The Making of Killzone 3
Guerrilla walks Digital Foundry through its latest technical miracle.
25th February, 2009: Killzone 2 has just shipped on PlayStation 3 and gamers are getting their first taste of what is - for its time - the most technologically advanced console shooter on the market. After five years in the making, the final version of Guerrilla Games' epic title is finally being enjoyed by gamers - and analysed by rival game developers anxious to see its state-of-the-art engine.
At its Netherlands HQ, the game's creators await the response and the process of carrying out the post-mortem on its own title commences. This is one of the most crucial elements of the game development process, especially for a franchise like Killzone, where pre-production on the next instalment will almost certainly have kicked off already.
"We take a very good look to the feedback we get from reviews, forums, fans and other studios," Technical director Michiel van der Leeuw tells Digital Foundry.
"We always do a pretty thorough analysis and then see what people comment on a lot, to see if there are recurring patterns. When that's done, we filter the feedback and bring it back in as input points for the next game. Some of the issues that we wanted to tackle were improving controls, getting more variety into the game (gameplay, environment, characters, etc), fixing any hiccups/glitches and improving storytelling."
External feedback on the game was also combined with comments, criticisms and suggestions from Sony's own internal teams. Since the release of the original PlayStation way back in 1994, the platform holder has gradually built up one of the largest portfolios of studios in the games industry, and when you have the developers behind titles of the calibre of Uncharted, WipEout, God of War and MotorStorm to hand, their feedback can be hugely valuable.
"There's a pretty good positive competition and sense of learning from each other between the Sony studios," confirms van der Leeuw.
"We were doing a studio tour right after we finished Killzone 2 to get inspiration from other studios and we often found people in other studios tearing apart a preview copy of Killzone 2 to see how we did. Those were great opportunities for other studios to feed off us, but also for them to give feedback."
As the team began to put together the outline for the sequel, ideas and concepts for features that couldn't be implemented into Killzone 2 due to time constraints were brought back into focus.
"I think the exclusion of a few things like a complete co-op campaign, big vehicles, on-rails sections and a few others were things we felt would stretch us too thin. They've been on our wish-list to master for a long time and the time just wasn't there yet for Killzone 2," van der Leeuw explains.
But as the project began to take shape it became clear that the developers would be going hell for leather in implementing all of these features, as well as improving the base rendering tech to accommodate a new look for the series.
Features such as on-rails vehicles sections and two-player split-screen co-op couldn't be implemented in Killzone 2, but were on the wish list, eventually appearing in the sequel.
While still looking and feeling like a Killzone game, the new sequel saw the team moving in a new visual direction. The grunge and general "war is hell" murkiness of the last title was replaced with a much cleaner look, with design and effects that lent themselves to a more futuristic-looking game with a wider variation in the levels.
"This is largely an artistic direction, but there is some technology that played parts in it as well. There is a delicate balance in our colour pipeline, from what the artwork writes into the albedo buffer, to how it's lit and then how colour-correction deals with it," says van der Leeuw, referring to the internal lighting map that is a crucial part of Killzone's deferred rendering implementation.
"We were quite happy with the general look, but we also thought it was a bit too monochrome and it was very difficult to colour-correct properly. Together with the art director we worked on improving the algorithms that we use and improving our colour pipeline. We have specific hue controls at the end of the pipeline and preserve precision and colour better throughout."
While stablemate releases God of War III and Uncharted 2 both support (differing) implementations of high dynamic range rendering, Killzone 2 uses a 24-bit RGB framebuffer, which meant LDR lighting only. In previous presentations to the games industry, Guerrilla had discussed experiments using the Logluv colour space favoured by Naughty Dog, but the compromises in terms of blending and interpolation meant that the developer went with a refined version of its existing solution.
The existing buffers used in the deferred rendering setup were tweaked in order to give more dynamic range to the lighting and colour, or, as the developer puts it, "getting more bang for every bit in the buffer".
Thanks to rendering optimisations throughout the pipeline, the actual amounts of detail resolved in Killzone 3 were upped considerably in comparison with the existing game: texture resolution increased, environment and model detail levels went up a notch, and shader complexity increased. Other important elements in the engine also served to give the game a much cleaner appearance.
