The IQGamer Crysis 2 demo analysis is on its way. But in the meantime I suggest you take a look at the video below. It’s a rather impressive demonstration of global illumination using the CryEngine 3 – using multiple light bounces rather than just one!
All the shadows and lighting, along with the actual rendering is being performed in real time. Although there is no in-direct shadowing taking place, there are other neat touches, such as diffuse shadows and HDR. You can also get a brief glance of CryEngine 3’s day/night lighting cycle.
Similar things can be done using pre-backed alternatives, which are obviously static – not great for scenes with noticeable changes in the lighting cycle - but cost far less, especially if baked directly onto textures themselves. Unreal Engine 3’s Lightmass solution springs to mind. It’s good alternative for games which feature a fixed sun position, relying on many local, dynamic lights to create a similar effect.
Crysis 2 uses a single bounce form of real-time global illumination: it's clearly visible in the Xbox 360 demo. But more on that shortly.
Monday, 31 January 2011
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Tech Analysis: Little Big Planet 2 (PS3)
Little Big Planet was a game that really got those creative juices flowing. On the surface it was a simple, physics-based platformer. But under the hood it became apparent that it was so much more. The tools given to create and design your own levels could be used in such a way that went well beyond the platform confines Media Molecule had envisioned for the title. And for LBP2, things have been taken a step further, with a complete set of tools designed to allow for just that: building your own creation that bypasses platforming altogether.
Of course, outside of the successes such unique custom content has found - and indeed there are millions of user-created downloads to be hand - the engine powering the game was always there to facilitate a natural realism, bound by real-world properties, and developed to augment the title’s physics-based approach. To that end, the original LBP featured both a realistic lighting and shadowing system, even emulating light passing through dense objects, along with a range of impressive, though perhaps restrained, visual effects.
For LBP2, Media Molecule have gone back and re-written most of their original engine, expanding on various graphical concepts simply toyed with in the first game, to delivering a fully-realised implementation here. This sequel incorporates comprehensive changes to nearly every part of the engine: lighting and shadowing for one, anti-aliasing and core rendering make-up to name but two more. All these tweaks and upgrades have not only made for an impressively organic visual look, but are also far more accurate in nature.
Take the baseline framebuffer for a second. LBP2 renders in 720p, like the original, but ditches the standard 2xMSAA (multi-sampling anti-aliasing) for Sony’s custom MLAA (morphological anti-aliasing) solution instead. The end result is a clean and sharp look, with incredibly smooth edges, free from most obvious edge shimmering and other such artefacts. Here, we see up to 16x MSAA on some surfaces in-line with the level of edge-smoothing this technique regularly provides, along with 4x and 8x on other smaller pieces of geometry.
The only aliasing that we can frequently notice on some areas, appears to be from various sub-pixel edges. There are also examples of what we like to call ‘soft’ edge shimmering on a few AA’d edges at certain angles. Although, most have competently been dealt with. Indeed, a lot of the aliasing present on screen is very similar to the kind seen in supersampled, in-game trailers; that is to say, its impact is very small in diminishing the high level of image quality we can see in Media Molecule’s sequel.
A change in the method of AA used is but one upgrade LBP2 has seen. The developers have also completely re-written their engine to work as a standard forward renderer, thus making certain visual effects much easier to do. Previously, parts of LBP1’s core rendering make-up was differed, meaning that some elements of the engine were sufficiently bottlenecked – use of alpha effects for example, had to be done via the less desirable A2C method, thus inducing a screen-door effect on many transparencies, like smoke and fire.
In LBP2, this isn’t at all the case. Here we see that all transparent effects are rendered using the more standard alpha coverage, with alpha blend method, free from the dithered, pixelated look they had before. Not only are these effects now easier to do, they are also better blended too. Particle effects, other elements, such as smoke and fire, are still rendered in a lower resolution. However, they are nicely smoothed over to avoid any pixelation, or other similar side-effects, much like the use of alpha in both Killzone 1&2.
Far more interesting, is the way that these effects now interact with the game’s light sources, in changing the intensity of the lighting and in turn, the way shadows are cast as a result. This is down to the game’s brand new lighting engine, which accurately simulates global illumination in how the entire game is lit and shaded. LBP2 uses something called volumetric lighting, whereby individual lights affects how other objects all around them are lit, with elements such as reflections and specular highlights changing dynamically.
A single light source in LBP2 now has the ability to change the lighting composition of the entire scene. Shadows are cast via every light source – and indeed every object - and move accordingly with changes to the lighting present. This is best observed as Sackboy traverses his environment, moving in and out of contrasting areas of brightness, and through more subtle changes in environmental shadowing, along with when there is lots of objects being randomly thrown around the screen, each with their own shadow.
We can also see evidence of ambient occlusion. Previously, we thought that LBP2 was simply using SSAO to deliver AO on various surfaces, characters etc. However, that isn’t the case. LBP2 actually features real-time ambient occlusion as a consequence of its volumetric lighting engine. For most games, this would perhaps be too resource intensive to do. Although, the simpler nature of LBP’s world, and being far more tightly controlled in terms of the rendering workload on screen, allows this to be possible.
In addition, we can also see that LBP2 also makes use of volumetric alpha effects, whereby flat, 2D spites can contain three-dimensional volume, having an incredibly obvious, depth look to then, whilst controlling the light output through the effect. A series of values contain that volume inside say, a cloud of smoke, giving the object depth, but more importantly accurately limiting/changing the amount of light that passes though it.
It’s a nice effect, one that appears to be only subtly used in what I’ve played of the game so far. On some downloadable, user-created stages however, ones with plenty of explosions, smoke and particles, the result is more obvious. Seeing the amount of light reduce underneath, or very mildly to the side of a cloud of smoke or mist, but not simply a pre-calculated dimming, but what looks looks like physically less light output is a key demonstrator of the effect in action.
In combination with the game’s use of light and shadow, this helps to emphasise the realistic look that MM have sort to create for the fantastical world of LBP2. Added depth is one consequence, but mostly, having all objects accurately look like they exist tangibly in the world is another.
Going back to LBP2’s use of shadowing, we’ve already mentioned that the game engine casts shadows for every object on screen, wherein a clear example of shadowing would realistically take place. Although, what we’ve failed to mention is that the game also uses soft shadows for all objects too.
These shadows, like with the game’s alpha affects, are rendered in a lower resolution to the framebuffer. However, this is negated somewhat – though not totally – by the use of high quality shadow filtering, which helps blend in the lower res soft shadows onto their environment and other objects.
There are still some examples of flickering shadows, and jittering edges where the use of filtering isn’t enough to hide their low-res nature. But, then again, outside of a in-engine, pre-rendred cut-scene, or in the obscenely high-end PC space, shadowing errors are simply part and parcel of current real-time rendering with performance-sapping, hardware limitations.
Another impressive part of LBP2’s technical make-up to look at, is the game’s use of real-world physics in how objects in this artificial world react. Swing on a rope, and you can almost feel the pull of gravity; push over a stack of lightweight boxes, and watch the ease of how they tumble, knocking others over, pushing and falling in accordance to their physical properties. Heavy objects also have weight behind them: Sackboy himself, bounces and flows through the air like stuffed and stitched toy – all of which adds a sense of real tangibility to the world these items and characters inhabit.
