should have stuck to having just one setting on consoles. Leave all this customization to PCs. Not having a single performance setting is a dev's way of blaming the gamer if it doesn't play well.

"Performance sucks? Who asked you to change the setting?"

Don't give us configurable performance settings on non-configurable hardware. That isn't a meaningful choice. It's a minefield of compromise that you are egging the gamer to walk through.

Kind of agree with this really.
It's one of the main reasons I left PC gaming behind several years ago.
I want to spend my precious time playing and getting enjoyment from the game itself , not fucking about in menus wondering which settings will alter performance or which settings will most effect playability etc.

I mean the thought of running a race only to find that half way through you experience huge frame dips so you have to quit out, change some options, run the race again to see if there's any difference, then possibly quit out again and have to keep repeating this process ad nauseam just to find the setting that allow you to run the race at a stable frame rate?!?
That doesn't sound remotely enjoyable. It's just a waste of my time.

Also there's the question of whether people competing in the same race may be disadvantaged based on their settings, which should never be a thing.

I was quite interested in this however based on this information I'm probably out. I suppose it's not final code so there may be scope for change.

 

[danowat]

Man. This doesn't sound good at all. I would rather have locked 30 FPS than to have constant framerate issues in a racing game that can reach 60 FPS.

But but but but options man, OPTIONS, you now have the choice of a true next gen graphical experiance, or 60fps.........

 

[Hasney]

I'm out. I don't want a locked 30fps racer because they're not good enough, but this is even worse.

I'll grab in a cheap Steam sale for when I have a PC to lock it down.

 

[Risk Breaker]

So, with that, I am calling BS on all the comments in the settings thread saying the visual options were just window dressing, and wouldn't affect frame rate.

Once again, those visual options have nothing to do with this. It's the amount of cars + the alpha rain spray effect.

The option to turn rain drops off is just post-processing, has nothing to do with the spray effect and I very much doubt it affects framerate noticeably.

Why are people so obtuse about this? Dear Lord.

They're gonna have to downgrade visuals, limit it to dry weather and reduce the number of cars dramatically as it needs to *hold* 60fps at all times, even during starts.

It might still be possible, but it will definitely have to be a limited mode.

I think 12 cars, no water spray in the wet could work? That spray in VR has to be annoying as fuck anyway, not like I wouldn't prefer having the performance needed, mind you

 

[Nyx]

II don't want a locked 30fps racer because they're not good enough

What? Why?

 

[Chobel]

Should be mentioned that it was not the gold build tested there, but an older one according to the development director at SMS.

Quoting for the new page.

 

[Hasney]

What? Why?

Personal thing with racing games. I couldn't stand it in Driveclub either.

 

[Skitso78]

I was really waiting this to be my first racing game on this gen(Don't own Xone so no Forza, no GT available yet, not a fan of Drive Club or NFS). But no, not like this. If they can't give me even relatively stable 60, I'm out.

 

[DieH@rd]

They're gonna have to downgrade visuals, limit it to dry weather and reduce the number of cars dramatically as it needs to *hold* 60fps at all times, even during starts.

It might still be possible, but it will definitely have to be a limited mode.

Not a problem, pCARS looks great even with lower settings [and thank god, some parts of simulation are much better than in GT6, namely all cars have full headlights simulation, and tire water spray is much better].

 

[danowat]

Once again, those visual options have nothing to do with this. It's the amount of cars + the alpha rain spray effect.

The option to turn rain drops off is just post-processing, has nothing to do with the spray effect and I very much doubt it affects framerate noticeably.

Why are people so obtuse about this? Dear Lord.

Have you played the console version?

but the sheer breadth of options gives players the power to determine whether it hits this mark, or drops closer to 30fps

Surely that statement, from an outlet who has played the console version is far from obtuse?.

 

[NumberThree]

Surely that statement, from an outlet who has played the console version is far from obtuse?.

