Digital Foundry Face-Off @ Performance Analysis (Latest: DriveClub Preview 2)

[ethomaz]

Performance Analysis: Daylight on PS4 and PC

Before we tackle PS4 performance, there are a few obvious cutbacks on the visual front compared to PC. First up, texture filtering is noticeably worse on the Sony platform, missing out on the anisotropic filtering seen on PC. It's unusual to see a well-lit floor, but by comparison details appear as a blurred smudge on the distance for the console version. Thankfully, actual texture quality is largely like-for-like between the two versions (there's no texture quality toggle on PC) - and the same goes for alpha buffers used for fire or flare smoke.

But the PC has a few other atmospheric tricks up its sleeve including a bokeh depth-of-field effect and cloth physics for rags strewn across trolleys, or ripped ward curtains. These moving elements add hugely to the ambience of each area, and their absence leaves the PS4 version feeling somewhat static in comparison.

Speaking of performance, despite missing out on many perks, the PS4 still struggles to even lock down 30fps at points. In the very first hub area we get easily repeatable stutters to 0fps, resulting from auto-saving and background level streaming

PC performance is hardly better. Slotted into a test rig equipped with an Intel i7-3770K processor clocked at 4.3GHz per core, with 16GB of DDR3 RAM, a lower-end card like the HD 7790 gives very poor returns. In fact, we get a permanent 20fps reading from the card while playing at full 1080p with all settings maxed out and v-sync active, which is hard to believe given the visual quality is hardly cutting-edge.

Overall, it's clear that Daylight isn't a smooth experience for either PS4 or higher-end PCs, nor one which comes close to the splendour of the Unreal Engine 4's effects-heavy Elemental demo. Frame-rates are disappointingly low in places given how little is actually being rendered on-screen, pointing towards a poorly optimised game rather than an inherently sluggish engine.

Summary

PS4
1080p@30fps
Post-processing AA
Big framerate issues
Little to no AF
Missing some effects

[Dr. Pezus]

"PC performance is hardly better. Slotted into a test rig equipped with an Intel i7-3770K processor clocked at 4.3GHz per core, with 16GB of DDR3 RAM, a lower-end card like the HD 7790 gives very poor returns. In fact, we get a permanent 20fps reading from the card while playing at full 1080p with all settings maxed out and v-sync active, which is hard to believe given the visual quality is hardly cutting-edge."

Poorly optimised

[ethomaz]

"PC performance is hardly better. Slotted into a test rig equipped with an Intel i7-3770K processor clocked at 4.3GHz per core, with 16GB of DDR3 RAM, a lower-end card like the HD 7790 gives very poor returns. In fact, we get a permanent 20fps reading from the card while playing at full 1080p with all settings maxed out and v-sync active, which is hard to believe given the visual quality is hardly cutting-edge."

Poorly optimised

This game was a mess in performance terms lol

[Xevross]

This game was a mess in performance terms lol

Yet they didn't want to delay any further. Its great on PS4 so I'm happy

[ethomaz]

I will updade later the Watch Dog entry with the PS3 info from the new face off released today

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-watch-dogs-ps3-vs-ps4

[ethomaz]

Now I read the PS3 face off... what a fudgy mess... 20fps? Really?

[ethomaz]

PS3 summary added.

Watch Dogs PS3: has last-gen hardware had its day? (Thanks Vashetti@GAF)

Built from the ground up with the new generation of gaming hardware in mind, it's easy to forget that Ubisoft Montreal's new open-world cyber-thriller is actually a cross-generational release, also available for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Multi-platform titles are necessarily built with scalability in mind - it's essential for the PC gaming market - but the question we're interested in today is whether Watch Dogs is a sign that we're finally at breaking point. Should last-gen hardware be left behind by AAA developers? Or does less-capable hardware still offers a viable alternative?

To get to the heart of the matter, we have the PS3 version to compare with Watch Dogs' PlayStation 4 release, the technical strengths of which we've already covered in detail. The Disrupt engine benefits from the newer Sony console's processing power to handle the AI and physics elements of a vast Chicago city sandbox - all delivered at 1600x900 and backed by a stable 30fps. Meanwhile, on PS3 it's fair to say the core mechanics hold together faithfully enough, with all abilities, missions and areas transferring unscathed, but the gloss over the top is significantly pared back and the resulting visuals can be startlingly different at times.