Also, these elements allow you to have an understanding of how many of the objects, challenges and puzzles work, before even attempting them. Once you know which objects have which properties – and some are obvious as soon as you see them, then all you have to do is master their usage, but using your own worldly understanding to do so. And of course, the technique required with the Dual Shock controller.
Occasionally, objects, characters etc, react with a ragdoll-like effect, which partially breaks the illusion that Media Molecule have created. Although, with so much going on technically, you can’t expect perfect representation of physics. Even in high-end CGI productions, replicating certain properties flawlessly, even just accurately, is a lot of the time, beyond what is feasible, let alone possible in a real-time rendered environment. In which case, the developers have done an absolutely stellar job with LBP2 as a whole, carefully balancing out what works and what doesn’t.
Moving on, and in addition the numerous advancements in lighting and shadowing, we can also see the inclusion of both a depth of field effect present in the background on some stages, and motion blur on fast moving objects.
Interestingly, the implementation of motion blur seems to be relatively simple – it affects the whole screen, rather than being done per-object, like in Killzone 3, and the original LBP. The reason for the downgrade – even though the effect still looks very good – seems to stem from having such an accurate, and performance-heavy lighting system as part of the core rendering engine. As such, there is less rendering time per-frame left for object-based motion blur. Instead, blur appears to be done as a simpler post-process effect.
On the off-set, all these advanced visual effects; the accurate, real-time nature of the game’s shadowing and lighting, motion blur, and depth of field, you would assume to have quite an impact on performance – that a heavy performance hit wouldn’t be unusual. Although, whilst sampling a few levels from the game’s campaign and some additional user-created stages, that doesn’t seem to be the case
Little Big Planet largely runs smoothly, simple dropping a few frames when the load increases beyond the engine’s capacity to resolve it, with v-sync being completely absent and some noticeable screen tearing sometimes being apparent. Media Molecule targets a solid 30fps update, and rather than allow for the framerate to drop heavily whilst encountering a heavier load, prefers to go over budget with rendering the next frame instead. Thus, we can see that a 30fps update is maintained in situations whereby if the game was v-synced, would drop down to 20fps for a brief moment or so, maybe longer, with some screen tearing being apparent as a result.
While the engine does successfully attempt to hold a steady 30fps for the most part, we can see that it does occasionally slow down, sometimes quite obviously down to around what looks like 20fps or so for a brief second or so, sometimes far less so. However, for much of the time what we are seeing as framerate drops, are actually manifestations of very mild tearing, in which the screen wobbles briefly for a split second or so, instead of tearing noticeably.
The engine frequently misses its window for rendering the next frame however, and as a result, we see a large amount of tearing on fairly frequent occasions, where the effect is clearly visible across the middle of the screen when it happens, sometimes mostly to the left, or all the way across, depending on how much the engine stalls.
At it’s worst, there can be many torn frames manifesting one after the other: the end product is what looks like a juddering in combination with a tearing of the screen. When this occurs it looks like the game is both dropping frames and tearing, but in reality is still holding a mostly solid 30fps.
But despite this, the overall engine’s performance is largely solid - sans perhaps the screen tearing, but otherwise, given the strain due to the complexity of the game’s core graphical, and indeed physics-based make-up, you can’t really complain too much. All that additional oomph goes a long way to further immersing you in Sackboy’s world, so I think that the performance trade-offs are worth it.
At first it might seem surprising to see such a technically accomplished rendering engine, for such a quaint, although very impressive platformer. But, when looking at how the core graphical make-up really adds a sense of immersion, a sense of increased believability to the world contained within, then it becomes completely beneficial.
Many of the elements that make LBP as magical as it is to play – not to mention to watch up close or from a distance – is down to how most elements in this virtual world act according to what we know about reality, the physical world around us. Things such as objects casting shadows which change as a result of the direction of a light source, or the smooth edges found throughout (MLAA) that hides the per-pixel, blocky nature of digital rendering. All definitively add something to the table, however small they initially appear to be.
In which case, Media Molecule has done a stellar job at creating a game that is as technically advanced as it is visually accurate. I doubt anyone will actually play LBP for its superb graphical make-up, but instead be fully engrossed in its fresh and addictively unique gameplay. The visuals, as it were, are simply there to facilitate the atmosphere and add an extra sense of realism to a cute, but cool, fantasy world. In that respect, LBP2 can be really nice to look at, but even better to play. And that’s exactly the point, really.
Thanks to Cynamite.de (gamesaktuell) for the screens and AlStrong for the pixel counting. Various galleries can be found here. Plus, a special no thanks to my phone cam, which failed to pick-up a very clear example of volumetric fog in a really dark area of the game.
Up Next: Crysis 2 analysis due for late tomorrow evening.
Of course, outside of the successes such unique custom content has found - and indeed there are millions of user-created downloads to be hand - the engine powering the game was always there to facilitate a natural realism, bound by real-world properties, and developed to augment the title’s physics-based approach. To that end, the original LBP featured both a realistic lighting and shadowing system, even emulating light passing through dense objects, along with a range of impressive, though perhaps restrained, visual effects.
For LBP2, Media Molecule have gone back and re-written most of their original engine, expanding on various graphical concepts simply toyed with in the first game, to delivering a fully-realised implementation here. This sequel incorporates comprehensive changes to nearly every part of the engine: lighting and shadowing for one, anti-aliasing and core rendering make-up to name but two more. All these tweaks and upgrades have not only made for an impressively organic visual look, but are also far more accurate in nature.
Take the baseline framebuffer for a second. LBP2 renders in 720p, like the original, but ditches the standard 2xMSAA (multi-sampling anti-aliasing) for Sony’s custom MLAA (morphological anti-aliasing) solution instead. The end result is a clean and sharp look, with incredibly smooth edges, free from most obvious edge shimmering and other such artefacts. Here, we see up to 16x MSAA on some surfaces in-line with the level of edge-smoothing this technique regularly provides, along with 4x and 8x on other smaller pieces of geometry.
The only aliasing that we can frequently notice on some areas, appears to be from various sub-pixel edges. There are also examples of what we like to call ‘soft’ edge shimmering on a few AA’d edges at certain angles. Although, most have competently been dealt with. Indeed, a lot of the aliasing present on screen is very similar to the kind seen in supersampled, in-game trailers; that is to say, its impact is very small in diminishing the high level of image quality we can see in Media Molecule’s sequel.
A change in the method of AA used is but one upgrade LBP2 has seen. The developers have also completely re-written their engine to work as a standard forward renderer, thus making certain visual effects much easier to do. Previously, parts of LBP1’s core rendering make-up was differed, meaning that some elements of the engine were sufficiently bottlenecked – use of alpha effects for example, had to be done via the less desirable A2C method, thus inducing a screen-door effect on many transparencies, like smoke and fire.
