Gran Turismo 5 Tech Analysis

By Richard Leadbetter Published 27 November, 2010

Digital Foundry's most comprehensive feature ever.

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Woah. This is one of the biggest, most detail-rich tech analyses we've ever put together, but there's little doubt that developer Polyphony Digital is a studio that likes to dwell on the technical details, and to be frank, a release as highly anticipated as Gran Turismo 5 more than deserves the mileage.

In this piece, we've critically appraised the visuals, analysed the game in 720p, 1080p and 3D modes, and put together extensive comparisons that serve to chart Polyphony's technical development in the past 71 months since PS2 epic Gran Turismo 4 was launched in Japan.

In addition to that, GT5 is a game that lovingly revels in technical minutiae - something we obviously appreciate - so we've also covered some of the less important, but still curious additions such as the PlayStation Eye head-tracking. Bearing in mind the significance of this release, and the lengths we had to go to in creating our video assets, we've also made available 720p60 high-quality movie downloads for all our major movies.

There are so many discussion points to cover in a game as vast and as technologically advanced as Gran Turismo 5, and while it's impossible to be completely definitive in the relatively short time we've had with the game, across the following five pages these are the major topics we've looked into. Click to skip straight ahead to what you fancy:

Framebuffer/Image Quality

Let's kick off the proceedings by taking a look at the physical make-up of the framebuffer. By and large, not a great deal has really changed from the rendering principles laid down by Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The game still renders at native 720p with 4x multi-sampling anti-aliasing (MSAA) when your XMB is set to 720p mode, while the resolution shifts to 1280x1080 with 2x quincunx (QAA) when the 1080p mode is engaged. So we're not seeing anything like native 1080p resolution here, but you are getting a 50 per cent increase in the number of pixels rendered.

Thin objects and specular highlights such as the sheen on the beautifully rendered cars (one of the most important elements in the game's visual make-up) definitely benefit from the increase in resolution, adding to the precision look of the game. However, up against the 4x MSAA of the 720p mode, the combination of the upscaling from 1280 to 1920 pixels in width, along with the use of quincunx anti-aliasing, does serve to make textures look a touch more blurred.

There is an argument that Polyphony might have considered 720p with 2x MSAA for lowest resolution mode. Running at 60FPS tends to blend things naturally in the human eye any way, and this effect is amplified when everything is in motion, as in a driving game. It may also have increased performance and reduced tearing.

That said, achieving 4x MSAA with frame-rates and details as high as this is indeed a technical achievement unmatched by any of Polyphony's competitors (Forza 3 is 720p with 2x MSAA, for example), and there is a definite feeling that Kazunori Yamauchi's team likes to push boundaries like this.

The 3D mode is an interesting experience, operating at an effective 1280x720's worth of resolution per eye in the familiar top/bottom stacked HDMI 1.4 format. Here we see that the 4x MSAA is gone (presumably for performance and perhaps memory-related reasons) and the 2x QAA of the 1080p mode is installed in its place. There are no other changes made that we can see - you do see slight changes in the lighting between the left and right eyes, but presumably this is down to the different viewpoint between each eye.

Update: There is the option in display settings to choose between Normal, Flicker Reduction and Sharper modes. We suspect these are for optimising the game on a standard def monitor, as comparison shots seem to indicate no difference in 720p, 1080p or 3D modes. Here are some 1080p shots. We tested both in-game and via Replay Theatre, but image quality remained the same regardless of our selections.

normal1
normal2
flicker1
flicker2
sharper1
sharper2

Comparisons of the normal, flicker reduction and sharper video modes show up no apparent differences: 'flicker reduction' as a selection in itself suggests it's meant to optimise the visuals in standard def mode.

There's little you can fault with the overall presentation of the visuals: there are some absurdly high-quality models for each of the premium-level cars (reputedly allocated a budget of 100,000 polygons for the highest LOD models on the premium cars) and while lighting is basic compared to some of the techniques seen in other racers - Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit's environmentally sampled lighting model is pretty awesome - Polyphony's pristine specular sheen on the cars has an aura of beauty about it, a sense that you're being immersed in a CG-quality world.

Not so impressive is the handling of alpha. Spray in particular on the wet levels looks - to be blunt - pretty dreadful. What we're seeing here is a 1/16th size buffer.

alpha-1
alpha-2

Some of the alpha effects in GT5 look positively ugly - spray from the cars in wet weather conditions being a case in point. Even on these tiny thumbnails the blocky pixels are visible. Click through for full 1080p resolution images on any thumbnail in this feature.

Another area that is seen to be wanting is the implementation of shadows on the cars on some circuits. This didn't seem like as much of an issue in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, but then again the older game didn't have any real-time weather effects or changing times of day.

shadows-1
shadows-2

Implementing a time of day system requires dynamic shadows. The cascading PCF shadows GT employs can look pretty rough. Shadows are computationally expensive and it's hard to expect something beautiful when GT5 ideally wants to render an entire frame in just 16ms.

Aside from these ugly elements, the overall pristine look of the game is exemplary, and it's a clear visual leap beyond what was seen in Gran Turismo 4. This is Polyphony Digital's forte of course. Low resolution, 30FPS, clear clipping issues and a need to use one of the lower-quality framebuffer modes made the original GT look pretty abysmal up against the superb-looking Gran Turismo 3. Here we saw much higher resolution, superior modelling, and a doubling of the frame-rate. So do we see a similar leap in rendering quality between GT4 and the latest addition to the series?

A Generational Leap? Gran Turismo 4 vs. Gran Turismo 5

The leap from GT4 to GT5 is all about resolution, lighting, and modelling. There's a clear sense of purpose from Polyphony in delivering what looks like close to photo mode-quality cars within the gameplay experience itself - and more of them too.

To illustrate the visual upgrade, here's a quick comparison movie. Here we take a Mini Cooper-S through the Tokyo R246 city level, and a Lotus Elise 111R around the Clubman Special Stage. There are two clips per circuit where we've attempted to stay in sync as closely as possible. Gran Turismo 4 ran at a relatively meagre 632x448, so the leap to 1280x720, let alone 1280x1080, is vast enough in its own right. Factor in the superior lighting, longer draw distances and more highly refined art and it is clear that GT5 is the generational leap we were hoping for.

However, also note that the modelling of the environments has changed significantly, perhaps for technical as well as artistic reasons. In terms of the actual make-up of the scenes, there are areas where the PS2 game actually features more environmental objects, though of course detail is much more simplistic compared to the new game.

That said, frame-rates on GT4 are undoubtedly higher and tearing, although present, is nowhere near as pronounced as it is in GT5. Crowds seem to be denser in places on PS2; the lower resolution meaning that the models could be far more basic. Additionally, it's worth remembering that the PS2 architecture is a bit of a monster when it comes to fill-rate, plus of course the PS3, operating in 1080p mode, has a pixel count almost 400 per cent higher than its predecessor.

Gran Turismo 4 running in 480p mode, up against GT5. Same cars, same tracks. It's fair to say that the embedded version with its lower resolution and compression artifacts does level the playing field somewhat but the comparison remains interesting.

Gran Turismo 5 was released just one month shy of GT4's sixth birthday, with Polyphony's PS2 masterpiece having debuted in Japan on December 28, 2004. Since then, we have seen three further releases from Polyphony Digital, two of which were free and all of which were GT5 demos of some description.

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Comments (100) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • UsernamePending #1 2 years ago

    18 fps!

  • Retroid #2 2 years ago

    /Books foreign holiday away from Internet

  • Vroom #3 2 years ago

    Woah!

  • citizenHUNTER #4 2 years ago

    What's with the NFS: Hot Pursuit propaganda at the end??? What's that got to do with a tech analysis of a 'sim' racer bringing that up? Hmmm.