As discussed in our piece on the Killzone 3 multiplayer beta, Guerrilla went into production on the game knowing that it had the raw processing power available to create a much more ambitious sequel. Bearing in mind the technological accomplishments of Killzone 2, it's astonishing to think that the developer had around 40 per cent of the SPU processor cycles left available, and the developer got to work on making more use of the available resources.
"We've been doing a lot more stuff on SPUs this time around. One of the things we're very proud of is one that nobody sees: we're doing a full-depth rasterisation of tens of thousands of triangles in a software rasteriser on SPUs so we can do occlusion culling against it," van der Leeuw explains, revealing the process in which unnecessary polygons are removed from the equation, optimising the rendering process.
"This allows us to do much more aggressive culling, which in the end allows us to do more complex scenes and further draw distance. The work flow is also much nicer than what we had and it reduces the frame-rate spikes which were associated with the portal/occluder system we previously had."
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Comments (51) Latest comment 1 year ago
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/ Ken
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I love these articles, keep'em coming Mr Leadbetter.
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Kinect/Halo article Richard, please, make my day.
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Where are the camera effects like the lens flare, or god rays? The depth of feild seems missing during gameplay - or it's so paired back it's almost non existent. And whats with the overused 2005 style sprite based bloom effects??? Ghaaa. And the faked motion blur during sprinting that just instantly pops off when you stop???
Never in my wildest dreams would I ever expect a AAA title to actually go back almost a generation in gfx quality like this. Especially one that was built on visuals as it's halmark. It's all been so blatantly stripped back it's almost laughable. Is it to maintain consistency with the 3d mode? the split screen? Whatever the reasons, it's devistating.
Everything that made KZ2 a stand out visual masterpeice is dead and buried here. Shame on the deluded PS3 fanbase that hypes everything beyond whats sane. This game now looks like a run of the mill title, not the technical pillar it was.
I challange anyone that is not wearing rose colored glasses to play through the first chapter of KZ2 after playing KZ3 and not be gobsmacked.
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Regarding that 'grey' comment. Look at this, the first screenshot released for Killzone 2:-
[link url=http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/articles//a/7/9/4/0/3/ss_preview_1.jpg.jpg?slideshow=true
]http://images.eurogamer.net/assets/artic...[/link]
Yes, it's grey. And orange. But it's deliberate! It's not like FPS games that are grey or brown due to poor art direction - this text is from the KZ2 preview:-
" The palette, in keeping with Killzone 1, is intelligently narrow. The redness of the blood spurting from jugular veins and chest wounds is in stark contrast to the limited grey scale. When you walk past a body in a pool of blood, it jars."
Yes, but not just the blood, the other uses of saturated colour in spooky glowing Helghast eyes, the blue lights on the ISA equipment, the orange displays in the game, and so on. The use of muted (what's called monochrome in the article) colours with splashes of saturated colour is an art direction that has a hostile, menacing feel to it. I first saw it in the Deathblow comic series decades back. Far from being berated, Guerilla should be praised for their art direction, which can be accused of looking 'generic FPS' by people who don't look deep enough, but is actually brave and difficult to pull off.
Well, Richard's articles are about the tech behind the game, and in that respect Guerilla made the perfect game, but there's one room in their offices where people aren't World class. Being an FPS is not an excuse for poor dialogue, or theme (plot was passable). I think of Deus Ex or Bioshock or the Metal Gear games, where there are themes and concepts that resonate and give you pause as well as providing a fun experience, or Shadow of the Colossus, where a victory - seeing that giant monster go down - somehow gives you conflicting emotions of satisfaction and sorrow, as if it just came to you that you've killed a big whale. Killzone, right from the beginning, was a paradox, the Nazi-like Helghast actually defending themselves against the ISA who don't take kindly to their rebellious battle-cry of independence. And the game never takes the golden opportunity taken by Metal Gear to consider warfare and its effects on individuals and societies, or taken by SotC to temper ISA victory with the horror of causing mass destruction. What was that quote? The second-worst thing to losing a war is to win it, or something like that? And remember those two games got those themes and concepts across without sacrificing fun.
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The gameplay is great though (and if you play with Move, all the turret style shooting is as awesome as everything else - in fact, I'll never play a game like this ever again without Move I think, they did a stellar job!), and the game looks amazing. I highly appreciate their openness about the tech used, and yeah, good to finally have word on Bink.