In LBP2, this isn’t at all the case. Here we see that all transparent effects are rendered using the more standard alpha coverage, with alpha blend method, free from the dithered, pixelated look they had before. Not only are these effects now easier to do, they are also better blended too. Particle effects, other elements, such as smoke and fire, are still rendered in a lower resolution. However, they are nicely smoothed over to avoid any pixelation, or other similar side-effects, much like the use of alpha in both Killzone 1&2.
Far more interesting, is the way that these effects now interact with the game’s light sources, in changing the intensity of the lighting and in turn, the way shadows are cast as a result. This is down to the game’s brand new lighting engine, which accurately simulates global illumination in how the entire game is lit and shaded. LBP2 uses something called volumetric lighting, whereby individual lights affects how other objects all around them are lit, with elements such as reflections and specular highlights changing dynamically.
A single light source in LBP2 now has the ability to change the lighting composition of the entire scene. Shadows are cast via every light source – and indeed every object - and move accordingly with changes to the lighting present. This is best observed as Sackboy traverses his environment, moving in and out of contrasting areas of brightness, and through more subtle changes in environmental shadowing, along with when there is lots of objects being randomly thrown around the screen, each with their own shadow.
We can also see evidence of ambient occlusion. Previously, we thought that LBP2 was simply using SSAO to deliver AO on various surfaces, characters etc. However, that isn’t the case. LBP2 actually features real-time ambient occlusion as a consequence of its volumetric lighting engine. For most games, this would perhaps be too resource intensive to do. Although, the simpler nature of LBP’s world, and being far more tightly controlled in terms of the rendering workload on screen, allows this to be possible.
In addition, we can also see that LBP2 also makes use of volumetric alpha effects, whereby flat, 2D spites can contain three-dimensional volume, having an incredibly obvious, depth look to then, whilst controlling the light output through the effect. A series of values contain that volume inside say, a cloud of smoke, giving the object depth, but more importantly accurately limiting/changing the amount of light that passes though it.
It’s a nice effect, one that appears to be only subtly used in what I’ve played of the game so far. On some downloadable, user-created stages however, ones with plenty of explosions, smoke and particles, the result is more obvious. Seeing the amount of light reduce underneath, or very mildly to the side of a cloud of smoke or mist, but not simply a pre-calculated dimming, but what looks looks like physically less light output is a key demonstrator of the effect in action.
In combination with the game’s use of light and shadow, this helps to emphasise the realistic look that MM have sort to create for the fantastical world of LBP2. Added depth is one consequence, but mostly, having all objects accurately look like they exist tangibly in the world is another.
Going back to LBP2’s use of shadowing, we’ve already mentioned that the game engine casts shadows for every object on screen, wherein a clear example of shadowing would realistically take place. Although, what we’ve failed to mention is that the game also uses soft shadows for all objects too.
These shadows, like with the game’s alpha affects, are rendered in a lower resolution to the framebuffer. However, this is negated somewhat – though not totally – by the use of high quality shadow filtering, which helps blend in the lower res soft shadows onto their environment and other objects.
There are still some examples of flickering shadows, and jittering edges where the use of filtering isn’t enough to hide their low-res nature. But, then again, outside of a in-engine, pre-rendred cut-scene, or in the obscenely high-end PC space, shadowing errors are simply part and parcel of current real-time rendering with performance-sapping, hardware limitations.
Another impressive part of LBP2’s technical make-up to look at, is the game’s use of real-world physics in how objects in this artificial world react. Swing on a rope, and you can almost feel the pull of gravity; push over a stack of lightweight boxes, and watch the ease of how they tumble, knocking others over, pushing and falling in accordance to their physical properties. Heavy objects also have weight behind them: Sackboy himself, bounces and flows through the air like stuffed and stitched toy – all of which adds a sense of real tangibility to the world these items and characters inhabit.
Also, these elements allow you to have an understanding of how many of the objects, challenges and puzzles work, before even attempting them. Once you know which objects have which properties – and some are obvious as soon as you see them, then all you have to do is master their usage, but using your own worldly understanding to do so. And of course, the technique required with the Dual Shock controller.
Occasionally, objects, characters etc, react with a ragdoll-like effect, which partially breaks the illusion that Media Molecule have created. Although, with so much going on technically, you can’t expect perfect representation of physics. Even in high-end CGI productions, replicating certain properties flawlessly, even just accurately, is a lot of the time, beyond what is feasible, let alone possible in a real-time rendered environment. In which case, the developers have done an absolutely stellar job with LBP2 as a whole, carefully balancing out what works and what doesn’t.
Moving on, and in addition the numerous advancements in lighting and shadowing, we can also see the inclusion of both a depth of field effect present in the background on some stages, and motion blur on fast moving objects.
Interestingly, the implementation of motion blur seems to be relatively simple – it affects the whole screen, rather than being done per-object, like in Killzone 3, and the original LBP. The reason for the downgrade – even though the effect still looks very good – seems to stem from having such an accurate, and performance-heavy lighting system as part of the core rendering engine. As such, there is less rendering time per-frame left for object-based motion blur. Instead, blur appears to be done as a simpler post-process effect.
On the off-set, all these advanced visual effects; the accurate, real-time nature of the game’s shadowing and lighting, motion blur, and depth of field, you would assume to have quite an impact on performance – that a heavy performance hit wouldn’t be unusual. Although, whilst sampling a few levels from the game’s campaign and some additional user-created stages, that doesn’t seem to be the case
Little Big Planet largely runs smoothly, simple dropping a few frames when the load increases beyond the engine’s capacity to resolve it, with v-sync being completely absent and some noticeable screen tearing sometimes being apparent. Media Molecule targets a solid 30fps update, and rather than allow for the framerate to drop heavily whilst encountering a heavier load, prefers to go over budget with rendering the next frame instead. Thus, we can see that a 30fps update is maintained in situations whereby if the game was v-synced, would drop down to 20fps for a brief moment or so, maybe longer, with some screen tearing being apparent as a result.
While the engine does successfully attempt to hold a steady 30fps for the most part, we can see that it does occasionally slow down, sometimes quite obviously down to around what looks like 20fps or so for a brief second or so, sometimes far less so. However, for much of the time what we are seeing as framerate drops, are actually manifestations of very mild tearing, in which the screen wobbles briefly for a split second or so, instead of tearing noticeably.
The engine frequently misses its window for rendering the next frame however, and as a result, we see a large amount of tearing on fairly frequent occasions, where the effect is clearly visible across the middle of the screen when it happens, sometimes mostly to the left, or all the way across, depending on how much the engine stalls.
At it’s worst, there can be many torn frames manifesting one after the other: the end product is what looks like a juddering in combination with a tearing of the screen. When this occurs it looks like the game is both dropping frames and tearing, but in reality is still holding a mostly solid 30fps.
But despite this, the overall engine’s performance is largely solid - sans perhaps the screen tearing, but otherwise, given the strain due to the complexity of the game’s core graphical, and indeed physics-based make-up, you can’t really complain too much. All that additional oomph goes a long way to further immersing you in Sackboy’s world, so I think that the performance trade-offs are worth it.