    EDIT: Oh I see, shit loads of NFS advertising on this site. Seriously though that last paragraph is so out of place in this article, it literally feels like some advertising gimp is getting to edit in gumpf like this to EG's own articles after the fact....
    Edited by citizenHUNTER at 27/11/10 @ 11:38

  • stegabba #5 2 years ago

    3d fail

  • brightonmike #6 2 years ago

    Regarding the spray on the first page, I'm very confused. I was playing GT5 right up until the update today came out and I've raced a fair few times on wet levels and I didn't see any of the blockiness you're reporting. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough, but sat about 2.5m from my 1080p TV I didn't see a single block.

    I think it's worth pointing out that what graphics look like when shown as screenshots/videos on a computer is going to be different from what you actually see. When you play a console game you're usually sat at least 2 metres, if not 3/4, from the TV. So you don't tend to notice things that you do notice on a computer screen that's only 30cm from your face.

  • orangpelupa #7 2 years ago

    the lower quality is mostly only evident when viewed really close up. When actually driving these cars, the chances are that you won't actually be seeing them at all (since the internal view really is the only way to really play the game). In this respect, it doesn't feel as though the driving experience in using these cars is much diminished from the premium versions, if at all.

    im confused, that sentence is basically say that non premium car is okay because the way we play is by play from internal (dashboard?).

    but on the next page sentence, it say that the non premium not have cockpit view
    so the non premium have cockpit or not? or some non premium also have cockpit?

    sorry if i misunderstand the article, english not my main language :)

    @citizen
    first time i read the article it not sound like an ad, but after i read your comment, and re read that paragrapth, now it feels like an ad
    Edited by orangpelupa at 27/11/10 @ 11:45

  • man.the.king #8 2 years ago

    @Retroid

    If you are talking about "teh Internetz", an off-planet rather than out-of-country trip may be necessary ;)

  • carlosdfn #9 2 years ago

    Overall a very impressive achievement. Very few games this gen combine 720p with 4MSAA and 60fps, let alone with this insane amount of detail and 16 cars on the track simultaneoulsy. Though in a worst case scenario (night combined with rain) the engine struggles like demonstrated in the first part of the fps analysis video, overall performance is very solid. Driving and physics are second to none. Just fix the multiplayer PD, the game deserves better.

  • richarddavies #10 2 years ago

    I've bought GT5 and im liking it so im not bitchin but I am starting to wonder what Polyphony have been doing for 5 years. 4/5ths of the cars are from older games, the online parts still not finished. The tracks are unchanged from Prologue years ago... I mean..really, all jokes aside, what have they been doing?

  • Gregolution #11 2 years ago

    Agree with the article on the 3d, it's bloody amazing. Tweak the defaults and it adds a lot to the gameplay. Best 3D in a game yet imo

  • carlosdfn #12 2 years ago

    Another interesting thing is the fact that the framerate in 1080p mode is on par with 720p which shows how much performance you gain when going from 4MSAA to QAA.
    I wish Richard would have given his opinion on which mode he thinks looks better. Despite the lower res, 720p is very tempting because of the 4MSAA.

  • firef7y #13 2 years ago

    @citizenHunter

    Or maybe he just likes the blind aspect of Hot Pursuit. It has gt rave reviews after all. Do you seriously believe that Eurogamer rusk compromising values for a bit of cash by putting that sentence in here? I remember reading the 5/10 review for Mafia on here with a by ad in the background and loling.


    Good analysis. Even though Im not a fan of car sims, I wish I had a PS3 for this game. It seems like a lot of hardworking was put into it.

  • Retroid #14 2 years ago

    @man.the.king: "If you are talking about "teh Internetz", an off-planet rather than out-of-country trip may be necessary ;)"

    I'm sorry, I can't reply because I've ran away from the Internetz for the sake of preserving my sanity.

    ...

    Damn.

  • Psychotext #15 2 years ago

    I'm glad I wasn't imagining all the frame rate variability / tearing. The amount of people telling me there was none had me wondering if I'd had a stroke or something.

  • Dizzy #16 2 years ago

    Let's hope they can have 3d trees in the next version.

  • jefranklin18 #17 2 years ago

    A very interesting read. Having put in about 10 hours since purchase, I agree with most of the praise that it is getting (waiting for online to stabilise over the next couple of weeks). However, I do dispute that the AI hasn't changed much. I have always been critical of previous iterations for the being bland but it seems to have changed in this iteration. Last night while watching a replay, a couple of cars behind me were battling for second place, culminating in one of them spinning out of control on a corner. Not something that I had experienced in previous versions.

  • carlosdfn #18 2 years ago

    The AI has definitely improved. It becomes more apparent as you progress in GT life.

  • Sundesz #19 2 years ago

    What is wrong with the shadows of the Subaru on the last video? Shadow is the only thing bothers me in the game, sometimes they pop up and just dissapear, and as we can see at the last video, sometimes they are at ultra low res. Oh, and not talked about the jaggies. Otherwise ist an excellent game in almost every aspects.

  • HokutoNoKen #20 2 years ago

    Frame buffer data:

    1280x720 with 4xAA = 28Mb

    1280x1080 with QAA = 21Mb

    As an comparable example if the game would run with this config:

    1280x720 with 2xAA = 14Mb

    Lens of Truth: Gran Turismo 5 vs. Forza 3 Analysis
    [link url=http://www.lensoftruth.com/?p=24784
    ]http://www.lensoftruth.com/?p=24784
    [/link]

    GT5:
    Global percent of torn frames: 22.04
    Global average FPS: 52.69

    Forza 3:
    Global percent of torn frames: 0.14
    Global average FPS: 55.34

    I think the simple reason why GT5 doesn't run with lower resolution or less AA is because the engine is still able to have a very good average framerate. The tearing may be a little high but when put in context with the numbers of cars, polygons, weather effects, damage (Decal Tessellation), physics etc I think DP made the right decision.

    / Ken
    Edited by HokutoNoKen at 27/11/10 @ 16:35

  • TaniumZX #21 2 years ago

    I think 1080p (and 3D) gaming should be postponed until the next gen of consoles arrive. The power simply isn't there at the moment for it to be implemented well.

    I also think EG have covered this game enough, the more I read about it the more the 9 score seems undeserved.

  • carlosdfn #22 2 years ago

    Maybe you should stop reading about it and actually play it yourself.

  • Hei #23 2 years ago

    This stinks a lot wow

  • Cigol #24 2 years ago

    You could have done something a little more useful to those of us with the game and shown us the difference between the various image filters (normal, sharpen and flicker reduction).

  • snowsurfer #25 2 years ago

    Excellent article, created account just to thank you for the great work! I'll come back to eurogamer more often after this! ;)

  • carlosdfn #26 2 years ago

    Richard should update the article to tell us what is the ideal setting (720p vs 1080p and normal vs sharpen vs flicker reduction like Cigol said). I hope he considers it when he finds the time. Still a fantastic article though.

  • Ka-blamo #27 2 years ago

    "don't overlook Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit in the process - a very different style of racing experience, but brilliantly executed in almost everything it sets out to achieve."

    What.the.fuck

  • Jlmadyson #28 2 years ago

    Yea don't overlook NFS Hot Pursuit indeed. 26fps in 720p, really. I suppose another reason for such a big gap in the metacritic of GT5...86 and Forza 3...92.

  • UncleLou #29 2 years ago

    I also think EG have covered this game enough, the more I read about it the more the 9 score seems undeserved.

    What an utterly absurd comment, why do you care about that? :D

  • Andrefpvs #30 2 years ago

    Guys, what are the ideal settings for head tracking? I can't get it to work no matter how much I fiddle with the options.

