Digital Foundry vs. E3: Microsoft

By Richard Leadbetter Published 7 June, 2011

A technical look at yesterday's games and announcements.

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Microsoft kicked off what is going to be a very interesting E3 in spectacular style with an extended gameplay segment from Activision's upcoming epic, Modern Warfare 3.

It's a hugely important game for the publisher. Having traditionally owned the first-person shooter market in the most commercially lucrative period of the year, Activision now faces very real competition in the form of the Frostbite 2-powered Battlefield 3 from DICE. The new Call of Duty has faced additional challenges too during its two year gestation period, with a core of the Infinity Ward development team having decamped to set-up Respawn Entertainment.

The good news for gamers is that the new Infinity Ward, working in concert with Glen Schofield's Sledgehammer Games, has responded to these internal and external pressures in exactly the right way by creating what looks like a supremely confident, technically accomplished piece of work - at the same time proving that there's plenty of life in the existing COD technical architecture.

Footage released to date suggests that the underpinnings of the engine share a lot in common with previous COD titles. In pre-release videos we've seen the same 600p resolution, and the peculiarities of the shadow implementation all but confirm that the Xbox 360 version has been used for media assets thus far. However, what has surprised us is that the developer's claims of running at a "locked 60FPS" aren't so far from the truth.

While not quite delivering a 'locked 60FPS', there's little doubt that Modern Warfare 3 looked and performed very nicely.

The Call of Duty games have traditionally relied on what we prefer to call a perceptual 60FPS: to the human eye, it's as smooth as smooth can be on console, and while there are performance drops, they are not really picked up unless you have the keenest of senses, or unless the engine is handling some seriously taxing action. The problem is that as the games have become more technologically complex, so the frame-rate has dropped - a state of affairs that continued on into Treyarch's Black Ops.

In recent weeks, not only have the developers talked about a locked 60FPS for console, Infinity Ward's Rob Bowling has even tweeted that the game "never drops below" that target frame-rate. Based on what we saw at Microsoft's conference, the game is very smooth, maintaining performance admirably, and it - only the water effects and big explosions seem to trouble the engine for the most part. The developers appear to have modelled waves in full 3D rather than faking it with a 2D alternative, adding to the quality of the effects work there.

Overall image quality, despite the sub-HD resolution, remains very impressive. The final section, showing the far-off blasted cityscape should have presented a lot of pure polygons edges that we thought might alias badly, but they looked good - perhaps down to what looks like a new depth of field implementation that was used generously throughout the presentation. Also worthy of mention is the quality of the interior lighting, showcased in the submarine infiltration section: we were reminded of some of the excellent work done in this regard by Black Ops.

The Modern Warfare 3 reveal was a great way to kick off Microsoft's E3 showing, and shows COD doing what COD does best: excellent visuals and impressive, albeit tightly scripted, set-pieces. The 60FPS frame-rate and smooth, realistic character animation were highlights too.

The new engine powering the latest of Lara Croft's adventures managed is a clear technical leap over what we've seen before from Crystal Dynamics.

Next up was the new Tomb Raider from Crystal Dynamics, another excellent example of just how far this generation of HD gaming has come. The old engine has been jettisoned in favour of brand new tech - impressive environmental detail, high resolution texture art and what looks like the ability to throw plenty of light sources about (the candles in particular stand out here). Adding to the cinematic feel of the game is a heavy, stylised depth of field effect. Interestingly, water effects looked fairly simplistic coming off the back of Modern Warfare 3, with basic decals in use rather than full 3D modelling.

Lara is undoubtedly the star here. She's an impressively high detail model, with particular care and attention (not to mention polygon budget) spent on her face, which also benefits immensely from a very well realised skin shading system.

The developers are definitely targeting 30 frames per second, but there were clear cases where the game engine was struggling, particularly in her escape from the native man and there was a sense that performance in general wasn't entirely consistent.

Also noteworthy was the new approach to the gameplay in general. There was little in this presentation of the puzzle-based Tomb Raider play style of yore - in this clip at least - and the emphasis seemed to be on story-telling via cut-scenes shifting seamlessly to gameplay then to QTEs. It made for a great visual presentation, but hopefully there will be more depth in the actual meat of the game and a stronger emphasis on Lara's agility, which was only really hinted at in the footage we saw.

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Comments (68) Latest comment 9 months ago

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  • CaptainQuint #1 9 months ago

    Of course CoD looks great; just don't go peaking behind the curtain, okay?

  • PixelPirate #2 9 months ago

    I dont understand how you found so much to be excited about.

    Underwhelmed. Was the feeling to sum up the MS conference.

    It was about 90% Kinect, and relied heavily for the hardcore on COD, which isnt an MS game and to be fair. Doesn't look half the technical achievement Battlefield 3 is. Its starting to look pretty dated in comparison.

    The move MS has been wanting to make in to "entertainment" hub, from gaming console appears to be in full effect. I hope for MS it works, because i cant imagine their userbase is going to hang about with the distinct lack of exclusives :/

  • Trent_Steel #3 9 months ago

    After this fawning piece, more of a marketing document than an analysis, I can't wait to see the equivalent report on the Sony offerings.

    "It's all shit" peppered with snarky comments about missing credit card details.

  • JoeGBallad #4 9 months ago

    'What's going on at Rare?'