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Leaving aside directorial decision over scripting, plot points etc, the engine part certainly for me a major progression as control and spilt screen co op worked so well.
So what exactly those KZ2 loyal fans had problems with? Wishing to preserve laggy low latency control to lent illusion of weighted weapons and movements feels? Missing the unique almost monochromatic visuals with same kind of disoptia environments throughout?!
After doing co op with my son on KZ3, which we enjoyed fully then to co op on Halo Reach, we still find that the enemies, AI to be more intelligent and control still very sharp and quicker.
So for me still not yet fully the Halo Killer that some fans had hoped Killzone would be one day, but very much respectable alternative and of course both sets of fans will swore blind by either franchise. Just great that we have choices albeit only for the multi platform owners.
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anyhows. nice read RL. Amazing.
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Killzone 3 is here, I haven't really noticed any graphical inferiority but then it's been a long time since I played Killzone 2, what I have noticed is that I really don't care about what's happening, it's all rather generic even if it looks great.
Thing is, this is pretty much how I felt about Killzone 2. If you love the game, fine, I think I'm a bit too old and jaded for bland, predictable shooters. Bring on Half Life 3 or something...
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Overall I feel that Killzone 3 is a less impressive game than Killzone 2 in terms of its visuals. So many things seem to have been paired back. Other people have already mentioned a few of the issues, but I will just mention a few that stood out to me.
For example, in Killzone 2 when you were firing at an enemy in a darkened room the muzzle flash would not only light up the room, but it would also actually cast dynamic shadows of objects or enemies. This seems to be gone in Killzone 3 -- the muzzle flash is still there but the dynamic shadows seem to be gone.
The other thing that really bothers me are the jaggies. I know some people praise MLAA, but I don't think it is a good fit for Killzone 3. Sure, some edges look amazingly clean...unfortunately many others have lots of edge crawl and it looks bad. In the Helghast war room there were so many jaggies that it seriously became distracting and damaged the visual impact of the scenes. I don't care what anybody says, the anti-aliasing in Killzone 2 was better. The Quincunx anti-aliasing in the first might have blurred the image a little, but at least the appearance of jaggies overall seemed to be much reduced. I would still take the 2x MSAA in Uncharted 2 over the MLAA in Killzone 3 any day.
The other problem is that now that the game is a little clearer I notice more how low resolution many of the textures are. Killzone 2 had a softer, almost CG look about it that made the low quality textures less noticeable.
The lighting also seems flatter. In many areas it almost feels like there is no light interaction at all. I do like that they fixed the character shadows as you look down at your feet. In Killzone 2 your character's shadow didn't extend from the feet in a correct way, but your shadow now looks correct in Killzone 3.
I also notice much more pop-in of shadows, textures and geometry in Killzone 3. It must have to do with changes to the streaming and LOD systems.
All in all Killzone 3 is still a really fantastic looking game and I love the multiplayer, I am just a little disappointed with many of the graphical changes.
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Don't understand comments about KZ2 looking better, I checked out the opening of 2 after finishing 3 and while still very impressive, and a far better opening than in 3, the blurriness is very blatant. Everything has a kinda Vaseline-y sheen to it. There are really overdone bloom effects too, especially when you first go indoors. I agree that explosions have either been reduced or have their low resolution less well hidden by the sharper MLAA. I definitely noticed them more. But if this is the trade for a smoother framerate, which was TERRIBLE in some MP matches in 2, then it is certainly worth it. Other than that I only see improvements. Particles still bounce around, smoke is still dragged around by the wind, texture resolution and geometry are increased, there's a far greater variety of shaders and the number of light sources is staggering. I could not believe the fireflies in the jungle level actually lit the walls as they passed. And the swelling sea in the ice level! Phenomenal.
Want to add the lighting really impressed me in 3, light rays cascade realistically across the ENTIRE level instead of just being the usual 'god rays' trick (which I'm so sick of, it's the lens-flare trend all over again) when you look at the sun, which is far from realistic. Shadows are far smoother and are still cast by multiple light sources and I'm pretty sure they added subtle ambient occlusion too.