  • Cigol #31 2 years ago

    Head-Tracking currently only works in Arcade mode for reasons unknown.

  • Arwin #32 2 years ago

    Patch 1.02 up! 133mb again, not sure what got changed yet but the menus are snappier and the logs are back up! Everything I did since they were down is missing though.

  • Lord_Chaos #33 2 years ago

    I sure hope the Mrs gets me this for Christmas, it looks amazing! can't wait.

    Thanks Richard for a great tech analysis, it was an interesting read.

    @HokutoNoKen thanks for the frame buffer data.

  • BradlayLaw #34 2 years ago

    I disagree with the article on the 3D. It gives me a sore head and has the worst crosstalk I've seen on anything on my TV (in fact it's the first time I've seen crosstalk at all). Wipeout and Motorstorm do it much better. Playing it on a Panasonic VT20.

  • TopGunNick #35 2 years ago

    I ordered this today, I can live with the small problems the game has as they have said they will patch it every week/month. So it's a ongoing thing. It clearly needs more work and they seem like they want to listen to fans of the game and fix the problems.

    For me GT is the only console sim I find exciting. I tried Forza 3, but something just seemd wrong about that game to me. The colours looked cartoony, the lighting was weird. And the career was dull to say the least. GT5 looks more realistic to me. And that's what I want in a sim graphically.

  • darren1976 #36 2 years ago

    Still debating whether to get this now or wait for father christmas. Has anyone tried the Fanatac PWTS wheel with it? I have that with clubsport pedals, really want to know they work ok with this before parting with my cash!

    And what is the sound in the game like as from all the videos I have watched it seems to be appailling!

  • Alkeno #37 2 years ago

    This is a hard choice. The game is stunning when it comes to rendering the premium models up close (lighting, textures, models...) and it also looks gorgeous from some angles in movement. But it certainly looks as if they have indeed pushed too much and poor PS3 is exhausted during the ride: Those shadows are a joke, the mirror view has a draw distance of 1 foot... and let's forget altogether about that alpha effect (you know which) as well as the 800 cars imported from last gen as if nobody would notice.

    This is very striking if you compare it to Forza 3: No tearing, ever. No dipping in the framerate, ever. Everything looks in place, everytime. Of course, it's not that stunning, doesn't go above 720p and doesn't try to squeeze the vertex budged of some AAA titles into every car.

    I don't care much about racing games and it's up to players to make their choice, but from a technology enthusiast and DF follower I go for Turn10's approach this time: Humble, honest and 60fps.

    PS: I've been hearing some horror stories regarding loading times, background installations and so on, not worth mentioning in the analysis?

    * Edited: Deleted reference to crap damage model, added reference to the PS2 era non-premium cars.
    Edited by Alkeno at 28/11/10 @ 11:39

  • toy_brain #38 2 years ago

    I assume the Hot Pursuit reference at the end was because Richard was analysing it last week, and it not only demonstrated excelllent platform-parity, but looks bloody amazing too.
    And is also a racing game with lots of licenced cars.
    And better vehicle damage.

    Its no surprise he'd want to give it a quick nod, as its such a fun game in its own right.

  • Hotel_Moscow #39 2 years ago

    digital foundry didnt play long enough or search the internet about the damage the only people who says that th eonly thing this game has with damage is a little bump when crashing are people who only played for a few hours and thought that was it

    gran turismo 5 has a progressive damage model that has damage to cars increase as you play the reason for this is because you have to repair your car and if you tottaled your car out at the beggining of the game when you have no money then your screwed

    goto youtube and type Gran Turismo 5 advanced damage - (level40)

  • djed #40 2 years ago

    If Ken's math is correct (i have math phobia, so I can't verify), give me the option to play with lower AA but stable framerate and NO TEARING. It's at times like these I wish I were a proper BRIT so I could extensively expound on my disdain for the atrocity that is tearing, but since I'm not I'll just have to settle with this: Tearing makes me teary.

  • FogHeart #41 2 years ago

    ^^I'd say you did pretty well there.

  • HistoryTeller #42 2 years ago

    Great article! Its right all the way through. GT 5 is perhaps a bit of a let down - compared to the massive expectations I had. But its still easily the greatest console race sim. A great game I think!

  • specular #43 2 years ago

    The alpha and shadow edges are pretty shocking when viewed during stills. The cars themselves look stunning though. NFS is a great game but the feel is much more arcady. I don't think the article is trying to do a side by side, it just focuses on the online aspect.

  • E2K #44 2 years ago

    It's a shame you didn't unlock the full damage yet, but I can understand that as this takes a lot of skill and time.

    Anyway, you seem to have avoided that you can force 1280*1080 2x MSAA mode by selecting "sharpen image" at the display settings. Is there any reason for this??

  • darkphoenix #45 2 years ago

    ...what about the graphical quality of Trial Mountain and other "fine" GT4 examples?
    Not worth a mention?!?
    Also agree the Hot Pursuit mention is out-of-place and feels like cheap publicity.

    Eurogamer, I am very disapointed with you lately.
    Unbelievable scores like the 10/10 for AC:Brotherhood and the 9/10 for GT5?
    Problably, after years of trusting your articles and reviews, time has come for me to move on...

  • secombe #46 2 years ago

    An amazing 'gloss-over' of the standard car issue, if it can be brushed aside by saying you hardly ever see them when driving, why bother creating detailed car models in the first place?

    In an ideal world: Scale the graphics back and throw more processing at number of cars on track and AI.

  • KevinGadd #47 2 years ago

    Those visible scaling artifacts on the spray particles seem strange to me: I thought it was traditional to do your depth testing when you composite that scaled-down alpha buffer onto the framebuffer, not while rendering the particles? If they did the depth testing during composite you wouldn't see those awful, low-res edges where the particles make contact with the cars. Is there a particular reason why they would have chosen to do the depth tests while rendering the particles instead - something related to the nature of the RSX, maybe?

  • martin1841 #48 2 years ago

    So...6 years of development is justified or not?

  • Darren #49 2 years ago

    I'm not that impressed by GT5 technically or visually.

    The graphics are inconsistent throughout, varying from looking stunning on one of the new tracks with premium modelled cars to downright ugly in another PS2-ported classic track that uses standard cars with low-res texturing. Shadows look hideous and lighting can look poor at times. While it's commendable that the game runs as well as it does at 1080p, the abundance of screen tearing really lets it down technically IMO as it totally takes me out of the game. GT5 looks at its best when it isn't moving at all but that's what Polyphony Digital have been wowwing us with for the past four years: shots from the photo mode which look far better than they do while you're actually racing.

    But disappointing graphics would be forgiveable if the game was actually fun but I'm finding it dull. Sorry but I said it. The sense of speed is lacking (except for the kart event), the A.I. is erratic and the clunky ugly menus and annoying loading times try their utmost to put me off the game. I'm trying to like it, I really am, but I keep wanting to load up Forza 3 or NFS: Hot Pursuit instead. GT5 feels and looks dated IMO.

  • Badassbab #50 2 years ago

    I think for a so called racing game simulator, putting visual fidelity ahead of performance is the wrong move. The framerate and screen tearing is really dissapointing. I think PD should buy themselves out and release a PC version that way they can fully realise their vision since they seem obssessed with graphics.

  • Feanor #51 2 years ago

    "Just make sure you don't overlook Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit in the process - a very different style of racing experience, but brilliantly executed in almost everything it sets out to achieve."

    No one at Eurogamer realized what a poor end to the article this was?