    Banjo broke loose from his cage and killed them all :(

  • technicianTed #5 9 months ago

    It wasn't quite as bad as last years show and a few game do look good.
    Both sony and microsoft didn't really show off anything new regarding proper games though(gears 3, uncharted 3 etc we already knew about).

    I would love it if Rare were leaving kinect alone and working on some hardcore games(not very likely).

  • Lusterpurge #6 9 months ago

    The conference was bad for gamers, but from a technical standpoint, it was pretty interesting. Despite many of the games being the same or gimmicks, they still looked good for running on an old console.

  • chessboxer #7 9 months ago

    For the Kinect finger tracking, I thought they would be showing how Kinect could track 2 or more fingers on one hand, but it turned out to be just Kinect tracking a single point.

    I did like the weapon customization in Ghost Recon, but I still can't see Kinect adding that much to the core part of the game in a way that doesn't get boring/tedious after 30mins.

    MW3... I will be picking this up, but I only have interest in its SP. I'm pretty sure every COD since COD4 has had that smae/simliar burst ibnto a room and take out 6 enemies in slow motion. Not sure how they could freshen that up as it's becoming at little stale now.

    Waiting for the Sony E3 writeup to appear...

  • flaming.carrot #8 9 months ago

    Were you watching the same conference I was? All the Kinect announcements looked pretty shit really, especially the Star Wars one which was horrific - and the Disney one was almost certainly a pre-render as the on-screen characters jumped when the kids on stage did not, and vice versa.

    The whole 'talk to your XBox' gimmick could be done much quicker using a remote controller and you would not feel like a twat either.

    Liked the GOW3 segment though.

  • jumpdeveraux #9 9 months ago

    "voice-powered search options via Bing were cute"

    I felt sorry for the guy whose girlfriend loaded up Harry Potter ... 2hrs+ of Hogwarts when he looked like he'd much rather turn the xbox off and show her Platform 9 3/4 himself.

    At least she didn't say "xbox play bridget jones diary on permanent loop until we lose consciousness"

  • iago71 #10 9 months ago

    Sorry but as good as COD looks from an aesthetic pov I really find it hard to get excited about it anymore. Wont be buying it.

    Also Im not really sure why MS feel the need to go all "lets jump around the living room". It hasnt worked for the Wii from a real gaming point so Im not sure why the other contenders think they will change the medium with any success. The best games on the Wii dont really require any jumping about and to have movement shoehorned into traditional games seems like a complete bore.

    Perhaps its time I gave up this pass time. I think Im getting too old if this is where its all going. Apols for the negativity but its appearing really quite dull to me. :(
    Edited by 1 at 07/06/11 @ 14:04

  • DjFlex52 #11 9 months ago

    Underwhelming summed the whole thing up. And that's being generous, it was pretty much a disaster if I'm being honest. One of the worst conferences I've ever seen.

    We agree...except that I was thinking of the soulless Sony conference. Tretton is the dullest speaker @ E3...zzzz

  • kongzi #12 9 months ago

    I really don't think Kinect is going to do anything for core games the way it is now. It's just too imprecise and slow. They need a higher definition camera and more performance headroom before they can deliver on those promises. The games were all known quantities. If the biggest surprise there is a mere decent tomb raider reboot ... that's underwhelming.

  • Darren #13 9 months ago

    The Microsoft conference was a huge disappointment for me as there was almost nothing of interest that I wasn't aware of beforehand. And I have zilch interest in Kinect which seems to where Microsoft is putting most of its 360 efforts these days. Underwhelming is how I'd sum it up really.

  • bradgrenz #14 9 months ago

    The big surprise for me was no price cut announced by either MS or Sony. I thought that was a sure thing given the rather large discounts retailers have been offering recently.

  • BOFH_UK #15 9 months ago

    Just a quick thought on Kinect and 'core' gaming. Ever since they first showed off the tech I've had very little interest in full games using it as a control method but the thought of suplimenting the controller has always been fascinating. Mass Effect is a good example, being able to interact directly with the adventure part of the game while letting the controller do what it's best at (in this case guiding your on-screen character around). Same with Forza actually, head tracking to move your viewpoint is a fascinating idea if it can be done well.

  • carlosdfn #16 9 months ago

    "What would have been really impressive would have been an ultra-high detail capture of your face as part of the character customisation element we usually find in the Mass Effect 3 games."

    Wow, that's an excellent idea. They even showed off that scanning tech which does exactly that. What a missed opportunity!

  • BuckEntropy #17 9 months ago

    All's right with the world I see, people still reading only what they choose out of DF articles... Some slight rose tinting of the tone but Richard is being very critical in specifics.

    Other than the lack of any surprising big game reveal (which Sony didn't have either, and Halo 4 almost qualifies if it hadn't been spoiled) it's about the best MS could reasonably muster. They are faced with the task of convincing people Kinect is a worthy accessory, and until a game comes along that makes a statement that it can be a core interface trumping up little optional conveniences seems about all they can do. Would have been nice to see something on Project Draco (as it would have been nice to see something on Last Guardian), that's the most interesting Kinect game in the pipeline that I know about.

    But all in all they catered to the established 360 core about as much as Sony catered to the established PS3 core. If Kinect is an unwelcome distraction to a lot of people well so is NGP/Vita, Move and 3D TVs. So yeah it was a lame presentation, but it fit in rather well with the lameness of the whole first day. lol

  • raloB #18 9 months ago

    Spot on that, Richard!