At first it might seem surprising to see such a technically accomplished rendering engine, for such a quaint, although very impressive platformer. But, when looking at how the core graphical make-up really adds a sense of immersion, a sense of increased believability to the world contained within, then it becomes completely beneficial.
Many of the elements that make LBP as magical as it is to play – not to mention to watch up close or from a distance – is down to how most elements in this virtual world act according to what we know about reality, the physical world around us. Things such as objects casting shadows which change as a result of the direction of a light source, or the smooth edges found throughout (MLAA) that hides the per-pixel, blocky nature of digital rendering. All definitively add something to the table, however small they initially appear to be.
In which case, Media Molecule has done a stellar job at creating a game that is as technically advanced as it is visually accurate. I doubt anyone will actually play LBP for its superb graphical make-up, but instead be fully engrossed in its fresh and addictively unique gameplay. The visuals, as it were, are simply there to facilitate the atmosphere and add an extra sense of realism to a cute, but cool, fantasy world. In that respect, LBP2 can be really nice to look at, but even better to play. And that’s exactly the point, really.
Thanks to Cynamite.de (gamesaktuell) for the screens and AlStrong for the pixel counting. Various galleries can be found here. Plus, a special no thanks to my phone cam, which failed to pick-up a very clear example of volumetric fog in a really dark area of the game.
Up Next: Crysis 2 analysis due for late tomorrow evening.
Friday, 28 January 2011
PSP Titles To Be Emulated On NGP
In an interview with Japanese site Impress Watch, Sony’s Kaz Hirai stated that the NGP would indeed be backwards compatible with original PSP games. However, there is a catch; as the company’s new handheld doesn’t have a UMD drive, only downloadable PSP titles will be compatible. There won’t be anyway to play non PSN-based PSP games on the new handheld.
How PSP games are handled on the system though, is somewhat more interesting; we all knew that UMD was effectively out a good few years ago, but software emulation of the original PSP… that’s something of a heavy undertaking to get 100% right, although not really unexpected given the device’s incredibly high-end specifications. According to the Sony executive, downloadable PSP games will be fully emulated on the NGP, much like in the way current PSP Mini’s are playable on the PS3.
As with other PSN releases, users will be able to transfer over their downloaded purchases to the system so long as their ‘download limit’ hasn’t been reached – it’s currently five downloads in total per-game across multiple systems. Thankfully, since the release of the PSPGo, Sony have been steadily upping the amount of PSP games available for digital sale across PSN, with the company suggesting that developers actively support this method of distribution ahead of the NGP’s eventual debut.
Other details, such as whether or not original PSP games would be rendered in a higher resolution to match the NGP’s display, weren’t forthcoming. But, seeing as PSP Mini’s aren’t when running on the PS3, then a similarly upscaled image is expected when these titles are played on the NGP.
How PSP games are handled on the system though, is somewhat more interesting; we all knew that UMD was effectively out a good few years ago, but software emulation of the original PSP… that’s something of a heavy undertaking to get 100% right, although not really unexpected given the device’s incredibly high-end specifications. According to the Sony executive, downloadable PSP games will be fully emulated on the NGP, much like in the way current PSP Mini’s are playable on the PS3.
As with other PSN releases, users will be able to transfer over their downloaded purchases to the system so long as their ‘download limit’ hasn’t been reached – it’s currently five downloads in total per-game across multiple systems. Thankfully, since the release of the PSPGo, Sony have been steadily upping the amount of PSP games available for digital sale across PSN, with the company suggesting that developers actively support this method of distribution ahead of the NGP’s eventual debut.
Other details, such as whether or not original PSP games would be rendered in a higher resolution to match the NGP’s display, weren’t forthcoming. But, seeing as PSP Mini’s aren’t when running on the PS3, then a similarly upscaled image is expected when these titles are played on the NGP.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
NGP (PSP2) Specs Confirmed: A Brief Analysis
Yesterday a French site posted up likely specifications of Sony’s upcoming PSP2, which saw the inclusion of a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU and a IMG Tech SGX 543 MP4+ GPU inside the system. Today, Sony officially broke their silence on the device, revealing both the console itself, along with the final internal specifications of the unit.
We can safely put an end to multi-core CELL processor rumours, and word of a GPU to rival that of PS3’s RSX – the quad-core SGX 543 MP4+ is certainly powerful when used in tandem with four A9 CPU’s, but still pretty far away from delivering the same level of performance as the PS3 itself. Although, in a string of highly-impressive gameplay demonstrations, via video trailers, we can see that games on the system emulate PS3-level complexity with relative ease, and are way beyond the level of games shown running on the iPhone 4.
There’s no question that the NGP, as Sony are officially codenaming the system, is incredibly powerful for a handheld device. The SGX 543 features full Open GL 2.0 support, along with what looks like Pixel Shader Model 4.1 capabilities, allowing for potential cross compatibility with devices that share similar hardware, but also the capacity for current-gen, PS3 and 360 level of visual effects.
Less overall geometry and texture detail is a given, as is what looks like lower shadow quality on some of the titles shown, although, many of the demos use some PS3 level assets which helps in bridging the gap. And, on the small screen – one that packs a 960x544 16:9 OLED display – the differences are even less likely to be noticed.
In addition, while the use of a quad-core CPU may seem like overkill, various developers have stated, that a lack of overall processing power on the CPU-side is what’s holding back high-end iPhone titles. So, the NGP set-up of a quad-core GPU, and four CPU cores looks like a solid solution to that problem. The GPU definitely packs enough punch, from what we’ve seen so far. Plus, the use of tile-based, differed rendering of the PowerVR tech will provide an additional performance boost over traditional forward renderers; regardless of whether being coded for directly to metal, or by higher-level software API’s.
All in all, the NGP definitely looks like being at the very high-end of handheld tech… at least until 2011, by which time many smartphones are likely to have caught up. But despite this, ether way, Sony have clearly demonstrated that their next-generation portable is fully capable of delivering PS3-style graphics on the small screen. Like-for-like or not, that's certainly a pretty impressive talking point.
Here's the final specs sheet in its entirety:
CPU:
ARM Corte-A9 core (4 core)
GPU:
SGX543MP4+
External Dimensions:
Approx. 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm (width x height x depth) (tentative, excludes largest projection)
Screen:
(Touch screen) 5 inches (16:9), 960 x 544, Approx. 16 million colors, OLED Multi touch screen (capacitive type)
Rear touch pad:
Multi touch pad (capacitive type)
Cameras:
Front camera, Rear camera
Sound:
Built-in stereo speakers, built-in microphone
Sensors:
Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer)
Three-axis electronic compass
Location
Built-in GPS
Wi-Fi location service support
Keys/Switches:
PS button
Power button
Directional buttons (Up/Down/Right/Left)
Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square)
Shoulder buttons (Right/Left)
Right stick, Left stick
START button, SELECT button
Volume buttons (+/-)
Wireless Communications:
Mobile network connectivity (3G)
IEEE 802.11b/g/n (n = 1x1)
(Wi-Fi) (Infrastructure mode/Ad-hoc mode)
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR (A2DP/AVRCP/HSP)
A fuller, more intricate analysis of the hardware will be performed at a later date. There’s still many aspects of the internals that we don’t know: the clock speed of the GPU, and the amount of VRAM/memory bandwidth, to name but three. But we’ll cover this, and other concerns, more thoroughly when we get a chance.