Read the entire fucking paragraph. Read the options they describe in the following sentence. Read.

 

[nelsonroyale]

This was a terrible, terrible idea. They should have stuck to having just one setting on consoles. Leave all this customization to PCs. Not having a single performance setting is a dev's way of blaming the gamer if it doesn't play well.

"Performance sucks? Who asked you to change the setting?"

Don't give us configurable performance settings on non-configurable hardware. That isn't a meaningful choice. It's a minefield of compromise that you are egging the gamer to walk through.

??? I don't understandthis at all. Like the game would run better if they didn't give players the choices? Highly unlikely....

 

[ShamePain]

Not a problem, pCARS looks great even with lower settings [and thank god, some parts of simulation are much better than in GT6, namely all cars have full headlights simulation, and tire water spray is much better].

Does PCars run on a 2005 machine with 512mb of split RAM? There's your answer.

 

[Ape]

Should have delayed it.

I'm almost convinced that the only delay that would help performance would be a delay to the next generation of consoles.

 

[danowat]

Read the entire fucking paragraph. Read the options they describe in the following sentence. Read.

So they are specifically talking about the amount of cars, and weather on/off?, rather than the specific visual options?

 

[Seanspeed]

What? Why?

Because it's a racing simulator.

If you want to be able to eek out every little tenth of the second from your laptimes with a high level of precision and feel, you need a consistent, high framerate.

 

[amar212]

Expected.

Also, 45 frames with 44 cars and rain and with real-time lightning and HDR, it is an achievement, especially because it stabilizes once the cars separates.

But never mind, my personal opinion.

As long as we get 90-95% of stable 60, it is great.

40+ cars were never seen in this scale on consoles. I am gladly sacrificing frame drops that are happening only in certain situation for overall experience.

 

[Mohasus]

Surely that statement, from an outlet who has played the console version is far from obtuse?.

Did you watch the video? It is quite obvious that it refers to options like rain and the number of cars.

Or maybe if you read the article:

"We enable all post-process effects for our tests, but the actual impact (if any) on PS4 and Xbox One performance for each setting is an area we hope to investigate on release."

"Slightly Mad Studios also lives up to its name by letting its engine run wild; the weather system is ambitious, and the car count goes higher than any PS4 or Xbox One racer to date. However, it pays an obvious price for these options."

Why waste your time commenting if you aren't going to watch the video or read the article?

 

[Muzicfreq]

44 cars in a city circuit with heavy rain looked like clusterfuck
My question is who would do that to themselves?

Looks decent on performance though, not the most stable, but decent.
If I play this I would probably opt for much less cars since having that many to me does not look fun.

 

[NumberThree]

So they are specifically talking about the amount of cars, and weather on/off?, rather than the specific visual options?

Yes. They didn't test the effect of the customizable graphics options at all, so they can't comment on it.

We enable all post-process effects for our tests, but the actual impact (if any) on PS4 and Xbox One performance for each setting is an area we hope to investigate on release.

 

[artsi]

Read the entire fucking paragraph. Read the options they describe in the following sentence. Read.

It's wonderful how some people just cherry pick sentences from an article not really understanding what they're talking about.

The postprocessing options that were talked about in a previous thread have not yet been tested by DF if they affect performance in any way.

 

[danowat]

Did you watch the video? It is quite obvious that it refers to options like rain and the number of cars.

Or maybe if you read the article:

"We enable all post-process effects for our tests, but the actual impact (if any) on PS4 and Xbox One performance for each setting is an area we hope to investigate on release."

"Slightly Mad Studios also lives up to its name by letting its engine run wild; the weather system is ambitious, and the car count goes higher than any PS4 or Xbox One racer to date. However, it pays an obvious price for these options."

No, I'll be honest, I skim read it.

I want Project cars to be good, I want it to be very, very good, I am excited for the game.

I'll go back and read the entire article and watch the video.