    Nothing spectacular, which is to be expected 6 years on, but still something to keep us interested.

  • Dizzy #19 9 months ago

    Rare is the big mystery.... Something for Xmas?

  • Dave52 #20 9 months ago

    @BuckEntropy: "If Kinect is an unwelcome distraction to a lot of people well so is NGP/Vita, Move and 3D TVs."

    Except there are Core games on the Vita and using Move with KZ3, Resistance 3, Mag and SOCOM can actually add to the immersive experience. And 3D, whether you like it or not can also enhance a gaming experience.

    Holding your hand up in the air to Snipe is absolutely counter-intuative and ruins the experience. And saying a quote from ME3 only for Shepherd to repeat it is just stupid. Squad commands is a neat idea but it's something that's been achieveable for years with a headset.

    MS have invested too much money in Kinect to allow it to fail, yet the best they can do is Dance Games and on-rails kids games. It's shocking tbh...

  • dr_zoidthrob #21 9 months ago

    Rare *are* still working on Sports 2 - I know a member of the team.

  • RodHull #22 9 months ago

    The absence of a full Rare game has me torn between two emotions. For one I'm disappointed that theres nothing to see, but conversely I'm glad that there is still hope that they're working on IP other than more Kinect sports (Blast Corps Kinect would be nice). However my hope could well misplaced if they just end up releasing something akin to Wii shovelware.

  • darkmorgado #23 9 months ago

    Both the MS and the Sony conferences were utterly crap. Total borefests, both of them. The only saving grace was Halo and Sly Racoon.

    At this stage Nintendo have won by default.

  • BuckEntropy #24 9 months ago

    *looks at Trent-Steel's +11, looks at my -3*

    I am NOT going to let you live that down assholes... lol

  • vizzini #25 9 months ago

    BuckEntropy: But all in all they catered to the established 360 core about as much as Sony catered to the established PS3 core.

    From the show floor that is possibly fair to say, but the montages implied otherwise, and they didn't even show the best exclusive stuff (last guardian) that is definitely coming.

    The recent month Sony have had they needed to leave plenty of room for sincerity of the apology to come across. Banging on too quickly about all the stuff that is coming would get lost and actually start feeling like the apology was being swept under the carpet. By contrast this would have been an opportune moment for 360 to shine with core first party AAA exclusives, but kinect was their thing.

    The other difference is that a game from a new IP that probably sold the same numbers as Alan Wake, is launching a graphically amazing sequel this week; a AAA core title with a great story that needs continued financial backing to get established, infamous 2 was old news, but the game is new and here now.

    Hopefully for people like yourself, who probably wouldn't play a PS3 for infamous 2, you will be catered for with unannounced AAA games for 360 due this year. But the majority of 360 commentators on EG are starting to sound very sceptical, maybe now believing the cupboard is empty or just filled with Kinect tat, paid for with live gold subs to go with multi platform.

  • TechnicPuppet #26 9 months ago

    MS conference disappoints 1% of potential customers shocker.

    There are plenty of 360 games coming out for Eurogamer readers. Not all exclusive but there are plenty of those as well. You know what most people hear about the 360 at E3, a Disney interactive game, a sesame street game, a star wars game as well as sequels to 2 of the biggest games of last year in Kinect Sports and Dance Central. Oh and Just Dance is coming as wel as the ability to talk to the 360 to tell it what to dol. For MS it's an absolute master-stroke and it will mean they sell the most consoles this year. We aren't most people and most people don't care what you think.

  • icematt12 #27 9 months ago

    One point about voice controls with ME3. On my brief view of the video, i believe the guy was using his voice to order the squadmates into position. To do that wouldn't he have to use the controller to look/aim at the point before saying the command. Surely on that pressing the d-pad on the controller is much quicker than saying a sentence. Not sold on the idea in this.

  • Spydy #28 9 months ago

    "Microsoft will doubtless be congratulating itself on a job well done. It kicked off with a great reveal for what will almost certainly be the biggest-selling game of the year, it showcased a range of impressive exclusives and while Kinect was a bit hit and miss, the tech has already proven to be hugely successful outside of the core market and the products on offer looked likely to continue that."

    EG has finally lost it. That was easily the worst conference in years with no surprises and way too many Kinect games that, frankly, look terrible. Why open a conference with a 10 minute demo of CoD then fill the rest of it with terrible, "play once" Kinect, kiddie shovel-ware. Play to your strengths. Only the most stoic, hardcore MS fan would ever think that the conference meant anything other than them running out of steam.

    I think however the writer probably got caught up in the euphoria of being at an actual E3!

  • Astro-Creature #29 9 months ago

    Microsoft excell at acting like multiplat games are exclusive :/

    And why are you analysing video streams? :/

  • coolbritannia #30 9 months ago

    They announced Halo remake AND Halo 4, that's win. There was nothing between Sony and Microsoft's conferences this year, both major players announcing core titles to an established fanbase, both using the majority of their time to push alternate movement control schemes, both biding their time to announce their next home consoles...

  • Dave52 #31 9 months ago

    Coolbritannia: "There was nothing between Sony and Microsoft's conferences this year"

    Wow... Just wow...

