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Digital Foundry: Unreal Engine 4 PS4 vs. PC

D

delta25

Banned
So ultimately what DF is saying is that with enough time the PS4 version will look just as good as the PC version. Based on what we know about the PS4 demo and the circumstances surrounding it this makes perfect sense.
 
P

phosphor112

Banned
delta25 said:
So ultimately what DF is saying is that with enough time the PS4 version will look just as good as the PC version. Based on what we know about the PS4 demo and the circumstances surrounding it this makes perfect sense.
Click to expand...

No, that PC demo maxed out the GTX 680. It won't happen. That's why they aren't even focusing on real time global illumination on PC anymore.
 
Kibbles

Kibbles

Member
I believe it. The first showing of Gears was some quick bad frame rate clip wasn't it? The final game in 06 ended up running great and looking a lot better than the initial reveal.
 
Oppo

Oppo

Member
phosphor112 said:
No, that PC demo maxed out the GTX 680. It won't happen. That's why they aren't even focusing on real time global illumination on PC anymore.
Click to expand...

I get what you are saying, but that assumes 100% efficiency in the code, which of course is never really attainable. Eventually they will get closer to the PC version, and it won't be a matter of raw hardware but programming improvements, techniques, optimizations made to compilers etc.
 
N

nbthedude

Member
I don't even know why there has to be sides here. It is a win/win.

PS4 dudes get UT4 mid range PC performance in a nice little box.

Pc gamers finally get UT4 games to put their hardware to work in a more substantial way.

No, your PS4 isnt going to out perform any current $300+ videocard. But it is also not likely to cost more than $400 or so in total.
 
R

Reiko

Banned
Kibbles said:
I believe it. The first showing of Gears was some quick bad frame rate clip wasn't it? The final game in 06 ended up running great and looking a lot better than the initial reveal.
Click to expand...

Yeah. But they had to omit dynamic lighting effects from the E3 build in the final.

I don't think it was just for the 360. More so for the engine in general.
 
A

Apenheul

Member
Triple U said:
You care to expand?

And most developers don't really get access to lowlevel libraries.
Click to expand...

Sorry if my post was unclear. What I meant to say was that things like intrinsic functions, data alignment and inline assembly is worth considering for code that needs to be performed many thousands of times per frame, and only if through profiling it is determined that the target framerate cannot be upheld because of the workload for that particular component. Nowadays the performance optimization opportunities mostly lie elsewhere, although I can see such "one million troops" game with a CPU implementation for an animation system being really CPU heavy, so that's when these types of optimizations make a lot of sense and are likely to produce some effect in terms of framerate.

And you're right about developers not having access to lowlevel libraries, which is sometimes a curse but most of the times a blessing :)
 
K

KKRT00

Member
So another generation of UE games with static lighting ;\, they should at least change their GI to Light Propagation Volumes [CryEngine 3 alike], not prebaked shit from UE 3 ...
 
R

Reiko

Banned
KKRT00 said:
So another generation of UE games with static lighting ;\, they should at least change their GI to Light Propagation Volumes [CryEngine 3 alike], not prebaked shit from UE 3 ...
Click to expand...

On the bright side... There's always Based CryEngine 3 in the meantime. Not all hope is lost.
 
N

Norml

Member
The article got an update by someone from Epic.

Brian Karis, senior graphics programmer at Epic Games adds some more insight in the comments below, explaining some of the more obvious differences - particularly in terms of the very different lighting schemes. At the technical level, the two demos are closer than it seems:

"The biggest changes actually came from the merging of two separate cinematics, the original Elemental and the extended Elemental we showed at PS4's launch event. Each had different sun directions and required some compromises to join them. This resulted in some major lighting differences that aren't platform related but were due to it being a joined cinematic. Another effect, in the original you could see the mountains through the door where in the merged one we made the view through the door white since the mountains outside were no longer the same. Same deal with the mountain fly by. The old mountain range doesn't exist in the new one. These changes from the merge make direct comparisons somewhat inaccurate.

"Feature wise most everything is the same, AA resolution, meshes, textures (PS4 has tons of memory), DOF (I assure you both use the same Bokeh DOF, not sure why that one shot has different focal range), motion blur.

"Biggest differences are SVOGI has been replaced with a more efficient GI solution, a slight scale down in the number of particles for some FX, and tessellation is broken on ps4 in the current build which the lava used for displacement. We will fix the tessellation in the future."
Click to expand...
 
S

Superflat

Member
Norml said:
The article got an update by someone from Epic.
"Feature wise most everything is the same, AA resolution, meshes, textures (PS4 has tons of memory), DOF (I assure you both use the same Bokeh DOF, not sure why that one shot has different focal range), motion blur.

"Biggest differences are SVOGI has been replaced with a more efficient GI solution, a slight scale down in the number of particles for some FX, and tessellation is broken on ps4 in the current build which the lava used for displacement. We will fix the tessellation in the future."
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I wish they'd release the same damn build running on PS4 since it was obviously going to be compared directly by every enthusiast, lol.

