Several Steps Away From Greatness. (AKA Lack of Vision)

[Imari]

As Kaz said in a interview a couple months ago, GT6 has been optimized to the fullest extent in order to run smoothly on the PS3. If it wasn't optimized, it would end up looking like F1 2012 which has graphics that my phone would laugh at.

That's the worst logic I've ever seen.

The game is fully optimised because the company's head spokesman told me so. Appeal to authority.
If it wasn't optimised, it would look worse. Well, duh. It doesn't mean that it's the most optimal solution to provide those outputs from the given set of inputs in a certain number of processor cycles.

How exactly would you know if a game was running as efficiently as was possible? You know, without taking for granted the words of the person who has a vested financial interest in making you believe that the game is a technological marvel.

 

[chengman]

That's the worst logic I've ever seen.

The game is fully optimised because the company's head spokesman told me so. Appeal to authority.
If it wasn't optimised, it would look worse. Well, duh. It doesn't mean that it's the most optimal solution to provide those outputs from the given set of inputs in a certain number of processor cycles.

How exactly would you know if a game was running as efficiently as was possible? You know, without taking for granted the words of the person who has a vested financial interest in making you believe that the game is a technological marvel.

Name one other racing game that runs at 1080p on the PS3.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Name one other racing game that runs at 1080p on the PS3.

Is that the only criteria for fully optimizing the PS3?

 

[Imari]

Name one other racing game that runs at 1080p on the PS3.

Wipeout HD.

What's your point? Both games use "tricks" to do so. Gran Turismo runs at a reduced horizontal resolution and scales up to 1920x1080. Wipeout dynamically scales it's resolution depending on how taxing the scene is (which I think is arguably more clever than GT's solution).

 

[Saidur_Ali]

Name one other racing game that runs at 1080p on the PS3.

Ridge Racer 7.

I do think though that GT6 is highly optimised, it is quite amazing the kind of effects they are pushing, it is hard to believe at times. Hopefully they can pull that off with GT7 too.

 

[NixxxoN]

Resolution is not everything. GT/PD should've chosen real 720p with no framerate problems or with no freezing problems, and save power for better sounds. But it doesnt matter because what is done is done, and the PS4/GT7 are coming without power problems. GT7 will run at real 1080p, real 60FPS, without memory problems, great sound, and in general they will not lack any hardware resource.

 

[Imari]

GT7 will run at real 1080p, real 60FPS, without memory problems, great sound, and in general they will not lack any hardware resource.

Do you have any reason to think this? Or is this just hopefulness speaking?

They're just as capable of overstressing the PS4 as they were of overstressing the PS3. Given that they've overstressed the hardware for two games in a row now, I'd have to say that it's odds on that they haven't learned and will do it again.

 

[NixxxoN]

Do you have any reason to think this? Or is this just hopefulness speaking?

They're just as capable of overstressing the PS4 as they were of overstressing the PS3. Given that they've overstressed the hardware for two games in a row now, I'd have to say that it's odds on that they haven't learned and will do it again.

Given the performance differences of both PS3 and PS4, which are world's apart, and given the bad experiences they had on the PS3, I would bet easily that they wont have any problem of the sorts in the PS4.
Considering what they have managed to achieve on the PS3, which overstressed the machine yet it has been very impressive, I think we will be amazed at the results on GT7 and surely it wont be necessary to overstress the machine either.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Given the performance differences of both PS3 and PS4, which are world's apart, and given the bad experiences they had on the PS3, I would bet easily that they wont have any problem of the sorts in the PS4.
Considering what they have managed to achieve on the PS3, which overstressed the machine yet it has been very impressive, I think we will be amazed at the results on GT7 and surely it wont be necessary to overstress the machine either.

It won't be necessary to overstress the machine, but where's the challenge if they don't? Driveclub is releasing a beautiful looking game with many of the features I'm sure will appeal to GT fans, but they aren't able to achieve 60fps, in fact just 30fps. What will PD push to the limit to achieve an equally good looking game but with double the fps?

 

[NixxxoN]

It won't be necessary to overstress the machine, but where's the challenge if they don't. Driveclub is releasing a beautiful looking game with many of the features I'm sure will appeeal to GT fans, but they aren't able to achieve 60fps, in fact just 30fps. What will PD push to the limit to achieve an equally good looking game but with double the fps?