  • Machiavellian #32 9 months ago

    Microsoft excell at acting like multiplat games are exclusive :/

    Actually exclusives really not that big of a deal at this point in the lifecycle for All consoles. Install base, friends etc is more important now. You do not see any of the Sony, Nintendo or MS exclusives really making a dent when it comes to console purchases. There are so many games coming out for all system that a few exclusives here or there really doesn't make any difference. Friends get their friends to purchase consoles and right now Sony and MS are riding on their install base.

    It only makes sense that MS have more Kinect games at this conference because kinect has increased sales for the 360 (at least in the US) and thus MS must try to keep the momentum going. What I have noticed is that the .89% that complain about things like E3 showings matter very little to the buying public.

  • Badassbab #33 9 months ago

    Not the best E3 ever. Still looking forward to some of those games.

  • Badassbab #34 9 months ago

    vizzini

    Infamous 2 is not graphically amazing. It's good but not amazing. It's blurry, full of sub pixel aliasing, lot's of distant shimmering and the explosions are very low res so when Cole runs through them he becomes a pixellated mess. Though the frame rate is much improved over Infamous 1, it's still prone to numerous slowdowns which I guess is to be expected in this kind of action packed game. All these idiots who thought this open world game was going to have Uncharted 2 graphics need to eat some humble pie. What Infamous 2 does really excel at is it's fun gameplay and fairly decent comic book esque story and also it's another PS3 exclusive.

    Also what constitutes a AAA game? Just because it's a first party IP doesn't make it AAA. In fact if we use Metacritic it stands at 85. More A or AA than AAA.
    Edited by 1 at 07/06/11 @ 20:13

  • vizzini #35 9 months ago

    Badassbab: Infamous 2 is not graphically amazing. It's good but not amazing.

    What other open world game has quite the fx with that quality of particle physics smoke(speed & density), with amount of on screen geometry, lighting fx, and naturally looking deformed builds? They take real artistic effort to avoid looking(all the same) like simple panel quads builds we see in so many average games this late in a generation.

    The animation also looks great and appropriately anti-aliased, the destructive scenery is very impresssive too; it looks fully physics modelled;but even if it was canned like most games(see tomb raider reboot), it looks so natural they've achieved the objective, and very few games (never mind open world ones) have.

    AAA is a production/budget term, or atleast that is the way I've always meant it.

  • thelion71 #36 9 months ago

    Bah! I am fed up with developers trying to spoon feed us turds dressed up like tacos. COD is dead!The game stopped being interesting one game ago. The only games that excite me this year are Dues Ex HR and Skyrim (although I am praying Bethesda don't make a complete hash of what should be THE pinnacle of their collective brains and talent.
    Where are the next gen titles we have been promised? Why oh why are suffering yet another COD?
    Edited by 1 at 07/06/11 @ 20:53

  • Badassbab #37 9 months ago

    Vizzini-

    Doesn't make it graphically amazing. Technically it's quite impressive but so are the Halo game engines. However you may try and flower up the explosions they are low res and I often find myself running through them revealing how low res they really are. The HDR lighting is excellent but they do seem to be a tad slow in keeping up with the actual speed of the motion that has taken place (like in GOWIII). The sub pixel aliasing and shimmering are a constant presence and while the destructive scenery is great, they are restricted to the likes of balconies. However my main reason why it's not graphically amazing can be found in my earlier post. Technically it's great but it's not eye candy in the same league as the mighty UC2, KZ3 and GOWIII. A bit unfair to compare I know but amazing graphics are amazing graphics. RDR though not doing as much looks much sharper and cleaner looking. Looking out into the distant horizon while riding on horseback as the sunset's looks much more beautiful than looking over the rooftop of IF2 in all it's all it's blurry, shimmering cityscape. MLAA is showing it's flaws. GOWIII was perfect for it because the game controlled the camera. In KZ3 it was also brilliant but the extra freedom allowed by the player showed off it's sub pixel aliasing issue. In IF2 where the player has even more freedom, the jaggies can be off putting since they appear much more often. Plus it can look blurry though not as bad as QAA.

  • vizzini #38 9 months ago

    @Badassbab

    Aliasing/jaggies/shimmering is inevitable in all games and cgi fx films if you look hard enough, just like low resolution textures are (which is a completely ambiguous/vague/unqualified statement of another form of undersampling). They are certainly not deal breakers for amazing graphics, especially in a fast paced open world game, in the way that tearing or unrealistically slow physics or too little dynamic lighting (all pre-baked shadows might be) or LDR light, or incorrect sRGB gamma texture correction might be(like in RDR on 360).

    Technically it's great but it's not eye candy in the same league as the mighty UC2, KZ3 and GOWIII.

    I own or have played(in GOW3 case) all those games, and Infamous 2's demo (which I've played through twice) is better in motion than any of them (graphically imo), which would make it amazing. The issue you are discussing sound like you sit too close to less than stellar quality LCD screen, or aren't playing the game and just searching for undersampling to critically comment like DF does. Mafia 2(4/10) looks and plays much better than RDR imo, with neither amazing on console.

    At 3metres from a 46” (30bit colour) panel while playing normally I'm not seeing those issues in my point of focus, and neither should you if concentrating on playing.