    No one is overlooking NFS:HP - ads for it are plastered all your your site.
    Edited by Feanor at 27/11/10 @ 17:25

  • TheTrueSpin #52 2 years ago

    The game is technically very solid, save for the crazy shadows. Even the tearing everyone talks about is only visible on certain tracks in certain situations, and it's hardly noticeable.

    But the shadows, please fix the shadows.

  • Goodfella #53 2 years ago

    "I love how the development time of this game increases like chinese whispers LOL."

    LOL +1

    Xbox fanboys do love to add a few years when they troll this game.

  • PearOfAnguish #54 2 years ago

    Does GT5 still have those license tests?

    They were unbelievably pointless and irritating. Want to play the game you paid for? Fuck you! Drive in a straight line and stop inside this box and maybe we'll think about letting you actually race.

  • darc #55 2 years ago

    (Before I tear GT a new one I should say, it's a great game. If you own a PS3 and do not own an XBox, buy it. Otherwise, read on.)

    Have played the hell out of this and Forza 3 the last two days. One thing's for sure, I've been talking a lot of s*** about Forza 3 for the past year or so when in fact it is quite a good game. Somehow it had left me flat after my love affair w/ F1 and F2, but it holds up damn strong against GT5 IMO, and having just spent a ton of money on GT5 and various h/w I am trying REALLY hard to give GT the nod.

    GT5 sometimes looks a little better than Forza, and I'm getting the impression that it offers up more variety, which scores some points (weather, etc = major points.) But it occasionally looks SO god-awful it hurts, and that inconsistency is a real problem. W/ Forza your eyes adjust, it is what it is, and you forget about it. From there it's a convincing experience. With GT you get spoiled by a sense of photo-realism, and then you'll see something on the sidelines, or in a cutscene, or whatever, that looks very 2005, or 2000, or like an outright bug. (e.g. 3D content that is suddenly not aware of screen size, ouch migraine.)

    I think, based on 2 nights with the consoles' respective game pads, that GT *just* edges Forza out in terms of handling. But of course the controllers feel different, and it is hard to get a like-for-like experience without setting two TVs up side by side and all that. Playing for an hour on one game and then switching off to another, the content you experience is too different to make a really objective choice.

    It's neither here nor there re: handling because Forza is so far ahead of GT immersion-wise simply by virtue of crashes feeling at least remotely like crashes. Maybe GT introduces damage modeling later, but damage or no, crashes just feel retarded in this game, and they play into the complaints about AI and the temptation to treat corners like a game of bumper cars. Even the sound offends all racing sensibilities. $500K worth of racing machinery smashing together sounds like two rubber trash bins being bounced off one another. For a "real driving simulator", it's just appalling.

    Menu design and load times are indeed a problem. My goodwill for the game began to evaporate within the first hour simply because there are a few display options (3D in particular is a problem) that are SO far removed from actual races or any kind of feedback that it is a matter of joyless, time consuming trial and error (and guesswork) to get things dialed in. Dear Polyphony, ALL OF THESE OPTIONS NEED TO BE AVAILABLE DIRECTLY FROM WITHIN RACES WHY THE HELL IS THAT NOT THE CASE?

    Speaking of 3D, it's OK, but perhaps a bit too subtle. I simply maxed it out, and it works, but even then depth could be more pronounced in places. I wonder if they didn't hedge their bets on basis of 3D occasionally not working... there are cut scenes that are flat out broken and really hurt - the effect implies the game is not consistently aware of your screen size.

    That problem, along with the famously horrible shadows, tend to appear (at their worst) in scenes that are completely non-essential to gameplay. The overall sense is that, if polyphony had simply trimmed the fat, and shipped only the best of their content, GT would be a better game. Better to add DLC later; that would have been more likely than their going back to fix everything that is merely mediocre.

    Inclusion of "standard" cars doesn't bother me too much, but they're harder to avoid than I'd hoped, as they're routinely gifted as part of your career path. The absence of a cockpit views in these is the biggest problem, in that ultimately it will impact on your experience even with the "premium" cars. It's not trivial to attune yourself to one view in a racing game, and then switch to another mid-career simply because it is available. Standard cars should, at the very least, been given a default generic cockpit to help keep the experience consistent.

    Sadly, for me, I read about the head-tracking feature just before leaving work last week, and wound up buying a Move bundle along w/ my copy of GT5. Yes, a fool and his money... This feature only works occasionally enough to show you how awesome it would be (looking into corners FTW!) but not reliably enough to be of any real use. It doesn't help that the PS Eye is a pretty temperamental piece of h/w to begin with (it was obviously re-purposed to work with the light bulb on top of the Move wand on basis of its not being able to "see" much else) nor does it help that the face recognition freaks out if you put on a pair of 3D glasses. (Hello, Sony/Poly, didn't you test out your two flagship geek features *together*??) So now I own Move and I'm not quite sure why. I gotta hand it to Sony, they are suddenly ON with their marketing, in terms of bringing these different products together. Unfortunately, in this case, the products don't really deliver.

    Last point - instability. GT has hung twice since I started. I've never seen any other racing game do that. Apparently down to server maintenance, but inexcusable when I'm in the middle of a SINGLE-PLAYER career. It's also not intuitive in terms of when it saves progress/trophies, with stuff disappearing all the time and nothing but a vague sense that maybe I should have returned to the topmost menu.

    So all in: Good game. And I expect it to grow on me. But in no way a 9.

  • Tiago_Leite #56 2 years ago

    Even here, there is tearing... :(

    Up, next to time counter: [link url=http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/1/3/0/4/5/7/0/720p_1.jpg.jpg
    ]http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/artic...[/link]
    In the back of Mercedes: [link url=http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/1/3/0/4/5/7/0/1080p_2.jpg.jpg
    ]http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/artic...[/link]

  • darc #57 2 years ago

    "They made no mention of the video options "Sharpen" and "Anti-Flicker".
    I was really curious as to what they did :/ (Without having to try it myself) "

    Good point. There are a good number of little options in that menu that are VERY poorly explained. And it does not help that if you flip one, you're not actually looking at a race until 3 minutes later - on account meandering through menus and load screens. Grrr.

    P.S. Thanks Eurogamer for this followup article. Covers a lot of the points I was missing from the review.

  • Lucodeath #58 2 years ago

    @Tiago
    It still looks good though, that lancia looks almost real.
    Edited by Lucodeath at 27/11/10 @ 18:16

  • mgillespie #59 2 years ago

    This predictible Gt5 hate is now getting tiresome. Either accept the fact that it will never be on Xbox, or buy a PS3. Simple as that. You can try and talk GT5 down as much as you want, but inside you know you are missing out.

  • upsilandre #60 2 years ago

    there is also Temporal AA in GT5 (invisible in screenshot, it's TAA without blend, it use retinal persistence)

    for IQ with 1080p display mode is:

    normal = QAAx2 + TAAx2 (TAA create flicker)
    Fliker reduction = QAAx2 (TAA disable)

    Edited by upsilandre at 28/11/10 @ 13:15

  • DoctorFouad #61 2 years ago

    wow just wow ! thanks richard !

  • LiteMrBubbles #62 2 years ago

    I'm disappointed that Eurogamer didn't attempt to recreate those nasty shots on the net, I'm actually curious as to why those sample images of graphical hiccups were with or without merit.

    Also would have loved to see the differences in load times after a full installation (10gigs total) vs no install.

    Still a great read, very happy to see 1080p looks like its worth it this time around on consoles.

  • riseer #63 2 years ago

    Darc thats your opienion which is fine,imo the game is a solid 10.Theirs nothing perfect about videogames,gt5 pushes everything to the limit.I belive sony made em release it before PD could put the final touches visualy and bugs.With patches it will be the game PD wanted it to be.As for the al play it on professal and get facerolled.It's a great game with it flaws which all the good out weighs.Stop trolling nub

  • smurphs #64 2 years ago

    I'm 'torn' (see what I did?) between getting GT5 or F1 2010. A little help please?