I didn't feel as blown away this time, since 2 was such a huge leap over anything else seen in consoles, but I'm not sure how 3 can be seem as a step back. Possibly it is simply as aesthetic preference? There's quite a bit I miss of the old industrial/ brutalist vibe of 2, but that game is still there if I want to play it and Guerilla just making more of the same would've been worse. What is clear either way is how much smoother 3 performs, not noticed a single dip in all my play so far, which is very impressive. The maps in the retro map pack feel fantastic in the updated engine. I just hope next time they hire a writer that knows how to tell a compelling story.
Edit: Just checked, full object motion blur still present. People really should examine their claims before making a statement.
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You are right that Guerrilla made logical improvements to KZ3 over KZ2 but tech wise they did have to make compromises that does effect how the game looks between the two titles. In making a more open game, they had to use the SPUs more which they were already doing a lot of post processing. They guy didn't state it but you can see from the two different games that things had to be dialed back after throwing everything at the SPUs. In the end, the job Guerrilla did in KZ3 might be the better choices but you can tell from the article that they were very memory short and had to make compromises for their new tech.
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And the jungle level...beautiful use of colour and texture throughout. Unbelievable.
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[link url=http://www.pixologic.com/interview/killzone3/1/
]http://www.pixologic.com/interview/killz...[/link]
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K3 is so well made, this article tells us why. Hard work pays off for GG.
Well done guys, I haven't stopped playing it since release.
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For me, it was a game of two halves. One half was unreal. The turret sections were fantastic, and the MAWLR fight... simply staggering.
On the other hand, the game was hamstrung with two terrible mechanics i hoped they'd abandon. The first, was that awful cover mechanic, that seems straight out of a 1992 arcade game. Cover in that game was often counter productive. I had more success just rushing the enemy. I died more times in cover than out of it, while on the other hand, the helgast seemed to be masters of cover. Boring firefights over concrete blocks are not the key to fun.
But that pales beside the awful combat rez mechanic. I appreciate that you need to make a game where it is at least plausible that that the main character can kill hundreds of people, and not die. In Halo, its based around the energy shield. In other games, you just simply tough it. In killzone, its incredibly easy to die. And to compensate for this, Rico rezs you. But its a shitty way to handle the flow of the game. Tooe asy to die, too long to get back in the game, and you're not in control of how you get back in the game.
I said i had a game of two halfs. I'll remember taking out the MAWLR, and all the cool stuff, and i'll remember the frustration of dying behind cover, and having to wait 20 seconds before i die, while that idiot rico comes over.
Killzone will never fall into the Halo, COD, Crysis bracket, because its mechanics aren't smooth enough. It needs to conisder the flow of the game, and not try to shoehorn mechnics into it.
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Most of the quoted(“ ”) pieces of information from Guerilla Games are interesting in this article and the piece as a whole reads well.
The incessant & unsubstantiated RSX is underpowered comments from the DF author are still tedious, but to be expected now.
The most interesting thing for me in this article is the triangles graph in this autobot image; which unless I'm reading it wrong suggests that the finished version of KZ3(Jan 2011) is processing 1312.655 Million triangles per second between the RSX & SPU software renderer GG mentioned.
1312.655 (graph shows numbers in millions) = Primes 227 + Geometry 271.396 + Shadow 748.846 + Forward + 15.413 + Occluding 50
That information if understood correctly? would refute the long held view of DF that the Playstation 3 is inferior to the 360's (500M Xenos + 2 General PPU cores) to render geometry. PPUs are not a good fit for software rendering.
The graph also suggests that Killzone 3 is using a 3 separate frustum passes just for shadowing, and probably implementing a 3 cascade shadow map system (3x geometry ~= shadows). This in itself is very impressive considering it is rendering at a full 720p with 3km draw distance(32bit depth most like needed) & theimplementation of MLAA & HDR.
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Totally agree about the resurrection mechanic though. Made it all too easy to make dumb decisions and face no consequences. I hope they add the option to turn it off. Overall I found Veteran too easy. It annoys me (in any game) having to unlock the highest difficulty. Playing elite now and I'm enjoying it so much more Is the idea that they patronisingly assume you're not ready for the highest difficulty right away? Or is it just a cheap way to make you replay? Either way I want it gone, or at least detect I'd completed the last game and I'm ready for the challenge.
