Digital Foundry Performance Analysis: The Order: 1886

There is a serious argument to be put forward in terms of dynamism (and hence how technically advanced or impressive something is) regarding the Order's graphics. Much like how a similar argument can be brought up against any game that chooses to use baked lighting conditions.

There are obvious draw backs and positives that will come more into light as the DF analysis is presented. For the mean time, I highly recommend people to just relax. That is unless you have some direct feed screeens you want to share or want to engage in discussion beyond "this looks the best" "no this looks the best."
The list is quite expansive on what it does better, animation is simply on another plain to Ryse along with performance.

Again IQ is much higher with it hard to spot aliasing, lighting is not only better on skin, hair but also the density of the air. You can see lights shafts and volumetric light throughout the game giving scenes and areas more depth.

Geometry is far more dense on faces, objects. Post processing and motion blur is over a higher sample rate. The AO capsule reflections are so well implemented in the game, objects and ground that are the most convincing in a game given the characters so much feel and base in the world. Shadows in the tunnel sequence are the best I have seen with them casting from multiple sources along with them being soft shadows that blur at the edge and track depth with sections of POM.

Overall it is a sublime piece of work that already makes ryse and ac unity look "games" in comparison as the PBR shading work along with the self shadows and artistic design push it over Ryse. If we do a DF and bring gameplay and story into it Ryse suffers even more and I own Ryse from day 1 on X1 but as great as it is once you see this game in the flesh on screen you will see what I mean.

edit: I forgot the fact the game never has a loading screen and is 100% realtime, this cannot be under egged as it makes a huge difference to the immersion, in realtime it still betters Ryse pre-renders and TLOU, uncharted etc etc.
 
Again IQ is much higher with it hard to spot aliasing, lighting is not only better on skin, hair but also the density of the air. You can see lights shafts and volumetric light throughout the game giving scenes and areas more depth.
I will happily wait for the screens showing this stuff. But please, let it be known that volumetric lighting is not exactly new. F.E.A.R. in 2005 was doing it.
Geometry is far more dense on faces, objects. Post processing and motion blur is over a higher sample rate. The AO capsule reflections are so well implemented in the game, objects and ground that are the most convincing in a game given the characters so much feel and base in the world. Shadows in the tunnel sequence are the best I have seen with them casting from multiple sources along with them being soft shadows that blur at the edge and track depth with sections of POM.
Sweet, got some screens of the POM?
I disagree that capsule reflections are necessarily the best, but the have some nice advantages.
Do the shadows have umbra and penumbra (PCSS)?
 
Ha ha, that's right, I saw that scene so many times when testing the PC version.

Yes, that is an incredibly impressive scene too.

I do think they could have pulled off more scenes in real-time but chose not to in order to hide loading as the game has VERY long loading times on Xbox One.
I'm willing to bet that the contributing reason was not just that but also performance issues. The game struggled to keep 30 during gameplay where less impressive scenes were rendered than what they had in some of the cutscenes. It would probably tank way below that if they stuck with fully realtime, ruining he smooth cinematic aspect of the cutscenes.

But again, I don't think the extent of how this game excels visually can be boiled down to its feature checklist. It's more with the quality of the implementation of the features they have. Dying Light has physically based rendering, but I think we can all agree that it's simply not anywhere near the quality present in The Order, even though on a paper checklist, they both tick the same box. It's also the quality of their asset authoring and integration pipeline which I think is simply unmatched right now. Well that, or they simply have people who are better at it than anyone anywhere in the industry.
 
I will happily wait for the screens showing this stuff. But please, let it be known that volumetric lighting is not exactly new. F.E.A.R. in 2005 was doing it.
Sweet, got some screens of the POM?
I disagree that capsule reflections are necessarily the best, but the have some nice advantages.
Do the shadows have umbra and penumbra (PCSS)?

yea they do on all objects including characters, even the hair strands on Grayson's head have individual shadows.
 
Would be interesting if the graphics engine would be capable of more than short linar "rail" action scenes between the cut-scenes, or if they choose these type of narrowed gameplay because a wider scope would make the framerate to choppy.

But 30 FPS for an interactive movie is okay, we all know that movies only need 24 FPS.
 
There is a serious argument to be put forward in terms of dynamism (and hence how technically advanced or impressive something is) regarding the Order's graphics. Much like how a similar argument can be brought up against any game that chooses to use baked lighting conditions.

There are obvious draw backs and positives that will come more into light as the DF analysis is presented. For the mean time, I highly recommend people to just relax. That is unless you have some direct feed screeens you want to share or want to engage in discussion beyond "this looks the best" "no this looks the best."