Are career races run with a set number of AI and set weather?

 

[NBtoaster]

Because it's a racing simulator.

If you want to be able to eek out every little tenth of the second from your laptimes with a high level of precision and feel, you need a consistent, high framerate.

Then don't play with 44 cars?

 

[ShamePain]

Because it's a racing simulator.

If you want to be able to eek out every little tenth of the second from your laptimes with a high level of precision and feel, you need a consistent, high framerate.

But then again who runs hot laps in the rain and other cars on the track?

 

[Risk Breaker]

Have you played the console version?

Surely that statement, from an outlet who has played the console version is far from obtuse?.

The drops come in a huge part from the water spray effect. This effect is not included in the options you were talking about, which give the player the option to disable post-processing effects like drops in the camera, lens flare, etc. Which obviously do take some minimal performance, but nothing you would notice. Changing the FoV will affect performance (although it'll probably still be fine unless you have the water spray effect on screen), but that is a gameplay option. Disabling the camera shake is also a gameplay option, but that has nothing to do with performance.

They are talking about the options given to race with up to 44 cars, and rain, which causes framerate drops due to heavy alpha.

I don't need to have played the game to know how its graphical effects impact framerate due to hardware bottlenecks, in this case due to transparencies. If you have that spray effect on screen superposed to other spray effects, framerate WILL drop. This is probably why the gap between XBO and PS4 is bigger than usual in this case, since there is already a 30% difference in pixel quantity AND the framerate on XBO is noticeably worse when the effect is on screen. Because the XBO has proportionately less TMUs, etc. And that effect is NOT in the options you were talking about.

Seriously, I can't believe SMS will get flak for adding options like lens flare, camera shake, FoV, etc, which are supposed to make the game more accessible, when the real cause of the drops is a hardware limitation when superposing alpha heavy effects.

 

[Three]

Because it's a racing simulator.

If you want to be able to eek out every little tenth of the second from your laptimes with a high level of precision and feel, you need a consistent, high framerate.

No you don't, but higher framerates are obviously good.

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

What a load of shite. Completely unnaceptable, especially for a simulation game.

Both the power of these 'next gen' consoles and the attitude of AAA development towards them is a disgrace.

Sigh. Your move Turn 10.

 

[danowat]

The drops come in a huge part from the water spray effect. This effect is not included in the options you were talking about, which give the player the option to disable post-processing effects like drops in the camera, lens flare, etc. Which obviously do take some minimal performance, but nothing you would notice. Changing the FoV will affect performance (although it'll probably still be fine unless you have the water spray effect on screen), but that is a gameplay option. Disabling the camera shake is also a gameplay option, but that has nothing to do with performance.

They are talking about the options given to race with up to 44 cars, and rain, which causes framerate drops due to heavy alpha.

I don't need to have played the game to know how its graphical effects impact framerate due to hardware bottlenecks, in this case due to transparencies. If you have that spray effect on screen superposed to other spray effects, framerate WILL drop. And that effect is NOT in the options you were talking about.

Seriously, I can't believe SMS will get flak for adding options like lens flare, camera shake, FoV, etc, which are supposed to make the game more accessible, when the real cause of the drops is a hardware limitation when superposing alpha heavy effects.

Right read the entire article now.

I'd still be interested to know if the things that hit the frame rate the heaviest (AI cars, weather and damage) are fixed in career races or not.

PS4 appears (once again), to be the clear leader, so my pre-order for the PS4 version is still safe, but the lack of AF is, again, odd?

 

[lightchris]

I never understood why more devs don't use a dynamic frame resolution ala WipeoutHD and Wolfenstein to maintain a rock solid 60fps on consoles.

It doesn't help at all if the CPU is the limiting factor (and its not that simple to implement/doesn't work perfectly on any game i guess).

 

[spyshagg]

Gents


Dynamic resolution.




Killzone Vita has it.



