Tech Analysis: Quantum Break - Digital Foundry on what works and what doesn't in Remedy's latest.
Example of image quality when the camera hasn't moved for 4 frames (related to the reconstruction)
What works:
What doesn't:
I copied every other item in the list, so read the article for the full analysis.
Example of image quality when the camera hasn't moved for 4 frames (related to the reconstruction)
What works:
Audio: When it comes to audio, Quantum Break presents one of the most active and interesting soundscapes we've encountered in quite some time. The audio engine was built using both Umbra and Wwise middleware solutions enabling proper audio culling, and smooth implementation of sound assets into the game. One way in which this manifests lies in what are effectively audio spheres. Effects, such as reverb and distortion, are applied within sphere space and blended seamlessly with other nearby spheres. These spheres are manually placed around the world and use raycasting to prevent the effects from passing unnaturally through surrounding walls. Raycasting is limited to a single test for distant objects, in order to speed up processing time, but the overall audio budget is around 2ms out of the 33ms available for each frame. The game also uses grain synth to create sound that naturally fits the time bending soundscape - when items freeze or rewind in time, you'll actually hear an appropriately generated sound. The way a paused scream fades into an active one as a panicked person is brought back into the normal flow of time is pretty impressive, for instance. Beyond that, the surround channels are also put to active use creating a very convincing sound chamber.
Global Illumination: This is a key feature that remains computationally expensive to implement, presenting an interesting challenge when it comes to lighting for this game. Many titles today rely on primarily pre-computed solutions in order to reduce the rendering load and increase performance, but such a solution is incompatible with the dynamic nature of Quantum Break. Scene lighting changes rapidly at various points while many dynamic and breakable objects litter the scenes. Quantum Break solves this issue by employing a mix of screen-space and pre-calculated solutions: irradiance data is reconstructed from irradiance volume based light probes and combined with pre-computed light data in order to calculate direct and bounce lighting within a scene. Screen-space data is used to construct more accurate specular reflections with the probe data being used as a fallback when screen-space data is occluded from view. All of these calculations work in parallel in order to deliver a cohesive whole and it looks excellent.
Filmic presentation: Much has been said about the image quality in Quantum Break, but the soft, filmic look is something we actually feel works well here. This is a game designed to emulate the appearance of full-motion video and it succeeds brilliantly. We'll touch on our issues with the lower resolution approach below, but given that we're looking at a scene built from 720p output, the results are decidedly impressive. The anti-aliasing, lack of temporal shimmering, and the perceptual higher resolution actually work pretty well here.
Materials: Northlight has been upgraded to support physically-based rendering and, of course, that means we have a full selection of materials authored to support this. The quality of most materials in the game is absolutely excellent - cement, dirt, stone, and metal all generally appear very realistic. It's a cut above other recent attempts at PBR on the platform - games such as Rise of the Tomb Raider and Halo 5 fell a touch short in this regard. When combined with the realistic lighting, the game has a beautifully "hyper-real" appearance that we like.
Ambient occlusion: Quantum Break makes heavy use of screen-space effects but the ambient occlusion featured in the game is a cut above the norm. Based on line-sweep ambient obscurance, the results in the game are on par with HBAO+ in many ways, with excellent coverage that looks very natural. This technique seems to handle areas which are sometimes missed by other AO solutions, such as the area beneath a vehicle. The best part is that it requires just 0.75ms of processing time on Xbox One to render out.
What doesn't:
Image quality: While we are impressed with the filmic appearance, that doesn't mean the image is as sharp and or clean as we'd like. As rendering budgets and visual complexity increases, the need for creative approaches to image quality arises. We've been impressed with techniques such as the temporal re-projection used by Killzone ShadowFall in multiplayer as well as the MSAA 'trick' employed in Rainbow Six Siege. Quantum Break's approach renders the game at 1280x720 with 4x MSAA while using four previous frames to reconstruct the image in such a way that resolution appears higher. It's different from the re-projection seen in Killzone in that the image must be re-constructed every time the camera moves - it also varies from Rainbow Six Siege which used MSAA samples rather than past frames, as we see in Quantum Break. The issue here is that while the effect looks very nice in stills, things break down somewhat in motion. Obvious stair-steps become evident whenever the camera is touched and gameplay appears chunkier as the action heats up. In addition, texture filtering is hit or miss with a number of surfaces appearing rather blurry from the gameplay camera angle. All in all, this is one area we expect to see improve on the PC.
Temporal ghosting: A side effect of Remedy's approach to temporal aliasing is visible ghosting and trails behind objects. When objects move parallel to the viewport, particularly in front an area filled with screen-space reflections, obvious black trailing artefacts become visible around the object silhouette. This is offset by the sheer number of effects happening in any given seen but, during quieter moments, it can prove distracting. The reliance on screen-space data for reflections and lighting can also prove distracting as information moves in and out of view during camera rotation.
Texture pop-in: The texture work is beautiful in Quantum Break but textures simply refuse to load in properly sometimes. We ran into a number of situations in which very specific textures would remain blurry for upwards of 30 seconds or more. In other cases, certain textures never loaded in at all. Now, it should be noted that this only applies to very specific situations, but this type of bug proves distracting in a game that looks so realistic in other areas.
Loading times: While data streaming works beautifully in Quantum Break and levels play out without breaks, the times when you must sit through a loading screen, such as when continuing a saved game or loading a chapter, can last quite a long time. Loading can take over a full minute to complete at times. Thankfully, the game's first patch will be ready for launch and is set to improve upon this issue. How much this will have improved remains up in the air, but we're hopeful that users won't have to deal with it.
Volumetric lighting: As an integral part of the experience in Alan Wake, we were pleased to see volumetric light shafts return in full force here. Unfortunately, the resolution remains very low leading to very noticeable chunking artefacts visible whenever these effects are on-screen. At times, the resolution is low enough that we're reminded of alpha effects seen in Zone of the Enders 2 running on a PlayStation 2 - a beautiful game to be sure, but one running on ancient hardware.
Ultimately, Quantum Break is one of the most technically accomplished games on Xbox One but it's not without its issues. Northlight produces beautifully detailed worlds with remarkable effects work and lighting but image quality just isn't where it needs to be. The filmic look works to an extent but visible aliasing is still evident in motion making it clear that the solution employed here isn't quite on par with what we witnessed in Rainbow Six Siege. The issues with shadow quality and general stability due to heavy reliance on screen-space data also impacts the look of the game at times.
The real triumph here is the way in which the game's technology benefits the core gameplay. Quantum Break is an absolute joy to play - perhaps the best game Remedy has made to date - and much of that joy is the result of its technology. That perfect mix of high quality animation, effects, and feedback just feels right. It's an highly satisfying game to play.
I copied every other item in the list, so read the article for the full analysis.