Is something more technically advanced simply because it is simulating some sort of global illumination? I mean what if the implementation is incredibly basic while the pre-baked techniques used are doing some interesting stuff? I know this sounds rather basic, but can you say something is simply more advanced based on a simplistic real time/baked metric?

Also in comparing games based on strength of individual components...emergent properties are also a thing. Obviously more difficult to quantify, but you can get some consensus there.
 
yea they do on all objects including characters, even the hair strands on Grayson's head have individual shadows.
Are you saying the hairs cast umbra/penumbra shadows where the shadoware sharp at the base and diffuse as they extend into the distance? And furthermore, that this detail is resolved to the point you can see it?

Mind posting some screens of that? Or some screens of the POM?

Is something more technically advanced simply because it is simulating some sort of global illumination? I mean what if the implementation is incredibly basic while the pre-baked techniques used are doing some interesting stuff? I know this sounds rather basic, but can you say something is simply more advanced based on a simplistic real time/baked metric?

Also in comparing games based on strength of individual components...emergent properties are also a thing. Obviously more difficult to quantify, but you can get some consensus there.
Its an aesthetics question on one level and with that one... I cannot argue too much against.

But on one level that is inarguable is that dynamic realtime solutions allow game worlds to be... game worlds. They allow the game world to be cohesive even while it is changing... and hence allow it to change without disrupting the art too much. I find this a great advatage and amazing technical hurdle in real time rendering. Game devs have been able to bake great indirect lighting or even great direct shadow maps for a long time. I have a hard time being impressed with them on a technical level even though they can be artistically quite appropriate looking in screens.
 
Are you saying the hairs cast umbra/penumbra shadows where the shadoware sharp at the base and diffuse as they extend into the distance? And furthermore, that this detail is resolved to the point you can see it?

Mind posting some screens of that? Or some screens of the POM?


Its an aesthetics question on one level and with that one... I cannot argue too much against.

But on one level that is inarguable is that dynamic realtime solutions allow game worlds to be... game worlds. They allow the game world to be cohesive even while it is changing... and hence allow it to change without disrupting the art too much. I find this a great advatage and amazing technical hurdle in real time rendering. Game devs have been able to bake great indirect lighting or even great direct shadow maps for a long time. I have a hard time being impressed with them on a technical level even though they can be artistically quite appropriate looking in screens.

Fair enough, I am with you if devs have unlimited power to play with, or at least sufficient power. But I wonder if they could get it look this good and run reasonably with a fully dynamic lighting engine. I don't think we are near passed the stage where devs have to make trade offs. I can understand your preference for dynamic solutions from a technical perspective. FFXV seems to have a nice dynamic lighting engine for instance. With the Order I am just very impressed with the overall fidelity of the visuals. I genuinely think this is the 'gears of war moment' of this gen.
 
Are you saying the hairs cast umbra/penumbra shadows where the shadoware sharp at the base and diffuse as they extend into the distance? And furthermore, that this detail is resolved to the point you can see it?

Mind posting some screens of that? Or some screens of the POM?


Its an aesthetics question on one level and with that one... I cannot argue too much against.

But on one level that is inarguable is that dynamic realtime solutions allow game worlds to be... game worlds. They allow the game world to be cohesive even while it is changing... and hence allow it to change without disrupting the art too much. I find this a great advatage and amazing technical hurdle in real time rendering. Game devs have been able to bake great indirect lighting or even great direct shadow maps for a long time. I have a hard time being impressed with them on a technical level even though they can be artistically quite appropriate looking in screens.

i think too much emphasis is placed on tech over visual output.
 
. FFXV seems to have a nice dynamic lighting engine for instance. With the Order I am just very impressed with the overall fidelity of the visuals. I genuinely think this is the 'gears of war moment' of this gen.
That I can definitely agree with.
i think too much emphasis is placed on tech over visual output.

I mean... it is a tech thread. But it is just a preference of mine. I think the visual output of realtime stuff can be approximate of baked solutions whilst also being cohesive when the world changes. Just requires a nice API, some smart devs, and arguably, more than 2TFs of power.

Given what we knew about SVOGI before it got killed by Epic... A game like the Order would have been perfrect for it. Mainly enclosed sections, lower number of dynamic screen objects. In fact, VXGI would be awesome in a game like The Order.
 
The graphics if the Order would be far more impressive to me if the 500K black pixels being shoehorned into inactivity in the bars were actually being used. Uncharted, Killzone, DriveClub, and Infamous are all proof that you can have a damn good looking game at full res.

The Order, again, makes sacrifices on the technical front to achieve it's "CG lite," as you phrase it, appearance. And in the end, can you truly say it was worth it?