We can safely put an end to multi-core CELL processor rumours, and word of a GPU to rival that of PS3’s RSX – the quad-core SGX 543 MP4+ is certainly powerful when used in tandem with four A9 CPU’s, but still pretty far away from delivering the same level of performance as the PS3 itself. Although, in a string of highly-impressive gameplay demonstrations, via video trailers, we can see that games on the system emulate PS3-level complexity with relative ease, and are way beyond the level of games shown running on the iPhone 4.
There’s no question that the NGP, as Sony are officially codenaming the system, is incredibly powerful for a handheld device. The SGX 543 features full Open GL 2.0 support, along with what looks like Pixel Shader Model 4.1 capabilities, allowing for potential cross compatibility with devices that share similar hardware, but also the capacity for current-gen, PS3 and 360 level of visual effects.
Less overall geometry and texture detail is a given, as is what looks like lower shadow quality on some of the titles shown, although, many of the demos use some PS3 level assets which helps in bridging the gap. And, on the small screen – one that packs a 960x544 16:9 OLED display – the differences are even less likely to be noticed.
In addition, while the use of a quad-core CPU may seem like overkill, various developers have stated, that a lack of overall processing power on the CPU-side is what’s holding back high-end iPhone titles. So, the NGP set-up of a quad-core GPU, and four CPU cores looks like a solid solution to that problem. The GPU definitely packs enough punch, from what we’ve seen so far. Plus, the use of tile-based, differed rendering of the PowerVR tech will provide an additional performance boost over traditional forward renderers; regardless of whether being coded for directly to metal, or by higher-level software API’s.
All in all, the NGP definitely looks like being at the very high-end of handheld tech… at least until 2011, by which time many smartphones are likely to have caught up. But despite this, ether way, Sony have clearly demonstrated that their next-generation portable is fully capable of delivering PS3-style graphics on the small screen. Like-for-like or not, that's certainly a pretty impressive talking point.
Here's the final specs sheet in its entirety:
CPU:
ARM Corte-A9 core (4 core)
GPU:
SGX543MP4+
External Dimensions:
Approx. 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm (width x height x depth) (tentative, excludes largest projection)
Screen:
(Touch screen) 5 inches (16:9), 960 x 544, Approx. 16 million colors, OLED Multi touch screen (capacitive type)
Rear touch pad:
Multi touch pad (capacitive type)
Cameras:
Front camera, Rear camera
Sound:
Built-in stereo speakers, built-in microphone
Sensors:
Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer)
Three-axis electronic compass
Location
Built-in GPS
Wi-Fi location service support
Keys/Switches:
PS button
Power button
Directional buttons (Up/Down/Right/Left)
Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square)
Shoulder buttons (Right/Left)
Right stick, Left stick
START button, SELECT button
Volume buttons (+/-)
Wireless Communications:
Mobile network connectivity (3G)
IEEE 802.11b/g/n (n = 1x1)
(Wi-Fi) (Infrastructure mode/Ad-hoc mode)
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR (A2DP/AVRCP/HSP)
A fuller, more intricate analysis of the hardware will be performed at a later date. There’s still many aspects of the internals that we don’t know: the clock speed of the GPU, and the amount of VRAM/memory bandwidth, to name but three. But we’ll cover this, and other concerns, more thoroughly when we get a chance.
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
PSP2 Hardware Revealed?
Recent rumours have put the PSP2 has being as powerful as the PS3, to having a quad-core GPU and cut down CELL processor, neither of which seemed to make any sense given both the power draw and overall cost requirements usually adhered to by the vast majority of handheld devices. However, the latest rumour does indeed shed some light on past statements – particularly the one about the system using a quad-core GPU, whilst firmly de-railing others.
According to French site 01.net, more concrete evidence of the PSP2’s hardware specs have surfaced via supposed information taken directly from the system’s development kit. Interestingly, the specifications reveal a system that features the very same CPU/GPU combo that will power the upcoming iPad 2 and iPhone 5, thus firmly shooting down reports of the machine being ‘as powerful’ as the PS3. Instead, the system looks to be at the forefront of mobile technology, but still behind both the RSX and Xenos found in the PS3 and 360 respectively.
Other details include a 5″ OLED multi-touch screen (that’s the front screen and not the rear touchpad), up to 512 MB LPDDR2 RAM and 16 GB’s worth of flash memory. The system also is said to feature an SD card slot for games, although it isn’t known whether this supports either SDHC, SDXC, or both.
Seeing as many PSP titles are currently approaching the 1.8GB capacity of the system’s UMD discs, and PSP2 titles are going to require far more, SDHC – which currently supports up to 32GB of storage space – isn’t going to be enough for storing lots of downloaded content from PSN. In which case, it’s almost certain that SDXC – which can hold up to 2TB (64GB in current sizes), and indeed SDHC for completions sake, will be supported.
In addition, as recent rumours suggest, the system will reportedly feature 3G support, thus having full wireless support via the use of a mobile phone network (although no phone support is planned), along with both standard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Two cameras will also be present; one on the front, and one on the rear, while in terms of size, the PSP2 won’t be as wide as the PSP3000 but will instead be slightly longer.
Interestingly, like the 3DS, the PSP2 is said to sport motion control via the use of both an accelerometer and a gyroscope, thus covering another base in the market. 3D however, is currently out of the question. Perhaps, given the already high-spec nature of the device, the use of a quad-core CPU/GPU, and OLED screen, that inclusion of such a feature would raise the cost significantly more than what would be acceptable. Although, the current spec and feature-set will put it way above that of the 3DS in terms of pricing anyway.
A full list of the PSP2’s specs can be found below:
Screen: 5″ OLED multi-touch screen
Control: A Multi-touch trackpad (rumored to be on the rear of the unit), four face buttons, two shoulder buttons, two analog sticks, directional pad
Resolution: 960 x 544
CPU: Quad-core ARM Cortex A9
GPU: PowerVR SGX 543 MP4+
RAM: 1GB LPDDR2 in the Debug unit, with 512 MB possible in the retail unit
Storage: 16GB flash internal (like the PSP Go) and an SD slot
Connectivity: Wi-fi, 3G, and Bluetooth
At the moment, all the details are simply rumour and well-informed speculation. However, we’d be rather surprised if there wasn’t more than a fraction of truth to these and other such reports.
In terms of the hardware spec, if true, it seems that Sony have taken a reasonable step in balancing raw hardware capability with heat dissipation and power draw – two of the largest concerns when designing a handheld; that is to say, that it is possible that titles could display PS3 and 360 quality visuals, but certainly not in a like-for-like manner. Various cuts, such as less in the way of geometry and advanced hardware effects are a given. Although, seeing as the screen will be only a fraction of the display sizes most people play their PS3/360 titles on – and still a reasonably high 960 x 544 resolution – simulating current-gen console graphics in this way shouldn’t be a problem.