But as they said, going to a more "efficient" GI and lower particle effects are def the weak points of the PS4 version.
 
C

childplease

Banned
Only the omission of Sparse Voxel Octree Global Illumination tech (SVOGI) comes across as a disappointment
Click to expand...

This is still coming to pc though right ?

Just because the ps4 is too weak to include it does not mean it can't make it to the pc right ?
 
S

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
gibon3z said:
This is still coming to pc though right ?

Just because the ps4 is too weak to include it does not mean it can't make it to the pc right ?
Click to expand...

No they gimped every platform for the time being apparently. The only remaining hope is that you can still adjust the GI in real-time in UDK without rebaking every time you want to see a small adjustment.
 
P

Perkel

Banned
Brian Karis, senior graphics programmer at Epic Games adds some more insight in the comments below, explaining some of the more obvious differences - particularly in terms of the very different lighting schemes. At the technical level, the two demos are closer than it seems:

"The biggest changes actually came from the merging of two separate cinematics, the original Elemental and the extended Elemental we showed at PS4's launch event. Each had different sun directions and required some compromises to join them. This resulted in some major lighting differences that aren't platform related but were due to it being a joined cinematic. Another effect, in the original you could see the mountains through the door where in the merged one we made the view through the door white since the mountains outside were no longer the same. Same deal with the mountain fly by. The old mountain range doesn't exist in the new one. These changes from the merge make direct comparisons somewhat inaccurate.

"Feature wise most everything is the same, AA resolution, meshes, textures (PS4 has tons of memory), DOF (I assure you both use the same Bokeh DOF, not sure why that one shot has different focal range), motion blur.

"Biggest differences are SVOGI has been replaced with a more efficient GI solution, a slight scale down in the number of particles for some FX, and tessellation is broken on ps4 in the current build which the lava used for displacement. We will fix the tessellation in the future."
Click to expand...

So they don't bake GI. Good.
 
H

Horse Armour

Member
P

palpabl_purpura

Member
dejan said:
I don't know about you guys, but I expected a tad bit more of the "world's best pc".
Click to expand...

If not for poor coding and optimization, there would not even be the need for the high end tech currently on the pc market. Having the same cod game run worse on the same hardware year over year is not acceptable. When you take that perspective, the ps4 tech has more than enough adequate resources for several years to come. Its not suprising though, that df could not pass up the oportunity to take a shot at the next gen ps4 considering their heavily slanted face offs of this generation.
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
Norml said:
The article got an update by someone from Epic.
Click to expand...

The unbolded paragraph is also pretty interesting. I always thought there were a few changes to the art style on top of technical changes that made things look a lot worse. It makes sense that some things looked a more different than expected with the changed sun location and mountain ranges.
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Sort of off-topic, but another middleware provider had an interesting blog post a month ago about work they've done to bring their tools to PS4.

They basically got Direct3D11 to run on top of Sony's low level PS4 library, so they could run their middleware without changes for PS4 specifically.

Their middleware is used in Agni's Philosophy, among other things.

http://paradox3d.net/blog/direct3d11-ps4.html

We are pleased to announce that we have ported Paradox Engine and Yebis 2 Post-Processing Middleware to Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation®4.

In order to successfully achieve this, we have managed to develop a a full C++ compatible Direct3D11/DXGI/D3DCompiler API layer on top of Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation®4’s existing low level graphics API. The layer is extremely performant, and Yebis and Paradox could run with high quality settings. We plan to use this layer to port other middleware developed in our company.

With such a layer, we have been able to easily port the Direct3D11 versions of Paradox and Yebis 2 without having to change a single line of code in these middlewares in order to support rendering on the PlayStation®4:

With the D3DCompiler layer (with a fxc.exe compiler using it), we can develop our shaders in pure HLSL. We can query shader reflection, metadata, constant buffer...etc exactly in the same way we use to do in Direct3D11 on Windows.

With the DXGI layer, we are able to let our application using regular initialization code as SwapChains...etc.

With the Direct3D11 layer, we are able to efficiently use the underlying PS4 graphics API, taking care of the whole setup of pipeline stages, double buffering for command buffers, supporting all Direct3D11 states, Resources and Views...etc.

As the PlayStation®4 Graphics API is low level, our Direct3D11 layer for PlayStation®4 is taking care of all the details of interoperating with this API, allowing to easily develop and port an existing Direct3D11 game on PlayStation®4.. if you are interested in this technology, please contact us at: contact@paradox3d.net
Click to expand...

I guess there is some performance loss vs an implementation talking directly to a driver, but pretty interesting nonetheless!

This is a demo of their engine from GDC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-Oezvs7CC1Y

The article I found this in seemed to suggest it was running off a PS4 kit but I can't be sure...
 
JonathanPower

JonathanPower

Member
dejan said:
I don't know about you guys, but I expected a tad bit more of the "world's best pc".
Click to expand...

Well, when Rein said the PS4 is like the "world's best pc" I am pretty sure he was talking about the final hardware and not an Alpha kit running an unoptimized techdemo of the UE4.
 