Good looking graphics are not good if they dont have 60 FPS, as simple as that. A driving game NEEDS 60 FPS because its precision stuff. Maybe Driveclub doesnt have a very optimised graphics engine. But anyway isnt driveclub some sort of free roaming semi arcade game? I wouldnt compare it to GT.

 

[IvanOffalich]

I can help sum up why people are happy about Project Cars having players be involved:

GT Players:
We want more premium cars!
We want better AI drivers!
We want more content!
We want more customization options!

PD:
Here. You can drive slower than city speed limits on the moon!
Here's a bug fix which doesn't completely fix the bug!
Here's less content than the previous game!
By the way, everything you did in the previous game, and everything you paid for no longer works online!
You're welcome!

I hope this helps.

 

[NixxxoN]

^
They actually delivered (or are delivering) all those 4 things except the AI... and for some reason they make the AI slow down on purpose

 

[IvanOffalich]

If it's not here yet, it does not count.

They've been promising better AI since before Prologue. Promises do not equal us having more fun. Promises equal us being disappointed that they haven't followed through.

 

[Zuku]

You seem to think using all the power of the PS3 = using all the CPU/GPU cycles.

Anyone could do that with a Pong simulator running a pi calculator in the background. Simply maxing out the processors is not noteworthy. It's what you can deliver using those fixed numbers of CPU and GPU cycles. It's about efficiency, basically.

Personally, I'm much more impressed with what GTA V delivers (on many levels) than I am with what GT6 does. Half the time GT6 is a GT4 simulator with improved physics. Why is this pushing the PS3 to it's limits again?

This describes exactly what I was getting at.

Wipeout HD.

What's your point? Both games use "tricks" to do so. Gran Turismo runs at a reduced horizontal resolution and scales up to 1920x1080. Wipeout dynamically scales it's resolution depending on how taxing the scene is (which I think is arguably more clever than GT's solution).

Wipeout HD is the only game that is 1080p to my knowledge and it showed, and I'm only talking about the racing genre +1 for that cause I was waiting for someone to say it lol.

 

[Imari]

Given the performance differences of both PS3 and PS4, which are world's apart, and given the bad experiences they had on the PS3, I would bet easily that they wont have any problem of the sorts in the PS4.
Considering what they have managed to achieve on the PS3, which overstressed the machine yet it has been very impressive, I think we will be amazed at the results on GT7 and surely it wont be necessary to overstress the machine either.

Hopefulness it is.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Good looking graphics are not good if they dont have 60 FPS, as simple as that. A driving game NEEDS 60 FPS because its precision stuff. Maybe Driveclub doesnt have a very optimised graphics engine. But anyway isnt driveclub some sort of free roaming semi arcade game? I wouldnt compare it to GT.

You're making my point for me in case you didn't know. The comparison with DC wasn't about the game itself it's about what they are trying to achieve visually on the PS4 in a driving/racing game. GT must be 60fps on PS4. Fans will expect graphical wonders like you're going to see on DriveClub and Project Cars. Can they match DC and PCars graphically, perhaps trying to do better in some areas and achieve 60fps on what is essentially a mid-range PC? I don't think its going to be quite so simple as you seem to think it is.

 

[Zuku]

Given the performance differences of both PS3 and PS4, which are world's apart, and given the bad experiences they had on the PS3, I would bet easily that they wont have any problem of the sorts in the PS4.
Considering what they have managed to achieve on the PS3, which overstressed the machine yet it has been very impressive, I think we will be amazed at the results on GT7 and surely it wont be necessary to overstress the machine either.

I'm not holding my breath on this one again PD is late to the party now although PS3 was hard to program for after while that excuse gets old because I've seen many other studios do it correctly, and why didn't they go to them for help?

 

[NixxxoN]

Hopefulness it is.

Hopelessness it is (you)

You're making my point for me in case you didn't know. The comparison with DC wasn't about the game itself it's about what they are trying to achieve visually on the PS4 in a driving/racing game. GT must be 60fps on PS4. Fans will expect graphical wonders like you're going to see on DriveClub and Project Cars. Can they match DC and PCars graphically, perhaps trying to do better in some areas and achieve 60fps on what is essentially a mid-range PC? I don't think its going to be quite so simple as you seem to think it is.

They should not care about other games. They should simply do as good as they can, with 1080p and 60FPS. They will have a LOT of room to improve compared to GT6

I'm not holding my breath on this one again PD is late to the party now although PS3 was hard to program for after while that excuse gets old because I've seen many other studios do it correctly, and why didn't they go to them for help?