So, while exact PS3 quality visuals remain firmly – whatever hardware Sony actually has under the hood in the PSP2 – something of a pipedream, and judging by developer comments, pure PR hyperbole, the system’s hardware make-up still makes it an incredibly powerful device, especially compared to other handhelds.
Certainly, despite using the same CPU/GPU combo as forthcoming Apple products, direct access to the hardware via the development kit – and without needing to conform to Open GL standard for cross compatibility with older devices – will easily lead to a noticeable leap in performance by comparison. There’s nothing really standing in the way of coders from extracting every last drop power from the machine via low-level optimisation of the hardware in ways where software API’s often restrict.
The real question though, is today’s hardware reveal actually what’s inside Sony’s next-gen handheld at all? All that, and more I expect, we will find out tomorrow, at the company’s worldwide unveiling of the device itself. Until then, the specifications listed on this page are perhaps the most tangibly convincing we’ve seen, representing both a powerful but power conscious device; one that is well above existingly comparable mobile products.
According to French site 01.net, more concrete evidence of the PSP2’s hardware specs have surfaced via supposed information taken directly from the system’s development kit. Interestingly, the specifications reveal a system that features the very same CPU/GPU combo that will power the upcoming iPad 2 and iPhone 5, thus firmly shooting down reports of the machine being ‘as powerful’ as the PS3. Instead, the system looks to be at the forefront of mobile technology, but still behind both the RSX and Xenos found in the PS3 and 360 respectively.
Other details include a 5″ OLED multi-touch screen (that’s the front screen and not the rear touchpad), up to 512 MB LPDDR2 RAM and 16 GB’s worth of flash memory. The system also is said to feature an SD card slot for games, although it isn’t known whether this supports either SDHC, SDXC, or both.
Seeing as many PSP titles are currently approaching the 1.8GB capacity of the system’s UMD discs, and PSP2 titles are going to require far more, SDHC – which currently supports up to 32GB of storage space – isn’t going to be enough for storing lots of downloaded content from PSN. In which case, it’s almost certain that SDXC – which can hold up to 2TB (64GB in current sizes), and indeed SDHC for completions sake, will be supported.
In addition, as recent rumours suggest, the system will reportedly feature 3G support, thus having full wireless support via the use of a mobile phone network (although no phone support is planned), along with both standard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Two cameras will also be present; one on the front, and one on the rear, while in terms of size, the PSP2 won’t be as wide as the PSP3000 but will instead be slightly longer.
Interestingly, like the 3DS, the PSP2 is said to sport motion control via the use of both an accelerometer and a gyroscope, thus covering another base in the market. 3D however, is currently out of the question. Perhaps, given the already high-spec nature of the device, the use of a quad-core CPU/GPU, and OLED screen, that inclusion of such a feature would raise the cost significantly more than what would be acceptable. Although, the current spec and feature-set will put it way above that of the 3DS in terms of pricing anyway.
A full list of the PSP2’s specs can be found below:
Screen: 5″ OLED multi-touch screen
Control: A Multi-touch trackpad (rumored to be on the rear of the unit), four face buttons, two shoulder buttons, two analog sticks, directional pad
Resolution: 960 x 544
CPU: Quad-core ARM Cortex A9
GPU: PowerVR SGX 543 MP4+
RAM: 1GB LPDDR2 in the Debug unit, with 512 MB possible in the retail unit
Storage: 16GB flash internal (like the PSP Go) and an SD slot
Connectivity: Wi-fi, 3G, and Bluetooth
At the moment, all the details are simply rumour and well-informed speculation. However, we’d be rather surprised if there wasn’t more than a fraction of truth to these and other such reports.
In terms of the hardware spec, if true, it seems that Sony have taken a reasonable step in balancing raw hardware capability with heat dissipation and power draw – two of the largest concerns when designing a handheld; that is to say, that it is possible that titles could display PS3 and 360 quality visuals, but certainly not in a like-for-like manner. Various cuts, such as less in the way of geometry and advanced hardware effects are a given. Although, seeing as the screen will be only a fraction of the display sizes most people play their PS3/360 titles on – and still a reasonably high 960 x 544 resolution – simulating current-gen console graphics in this way shouldn’t be a problem.
So, while exact PS3 quality visuals remain firmly – whatever hardware Sony actually has under the hood in the PSP2 – something of a pipedream, and judging by developer comments, pure PR hyperbole, the system’s hardware make-up still makes it an incredibly powerful device, especially compared to other handhelds.
Certainly, despite using the same CPU/GPU combo as forthcoming Apple products, direct access to the hardware via the development kit – and without needing to conform to Open GL standard for cross compatibility with older devices – will easily lead to a noticeable leap in performance by comparison. There’s nothing really standing in the way of coders from extracting every last drop power from the machine via low-level optimisation of the hardware in ways where software API’s often restrict.
The real question though, is today’s hardware reveal actually what’s inside Sony’s next-gen handheld at all? All that, and more I expect, we will find out tomorrow, at the company’s worldwide unveiling of the device itself. Until then, the specifications listed on this page are perhaps the most tangibly convincing we’ve seen, representing both a powerful but power conscious device; one that is well above existingly comparable mobile products.
Sunday, 23 January 2011
Tech Analysis: Mass Effect 2: Final Game Update
When we took a look at the PS3 Demo of Mass Effect 2 for our initial - and rather in-depth - tech analysis, we found that Bioware seemed to have delivered an incredibly strong conversion of the game, one in which most differences were said to be ‘tit for tat’ -especially the lighting - with no one version coming out on top. Both had their own plus points, and unique quirks which set them apart.
For the most part, content found in game demos rarely feature any drastic improvements when sampling final retail code. However, with ME2 things are a little different. Bioware have tightened up the PS3 code, thus resulting in a few select optimisations that bring that build even closer to that of the Xbox 360 game.
While many of the somewhat subtle differences still remain, both performance and certain shader effects have been tangibly improved for the final PS3 release. But before we talk about those, lets quickly recap.
As expected, Mass Effect 2 renders in 720p across both formats, with the 360 game getting broken use of 2xMSAA and the PS3 having no AA at all. Due to the deffered nature of how the UE3 renders certain elements of the scene – it does so in separate render passes – much of the anti-aliasing in the 360 build is completely absent, with only a select few edges having the smoothing shade applied. In that respect, both versions look basically identical. In motion and in most screens, there’s nothing to tell them apart in this area.
In the demo, we described how the PS3 version of ME2 had some sacrifices made in order to work around the system’s well-documented memory constraints, along with improvements in other areas over the 360 game. Elements such as skin shaders and use of normal maps on the characters were both paired back, though we also saw the use of higher quality shadow filtering as well.
Looking at the retail build, and we see pretty much the same result, minus some small upgrades to the shader effects on Commander Shepard’s face along with higher res normal maps. The rest of the characters seem to be rendered exactly as before.
