[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

Battlefield 3/edram

Different issue - the 4RTs+ depth is well within 20MB. 704 had to do with general perf (plus a bit of savings for GDDR3 mem).

[Ruskie]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

There's a difference between deferred lighting or light pre-pass which for example Rockstar games do, and fully deferred rendering like Crysis 2/3 and Battlefield 3 or Trials. None of those are running on a full 1280x720p buffer on the X360 because of the limited EDRAM size.

Edit: Eurogamer has a tech interview on Reach where they mention using three full sized buffers; 1152*720 or 1280*704 is the largest resolution where you can fit all three of these into the EDRAM's 10 MB size.

The games you mention work with only 2 full sized buffers, that's how they can afford full 720p frames.

Ah...there is one fully deferred and 720p, with 2xMSAA. NFS from Criterion.

I don't mind if they dropped deferred for Halo 4. Reach (please don't kill me guys) never looked pleasing to my eyes as far as lighting goes. Interiors looked a bit flat, and outside they didn't really need bunch of light sources (neither they had) like R* needs with their games for example. So it never seemed like they took advantage of deferred. Also, using deferred lighting they needed to process geometry twice. Will be interesting to see comparison of the results between Reach and Halo 4 if 343i went with forward renderer.

The way I understand it, 343i took Halo 3 engine and went in their direction, while Bungie build on that and went in other. Will be hard to weight pros and cons, art direction, asset quality and production values play big part in visuals.

[Acert93]

Good or Bad, this definitely looks like a Halo game.

[AlStrong]

Wonder if the QTEs are the new load hiding. >_>

[NRP]

Seems like the plasma grenade explosions have been toned down. They were spectacular in Reach. In that video, not so much.

[Laa-Yosh]

Originally Posted by AlStrong

Different issue - the 4RTs+ depth is well within 20MB.

Huhh? X360 has 10MB EDRAM, that won't fit the render targets at 720p.

1280 * 720 * 4bytes * 3buffers = 11MB

[Ruskie]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

Huhh? X360 has 10MB EDRAM, that won't fit the render targets at 720p.

1280 * 720 * 4bytes * 3buffers = 11MB

Tiling?

[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

Huhh? X360 has 10MB EDRAM, that won't fit the render targets at 720p.

1280 * 720 * 4bytes * 3buffers = 11MB

Your original point was that there were no games @ 720p with the fat G-Buffer because of eDRAM.

None of those are running on a full 1280x720p buffer on the X360 because of the limited EDRAM size.

In this case, the reason it's not 720p as opposed to 704p is unrelated to the eDRAM amount. Whether it's 704p or 720p, it still has to tile because it's well above the 10MB limit. Both resolutions are still under 2 tiles. My point was that it's 704p for performance reasons whilst saving a bit of memory, and not because of the eDRAM. (Coincidentally, it's also good for their chosen TBDS 32x32 sub-tiles, and simultaneously is better suited to the memory layout restrictions for RSX)

From what I understand they shipped the game without the dynamic radiosity (GBuffer3), so yes, they are down to 3RTs, but there's also depth during the G-buffer pass, so that's still 4*(1280*704*4Bpp) -> 13.75MiB (vs 14.06MiB). Reducing the res to 704 doesn't solve eDRAM space.

Even if it's 2RTs + depth, 1280x704 is still going to give you 10.31MiB. They'd have to drop down to 1280x680 to get under (like Trials HD, IIRC) - of course, they were more performance sensitive, so that makes sense.

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[(((interference)))]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

There's a difference between deferred lighting or light pre-pass which for example Rockstar games do, and fully deferred rendering like Crysis 2/3 and Battlefield 3 or Trials. None of those are running on a full 1280x720p buffer on the X360 because of the limited EDRAM size.
.

Reach used light prepass as well though?
AFAIK Battlefield 3 is the only fully deffered renderer in a 360 boxed title.

[Aeoniss]

Originally Posted by Acert93

Good or Bad, this definitely looks like a Halo game.

In general the explosions look toned down..

[Rangers]

Originally Posted by Aeoniss

Borin's syndrome. In what can only be the most retarded plot device ever conjured up to 'save' a popular character who clearly died on screen lol.

Metal Gear Solid series does exist. "lol".

[dragonelite]

New Pictures on gaf.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...&postcount=916

New zombie design

[AlStrong]

Friendly.