How many studios did develop a driving simulator exclusive for PS3 besides PD? Thats right, none.

 

[Tornado]

PD wasn't even the only first party studio to make exclusive racing games for the PS3. Not that that really makes any difference either way; since PD had the most time, the most money and the most familiarity with the console and they still released two games in a row that drastically overreached what it was capable of (the second of which being the worse performing one) starting four years after the system launched; so there's certainly no guarantee that they wouldn't just do the same thing for the PS4.

 

[Zer0]

You're making my point for me in case you didn't know. The comparison with DC wasn't about the game itself it's about what they are trying to achieve visually on the PS4 in a driving/racing game. GT must be 60fps on PS4. Fans will expect graphical wonders like you're going to see on DriveClub and Project Cars. Can they match DC and PCars graphically, perhaps trying to do better in some areas and achieve 60fps on what is essentially a mid-range PC? I don't think its going to be quite so simple as you seem to think it is.

You only need to know this:


A Formula Ford is not a Ford Fiesta only because they share a 1 liter engine.

Is not simple. Engineering (new closed system with a custom gaming OS build exclusively to run games) vs brute force (old architecture general purpose pc with a generic OS patched to run games throught many external layers of non game related stuff and hardware optimisation constraints to ensure the compatibility between the vast array of makers and parts).

Anyone that have seen GT1, GT3 and GT5P at their launch knows that PD are far ahead of its time and will know that their next hardware jump will bring, as is tradition in the series, a new level of visuals in racing games. It's a safe bet.

 

[Zuku]

Hopelessness it is (you)

They should not care about other games. They should simply do as good as they can, with 1080p and 60FPS. They will have a LOT of room to improve compared to GT6

How many studios did develop a driving simulator exclusive for PS3 besides PD? Thats right, none.

Can't name any off top of my head, but others have developed racing games, and for what PD is trying to achieve yeah they could have still gone around, and asked someone for advise how to control the supposed unwieldy beast the PS3 supposedly is. I'm not saying go ask Naughty Dog or Ubisoft how they can make a racing game.

 

[Imari]

Hopelessness it is (you)

I'll thank you not to abuse me.

I'm yet to see anything concrete out of you to support your supposition that PD will turn it all around on PS4. You assume that because the PS4 has more power, they won't have issues.

The PS3 had more power than the PS2. Did we see many of the issues from GT4 being addressed? Some were, but many weren't, and the game was much less stable than GT4 was. I don't recall GT4 having frame rate issues to the same extent that GT5 and GT6 do.

There's nothing innate to having a more powerful machine that means that it won't be overworked, it's all down to design of the program. Had PD restrained themselves a little with GT6 I would have agreed with you. But they didn't learn from GT5, they continued to increase the resolution for GT6 even though it results in the same issues as GT5.

Whatever logic led them to that may lead them to make the same error on PS4. Until they actually demonstrate that they're willing to sacrifice features and bling for stability, I don't see any reason to believe that they'll do it.

 

[NixxxoN]

I'll thank you not to abuse me.

I'm yet to see anything concrete out of you to support your supposition that PD will turn it all around on PS4. You assume that because the PS4 has more power, they won't have issues.

The PS3 had more power than the PS2. Did we see many of the issues from GT4 being addressed? Some were, but many weren't, and the game was much less stable than GT4 was. I don't recall GT4 having frame rate issues to the same extent that GT5 and GT6 do.

There's nothing innate to having a more powerful machine that means that it won't be overworked, it's all down to design of the program. Had PD restrained themselves a little with GT6 I would have agreed with you. But they didn't learn from GT5, they continued to increase the resolution for GT6 even though it results in the same issues as GT5.

Whatever logic led them to that may lead them to make the same error on PS4. Until they actually demonstrate that they're willing to sacrifice features and bling for stability, I don't see any reason to believe that they'll do it.

Abuse? What

The problem was that Sony was pushing and pressing PD to get the Full HD... For marketing purposes I suppose.
It turned out that it was clearly too much for the PS3.

GT4 resolution was...? PAL 720X576 or something like that?

The gap in resolution between the PS3 and PS4 games is much lower than the gap between PS2 and PS3, therefore they will focus on another aspects like stability and consistency, track/car details, and sounds.

 

[Mr Grumpy]

We'll still be catching rabbits though, just in higher detail & faster frame rate. The core of the game will stay, just random events with random cars. STANDARD one's.

Im sorry but PD will not turn this game around, there stuck in their ways.
I hope im wrong but no GT7 for me, the damage is done.