    Compared to AC Brotherhood(which looks great and of more interesting scenery), Infamous 2 looks near pixel perfect, with amazing fx, smooth and aesthetically pleasing engine cinematics and comic book story. The fact that infamous 2 has been made and available to buy, it will always look amazing compared to vapourware games that didn't get announced or made.

  • Savatage #39 9 months ago

    @vizzini - So you're willing to overlook aliasing, shimmering and low resolution textures of a PS3 exclusive, but the incorrect gamma of RDR (360 version only, of course) is a "deal breaker".

    "[You] aren't playing the game and just searching for undersampling to critically comment like DF does."

    Pot. Kettle. Black.

  • vizzini #40 9 months ago

    @Savatage
    What are the officially recognised texture resolutions that are "low" in width & height? And specifically in infamous 2? Sounds quite vague when asked like that don't you think?

    Crushed blacks on the other hand are caused by a design oversight using linear piece wise gamma correction in the 360 less of an issue on CRT PC/SD output, but problematic when retro-fitting hdmi, and is hardly me looking for problems while playing.

    It could have so easily been avoided in hardware design,stage and can still be avoided fully by wasting a few more GPU instructions per pixel, by using a quadratic's (Ax^2+Bx +C) coefficients to emulate a true sRGB gamma correction curve like in OpenGL and DX10. Aliasing and shimmering on the other hand are harder to isolate and treat for an unknown scene composition; especially in a game that operates at many different heights and with a user controlled viewpoint of vast distances. So I'm not overlooking them out of hand, but measured against the horsepower required to move them to high frequencies via x MSAA on any system(PC/Mac/360) trying to run infamous 2 with all the other eye candy fx.

  • Savatage #41 9 months ago

    vizzini - Well, thanks for the wall-o-technobabble. And the simple fact it's (once again) an issue that's more likely to affect the Microsoft machine has nothing to do with your outright condemnation of it, right?

    Call me crazy for asking such a question, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone else complain about the crushed blacks in the 360 version of RDR before. Which seems odd, given that you're "hardly looking for problems" and all.
    Edited by 1 at 08/06/11 @ 04:25

  • BuckEntropy #42 9 months ago

    ^Not to mention the fact the 'incorrect' gamma is apparently a deliberate "feature", not some hardware deficiency. As explained in the Digital Foundry vs. HDMI article.

    But again vizzini's never been one to let the facts get in the way of a good story has he?

  • thelion71 #43 9 months ago

    @pinnyrocks - you the man

    At least you are not taken in by all the same shit that the rest of these morons found so impressive! WTF are they doing trying to get one over on each other with regard to their in depth knowledge of texturing, aliasing and other such CRAP!
    For god sake you should all be bitching that gaming seems to have stood still for the last two years, not comparing knowledge of what colour black is?

  • vizzini #44 9 months ago

    @BuckEntropy

    I've told you before, it is not a deliberate feature; that is marketing spin on a specification failure.

    No one would want less contrast, as you can cheaply converge(crush) blacks or (oversaturate)whites on with source material on good TVs, but not the opposite on poor TVs. And they've corrected the hardware flaw in DX10/DX11, as documented in one of Valve's old Orange box technical pdfs.

    Microsoft don't produce TVs and are winging it with DirectX, learning as they go, but managed to fool people (with a TV's factory/presentation mode) into believing that makes a technically superior composition(by being a punchy image).

  • Rens11 #45 9 months ago

    @technic puppet

    Last I heard was xbox sales 55million vs kinect 10million so us core games are hardly the 1% minority you imply!

  • rojjer #46 9 months ago

    the PS3 conference was dominated by the move which, lets be frank here, is pretty crappy.. At least the kinect can be used for other things, particularly with the impending SDK that lets more than one be hooked up at a time (allegedly)

  • Otis_Inf #47 9 months ago

    There's no Digital Foundry vs. Sony nor Digital Foundry vs. Nintendo. IMHO this 'article' is just an advertorial. Which is pretty bad, as marketing poop offered as if it was real content leads to a low quality site.

  • Savatage #48 9 months ago

    vizzini, "that is marketing spin on a specification failure."

    And there you go again - more anti-Microsoft drivel that somehow only YOU know (and everyone else is, of course, covering up for some reason), thinly disguised by a barrage of confusing technical jargon. As I said before: strange behaviour for someone who is "hardly looking for problems".

    But keep it up. Maybe one day you'll be able to convince people that the PS3 was indeed, designed by God.

  • Badassbab #49 9 months ago

    Vizzini-

    One other technical issue I forgot to mention in IF2 is the very agressive LOD when looking at buildings or trees from the rooftop.

  • ro-bo #50 9 months ago

    Will we be getting Sony and Nintendo pieces as well?

  • Zaiz #51 9 months ago

    the good thing about this article is I didn't have to waste time watching Microsoft's E3 conference to remain 'meh' about it.

    Roll on Skyrim.

  • BuckEntropy #52 9 months ago

    @vizzini - Let's just say you're right, and it is a design flaw. Well shit happens, like what's also mentioned in that same article about the signal noise in the PS3 slim models. But the fact remains the gamma can be compensated easily enough should devs choose to do so, like with Criterion's games. And the opinion divide appears to work out in MS's favor, as subjectively people seem to like the look of 360 on their TVs just fine.

    So any way you look at it you're still just stirring up bullshit.