  • MaoZedong #65 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:40:08 17-12-2011

  • cicua #66 2 years ago

    3D is headache-bad on Panasonic VT20. Objects that are close (particularly in-cockpit views) look really strange, I guess that's what is called crosstalk. The SLS AMG cockpit fries my brain as it tries to interpret the images.

    Objects at distance look better and 3D really does add some depth and better feeling of the surroundings. But the resolution drop is noticeable, and there is still something wrong that I can not exactly point out, all I know is the headache I get after some hours. I have reverted to 2D play now.

  • Clover4ever #67 2 years ago

    This game is a technical beast :)

    I wish the full damages were available right for the beginning though not after reaching level 40 or so. I heard there will be a patch that will allow it.
    Edited by Clover4ever at 27/11/10 @ 20:30

  • BuckEntropy #68 2 years ago

    Well the tech is still impressive as all hell, but I can't help imagining the various pressures that may have led to... this.

    The original GTs on Playstation were all about faking the image; little added effects like specular highlights and unusual compositing enhancements gave them a look way ahead of their time. And of course the sheer grunt achievement in that level of detail with so many cars, plus remarkably consistent performance.

    The general aesthetic carried over into the next-gen, with a unique degree of custom nuance; yet with an added focus on leveraging the geometry output of PS2 to keep the cars looking fantastic at all times, especially the closer you get. The bandwidth/fillrate available made that the perfect fit, plus it kept you looking more at the cars rather than the backgrounds; which were more impacted by the texture limitations. But also the level of post processing was again ahead of it's time: the excellent looking depth-of-field and heat-shimmer effects in particular. And then particles and alpha effects were the final polish, sealing the games into their own techno-visual echelon.

    So then personally I know that's what seems a little 'off' about GT5, and generally I assume for others as well: it's not that it isn't impressive enough, as such... it's that it doesn't seem technically distinct enough. I have little doubt Polyphony Digital are squeezing as much if not more out of the hardware as anyone ever has, so the fact there doesn't appear to be any Cell-powered custom post processing going on is what's most conspicuous. On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me if GT5 is pumping out substantially more geometry than any other title on consoles, so I can only guess the SPUs are mostly kept busy with vertex processing; and the whole engine generally oriented around saving / freeing as much fillrate and resources of the RSX as possible.

    It's in that respect I think I agree Sony gets main credit for how constrained it seems, in contrast to Gran Turismo precedent. If the initial PS3 damage control hype hadn't been so arbitrarily fixated on their "true HD/1080p" spin, and PD hadn't been saddled with that requirement (as well as the 3D now), they might have been more typically creative. As things stand, the amazing hard-detail level on the cars along with the commensurate trade-offs in background fidelity (particularly the texture quality) is very much like a direct translation of the PS2 aesthetic; and even equivalently impressive... but without a similarly remarkable arsenal of post effects operating on the impression, this time the relative deficiencies have almost no place to hide.

  • SavageEvil #69 2 years ago

    Interesting analysis as always, NFS comment at the end uncalled for. I was nearly brought to tears by someone claiming to have a good honest opinion about a game that came out 3 days ago, versus games that have been out 2 month to a year or more. Seriously are you like mad or something? That was interesting if not longwinded, first of all how could you accurately gauge GT5 based on playing the hell out of the game for 2 days? GT5 has a few issues like slow menus that are attributed to the online element of the game which is currently being sorted out because of PD's or rather Sony's genius idea of 500k simultaneous connections online for the game. Then there was the damage thing, amazing. You play a game because it includes visual and mechanical damage...honestly even though there is damage in FM3, no one has it on when you play online so it exactly like GT5's you see it but it does absolutely nothing. Up until the update yesterday, now you can have all the damage you want, bet you'll be doing a lot of restarting or swearing when some guy inadvertently causes you to spin into a guardrail. Handling in FM3 is forgiving at best, the biggest gripe you have is controlling one of the LMP cars without TCS those things are a bit unweildly, but GT5 with a FF wheel comfortably sits on top of FM3 in terms of feedback and overall control of your car and what it happens to be doing at any point in time. I have for the life of me never been so enthralled with the handling model, you can feel when you wheel hop over bumpy roads, the floaty sensation of when you overload the front wheels really shines through on a FFB wheel. I use the G25 and believe me, no GT5 should be played with anything less, there is so much you are missing. You have a lot more control over your car, but you also run higher risk of losing control, this is how cars are supposed to make you feel when you push them. What's more is each car feels inherently different with a FFB wheel, I was grinning ear to ear as I was slightly in control of a drift in an SLS AMG, the communication between the road and the wheel felt superb how they translated that is beyond me.

    Now GT5 isn't perfect, has big time visual weirdness, like the spray from water and smoke, looks horrible at times. Not to mention that strange blurry mess that pops up when you watch replays. Online is being worked on and supposedly now has weight limit and horsepower limits added to rooms, hope they only allow the host to start the races. Those niggles aside and the server issues aside, online in GT5 looks to be the most immersive I've seen in a console driving game. How much they add to it I don't know, but it's not bad for their second attempt. What really makes me smile is it doesn't dumb down the physics online, FM3 does this for some strange reason. It's the only way to explain how many people can easily whip 800+hp cars with zero TCS, heck I do it with no aids on at all, but playing single player I tend to leave ABS and TCS on minimum settings as physics there is much more refined.

    What is disappointing is the lack of a simple paint shop and simple livery editor. Seriously as this game will have such a massive online presence we do need some kind of way to show our own individuality. Hopefully they implement this by tweaking the paint shop and lose that paint chip idea, that crap is going to become a headache sooner rather than later.

    You playing in 3D, hmm me thinks you need a different TV or you might need to check your connection and settings. Heck check the Playstaiton Blog to ensure you are getting the best out of your connections. Half your rant seems to be based on 3D, and pretty much all negative with a positive in there somewhere. I don't use 3D since I don't own a 3D TV, but I would try it if I did. DF did say that it added to the game despite the frame rate hit, if it was unplayable then I would understand your gripe, but if DF has it running well, then obviously something is wrong on your end.

    One thing that stuck out EG did a piece on GT5 online and said something to the tune that FM3 has a brilliant online class scheme...obviously these guys don't play FM3 online much if at all. That thing works as much as it's broken, there are too many variables that make cars fit into a class that it completely dominates the competition...R8 Showcar is one such offender, seems like cars that come in as DLC tend to break the class sytem, 1 car per DLC does it as it seems. Nice system but that still needs work. HP limits and weight limits are a bit broad, but since GT never actually has a visual representation of how a car performs you can only tell by driving the thing which is how cars actually are to be graded. How well you think they handle, and if it's to your liking. FM3 those bars mean a lot and the tuning is really strange as some cars tend to have insane stats.

    Next thing I will try is to tune a car in GT5 using settings from FM3 and vice versa.

  • Kaminari #70 2 years ago

    Dude. No mention of GT4's 1080i mode? Seriously.

  • Skurmedel #71 2 years ago

    Was actually a bit disappointed when I got it, but I'm liking it more and more. I'm not bothered by the tearing at all for some reason, maybe because I'm not looking for it? ;) But you can tell they've worked on the handling and feeling, even with my feeble Dual Shock.

    I can understand why somebody with more reliance on the online side would be disappointed though, me however I'm content with the 200 cars and Nordschleife. I just hope they release more premium cars in patches.

    My biggest question though is... why did they include a Schwimmwagen? I found it a hilarious but totally pointless entry :D

  • Psychotext #72 2 years ago

    darc, BuckEntropy, SavageEvil... your posts are very interesting (and long), but I can't help feeling they'd be better suited to the forum.