 

[Imari]

The gap in resolution between the PS3 and PS4 games is much lower than the gap between PS2 and PS3, therefore they will focus on another aspects like stability and consistency, track/car details, and sounds.

GT4 was 1080i, which is basically half of 1080p. Then again, GT6 isn't full 1080p, it's rescaled from 1440x1080, so really it's 1036800 pixels per frame for GT4 versus 1555200 pixels for GT6 (or 1382400 pixels for GT5).

For full 1080p without any scaling you're looking at 2073600 pixels per frame.

GT4 to GT5 = +345600 pixels per frame.
GT4 to GT6 = +518400 pixels per frame.
GT6 to full 1080p = +518400 pixels per frame.

Looks like exactly the same jump from GT4 to GT6 as from GT6 to a full unscaled 1080p to me. Then again, I seem to recall GT4 doing some sort of scaling trick too but I can't find details on exactly what.

 

[MXH]

You are too overhyped about pcars and the "community assisting" gimmick. Its another way of saying "we have non-professional betatesters working for free, therefore we save money".
I dont see this mindboggling potential anywhere.
The GT6 bugs are PD's fault and not very normal. Usually games dont have those many bugs and no need for an army of betatesters.

If there are no benefits to it (or any potential for that matter), why do plenty of gaming companies even bother having public alpha and beta testing of their games? Care to explain?

 

[NixxxoN]

GT4 was 1080i

Haha, please.. GT4 1080i mode was a massively upscaled version of the 480 view and the detail was pretty much the same (very low) so these sorts of comparisons are pointless.
Its a bit like...

If there are no benefits to it (or any potential for that matter), why do plenty of gaming companies even bother having public alpha and beta testing of their games? Care to explain?

Cost cutting basically (Its great to have many non-professional betatesters for free) but it doesnt mean the results will be better than having professional betatesters directly working in the developing company...

 

[Zer0]

GT4 was 1080i, which is basically half of 1080p. Then again, GT6 isn't full 1080p, it's rescaled from 1440x1080, so really it's 1036800 pixels per frame for GT4 versus 1555200 pixels for GT6 (or 1382400 pixels for GT5).

For full 1080p without any scaling you're looking at 2073600 pixels per frame.

GT4 to GT5 = +345600 pixels per frame.
GT4 to GT6 = +518400 pixels per frame.
GT6 to full 1080p = +518400 pixels per frame.

Looks like exactly the same jump from GT4 to GT6 as from GT6 to a full unscaled 1080p to me. Then again, I seem to recall GT4 doing some sort of scaling trick too but I can't find details on exactly what.

Wrong, wrong and wrong, I don't know where to start...

The real rendered pixels per frame in GT4 were 640x448, scaled to 640x480 in 480p mode. At 1080i the rendered pixels for every frame were also the same 640x448 but distributed and later scaled in accordance with a 1080i video signal. The "trick" is in the 1080 interlaced video signal itself as it permits to combine the pixels of two GT4 frames to draw a more detailed one.

So you are looking at this:

GT4 (640x448) = 286720p/frame
GT6 (1440x1080) = 1555200p/frame (542% over GT4)
GT7 (1920x1080) = 2073600p/frame (133% over GT6)

Obviuosly the resolution gap if we talk about the computed pixels (not scaled) will be much lesser from GT6 to GT7, in 1080p mode.

Just for fun, GT7 4K mode:
GT7 (3840x2160) = 8294400p/frame (533% over GT6)
GT6 (1440x1080) = 1555200p/frame (542% over GT4)

 

[Saidur_Ali]

Do you have any reason to think this? Or is this just hopefulness speaking?

They're just as capable of overstressing the PS4 as they were of overstressing the PS3. Given that they've overstressed the hardware for two games in a row now, I'd have to say that it's odds on that they haven't learned and will do it again.

I like that they make use of the technology in the console and a lot of other developers use a lot of that power too mainly first party studios. Compromises are usually taken, some like the way PDI did for GT6 like myself, some don't.

Concern with PS4 seems thermal runaway issues but hopefully PS4 Slim will be out by time GT7 and Uncharted 4 is out so can game without console making room too hot. Will be interesting to see games use GPU compute well and PS4 has a lot of performance in that department compared to a lot of top GPUs for PCs. Hopefully game is very photorealistic and sounds great, a closer step to greatness.

 

[Zuku]

Rightttttt............so now it's about resolution............