  • Calgon #53 9 months ago

    BuckEntropy, I stopped reading Vizzini's ill-conceived babel when it became apparent that he will latch on to things he doesnt yet fully understand, notice how his posts are worded like he's just joined up some 'cut and pastes' taken from some whitepapers with a lil bit of Vizzini spin tacked on what he thinks it all means(which is often not what it means at all) at the end. Yeah I remember him having to conceed Xenos' architecture is infact more advanced than RSX... eventually after about 15 lengthy posts trying to explain to him, its just not worth wasting your time on.

    He just doesnt understand Gamma Correction in regards to games, cross platform it can be problem yes(if the 360 is lead PS3 could end up with gamma that looks off and vice versa) and the hardwired gamma correction curve isnt as close to the real SRGB curve as it could be(none of them are 100percent accurate btw, nobody will have a gaming display that is even close either, this isnt photography we are dealing with) but if you know this from the beginning you will not get crushed blacks at the end because you will change your assets accordingly so for exclusives or 360 led titles theres no excuses for the gamma not being how the artists intentended it to be(plenty of examples to show crushed blacks and what not are a product of lazy development on 360, theres no excuse for it in this day and age).

    As for the rest of what he said... I didnt even waste my time reading it, he's just trying to convince himself more than anyone else IMO(thats what it looks like to me, the obsessive nature and consistency of his ramblings), that PS3 is on another level to 360 where it clearly isn't(the time for excuses is over, CELL can no longer be considered new or misunderstood, certainly not to the big names in the game, get over it and just enjoy your games ffs, it doesnt really matter that much, even though you are wrong sorry ;)..), ask any respected 3rd party guru(Carmack being arguably the most respected and experienced Game Engine Architects out there).

    In closing, its time you CELL worshipers got a new hobby, its old hat now, plus how can you care that much when theres PC games out now with a level of fidelity and richness that no console out now has a hope of replicating with any accuracy.
    Edited by 3 at 08/06/11 @ 18:30

  • sfp_noodle #54 9 months ago

    Why does this whole article sound like a damage limitation excercise? I was disappointed in both MS and Sony, but at least Sony delivered with the PSV. Nintendo's conference was all sorts of fail. It was confusing and had no clear direction. I just didn't get the message they were trying to get across.

    All of E3 was generally average this year, but because the Vita looks promising, especially after the attractive pricing I'd say Sony won it. Not a great victory considering how average all companies were, but a win based on the variety they offered. A brilliant launch line-up for the PSV and a competetive price. Not to mention the brilliant games on the PS3, both exclusive and third party arriving within the next 12 months.

  • vizzini #55 9 months ago

    @Calgon,

    You are glossing over the difference between (accepted) true h/w accelerated sRGB in GPUs and piecewise linear in Xenos/WinXp. Next you'll tell me exponent and linear fog are about the same.

    The better developers don't even use Xenos' piecewise sRGB (with workaround) now and emulate a truer curve because the human eye's ability to detect shades of dark & light is multiple times greater than our detection of colour, making it very important(like HDR v pseudo HDR)

    I remember us settling on the Xenos having tessellation, but not 128bit texture support like RSX, both about equal shader support opengl 2.1 ~= dx9c.

    RSX significantly less bandwidth for 10MB framebuffers; but better at actual 720p30fps triple buffered hard v-sync truer gamma.

    Triangle throughput of ~450M hard limited in the Xenos and still unconfirmed in the RSX by only vertex processing figures listed at 1.1billion, and debated where ~1.09billion polys (via optimised quads) or ~360million (via unoptimised polys using 3 independent vertices).

    But no one in the world is suggesting any single 6 Core Intel, AMD or symmetrical PPC chip matches the Cell for really world performance. The Cell is still a powerhouse CPU this late on.

  • Calgon #56 9 months ago

    Wrong again Vizzini...This just a repeat of last time we had a discussion you kept on and on that I was wrong and that it was me who needed to inform myself, also posting titbits which were irrelevant to your argument. Again gamma wont even be an issue for any decent dev and its NOT an indication of system power in any way shape or form, I cant believe you are trying to make out it is, it has no baring on performance and wont impact the artists intended vision when handled adequately, its just making you look like you are grasping at straws and highlights what little substance your belief that PS3 is on another level is based on... built your foundation on sand springs to mind.

    PS3s CELL(the one that has relevance here... ) has been bested by modern PC CPUs easily for gaming performance(anyone suggesting otherwise is out of their minds and loses all credibility), add to that the fact that CELLs main strength is actually done better on GPUs for the modern PC side of things(they do a much better job of it... which is we you see things that even with the ram PS3 would have no hope of achieving) and you start to sound like you dont have an Effing clue what you are talking about... again. ;)

    "Triangle throughput of ~450M hard limited in the Xenos and still unconfirmed in the RSX by only vertex processing figures listed at 1.1billion, and debated where ~1.09billion polys (via optimised quads) or ~360million (via unoptimised polys using 3 independent vertices). "