    [link url=http://www.eurogamer.net/forum_thread_posts.php?thread_id=88352
    ]http://www.eurogamer.net/forum_thread_po...[/link]

    We don't bite much. :)

  • Turbotim3 #73 2 years ago

    Gt5 will evolve and will be updated on a weekly and monthly basis. How cool is that!! This is from an interview.

    Meanwhile Kazunori Yamauchi said further improvements would be coming to Gran Turismo 5. "Online updates are planned of course for leaderboards and matchmaking." Yamauchi said at the game's launch in Madrid (attended by Eurogamer), "[they're] all planned in the process of evolution."

    The first update, Yamauchi said, is coming this Saturday and will include restrictions for weight and power in online races.

    Yamauchi went on to say that his team would be "upgrading every week, every month."

  • Turbotim3 #74 2 years ago

    I also have to disagree with the opinion of poor A.I. you are either lying, stupid, or you might not know the etiquette of proper driving in motorsports. This game isn't crash derby or NFS there are unwritten rules that drivers must obey and it's amazing how the A.I. in GT5 respects these boundries.

  • dfua #75 2 years ago

    "This game isn't crash derby or NFS there are unwritten rules that drivers must obey and it's amazing how the A.I. in GT5 respects these boundries."

    I can't see how they respect those boundaries if they just drive right into you if you just happen to be on the line where they want to be. It gets very frustrating when they spin you out, particularly on the top gear events where you often get disqualified if you do the same. At times the AI is decent, at others they get magical speed boosts and a complete lack of awareness or self preservation.

  • DoctorFouad #76 2 years ago

    @upsilande :

    interesting, would you please develop this idea of variable anti aliasing settings in GT5 ?

  • Noble6 #77 2 years ago

    @darkphoenix

    Ur moving on because gt5 only got a 9 ? ? really ? ?

  • Retroid #78 2 years ago

    Kaminari: "Dude. No mention of GT4's 1080i mode? Seriously."

    Probably a problem since it was removed for the Euro release.

    /Kicks SCEE for once again pissing on European customers

  • E2K #79 2 years ago

    Retroid, listen to me you... moderator :-D

    No but serious, tell the writer of the article to save one of those complex, frame dropping replays. And they play them back from gameplay camera with the 1080p 'sharpen', 'flicker reduction' and 'normal', then check for tearing and such, framerate.

    Also analyse the AA method, see if there is a visual difference.


    Could you do that for me Retroid? Could you be a good boy and tell the writer of the article this? Please??

  • MasterControlProgram #80 2 years ago

    Impressive analysis! And I don't even own a PS3 ;)

    But, as a tech-addicted, let me take the chance to say thanks to Richard and Digital Foundry for this and all previous efforts they put out. Articles like this still attract me toward Eurogamer after all these years: it's that kind of detail-driven writing attitude that nowadays "normal" reviews sorely lack (not only here, I mean in most magazines and sites dealing with gaming) and that was once the norm, at least in PC gaming area. Having grown up with that kind of articles, I feel at home here.

    /edit: typo
    Edited by MasterControlProgram at 28/11/10 @ 20:53

  • anonim1979 #81 2 years ago

    I have no idea how you can praise AI in GT5.
    It’s drive by line ignore everything…

    AI forza vs GT5

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox70Ho9_jX4

  • skyrend #82 2 years ago

    See NFS ads. Read Leadbetter's closing paragraph.

    Sell out much?

  • Clover4ever #83 2 years ago

    You want visual damage ? Check this : [link url=http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=413217&page=296
    ]http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.p...[/link]

    Impressive, PD.

  • EGoode #84 2 years ago

    You know even as a ps3 owner (and an ex - RROD'd 360 owner) I have no vested interest in GT5's overall review score (other than I had hoped it would be near perfect, but will accept it's flaws for what it does right - which no other racer does quite as well on consoles).

    However for the love of all things videogaming PLEASE can people stop bringing up NFS: Hot Pursuit in comparison, especially 'professional' websites. It is totally irrelevant.

    I could tell you for a fact a hundred things GT5 does way way better than any NFS game but is it relevant to players of NFS? no! It's not even as if they are in competing genres (aside from both being games featuring cars). I loved Burnout Paradise (Ps3) but was very disappointed with NFS: Hot Pursuit (single player esp) it's so boring and looks like a cartoon next to GT5. You see? comparisons mean nothing, NFS looks like a grainy cartoon with dire arcade physics but it's that way whether GT5 existed or not.

    NFS: Hot Pursuit is over-rated, you brought it up in this GT5 article so we can call out why it's a POS. It's the worst NFS since ProStreet and one of the worst in the series. And I'm a criterion fan.

    None of this has anything to do with GT5's ups n downs but it seems the right place to mention it according to EG/DF. :)

  • darc #85 2 years ago

    "Darc thats your opienion which is fine...Stop trolling nub"

    Good morning riseer. You seem to have lost your way between your 1st sentence and your last, on which basis I invite you to go **** yourself. :)

    @SavageEvil - I don't want this to escalate into a flamewar (wow that sounds so 2005) but you seem really defensive here. Referring to my post as "rant" is a ways off the mark. Read it again, and you'll see that I concede, repeatedly, that GT5 is a fine game. But in many ways I have to stand my ground. Obviously 2 days is insufficient to fully judge a racing game of this scale, and therefore I have not judged it. (To this point, I specifically mentioned that I had been using gamepads in order to be clear about the sort of play I was commenting on, because obviously both of these titles are transformed with racing wheels.) But the weaknesses I cite are significant. Forget about "damage modeling" in the strict sense of the word, and for god's sake forget about Forza and the XBox altogether for a moment. Collisions themselves just look, feel and sound wrong in GT5. Other random points - my TV's fine, obviously, since GT5 itself looks fine most of the time. It's a little weird for you to assume that it can't possibly be flawed, ever. Besides which, it's not your place to be handing out shopping lists, even if I do "need" a new TV and we all "need" steering wheels. (Be sure to tell my wife, sometime prior to XMas.) Also weird that you never directly address my post - it took me a while to realize you were talking to me. (No easier to recognize given some of the points you argue were points I'd never made - rather words you'd put in my mouth.)

    @Psychotext - thanks for the invite to the forums. Have never spent much time there. I think I am in fear of the inevitable (additional) time-suck. :D

  • funkateer #86 2 years ago

    "I played the prologue and if it all plays like that but looks like this good and offers this much variety...."

    I've got a good number of hours into GT5 now, but trust me, it plays a lot better than Prologue. So much more to do, but most importantly, the driving experience is noticeably better. I've driven my own car a lot in GT5 (which I've taken to the track in a spec'ed amateur racing event a few times), and the balance and feel is so spot on, it's almost uncanny. There are a lot of versions of my own car in there (it even got its own race), so perhaps they put some more effort into that specific car.

    IMHO, too much of a deal is made out of the tearing and framedrops. Yes, it's there in extreme circumstances, but I hardly ever saw any tearing. People have measured it so I'm not in the position to argue the actual numbers, but (bar the odd occasion with lots of cars and smoke on-screen) it just plays and looks silky smooth practically all the time.

  • MizzouGaming #87 2 years ago

    All I know is in cock pit view GT 5 looks hideous.

  • Kestana #88 2 years ago

    @Astro-Creature

    The AI is certainly dumb. And not that difficult too. By that, I don't equate dumb AI to difficulty level. It's just that it's dumb AND they're not that difficult. Played Arcade mode on professional + expert settings, and I was playing more precisely (not using the AI cars as pinball bumpers in corners like most people I know). I beat them easily by using a slower car in the same performance class. Also, they don't seem to succumb to pressure when slipstreaming, overtaking or attacking the insides of corners. They seem to take only up to two lines at most and their lines only vary if it's crowded (first lap of the race) or if everything's wide.