In terms of the base image, PS3 pushes out a native resolution of around 1152x648, reinforced by what appears to be an FXAA solution for edge treatment - the weakest option on PC. But as you can see from our head-to-head video below (and the Watch Dogs PS3 vs PS4 comparison gallery), this is far from the biggest issue with the game's visual make-up.

The biggest step backwards is easily in the lighting department. The opening baseball stadium mission is a great example, with individual spotlights on PS4 illuminating each room with a strong bloom effect. On PS3, this is noticeably pared back and most light sources are stripped out completely from the scene - making for a much darker, dimmer image. It's an unfortunate loss and one that sticks out most vividly in our cross-gen comparison gallery.

As for the shadows themselves - there's no PC preset equivalent to what the PS3 is using. Instead, we have a percentage-closer filtering (PCF) method at play, also recently seen in the PS3 edition of Metal Gear Rising. It's a solution that typically gets use on the platform as an alternative to the dithered shadows on 360 counterparts, delivering sharper shadow outlines to outdoor buildings, trees and characters. It looks stark and lacks subtlety, and while it avoids the dithering artefacts of the PS4 shadows, it comes at the cost of heavy aliasing when viewed up close.

Both textures and shadows are affected by a heavy filtering cascade too, noticeably creeping along the ground just a few paces ahead of Aiden Pearce. Curiously, actual texture resolution is a mixture of PC presets, based on location. At our initial hideout on PS3, for example, the detail on the wall-projected map of Chicago matches the quality of the PC's high settings. However, outdoors pavements and fences fall closer to the garish medium setting - a significant downgrade from PS4.

Unfortunately, even with all these nips and tucks Watch Dogs simply doesn't run well on the PS3. It's a constant tussle for 30fps that rarely resolves itself successfully, and instead the game tends to flatten out at the 20fps line during our tests. This makes for some truly choppy visual feedback that makes handling cars in rapid pursuits feel off-kilter.

Summary

PS3

• 1152x648p @ 30fps


• FXAA, heavily aliasing


• Removed most light sources, darker, dimmer image


• Worst shadows quality


• Terrible framerate (rarely 30fps, down to 20fps)


• Bad textures

[Dr. Pezus]

Yep, bad version as expected. Terrible compared to GTAV...just wow.

[Raven]

Sad thing is it's actually a good game in general but it will forever be remembered as Ubisoft's big failure to produce a game on GTA's level and one which they marketed as the next big thing for the genre. I'm honestly expecting sales to plummet soon. Once GTA V gets officially announced as being ported to current gen Watch Dogs will be forgotten.

[Dr. Pezus]

Sad thing is it's actually a good game in general but it will forever be remembered as Ubisoft's big failure to produce a game on GTA's level and one which they marketed as the next big thing for the genre. I'm honestly expecting sales to plummet soon. Once GTA V gets officially announced as being ported to current gen Watch Dogs will be forgotten.

But you only need 2 months to stay in LC ;o

[ethomaz]

Performance Analysis: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Thanks Byron Bluth@GAF)

The Xbox One game has clear disadvantages against the PlayStation 4 release that we'll explore in a moment, but they're best described as annoyances as opposed to anything genuinely game-breaking.

Beenox has at least handed in a native 1080p presentation on both Xbox One and PS4, as promised. This is backed up by what appears to be standard post-processing anti-aliasing, seemingly identical between the two games.