It works



Salute

 

[Mascot]

It seems like SMS may have fallen into the same trap that snared Polyphony, namely refusing to throttle ambition back to suit the available hardware. In a lot of ways pCARS seems like a technical marvel on consoles, but screen tearing and 25% frame drops are an absolute no-no in racing sims. I think the Xbone analysis probably also kills any thoughts of precipitation (and maybe night racing) in Forza 6.

I kind of expected this in wet weather and/or night races, but it's still disappointing to hear. I believe (from Alan's comments in the recent VVV video) that performance is rock-solid in daylight and clear skies, but the game should really have been scaled appropriately to maintain that performance under ALL conditions.

I've been dithering between buying a PS4 or building a PC for this game and I think the decision has finally been made.

 

[chadskin]

Sigh. Your move Turn 10.

Well, Forza 6 will probably not have 44 cars on track at the same time. That should help.

 

[herod]

these consoles are just bad

 

[Risk Breaker]

By the way, I'm pretty sure the drops would/will still be significant even with, say, 8 cars, if they are close in the rain so the spray effect superposes, like in a standing start.

44 cars obviously stresses the system and the engine even further.

 

[Mascot]

Thread title is very misleading.

"PS4 and Xbox One Versions" needs adding. People could think this analysis relates to the PC version.

 

[stryke]

Obvious difference is that for whatever reason the dials/buttons on PS4 isn't being lit properly but also, the screen reflects on the surrounding bezel only in the PS4 version.

 

[Chobel]

Thread title is very misleading.

"PS4 and Xbox One Versions" needs adding. People could think this analysis relates to the PC version.

I think that unless "PC" is explicitly written, most people will just assume it's PS4 vs XB1 anyway.

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

Well, Forza 6 will probably not have 44 cars on track at the same time. That should help.

Probably not. But if it did they should get it running at locked 60 with those 44 cars, adjusting the graphics quality as neccessary. Then anything below that should automatically run properly.

Instead developers try to cram everything in, even when the machine isn't capable of it. All that achieves is the creation of a sub par game that doesn't stand the test of time. However they don't care about that and are only interested in selling x amount of copies in the first month. That's modern day game development in a nutshell.

 

[JetSetRadio]

Hmmm, will have to wait to see how the retail PS4 version performs.
PC= iracing and assetto corsa

 

[amar212]

It seems like SMS may have fallen into the same trap that snared Polyphony, namely refusing to throttle ambition back to suit the available hardware..

I was just searching Yamauchi's exact quote from 2010 for my previous answer, but here it is, from announcement of GT5 release:

"Our engineers complain every day: 'Isn't it enough that it's in 1080p? Does it have to be 60fps too?' But I think 60fps is very important, so we're working towards perfecting that," revealed Yamauchi.

"There might be times when you have a certain combination of conditions that come together - especially with the weather effects - [when] the game might briefly drop from 60fps, and for that I beg your forgiveness!"

Yamauchi offered a concrete example about how the weather and the number of cars affect the game's rendering capability.

"If you're going from a standing start at No.16 and all 15 cars in front of you are kicking up water, there might not be 60fps at that moment."

We all remember the 2-year optimization GT5 had with alpha-effects. It was brought to 55-60fps territory in 2012 for night rain races, but the victims were water-reflections, off-track areas and some casting effects.

In the same time, and because you're explicitly mentioning Forza, I am still saving Greenawalt's quote regarding night and rain racing for Forza 4 and it so mission. Here is his reasoning why Forza 4 never delivered night racing on X360:

As we found on the original Forza Motorsport, having multiple headlight projections with multiple cast shadows is computationally heavy—even using clever tricks like we did on the less powerful original Xbox platform. This makes delivering a strong night racing experience very difficult at 60 FPS without significant compromise…(snip)... Creating believable weather effects also depends upon gobs of particles and lots of shiny, reflective surfaces. There are several tricks for doing this, but it would still have made delivering the new graphical fidelity of FM4 at a solid 60 FPS nearly impossible in our development timeframe… (snip).. If we cut down on the number of cars on track, used original Xbox-generation car models, dropped to 30 FPS, or (and this would be the most effective solution) built specific tracks from the ground-up to have less detail and thus extra performance headroom, then night racing and/or weather conditions may have been possible. Some of those trade-offs, we just were not willing to do.