    As for this, Triangle "set up" Xenos: 500Million RSX: 250Million(from the similarities it shares with the G70 core and the fact that we have been given no reason to beleive different... oh but Sony didnt come out and say it so its unconfirmed, wonder why hmmm ;)... ), also I told you last time Xenos has the potential to trounce RSX in Verticle performance(think ALU allocation within a unified shader architecture... 1.1billion? try 6.0billion with all Xenos' 48ALUs and lets not forget texture and vertex fetch if we are moving away from raw theoretical limits ;)...), you've just used common marketing ploys GPU Makers have used for ages, strips, quads and meshes... both GPUs figure's can be manipulated by them in the exact same ways. You've also glossed over vertex and texture fetch and how the two differ in that regard, heres a hint Xenos comes out best there. Even without telling you that its pretty obvious looking at cross platform that 360 handles high poly environments better than PS3, but naturally you will point to the devs and everything but the RSXs ability to handle high poly counts as the reason for it. Also Xenos has something much more useful than any texture format you care to mention on RSX and thats CUSTOM texture formats if you had even bothered to look into that you'd know theres room to explore there for 360 devs(yet I think MS just dont invest much in first party anymore so thats a shame as they should lead the way as Sony first party do), combined with the tesselator, added to the fact that Xenos' ALUs process everything internally at FP32( or128-bit floating point before you roll that out as if PS3 is the only console that can manage it again) ... I know which I would rather have and its certainly not an aged texture format that RSX cant really do much with anyway.

    As for your tripple buffering at 30FPS "win" for the PS3, and FP16 HDR(which you forgot to trumpet) the only reason for this is all to do with the 10MB eDram framebuffer(nothing to do with what the ALUs can handle or how well), PS3 devs themselves would choose the 10mb eDrams benifits over tripple buffering and FP16 HDR(which isnt even noticably better than 360s FP10 if handled right... some devs have shown this already). Its quite simple theres too many benifits for fitting the framebuffer into the edram than doing it any other way, they arent really needed if the engine itself is up to scratch, so for exclusives or 360 led games its a none issue.

    Really Vizzini you've never convinced me you are an expert in any area, not everthing you write is BS but that could easily be cut and paste and it doesnt always mean you understand it. I just find you a little desperate to impress and like I said eager to convince yourself you know the PS3 is significantly more powerful, Im pretty sure it isnt myself and I beleive I know what Im talking about more than you do personally so theres not much more to say to each other.
    Edited by 4 at 08/06/11 @ 22:15

  • lagoonalight #57 9 months ago

    From what I can see of your posts as well Calgon you have no idea what you are talking about, or in the least you certainly are not technician or engineer of any merit. Yer trying to look like a PS3/360 vet yet you don't have the knowledge nor the information to back it up. Everything you say is half baked simple speak designed to make the 360 sound better. Well, then where are these amazing games. I don't really have anything against the 360 but RDR is probably still the showcase game for the 360 and it does look damn fine. But the fact is that it doesn't come anywhere near the likes of U2 or GOW3. Your assertion that the PS3 doesn't handle high poly environs is frankly preposterous. How and the hell can you back that claim up? You can't because it is utterly false.

    "PS3 devs themselves would choose the 10mb eDrams benifits over tripple buffering and FP16 HDR"

    I am not sure how you think you qualify in any area of expertise related to the PS3 to make this comment. And please the excuse that Microsoft doesn't invest is timeworn, it's a way out for you. Again, we have multiple exclusives pushed to the metal that are sub HD. You don't make any sense. If the Xenos was so powerful we would have seen great things from it. I'll give you the fact that it seems to work well with games like Dirt but in no way is there really that much of a difference between the two chips. In a few instances the 360 gains 4xMSAA which is nice. In many others it suffers because of the lack of a great CPU and edram constraints. In the end the PS3 is simply more powerful.

    And the fact is the 360 gamma is screwed as it has made gamers actually think that crushed blacks and whites are better. In reality it is the display you are viewing the image on that leads to washed out blacks. The PS3 has been perfect from the get go and needs no ridiculous calibration. I don't want to sound like I am knocking the 360 too much as I really don't care what it does better. The simply fact is that it's the lesser machine. Now if you had bluray, 20MB on the edram, and a slightly more powerful CPU we might be talking a different story. But we are not. And stop with all this garbage about how you prefer this and that. Dude, you are not coding for either machine.
    Edited by 1 at 09/06/11 @ 06:41

  • BuckEntropy #58 9 months ago

    @lagoonalight - "But the fact is that it doesn't come anywhere near the likes of U2 or GOW3. Your assertion that the PS3 doesn't handle high poly environs is frankly preposterous. How and the hell can you back that claim up? You can't because it is utterly false.

    And please the excuse that Microsoft doesn't invest is timeworn, it's a way out for you. Again, we have multiple exclusives pushed to the metal that are sub HD. You don't make any sense. If the Xenos was so powerful we would have seen great things from it.

    In the end the PS3 is simply more powerful.

    I don't want to sound like I am knocking the 360 too much as I really don't care what it does better. The simply fact is that it's the lesser machine."

    Umm, I don't see any objective support for that "simply fact?".

    FIVE GAMES... you should talk about timeworn excuses; 100% of the 'argument' that PS3 is more powerful - except for Sony subjects like yourself it's not merely more powerful but actually outclassing the 360 - is based on FIVE GAMES that supposedly "look better".

    Killzone 2 and 3, God of War 3, and Uncharted 2 and 3. All of which are as linear as it gets, all of which exploit the hell out of BluRay content streaming. So yeah, PS3... "It only does linear streaming". There ya go, in that realm PS3 is unquestionably 'more powerful'.