The most immediately noticeable difference between the two platforms is the gamma level - it seems to be excessively skewed on Xbox One, resulting in clear black crush, especially impactful in night-time scenes, where PS4 resolves detail in a much more agreeable manner. Other differences are thin on the ground - there are some examples of textures shunted across and warped where they shouldn't be on Xbox One, and we also see a heavier/blurrier depth-of-field implementation, but these things aren't very noticeable and don't impact on the enjoyment of the game

While 1080p30 is the target, the PS4 release does the best job of sustaining that performance level. There are a few dropped frames, but virtually nothing impedes the flow of the gameplay. It's a different story on Xbox One, where we see the implementation of an adaptive v-sync - the game caps frame-rate at 30fps just like the PS4 version, but unlike the Sony platform, frame render time often slips over budget. At this point, the game flips the framebuffer as soon as the next image is ready, while the console scans out to the display, causing screen-tear.

On top of the crushed colour range, it's the tearing that's the key factor of differentiation between the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game. It's a little annoying, manifesting mostly as a distracting wobble on-screen, making the experience less solid than the same title running on the Sony console.

Summary

PS4

• 1920x1080p @ 30fps


• Standard post-processing anti-aliasing with some evidents jaggies


• Solid framerate

Xbox One

• 1920x1080p @ 30fps


• Standard post-processing anti-aliasing with some evidents jaggies


• Framerate drops with a lot of screen-tearing


• Wrong gamma / black crush


• Some shunted across and warped textures


• heavier/blurrier depth-of-field implementation

[ethomaz]

Face-Off: Trials Fusion (Thanks ethomaz@VizionEck)

The Trials series has always had convincing physics, dynamic lighting, a bullish commitment to 60fps and material effects impacting control across the environment, and despite splitting its focus across more platforms we find Trials Fusion is much the same. It still uses a 2D plane for gameplay while flexing its technical might with outlandish, detailed 3D backdrops, and thankfully the team knows when to hold back eye candy for the sake of playability.

This goes for resolution, too, where the Xbox One version has made waves for a last-minute switch in specification. Inspecting captures before and after the patch, we're able to confirm the default resolution is 1408x800, rising impressively to 1600x900 post-patch to achieve a 30% increase in pixels. This still falls short of matching PS4 running at 1920x1080 (and of course PC running at that and more), but produces a marked boost in clarity that softens the blow.

Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 release operates at 1024x608 to produce the most garish stair-stepping artefacts of the bunch on the opening tutorial levels. Pixel crawl is also evident on Xbox One for bright, interior areas with bold lines - even with post-processing AA lavished over the top, matching the PC's high-quality implementation of FXAA3 - but the game's many outdoor stages avoid this problem, as you can see in our zoomer comparison showcasing the Xbox One version at 800p and 900p alongside the PS4 and 360 releases.

In summary, the actual core assets are largely identical between PS4 and Xbox One, with most visual facets falling in line with the PC release on ultra settings. Ambient occlusion makes the cut for console, as do maximum-quality water shaders. Unfortunately we do see alpha details reined in on these newer systems, and this is easy to spot given the prevalence of fire and explosions, which look much crisper on PC where alpha can run free.

The console releases also struggle with asset draw speed. Much like its predecessor, Trials Fusion uses a virtual texturing system, similar to id Software's Rage, which involves wrapping the world's geometry in one single giant texture and then streaming in segments as you drive to the right. This setup is ideal for Trials, where the user's viewpoint is usually predictable, and the results are stunning for an early digital release on uncharted next-gen hardware. Texture quality and shadowing are largely identical across PC and next-gen, and from rocky mountain descents to fluid neon-tinged loops, the visual variety in Fusion is a welcome continuation of the trend started by 2009's Trials Evolution. However, we do notice PS4 and Xbox One struggling to stream segments of the world fast enough from their hard disks, resulting in some pop-in.

In all the excitement about PC and next-gen, we shouldn't forget the Xbox 360 version. Predictably we see lower-quality settings employed across the board on 360, whether it's normal maps or shader effects, while ambient occlusion is gone entirely. The world appears plainer and brighter as a result, with shadows lost in several areas and even a bit of geometry, but with all that said, these are largely superficial changes, and the terrain in the foreground is essentially identical to PS4 and Xbox One. The only sore spot is a slightly narrower field of view, which can impact reaction times when accelerating quickly, but most players won't notice this.