And this is what he said for the same thing regarding Forza 5 on XboxOne:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/12/13/forza-5-night-racing-and-weather-is-not-a-minor-thing-to-add

Most notable quote:

This is why we haven't seen nighttime racing or weather effects in Forza 5. It's why we may not get to for a while, if ever…. (snip)… We chose to be 1080p and 60 frames per-second, and have that solid performance. We’re going to try to make the best decisions we can to get people to really, really love the game.”

I will not quote the infamous interview that is still discussed if actually being legit or not.

But the point stands.

 

[Nyx]

Because it's a racing simulator.

If you want to be able to eek out every little tenth of the second from your laptimes with a high level of precision and feel, you need a consistent, high framerate.

But I do that in 30 FPS DriveClub?

 

[matrix-cat]

..on a game which the developers have gone to pains to constantly point out is 60fps no compromises. I think it is fair enough to be disappointed at the framerate halving. And rain/large grids are two big selling points - are we not supposed to use them?

If the devs made sure you'd get 60FPS in the worst possible situation, you'd end up with PS3-quality graphics and a game that'd probably run at well over 100FPS once you turned the weather off. What's the point? The article states that they've got an almost perfect 60FPS with 35 cars on track, which is lightyears ahead of any other console racing sim on the market. You're focusing on a test that's specifically intended to show the game at its absolute worst and ignoring the fact that it's going to look stellar and perform excellently for pretty much 99% of most people's playtime.

 

[c0de]

It's surprising that the XB1 version drops that much lower despite the resolution difference (which should make up for the HW difference mostly). Fillrate-bound?

I remember someone saying it uses a deferred renderer which doesn't exactly favor the architecture...

 

[danowat]

But I do that in 30 FPS DriveClub?

DriveClub is a very different game.

 

[thebloo]

these consoles are just bad

What kind of PC do you need to hold 60fps in a 44 car race on rain? Does anyone know?

 

[Scaramanger]

It has been confirmed on the forums that this build was pre the latest changes (that I referenced earlier) that did make a big difference to performance (even on PC although the changes were made more to improve console performance).

I think the other thing to bear in mind here is this is the really the worse case scenario. DF have set this race up to be as taxing as possible, more common scenarios such as light clouds turning to light rain and even rain are likely to perform much better (as they do on the PC).

Alan from VVV is teasing a lot more videos this week be interesting to see what he has to say (hopefully he has the latest builds).

 

[Chobel]

I remember someone saying it uses a deferred renderer which doesn't exactly favor the architecture...

I think that was about the resolution and not performance.

 

[Dictator93]

That doesnt look like a per-object blur... rather a broken temporal AA blend.

Also.... maybe next gen.

 

[Marlenus]

You can avoid it, because you know what causes it ahead of time. What about all the other people who don't read DF articles? That are just looking for a racing game that is promising huge grids and night and weather and everything? Expectations will be that this game runs fine, but then they discover that if they want all these promised features, the game runs sub optimally at best, catastrophic at worst.

It just seems like they refuse to compromise their vision for a feature list, even if it comes at the expense of the actual gameplay, and for a racing sim, that is never going to be a philosophy I can get behind.

That is a valid point.

 

[Scaramanger]

What kind of PC do you need to hold 60fps in a 44 car race on rain? Does anyone know?

I've not tried to be honest (crazy grid size for most tracks) but I will give it a go later and see how I get on. My instinct is its probably more CPU bound than anything and that I will likely be ok with an i5 4690