    It's only zealots like you lagoonalight that keep this insane dialog going. It's not people like myself or Calgon that go around calling one system absolutely superior or inferior, that kind of bullshit only comes from those like you and vizzini. Which is why, as always, you're only betraying your own hypocrisy here. Does Calgon ever say that Xenos is SO powerful? Nope he only highlights it's advantages relative to the RSX. And we have seen (relatively) great things from it, in Halo Reach, Alan Wake, Bayonetta, Banjo Kazooie, even the Forza games and of course RDR and the upcoming Gears 3.

    A couple of those are "sub-HD", because there are clear tradeoffs involving the eDRAM. Yet in both cases there's technically no comparison or contest with anything on PS3, so it's clearly a worthy tradeoff. It's a subjective myth that 360 exclusives don't "look better", they just have different distinctions. But such a purely subjective assertion does not qualify as any kind of evidence in a debate of technical performance merits anyway.

    So as always I and (I believe) Calgon are just on the side of balance here, and you're only seeing some extremist attitude as a projection of your own distorted dogma.

  • Noble6 #59 9 months ago

    Well done MS. I was very happy with your showing.

  • Noble6 #60 9 months ago

    Why are the lot of you arguing about the technical specs of two out-dated consoles. Just be thankful we're still getting good games. I play CoD and Halo on my 360. PS3 does Killzone and Resistance. They'e both good consoles. Both, Sony and MS had a good showing this year IMO.

  • BuckEntropy #61 9 months ago

    How can 360 and PS3 be "outdated consoles"? They're the two current HD consoles?

    Or if you're a PC snob why are *you* even chiming in on an ARGUMENT ABOUT CONSOLES!

  • vizzini #62 9 months ago

    Noble6: Well done MS. I was very happy with your showing.

    Not being facetious, but what exactly are you looking forward to? Just interested to know.

    But yes, quite insane how the thread got completely derailed by me looking forward to (graphically amazing imo) Infamous 2 on Friday as a mark of a show delivering something actually to play now(and that was then critiqued & compared to mediocre imo RDR by someone who didn't know about contrast).

    Had Microsoft announced a new update to Virtua Fighter 5 without Kinect support(even if multi platform), I would have been impressed by their show, but beyond Halo4/Gears3, which have had a few outings already this gen, to justify an updated multi-player like CoD, I don't know what should have impressed me(as a person interested mostly in single player, karting and fighting games).

    Edit:
    VVV
    I would buy another 360 for the right game/s, maybe not another brand new one, but I have no issue buying any console for great games I an't get elsewhere.
    Edited by 1 at 09/06/11 @ 14:26

  • BuckEntropy #63 9 months ago

    As a person who doesn't even have a 360 you wont be able to play anything at MS's show now regardless...

    And yes, your ridiculous and inappropriate insertion of Infamous 2 - a sequel that's in in no way news - into this subject derailed the comments I agree. But I'm sure that wont stop you trolling in just the same fashion many more times. So what's your point?

  • Badassbab #64 9 months ago

    Vizzini-

    Current Metacritic scores-

    IF2- 84
    RDR- 95 on 360 and PS3

    Go figure.
    Edited by 2 at 09/06/11 @ 19:05

  • Badassbab #65 9 months ago

    Had Microsoft announced a new update to Virtua Fighter 5 without Kinect support(even if multi platform), I would have been impressed by their show,

    Errr say what?

  • vizzini #66 9 months ago

    @badassbab

    Street Fighter IV in arcades gets updated and is available throughout the world; and Capcom still sensibly bring those improvements to consoles.
    Virtua Fighter 5 Revision B & Revision C are very old now compared to Virtua Fighter 5R & 5Final Showdown revisions (exclusive to Japanese arcades). So an announce that Microsoft or Sony got Sega Japan to get AM2's arcade work transferred to console would have been the single most important announcement for me(& probably everyone a virtuafighter.com) having waited multiple E3s and Tokyo game shows with no news.
    Edited by 1 at 11/06/11 @ 12:48

  • BuckEntropy #67 9 months ago

    So... in other words vizzini's just saying that he's not impressed by anything that doesn't directly affect his own gaming. Which again since he does not nor will never own an XBOX (even if someone gave him one I imagine him burning it in ritual) it is literally impossible for anything MS reveals to impress him. So he's trolling as ever.

    And speaking of trolls: so yeah Trent_Steel, what's up there buddy? Did you get what you expected from the DF vs Sony article? Let's see what we got: Richard has always had nothing but the highest praise for Uncharted 2, and he gushed over UC3; there's been very positive articles on the NGP already, and he only further props the Vita; there's been many features devoted to stereoscopic gaming and now he calls the affordable PS3 3DTV a "master stroke". ?

    Hell I'm even surprised not to see any whining over imagined "snarky comments" yet...

    I mean gosh, who could have seen that one coming??? I'm guessing it's mostly only you and the other assholes who showed their mass approval for your snarky and blatant trolling there. Since really, only card carrying members of the Sony Cabal could be just that dense and despicable!!!
    Edited by 1 at 11/06/11 @ 14:47

  • dadada_999 #68 9 months ago

    wow i was going to write something about the E3 press conference before i turned the page and found a massive console flame war going on with fanboys posting ridiculously large yawn-fest posts....Think i will forget it now...