Interfectum

Interfectum

Member
I thought baked lighting was (potentially) better quality but more demanding on memory and static vs dynamic lighting which is (potentially) worse quality, more demanding on clock cycles but better because its... dynamic.

Is that wrong?
 
JonathanPower

JonathanPower

Member
gofreak said:
Sort of off-topic, but another middleware provider had an interesting blog post a month ago about work they've done to bring their tools to PS4.

They basically got Direct3D11 to run on top of Sony's low level PS4 library, so they could run their middleware without changes for PS4 specifically.

Their middleware is used in Agni's Philosophy, among other things.

http://paradox3d.net/blog/direct3d11-ps4.html



I guess there is some performance loss vs an implementation talking directly to a driver, but pretty interesting nonetheless!

This is a demo of their engine from GDC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-Oezvs7CC1Y

The article I found this in seemed to suggest it was running off a PS4 kit but I can't be sure...
Click to expand...

But the real question is, are they going to make games on PS4 or just tech demos?
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
JonathanPower said:
But the real question is, are they going to make games on PS4 or just tech demos?
Click to expand...

They are a middleware company. They license their tech to studios who make games. Square Enix uses one of their tools in Luminous, for example.

It's interesting that it seems they were able to get a DirectX11 layer running on top of PS4 so quickly, and that they're licensing it out to other devs... a tool like that could significantly ease ports from PC, where low level performance is not critical.
 
L

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
I'm pretty sure motion blur really wasn't the same between the two demos. PS4 demo didn't have object based motion blur at all, it only had camera blur.

Other than that, what Brian from Epic is saying goes with my theory that they did things to make the 2nd part look better at the expense of the 1st part.
 
J

John_B

Member
There is no valid comparison then? Epic changed their engine and the demo all while not having it fully working on PS4 that is not final hardware anyways.
 
M

MaLDo

Member
Lord Error said:
I'm pretty sure motion blur really wasn't the same between the two demos. PS4 demo didn't have object based motion blur at all, it only had camera blur.

Other than that, what Brian from Epic is saying goes with my theory that they did things to make the 2nd part look better at the expense of the 1st part.
Click to expand...

And the first shot of the hand shows no AO for ps4 demo versus high quality AO in pc demo.
 
L

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
MaLDo said:
And the first shot of the hand shows no AO for ps4 demo versus high quality AO in pc demo.
Click to expand...
It's true, but AO probably came with the GI implementation from the PC demo. I think any differences in lighting are hard to compare since they dropped that lighting system and also moved the main lightsource around. I was most surprised about motion blur to be honest. We've seen tons of games this gen use it on PS3 and X360, I think Gears 3 had per-object motion blur, and that was in UT3.
My guess, is that much like tesselation, that feature wasn't working correctly yet.
 
S

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
cheezcake said:
Seems SVOGI was still too cost-inefficient, but the new Infiltrator demo runs without SVOGI AFAIK and looks absolutely great (same hardware as well).
Click to expand...

The new demo looked great, but it's still a limited perspective and it doesn't make the loss of real-time GI any less disappointing.
 
S

ScepticMatt

Member
baked may be higher quality, but non-realtime is a huge loss IMO (e.g less interaction of lightning with character or dynamic environments or changing time of day and weather effects)
 
M

MaLDo

Member
Lord Error said:
It's true, but AO probably came with the GI implementation from the PC demo. I think any differences in lighting are hard to compare since they dropped that lighting system and also moved the main lightsource around. I was most surprised about motion blur to be honest. We've seen tons of games this gen use it on OS3 and X360, I think Gears 3 had per-object motion blur, and that was in UT3.
My guess, is that much like tesselation, that feature wasn't working correctly yet.
Click to expand...

Yes, but I think that removing GI requires rethinking the effects that are lost on the process. The overall IQ is by far less impressive without AO. Most of the last current gen games have some kind of AO.
 
cyberheater

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Real time global illumination will happen on next gen consoles at some point. It's just a matter of when.
 
cheezcake

cheezcake

Member
Stallion Free said:
The new demo looked great, but it's still a limited perspective and it doesn't make the loss of real-time GI any less disappointing.
Click to expand...

I think Epic said that UE4 still does some non-SVOGI based realtime indirect GI for all the dynamic objects in the scene, but when hardware can keep up SVOGI is gonna be good.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
filopilo said:
Baked >>>>> SVOGI quality wise.
Click to expand...

NO?!

YOu crazy?!

SVOGI maintains cohesiveness in motion and based upon objects in the gameworld. Objects in the gameworld which move... also bleed their color. This is different to static baked solutions where only color bleed comes from static objects which then also can be transfered to moving objects. Further more it provides glossy reflections..

If you are gonna post... please do not post factually incorrect information.

MaLDo said:
Yes, but I think that removing GI requires rethinking the effects that are lost on the process. The overall IQ is by far less impressive without AO. Most of the last current gen games have some kind of AO.
Click to expand...

SVOGI provides low level and very imprecise AO. They then layered on top of that a form of HBAO which also could read information from the normals.
The elemental demo seemed to not even show this extra hbao lawyer. It was very strange
 
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