For the most part texture detail and filtering are largely identical as well. Here we see a few higher resolution texture maps on the characters in the PS3 game to compensate for the lack of normal mapping on some areas. Miranda’s hexagonal suit for one, lacks the normal mapped surface of the 360 game, but supplants this with clear use of higher res texturing. Occasionally, these changes make certain details appear a little flat, but mostly Bioware’s rebalancing of certain details works rather well.
Reduced levels of normal mapped textures on the environments are still present, as is the lack of HDR-styled bloom lighting. Although, we can also see that many environmental textures on both versions are simply hi-resolution ones, lacking normal maps and specular highlights. Instead, we have some diffuse reflection maps, along with the higher resolution artwork being used to compensate for the lack of depth normal mapping usually creates – depth is obtained in these cases via the texture maps themselves – in order to save on memory bandwidth on both systems.
There are also parts of the environment on the PS3 game that lack the same specular layer to represent sheen found on the 360 version when light passes over affected surfaces. This seems to be down to both an absence of the effect in addition to the lack of bloom. On some occasions, lighting composition in a scene often affects the amount of specularity that is present on certain surfaces. Although, it is also clear that some parts of the environment have the effect, while others obviously do not.
The lighting system found in the PS3 version of ME2 was perhaps the main talking point of the demo. In order to prepare for the upcoming, multiplatform release of Mass Effect 3, Bioware used an upgraded version of the UE3 for the PS3 build of ME2, resulting in a few noticeable differences in how lighting is handled across both versions of the game. But rather than being technically superior, or worse in any way, these differences seem to be more artistic in nature, with some scenes featuring more in the way of shadow detail, and others less so.
Outside of this change in overall composition, any oddities are likely to be a side-effect of the upgraded UE3’s lighting system not being completely compatible with the one used in the original PC and 360 versions of the game. And to that end, it's unlikely that Bioware had enough time to tweak thus any further, not with ME3 around the corner.
In any case, the reworked lighting engine in the PS3 game appears to be more ambient in nature, with less in the way of what looks like more direct light sources. Instead, characters and parts of the environment don’t always seem to be lit up according to specific object placement, but more inconspicuously throughout. Although, there are plenty of examples where this isn't the case, and in which the origin of the lighting is overly apparent.
As a result of this inconsistency, there are some shadowing errors present – characters that either look to dark, covered in shade, or too flat, lit up more strongly from various angles. We see this on both platforms, though at the expense of featuring lighting that looks a little out of place at times.
Both version display imperfections in this regard and, as to which one is the visually superior, technically better of the two. Well, that pretty much comes down to personal preference. Both implementations look great in general, with the PS3 game occasionally lacking depth in certain scenes and the 360 one over accentuating elements in others. The more subtle PS3 approach is more comfortable to look at overall - especially up close, and I do prefer it, but there’s nothing wrong with the 360’s lighting at all.
It will be interesting however, to see just how this part of the engine fares in the upcoming Mass Effect 3. Have Bioware opted for the PS3’s more ambient approach for the new game, or will we see the title displaying similar lighting properties to 360 ME2? If the lighting changes are equally artistically and tech based, then perhaps a better balance between the two will be found. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Now, in terms of performance, when first sampling the final retail copy of Mass Effect 2 compared to our demo findings, there were two things that we noticed; that the PS3 build no longer featured any screen tearing, and that the framerate appeared to never rise above 30fps. In fact, as a whole it looks like both versions are now basically almost equal in this regard, with generally more even levels of performance overall, but at the expense of the previously smoother jumps above the 30fps mark on the PS3.
What this means, is that the PS3 game is now v-synced across both gameplay and cut-scenes, and now also imposes a top end framerate cap at 30fps. As a result we see the lack of any screen tearing, but at the expense of having as much top-end smoothness on the whole. This varies between gameplay and cinematics, with the cut-scenes taking a prolonged dive down to 20fps on occasions where both systems cannot cope with the load provided by the engine.
Both initially appeared to be the same, although there are times when it looked like the PS3 game was dropping down to 20fps for ever so slightly longer periods.
Gameplay-wise, and we can see that the differences are much more pronounced. During the demo we sighted small up-shoots going beyond 30fps and into what looked like something around the 50-60fps mark. But in the final game, this isn’t the case. Like with the 360 version, ME2 on the PS3 starts off confidently running at 30fps, before dropping frames in heavier load situations – areas with multiple enemies and noticeable explotions all at once, as a good example.
Here we can see dips varying between what looks like 30 and 20fps, with both versions suffering in similar situations. However, the 360 game manages perform slightly better in an overall sense – both versions seem to suffer from slowdown, but seemingly at different points, whilst the PS3 tends to hold a reduced 20fps for slightly longer. In addition, both versions also slow down at different points: PS3 again tends to suffer slightly more, but also, we find that the engine is balancing different loads when this happens.
Compared to the demo, and we find that the PS3 build’s more stable, albeit slightly lowered framerate, is in fact preferable to the uncapped, 30fps plus refresh seen before. On the whole it simply feels smoother whilst also being a near like-for like match for the 360 game. In conclusion, performance is largely solid, with no unexpected drops beyond what we’ve already experienced before in 360 ME2. Some additional slowdown aside, Bioware have done a great job.
As we’ve already said before in our demo analysis, there are other factors besides graphics when considering which version of Mass Effect 2 to buy. Visually, both versions stack up rather nicely, with the subtle downgrades in normal mapping and shaders in the PS3 build having very little impact in the grand scheme of things. Also, the differing lighting implementations, which is the better of the two, is largely down to personal preference than technical superiority.
In that respect, the PS3 version of the game is perhaps equally as impressive as the 360 one, with other non-graphical features perhaps defining which game to go for. Take both content and pricing into account. The 360 game can be had for around £12 new in some places on the high street, £7 second hand, while the PS3 version retails for a full £40. Another thing to consider, is that the PS3 release comes with all of the DLC that came out last year over Xbox Live on the disc. Whereas, the 360 game is simply the bare bones original, but at a bargain price.
Ultimately, in terms of which version you should really go for, this will I expect, simply come down to whether or not you feel the extra money spent on the PS3 game is worth it over the saving of buying either a cheap copy of the 360 original. Personally, I think it might be, despite not being able to own all three games in the trilogy all on the same format. Either way, Mass Effect 2 is a superb experience and, the fact that owners of both system get to play it, is yet another bonus.
As ever, thanks go out to AlStrong (pixel counting) and to Videogamezone.de (screenshots). A full gallery of high quality shots can be found here.
For the most part, content found in game demos rarely feature any drastic improvements when sampling final retail code. However, with ME2 things are a little different. Bioware have tightened up the PS3 code, thus resulting in a few select optimisations that bring that build even closer to that of the Xbox 360 game.
While many of the somewhat subtle differences still remain, both performance and certain shader effects have been tangibly improved for the final PS3 release. But before we talk about those, lets quickly recap.
As expected, Mass Effect 2 renders in 720p across both formats, with the 360 game getting broken use of 2xMSAA and the PS3 having no AA at all. Due to the deffered nature of how the UE3 renders certain elements of the scene – it does so in separate render passes – much of the anti-aliasing in the 360 build is completely absent, with only a select few edges having the smoothing shade applied. In that respect, both versions look basically identical. In motion and in most screens, there’s nothing to tell them apart in this area.