Was really curious about what they might look like under Kenneth's reign.

[Reiko]

Originally Posted by AlStrong

Friendly.

Was really curious about what they might look like under Kenneth's reign.

The Cyberdemon will be pleased


I remember the models for Reach being high poly... But this is really something else...

[AlStrong]

Can't wait to see how they approach next-gen. (H4 BC with high res rendering would be nice too for starters *ahem*)

It's really quite a shame (in general) when console exclusives will never make it to PC.

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http://i.imgur.com/eW8xx.jpg

I guess that confirms custom models for co-op campaign players (besides Chief).

[Laa-Yosh]

This is from the multiplayer, the Flood won't appear in the single player campaign though. At least for now, they should make a comeback eventually

And yeah, I've been just thinking about how much 343i might be architecting H4's engine with the next Xbox in mind...

[AlStrong]

Displacement maps? Gimme back the grunt spiny limbs. :3
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http://i.imgur.com/YRnnV.jpg poor elite XD

[Laa-Yosh]

Hmm, what is that Grunt lit by, isn't it the plasma shot?

[Laa-Yosh]

Originally Posted by AlStrong

Displacement maps? Gimme back the grunt spiny limbs. :3

I'm not sure about the usefulness of displacement mapping, people seem to generally believe these current models to have far more polygons than the actual value. In fact looking at just these screenshots it seems that higher AA quality would contribute a lot more to the visuals, unless they moved the cameras twice as close to the characters.

I mean just look at the image with Chief, Lasky and the female Spartan, what element would you improve first - and if it was using only FXAA and not the current oversampling?


So with regards to next gen, I was thinking more about the lighting... but if H4 isn't deferred than it'd involve a lot of significant rewrites to reintroduce this approach...

[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

Hmm, what is that Grunt lit by, isn't it the plasma shot?

Probably a plasma grenade.

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

I'm not sure about the usefulness of displacement mapping, people seem to generally believe these current models to have far more polygons than the actual value. In fact looking at just these screenshots it seems that higher AA quality would contribute a lot more to the visuals, unless they moved the cameras twice as close to the characters.

I mean just look at the image with Chief, Lasky and the female Spartan, what element would you improve first - and if it was using only FXAA and not the current oversampling?

So with regards to next gen, I was thinking more about the lighting... but if H4 isn't deferred than it'd involve a lot of significant rewrites to reintroduce this approach...

mm.. fair enough. I was thinking they could jack up the skin rendering too.

At least for the Flood, I was thinking more in terms of next-gen morph targets (for transformation & infection). They tried that with Halo 3, but I was wondering about how they would do that with more advanced tessellation techniques available (there's that word again :3). Generally though, I was thinking the grunts, jackals, and Flood that could use more poly's for organic details.



edit:
Sure, Human/Elite armours are already hitting diminishing returns for what you'd see during gameplay.

[Reiko]

The art in Halo 4 just gives the impression of higher polys...



Reach was no slouch. But geez... Look at the fidelity on The Flood.

Actually AlStrong... I wonder how dynamic mutations for The Flood would look next gen.

[Laa-Yosh]

Funnily enough, it could easily be that the Reach characters use higher polygon counts and more texture space... that's how far efficiency and art direction can go on a limited system.

[AlStrong]

The grunt comparisons had me convinced of that.

[antwan]

I really like the 'lens flare' like effect (as seen also in Dead Space 1 I think). The shadows still 'pop in' (a character moves into a lit area and the shadow gradually fades in. Also the number of lights, or the lights in general from explosions and weapons look toned down, numbers as well as intensity and duration.

But it gives a really clean image, plus you can see they really improved the shadow draw distance.
Even without the epic halo music, this already looks theatrical, so I believe we are all in for a treat

[egoless]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

Funnily enough, it could easily be that the Reach characters use higher polygon counts and more texture space... that's how far efficiency and art direction can go on a limited system.

That's what a handful tried to say when H3 sparked laser focus on pixel counting even though rez reduction is nothing new, and this gen's dismissal of all things not checkbox resolutions. Now it's easy to see the difference art makes in the halo series instead of another attempt to quantify perspective quality.

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

Hmm, what is that Grunt lit by, isn't it the plasma shot?

Thanks for this. So it's there, just subtle in the released footage.