In our experience, the 360 and Xbox One versions suffer from more tearing in these isolated spots. The PS4 typically introduces one-off tears near the top when challenged, unlike the multiple consecutive tears we catch on the Microsoft platforms. We saw less tearing with the Xbox One version unpatched at 800p, although the difference is very slight indeed, and RedLynx obviously felt the trade-off was worth it considering the broad image quality boost - as do we. One slight issue is that v-sync takes a few moments to re-engage when tears appear, leading to the odd burst of excess frames as the 60fps cap falls off, but this doesn't impact playability.

Additional

Tech Interview: Trials Fusion

Summary

PS4

• 1920x1080p @ 60fps


• Solid framerate


• Scrreen tearing under heavy load


• Pop up textures (SSD make it better)


• Low level of ambient occlusion (AO) compared with PC


• alpha details reined compared with PC

Xbox One

• 1600x900p @ 60fps


• FXAA3


• Solid framerate


• Scrreen tearing under heavy load


• Pop up textures


• Low level of ambient occlusion (AO) compared with PC


• alpha details reined compared with PC

Xbox 360

• 1024x608p @ 60fps


• Solid framerate


• Scrreen tearing under heavy load


• Pop up textures


• No ambient occlusion (AO)


• Lower-quality in almost everything

[ethomaz]

Face-Off: Lego The Hobbit (Thanks ethomaz@VizionEck)

Despite the change in art style, the basic rendering set-up remains unchanged from Lego The Movie. The PS4 game offers up a 1920x1280 image vertically super-sampled down to 1080p, providing extra anti-aliasing in the process, while Xbox One operates natively in 1080p and PC can do that and more. All three utilise similar forms of post-process anti-aliasing, although coverage seems to be a tad spottier on the PC in certain areas.

Once again it's up to the PC version to provide the main differences, although as with recent next-gen Lego titles, it's not always for the positive reasons you might anticipate. In fact, there are a number of effects that either appear to be pared back or removed on PC. The reasons for this aren't always clear, but one cause could be the developers supporting older GPUs that predate the latest DirectX 11 feature-set, with newer effects hacked in to work using an older API and running into problems as a result. (The minimum requirements show support for DX10, along with the Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS or ATI Radeon X1950 Pro graphics cards.) Either way, it means that PC owners see some small but curious graphical differences.

So, it's perhaps unsurprising that once again we find camera and object blur are dialled back, while screen-space ambient occlusion seems to be entirely absent. Interestingly, checking the game's 'pcconfig.txt' file shows that SSAO is enabled by default, even though there is little evidence to suggest it in practice. Some ambient occlusion is baked onto the textures, though, which means that environments still benefit from a little indirect shadowing and the extra depth this provides.

Curiously, shadows are rendered in a lower resolution than on consoles too, and there are also a few instances where certain details appear scaled back on the PC - such as the reduction in the level of grass located in a few locations. However, if we look more closely it seems as though the grass has simply sunk into the ground, leading some of the small shoots to disappear, which seems like a rendering or geometry error more than a deliberate reduction.

Slightly lower-quality level-of-detail models are also used for the characters. Up close the smooth contours of the Lego Minifigures appear a little blocky around their claw-like hands compared to PS4 and Xbox One, while the textures feature UV mapping errors where the 2D artwork isn't wrapped across the geometry correctly.

From a technical standpoint, there isn't much to shout about or choose between across the PC, PS4 and Xbox One versions, although PS4 has the smallest of leads in image quality if you're determined to be picky, while the PC version's 60fps refresh makes for the best-possible gameplay experience - despite a few glitches and toned-down effects that feel out of place in what could easily be the flagship version of the game.

Summary

PS4

• 1920x1280p @ 30fps (super-sampled down to 1080p)


• Post-process anti-aliasing


• Solid framerate

Xbox One

• 1920x1080p @ 30fps


• Post-process anti-aliasing


• Solid framerate

[Mmm_fish_tacos]

Good job with this thread ethomaz. This will make a good reference for later.

[ethomaz]

Good job with this thread ethomaz. This will make a good reference for later.

I will list all articles since "Next-gen" start... so I have a lot of work until back to November

I'm planning two new thread too... one for PAL Chartz and other for NPD.