    If you want my PSN ID, PM me. I'd be happy to demonstrate this. Haven't tried playing GT5 online though so I don't know if we can both race with AI cars.

    @ PearOfAnguish

    There are still licenses. B, A, I-A, I-B, I-C, S. Totally unchanged. They are good challenges though and I find them fun.

    @ BuckEntropy

    Gran Turismo's visuals have always been about trickery of the eye and the artist's notion and intent of "drawing the eye" (art majors will know what I'm talking about). Always has been. I find them to be more artistically and aesthetically sound and it always looks best at first glance. They've always strove for photorealism in their visuals. They've always been big on the newest post-processing techniques. Despite that, I still find the game overall less technically sound from a 3D graphics standpoint.

    @ darc

    This is why I always refer to Gran Turismo as the driving simulator while Forza is the racing simulator. I'm not taking anything away from either game, but the strong selling point of Gran Turismo is how its cars feel with the wheel, the most-of-the-time photorealistic visuals and the immersion you get while driving. I repeat, when driving, a simple bump and the immersion is all but lost. Contact (or bumping as we call it) and subtle intimidation has always been a part of racing. I really do feel that Gran Turismo's cars handle better (though this is subjective, as Forza 3 does handle as realistically, but not as favorably from most of the people I know who played that game at my place). But the thrill I get from pulling off risky moves knowing the consequences and benefits in Forza 3 is also part of the immersion for petrolheads. Knowing what can and can't happen in a game can make or break how you play and experience the game.

    Also, I share your sentiments with the GUI. I remember back in Gran Turismo 2 where you could access most of the important menus, namely "Home", "Garage" and "Exit Simulation Mode" regardless of how deep you were in the menu. Now you gotta dig deep -- and back again if you forgot something.
    Edited by Kestana at 30/11/10 @ 05:45

  • Clover4ever #89 2 years ago

    Aniso filtering comparison :

    GT5 Prologue : [link url=http://livedoor.2.blogimg.jp/ps360/imgs/0/f/0ffc4269.png
    ]http://livedoor.2.blogimg.jp/ps360/imgs/...[/link]

    GT5 : [link url=http://livedoor.2.blogimg.jp/ps360/imgs/5/9/593a1493.png
    ]http://livedoor.2.blogimg.jp/ps360/imgs/...[/link]

    Combined with the 1280x1080, MSAAx2 and TAAx2, it's probably the best IQ I've seen this gen.

    Edited by Clover4ever at 30/11/10 @ 17:35

  • darc #90 2 years ago

    Good analysis, Kestana. Thanks.

  • BuckEntropy #91 2 years ago

    @Psychotext - I'm only commenting on the techno-visuals of GT5, as such this thread seems appropriate enough to me? From the standpoint of being a life long graphics whore (in my own manner) the GT series has always held a lot of idle interest for me, but just as a game almost none at all. Not my genre.

    @Kestana - I don't take it you're precisely disagreeing with me? But I'd be interested to know what specifics you might feel GT5 is technically unsound about, as my own impression is that it's the arbitrary metric forcing them to reach for more than they should have; but having made that choice, it's still about as much as you could possibly expect the platform to deliver.

    720p + 60fps + 4xMSAA would be an idiotic bar to set for either console, assuming you're trying to impress overall. And again not that GT5 actually fails to impress either. For all the reasons you mention, it's still almost in a category by itself. And I also wish most games shared that sensibility, as it's all just illusion in the end.

  • Kestana #92 2 years ago

    @BuckEntropy

    I actually don't disagree with you (note the double negative). But there are things I find technically unsound in their 3D design and the disparity, standard car models notwithstanding. First off is the environments, which all of us already know can be stunning but incredibly bare upon closer inspection. The geometry for environments is incredibly rudimentary for both structures, natural objects, and terrain. So are the textures which lack more advanced texture and bump mapping for detail. Foliage look like they're higher resolution 2D sprites that have alpha-blending. They're very reliant on high resolution, photorealistic art assets for detail and a bit of radial blur and depth of field here and there lends a look of realism and greatly increased detail. I will definitely agree that their post-processing is top notch (though I couldn't find anything that's particular to the Cell). I'm convinced that this has something to do with their "vision" for the game which Kaz Yamauchi has repeatedly stated as, "more beautiful than real life under the right/perfect conditions such as hitting light at the right angle, etc, etc." But concentrating solely on the vehicles just feels like they've got a store-bought pie and dressed it up with a bunch of fancy toppings and whatnot. Even performance is affected as watching replays wherein ALL the cars are premium is noticeably juddier (is this the term?).

    As for the resolution, I'm convinced that it's for functional purposes, just like their implementation with the 3D. I don't have a 3D-capable TV myself but from the article, it seems like the purpose of the 3D is to project depth to allow the player to feel realistic distance projection. The higher vertical resolution of 1080 lines serves the player well, allowing them to determine details farther more clearly. And it's true that it's easier to discern details farther in GT5 compared to Forza 3, especially on a 1080p native display.

    And for this: "720p + 60fps + 4xMSAA would be an idiotic bar to set for either console". AFAIK, Forza 3 has hit this and they've put it to great effect. Even when cars crash together with everyone flying, frames are stiff and motion free flowing without judder. LOD management is good with little compromise. The visuals overall do look less photorealistic than GT5's, but the implementation isn't any less impressive.

    I also don't share your sentiment of the sensibility you find in GT5. Perhaps in regards to how it's presented and how there's an emphasis on superior art assets, yes. But the finished product and allowing half-baked features such as the 800 standard cars which aren't anywhere near as good as even Forza 2's models, in the final product -- nothing's sensible about this. The cars didn't even have their textures redone or their wireframes made a bit more complex! Yes, it's easy to get away with this for most people and this jives with their notion "visual trickery". But all I see from their 200 premium cars is them screaming: "Yeah. We can do this awesome tech too! We can outdo our competitor too! But we're too lazy to finish all of it so we jammed other features instead as a replacement. But do remember what we're capable of". I don't care if they're capable of it, but if they can deliver it. Reminds me of a project a client would request, we'd say we can do this and that, but we'd just derive most of the things from the a previously done, similar project and then spruce it up a bit.

    I sound like I'm championing Forza 3, and to a certain degree, I am. But what I'm really expressing is most of the disappointment I have with Gran Turismo 5. It's the only reason I have a PS3. Perhaps I have outgrown the game that made me love cars.
    Edited by Kestana at 01/12/10 @ 04:52

  • Savatage #93 2 years ago

    @Kestana

    Actually, Forza 3 is 2xMSAA as this article points out.

    Interesting perspective though, I myself was (and still am) a big fan of the earlier GTs but I'm yet to be convinced about this one.

  • womble #94 2 years ago

    You gotta love the fanboys. Poor little princesses.

    They can't claim Richard is "biased" this time, so instead they're bitching about him mentioning a different car racing game.

    Tossers.

  • BuckEntropy #95 1 year ago

    @Kestana - As someone who has represented both your objectivity and a reasonable degree of technical understanding, but also a serious fan of Gran Turismo, I appreciate your take on it. I was generalizing about the visual "sensibility" of the game, and it was in reference more to the series than GT5 itself. I just think this gen has become way too dry and literal about it's rendering priorities, though in some specifics the GT franchise also perhaps epitomizes that even still.