Oh and a funny aside: in the MP yesterday I saw someone trying to bunny-hop in a mech. God damn CoD players.
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Yes it has the occasional jaggie(if you look for them) but other than that it just looks exceptional throughout. I even fired on uncharted 2 yesterday and whilst yes its still a great looking game i have to say that killzone 3 is a step above.
The biggest praise i can give killzone 3 is that when i was plaing the scrapyard level the other day my girlfriend walked in and commented that the graphics were "absolutely amazing" this coming from the same person who has seen me play Gran turismo 5, killzone 2 and uncharted 2 and never commented.
Maybe thats where killzone 3 got it right, it has that intial wow factor, that first moment where you think "bloody hell this game looks amazing" That s a feeling that stayed with me throughout the game and probably did for most other, like me, less techinically minded people. THe comments regarding it being technically inferior to KZ2 and uncharted 2 may be true but that wont be seen by 99% of the people who play it.
Its all about first impressions and killzone as a visual feast made an impression on me like no other game(even uncharted 2) Would also like to just add that the game is superb, played it with move and honestly not looking forward to going back to playing crysis2, homefront etc with a normal DS3. KZ3 story is interesting and the very last scene certainly intrigues!!!! Its true it has its minor faults but i would urge anyone with a PS3 to get this game
9/10 without move, 10/10 with move.................probably 11/10 with sharpshooter lol
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If you think about it, it is a lot like giving the PS3 a software upgrade from DirectX9 to DirectX11. The GPU hardware by itself couldn't support that upgrade, but the Cell processor has many cores (SPUs) well suited to graphics tasks and the two are well enough integrated on the hardware level to allow them to work together as a larger set of graphics hardware capable of a lot more than the RSX could have done by itself.
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So how can the article state that the ps3 OS is linked to XDR RAM when it is actually a part of GDDR3 RAM main system memory?
C'mon digital foundry, get your basics right
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Before calling out DigitalFoundry, it may be worthwhile checking your 'facts' first.
XDR in the PS3 has always been the main system memory, with DDR3 being the main GPU memory. That's been known since 2005, more than a year before the Playstation 3 launched.
Those are the basics that you've clearly been getting wrong for nigh-on 6 years.
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Bring on the Move and 3D support, plus the PS2 remake / ports!
btw: Excellent engineering going on here. These guys have clearly put in a LOT of work getting the PS3 components working together optimally. Bravo.
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(The dumb thing to do in many situations is to simply throw polygons at a visual problem. All that does is bog down the GPU, wasting cycles. And it may not even result in a good enough image, particularly where transparency is used.)
Good article. But! I still believe that GG should have spent more time on the GAMEPLAY, and less time worrying about how much of their occlusion code is running on the SPUs.
I'm about half-way through the game, and TBH, it's flashy but it's also the same old, same old. All developers use tricks for maximum performance and to reduce the development and runtime workload, but some of GG's tricks are old hat.
For example, instead of being able to get in a vehicle, a cutscene runs which SHOWS you doing all these exciting things. Then it finishes, leaving you, once more, standing there doing the super soldier thing.
Another example: go through one area, fight a bunch of red-eyes as usual, go through a door. Bang, cutscene. Turn around, voila, the door is locked. No backtracking for ammo or weapons. Repeat throughout the campaign. Many games do this of course, but Killzone's linearity really does feel like by-the-numbers.
There's no feeling of scale to the actual INTERACTIVE areas. Even with the biggest combat areas in the game, I feel like I'm locked in to a very small, pristinely rendered box, surrounded by (beautifully rendered) fake scenery.
Unfortunately, KZ2 and KZ3, for my money, are more about techporn than good gameplay. KZ3 is a competent shooter, but it does not thrill me. It's not a great GAME. Which is a shame, because it has the potential to be great if only GG's priorities shift.
Once again, I compare GG to Naughty Dog or Insomniac. And, IMO, there is no comparison. GG concentrates on the look, these other developers concentrate on the GAME. You need to do better GG, and I don't mean in the visuals department.
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I agree, if you're talking about the campaign, but the KZ campaigns, for me, are all about getting used to the feel, the way it plays. Where GG excel is in the multiplayer. It's an astounding on-line experience that will keep many people happy for a long, long time.