In the demo, we described how the PS3 version of ME2 had some sacrifices made in order to work around the system’s well-documented memory constraints, along with improvements in other areas over the 360 game. Elements such as skin shaders and use of normal maps on the characters were both paired back, though we also saw the use of higher quality shadow filtering as well.
Looking at the retail build, and we see pretty much the same result, minus some small upgrades to the shader effects on Commander Shepard’s face along with higher res normal maps. The rest of the characters seem to be rendered exactly as before.
For the most part texture detail and filtering are largely identical as well. Here we see a few higher resolution texture maps on the characters in the PS3 game to compensate for the lack of normal mapping on some areas. Miranda’s hexagonal suit for one, lacks the normal mapped surface of the 360 game, but supplants this with clear use of higher res texturing. Occasionally, these changes make certain details appear a little flat, but mostly Bioware’s rebalancing of certain details works rather well.
Reduced levels of normal mapped textures on the environments are still present, as is the lack of HDR-styled bloom lighting. Although, we can also see that many environmental textures on both versions are simply hi-resolution ones, lacking normal maps and specular highlights. Instead, we have some diffuse reflection maps, along with the higher resolution artwork being used to compensate for the lack of depth normal mapping usually creates – depth is obtained in these cases via the texture maps themselves – in order to save on memory bandwidth on both systems.
There are also parts of the environment on the PS3 game that lack the same specular layer to represent sheen found on the 360 version when light passes over affected surfaces. This seems to be down to both an absence of the effect in addition to the lack of bloom. On some occasions, lighting composition in a scene often affects the amount of specularity that is present on certain surfaces. Although, it is also clear that some parts of the environment have the effect, while others obviously do not.
The lighting system found in the PS3 version of ME2 was perhaps the main talking point of the demo. In order to prepare for the upcoming, multiplatform release of Mass Effect 3, Bioware used an upgraded version of the UE3 for the PS3 build of ME2, resulting in a few noticeable differences in how lighting is handled across both versions of the game. But rather than being technically superior, or worse in any way, these differences seem to be more artistic in nature, with some scenes featuring more in the way of shadow detail, and others less so.
Outside of this change in overall composition, any oddities are likely to be a side-effect of the upgraded UE3’s lighting system not being completely compatible with the one used in the original PC and 360 versions of the game. And to that end, it's unlikely that Bioware had enough time to tweak thus any further, not with ME3 around the corner.
In any case, the reworked lighting engine in the PS3 game appears to be more ambient in nature, with less in the way of what looks like more direct light sources. Instead, characters and parts of the environment don’t always seem to be lit up according to specific object placement, but more inconspicuously throughout. Although, there are plenty of examples where this isn't the case, and in which the origin of the lighting is overly apparent.
As a result of this inconsistency, there are some shadowing errors present – characters that either look to dark, covered in shade, or too flat, lit up more strongly from various angles. We see this on both platforms, though at the expense of featuring lighting that looks a little out of place at times.
Both version display imperfections in this regard and, as to which one is the visually superior, technically better of the two. Well, that pretty much comes down to personal preference. Both implementations look great in general, with the PS3 game occasionally lacking depth in certain scenes and the 360 one over accentuating elements in others. The more subtle PS3 approach is more comfortable to look at overall - especially up close, and I do prefer it, but there’s nothing wrong with the 360’s lighting at all.
It will be interesting however, to see just how this part of the engine fares in the upcoming Mass Effect 3. Have Bioware opted for the PS3’s more ambient approach for the new game, or will we see the title displaying similar lighting properties to 360 ME2? If the lighting changes are equally artistically and tech based, then perhaps a better balance between the two will be found. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Now, in terms of performance, when first sampling the final retail copy of Mass Effect 2 compared to our demo findings, there were two things that we noticed; that the PS3 build no longer featured any screen tearing, and that the framerate appeared to never rise above 30fps. In fact, as a whole it looks like both versions are now basically almost equal in this regard, with generally more even levels of performance overall, but at the expense of the previously smoother jumps above the 30fps mark on the PS3.
What this means, is that the PS3 game is now v-synced across both gameplay and cut-scenes, and now also imposes a top end framerate cap at 30fps. As a result we see the lack of any screen tearing, but at the expense of having as much top-end smoothness on the whole. This varies between gameplay and cinematics, with the cut-scenes taking a prolonged dive down to 20fps on occasions where both systems cannot cope with the load provided by the engine.
Both initially appeared to be the same, although there are times when it looked like the PS3 game was dropping down to 20fps for ever so slightly longer periods.
Gameplay-wise, and we can see that the differences are much more pronounced. During the demo we sighted small up-shoots going beyond 30fps and into what looked like something around the 50-60fps mark. But in the final game, this isn’t the case. Like with the 360 version, ME2 on the PS3 starts off confidently running at 30fps, before dropping frames in heavier load situations – areas with multiple enemies and noticeable explotions all at once, as a good example.
Here we can see dips varying between what looks like 30 and 20fps, with both versions suffering in similar situations. However, the 360 game manages perform slightly better in an overall sense – both versions seem to suffer from slowdown, but seemingly at different points, whilst the PS3 tends to hold a reduced 20fps for slightly longer. In addition, both versions also slow down at different points: PS3 again tends to suffer slightly more, but also, we find that the engine is balancing different loads when this happens.
Compared to the demo, and we find that the PS3 build’s more stable, albeit slightly lowered framerate, is in fact preferable to the uncapped, 30fps plus refresh seen before. On the whole it simply feels smoother whilst also being a near like-for like match for the 360 game. In conclusion, performance is largely solid, with no unexpected drops beyond what we’ve already experienced before in 360 ME2. Some additional slowdown aside, Bioware have done a great job.
As we’ve already said before in our demo analysis, there are other factors besides graphics when considering which version of Mass Effect 2 to buy. Visually, both versions stack up rather nicely, with the subtle downgrades in normal mapping and shaders in the PS3 build having very little impact in the grand scheme of things. Also, the differing lighting implementations, which is the better of the two, is largely down to personal preference than technical superiority.
In that respect, the PS3 version of the game is perhaps equally as impressive as the 360 one, with other non-graphical features perhaps defining which game to go for. Take both content and pricing into account. The 360 game can be had for around £12 new in some places on the high street, £7 second hand, while the PS3 version retails for a full £40. Another thing to consider, is that the PS3 release comes with all of the DLC that came out last year over Xbox Live on the disc. Whereas, the 360 game is simply the bare bones original, but at a bargain price.
Ultimately, in terms of which version you should really go for, this will I expect, simply come down to whether or not you feel the extra money spent on the PS3 game is worth it over the saving of buying either a cheap copy of the 360 original. Personally, I think it might be, despite not being able to own all three games in the trilogy all on the same format. Either way, Mass Effect 2 is a superb experience and, the fact that owners of both system get to play it, is yet another bonus.
As ever, thanks go out to AlStrong (pixel counting) and to Videogamezone.de (screenshots). A full gallery of high quality shots can be found here.
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