    I can agree with you about Forza 3, in general I even tend to prefer that more exaggerated look, and the environment has more legitimate depth to it which is a huge factor to me. But it yet provides a useful contrast to explain what I'm getting at: subjectively there's almost no artistic merit in FM3's terrain, it looks like a lot of... serviceable geometry with a painted canvas flopped over the top. My personal gold standard in that regard is still Burnout 2, though 3 and 4 clearly abandoned the high ground on that - just as Bizarre Creations did with PGR2 - and emulated the screenshot friendly endless trench aesthetic of GT3/4.

    Actually watching the GT Evo vids in the other article, reminded me how special the PS1 games were, they just 'pop' in a way the others never managed to recapture. The PS2 games nailed that photo-realism thing, but it's like... when it looks most amazing is because it could be a not-quite-in-focus and not impressively setup video. It looks realistic, but not actually a flattering depiction of that reality. Personally I thought the original PGR hit on the same kind of visual sweet spot as the PS1 GT games, closer than anything else since. But anyway, that's all quite tangential I know.

    Since I've found myself thinking about some of these tech issues already lately, this article really got me wondering if PD were just too married to the engine they've been working with, or if some of the more impressive tricks seen on PS3 were truly infeasible for this game. For example Naughty Dog implementing SSAO on the SPUs, in principle even some shadows could be added as a post effect, or at least cleaned up. Or for that matter why didn't they choose MLAA, at least for the 1080p mode? It does tend to crush finer details, but with other post effects it might still have made a more attractive overall IQ.

    I believe there's a clear trade-off point with the SPU post-processing work though, and as with the example of UC2, it's going to become more worth it the more of it you use. If (as I suspect) the entire frame is moved to the XDR in one block, then the SPUs can do all the processing you want without taxing the VRAM bandwidth. But then I imagine transferring a 150% size final buffer (1280x1080) and at 60fps, then even doing MLAA (which I recall is a 5ms job for 5 SPUs on a 720p buffer?) and you're still using substantial bandwidth and nearly half the SPE potential just for anti-aliasing. Plus almost certainly introducing some added latency. And geometry, lighting and all the minute (perhaps overkill?) physics of the vehicle modeling may be keeping the SPE busy enough as it is.

    Nothing but conjecture of course, but regardless of the reasons, in terms of the results... I think it's pretty clear we're witnessing the hard limits of the RSX's output in GT5. And in those terms still fairly remarkable, in context of all precedent.

  • MidianGTX #96 1 year ago

    Oh my freakin' God, that lv40 LIE has spread so damn far it's really pissing me off. Here's the deal:

    A guy in Italy recorded and uploaded the video, and the description was written in Italian. Translated it read "You do NOT need to be level 40 to enable damage, you just need patience and a destructive streak". Being the idiots they are, everyone saw the number 40, failed to translate the rest of the sentence and assumed the uploader was confirming their crappy idea that level was unlocked progressively.

    The video has since been stolen and re-uploaded by several people, spreading the myth even further and now it seems even reputable websites are reporting false information because of it. Fix it guys, or at least just go out in the same car in the video, at as low a level as possible, slam into walls for 15 minutes and watch pieces begin to fall off.

    P.S. This entire article means little enough to me as it is, the game is utterly incredible and the way it looks is only a small part of that. Not many games can claim to have soul, but the GT series has had it from the start.
    Edited by MidianGTX at 03/12/10 @ 16:58

  • Cherubin #97 1 year ago

    A very interesting read but a little bit incomplete. What about the terrible pop-up and the very low quality of trees?

  • Kestana #98 1 year ago

    @BuckEntropy

    That is exactly why a majority of people prefer Gran Turismo over its competitors. While most cannot describe technically what they see, they can still discern what looks better and what doesn't. Kinda when people from the Renaissance era started making art that's more realistic, aka still life. Looking like real life seems to be the be all, end all of beauty for most people. It IS visually sensible given their audience, omitting often ignored portions of the screen and giving artistic consideration to the visual makeup/component of the screen. I failed to mention in my previous post, that for me, it's technically sound but from a artistic standpoint. The only thing that bothers me is why they haven't broken even yet from all the visual trickery and go a bit more "brute force" a la Forza 3. I understand that the artistic direction they chose for the PS2 versions of the game is a matter of processing limitations. But with the PS3, they could have at least upped the ante and made the uglier visual components they used to hide, look more beautiful. This is exactly why most people have come up with this: Forza 3 can look beautiful, but GT5 can look even more beautiful. Forza 3 can look ugly, but GT5 can look even uglier. This is why GT5 can look incredibly horrendous, very "un-PS3-like" at times. That is what I expected the PS3 to fix, not just increase visual fidelity and car details, and adding a bunch of other useless features like track mapping that allows you to replay GPS travel data recorded while lapping at a real-life racetrack that's also in GT5. How many of us PS3 owners even live within a 100 km of the tracks in GT5?! Perhaps even the current generation of consoles aren't enough for that. Only the team Polyphony Digital will know. I'll do away with any technical data for now. This is what we have and I expected only the absolute best given the development time. There were also no indications that they were in development hell. Or at least maybe that's why they wanted us to think.

    My expectations for upping the visual bar were totally different. I expected it to look so much better than Prologue even from a 3D graphics standpoint. You can already tell by how many people I know who think that the two year old at the time GT5:p still looks better than when Forza 3 came out.

    My apologies for being spiffy, iffy personal this time around.

    P.S. I did read your PM. The fact that I'm still posting here confirms my... you know what already. Seems like you share the same sentiment with a different game. Unfortunately though, this game series has been with me for nearly half my life. Rage ensues. Also, such a coincidence that you also feel that cars in GT1 and GT2 feel like they're popping out of the screen more. Always felt like that for me back then when the replay suddenly switches cameras or when the cars are about to "hit" the replay camera. Combined with the not-so-unrealistically-smooth FPS back then, it was a different experience. Especially in GT2's rally races. I don't know if it's just nostalgia, but what the heck. All I can say is that GT is special for its presentation value. It's very unique.

  • BuckEntropy #99 1 year ago

    Gran Turismo is indeed unique, and it's reputation has been one of flawlessness. Which is seemingly the reason a handful of individually not-at-all game breaking flaws can threaten to overshadow GT5's overall achievement, with many. Though perhaps it's just personal in another way for me, I'd rather blame Sony than throw Polyphony Digital under the bus. ^_^

    But even so, it's not like anti-aliasing could be numbered among GT3's virtues (much the contrary). So there's been a certain... evolution to the criteria for that flawlessness, know what I mean? So again it is kinda like this is the first GT that isn't being judged by it's own technical rules, but by entirely conventional standards. GT5:prologue didn't strain quite so hard on all those standards, and was perhaps better off for it; but it may have also set in stone peoples assumptions about how much more the game would ultimately deliver? Even just with the memory/asset consideration, dynamic shadows add a lot of overhead the engine can scarcely afford to spare under these parameters. 'Fudging' them in some other way could have been a far better option aesthetically, and could even seem more consistent with PD's track record... so as such it seems like another very conventional expectation that was exerting pressure on their efforts.

    Of course I don't know, it's just a sort of 'outline' I perceive from the whole dynamic. But I had enough general understanding - and a few very pertinent and credible anecdotes - to know from the very beginning what a fundamental fallacy Sony's "real HD console" fronting was. And as such, witnessing virtually the entirety of mainstream media tow that line, and never truly own up to their complicity for what, about five years now? I dunno, perhaps the poetic justice in the idea that it finally bit them in the ass, and in the most painful way imaginable... appeals to me a little too much. In that respect I certainly have my own bias about it. lol

  • HokutoNoKen #100 1 year ago

    Gametrailers

    Racing game of the year : http://www.gametrailers.com/video/best-r... (GT5)

    / Ken