EDIT: Don't forget Sucker Punch - they know how to put a game together too.
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The thing is now that GG has the tech, they can concentrate on the Story and gamplay elements with the next game to truly make the perfect game.
The only real problem I have with KZ3 is the fact that they could not include online co-op. I do not play competitive multiplayer like i use to but co-op is something I play a lot of with friends. So at the moment, I have only rented KZ3 because I can do it without paying anything.
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its so obvious how many devs go for its look with lots of dynamic lights and heavy use of first person animations.
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the PS3 has 512MB of RAM (256 for video and 256 for system). The Cell chip has 256MB of completely sharable RAM, the GPU has 256MB of dedicated RAM. Now the key here is what type of RAM it is.
The GPU dedicated Ram here in question is the XDR. Whereas the sharable RAM between the cell and the RSX is GDDR3
get it? The Operating system of the ps3 is controlled by a single SPU in the cell. The memory for it comes from the sharable RAM or the GDDR3. The operating system does not access the dedicated high speed XDR RAM. But the RSX can access the GDDR3 memory. I hope that makes sense. The XDR is dedicated GPU memory. It''s only for the GPU for gaming purposes.
The other memory left over is the main system memory which can be accessible by both the CPU and the RSX. The article is suggesting that the XDR memory is being used by the operating system which is false.
may be Richard should clarify the issue.
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The GPU dedicated Ram here in question is the XDR. Whereas the sharable RAM between the cell and the RSX is GDDR3"
Seriously, can you be so fucking stupid?
Firstly, just to cover it off. The System Memory is accessable by the GPU, but to say it's "completely shareable" is to imply that it's accessable equally by the CPU/GPU like the unified memory on the 360. It's not. Yes, developers can use system memory for GPU usage, but it's hard work and slow due to bottlenecks, as there as no direct access of the System Ram by the GPU.
Now that misunderstanding by you is not why you're fucking stupid. No, the reason is because even though I pointed out that Richard was right and you were wrong, you chose to 'correct' me without doing something as simple as a google/bing/whatever search just to check your basic knowledge. No, you blindly 'corrected' me with your 'incorrect' facts.
So let me state this clearly for those (ie: you) sitting in the corner wearing a vacant expression and sucking on their thumb:
"The System Ram is XDR, the Video Ram is DDR3"
And when I said this was known back in 2005... well I googled it to make sure of the date and presto [link url=http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/614/614682p1.html
]http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/614/61468...[/link]
Please, http://www.google.com http://www.bing.com http://www.yahoo.com and copy/paste "Playstation Tech Specs"
So simple that even a monkey could do it. I still have my worries about you though.
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my apologies!
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I'd really like to see a game with both MLAA and the 60fps @30fps trick.
BTW - It's not that surprising that so much GPU work can be shifted to the SPU's as it's widely understood that the PS3 was supposed to use a CELL for gfx and the RSX was a hasty bodge due to CELL/software libraries not being mature enough. Presumably these "generic" chips used as GPU's take a lot of work to get the software written. Just look at Larrabee.
It's a pity really, that Crazy Ken's initial vision wasn't fulfilled because the PS3 would have bee an animal of a machine if MS hadn't forced Sony to release the console before it was really ready.
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In the course of a few hours you have risen in my estimation from "really fucking stupid due to not at least googling to check your facts" to "respect for actually coming back to man-up and admit your error"
So rarely in this internetland do people do the latter that you have risen hugely in my estimation
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I'm speechless...and I thought the jungle level was beautiful. I am out of superlatives.
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what a technically advanced title !It would be great to use this engine for an open-environment game !
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That might not be possible. The engine appears to be designed around packing high fidelity visuals in to a relatively small amount of space. Most everything outside of the immediate play area is artistic artifice.
To rework it as a sandbox environment would probably entail a huge amount of work, and a significant image degradation. (Those polys, textures and attendant lighting and post-processing have to be spread over a much larger area, yet the available CPU/GPU power doesn't increase.)
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THEN we'd see some magic in terms of streaming tech, and open play areas. Of course, we'd be limited by RSX, but these guys seem quite adept at pushing work out to the SPUs.