"I would be disappointed if you felt any other way LMAO"

http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=124221410

Seriously, why would you laugh at dragonborn's response to a game that sacrifices >600k pixels and runs at an unstable framerate below 30. Then come to an order thread with pretty much the same argument dragonborn was making (even with the same example of games) for a game that sacrifices less pixels and runs at a pretty stable 30?
 
That I can definitely agree with.


I mean... it is a tech thread. But it is just a preference of mine. I think the visual output of realtime stuff can be approximate of baked solutions whilst also being cohesive when the world changes. Just requires a nice API, some smart devs, and arguably, more than 2TFs of power.

Given what we knew about SVOGI before it got killed by Epic... A game like the Order would have been perfrect for it. Mainly enclosed sections, lower number of dynamic screen objects. In fact, VXGI would be awesome in a game like The Order.

yes its a tech thread, but tech is just a means to a better visual end result. if the tech doesnt accomplish that then its failed.
 
i think too much emphasis is placed on tech over visual output.

Yep. In the current state of game tech I'm not seeing anything terribly ground breaking anymore anyways, outside of Q Games with their fully realtime 3 bounce GI. PBR is the obvious game changer this gen and a big part of the wow factor comes from having great art assets to back it up.

Sony need to merge RAD with ND or Sucker Punch or something. Clearly they have top tier talent but I think they lack the manpower to pull off anything bigger in scale.
 
If the measuring stick for how impressive the tech is used is something that is directly related to the complexity of its calculations, then a console game will, by construction, never be more impressive than a top-end PC one.

Which is just fine, of course -- but not exactly a very interesting discussion for me.
 
If the measuring stick for how impressive the tech is used is something that is directly related to the complexity of its calculations, then a console game will, by construction, never be more impressive than a top-end PC one.

Which is just fine, of course -- but not exactly a very interesting discussion for me.

Well that is not really what I am getting at. I like tech which goes for simulation to achieve its results rather than just displaying them from a file read.
Nothing is preventing a console game from doing those things. Just dev choice is all.

For example, look at "Tomorrow Children." That is hella cool.
 
Well that is not really what I am getting at. I like tech which goes for simulation to achieve its results rather than just displaying them from a file read.
Nothing is preventing a console game from doing those things. Just dev choice is all.

For example, look at "Tomorrow Children." That is hella cool.

tomorrow children also isnt nearly as impressive as the order in terms of visual output.
 
tomorrow children also isnt nearly as impressive as the order in terms of visual output.

In terms of the end product in a screen shot? Definitely not as impressive.

But in terms of what the tech enables (especially for gameplay / in how the game looks in motion) and what it is doing? I think it is more impressive.

But once again, just a preference.
 
To begin with, when we talk about "CG" in any term, we're starting at a lower bar to begin with, as no game no matter whether its a high end PC game or a console game is going to push the technicals of offline renderfarms. The "CG look" is really anything anyone can go for.
 
tomorrow children also isnt nearly as impressive as the order in terms of visual output.

That depends. Tomorrow Children looks really impressive. All the materials and lighting look so real even in an abstract context.

Apart from the lighting, it isn't technically as demanding as the Order but that lighting is sooo nice...
 
Well that is not really what I am getting at. I like tech which goes for simulation to achieve its results rather than just displaying them from a file read.
Nothing is preventing a console game from doing those things. Just dev choice is all.

For example, look at "Tomorrow Children." That is hella cool.
Tomorrow Children's tech is so cool. I hope we see more from it soon.
 
Apart from the lighting, it isn't technically as demanding as the Order but that lighting is sooo nice...
This comment reminds me...

Heads up!

I am actually creating a dedicated game engine tech thread like I promised so long ago. And due to something nib95 posted a while back there will be some (hopefully) cool rules to make it not-platform wars inducing as well as have interesting content (not just, "Assassins Creed has da best lightin!1"). Your comment reminds me, because your use of the word "lighting" is actually accurate to what you are referencing: aka, the cool dynamic lighting solution in Tomorrow Children.

Expect it in the near future!
 
I love how people try and tell a site what they should and shouldn't be writing about.
I think its fair to ask how relevant subjective opinions about gameplay plays into a tech analysis though. And if its being said in a nice way, constructive criticism could help them improve.
 
In terms of the end product in a screen shot? Definitely not as impressive.

But in terms of what the tech enables (especially for gameplay / in how the game looks in motion) and what it is doing? I think it is more impressive.

But once again, just a preference.

i was referring to both games in motion. the tomorrow children from a visual standpoint doesnt look impressive. i also dont see what 3 bounce GI enables in terms of gameplay wrt the tomorrow children
 
i was referring to both games in motion. the tomorrow children from a visual standpoint doesnt look impressive. i also dont see what 3 bounce GI enables in terms of gameplay wrt the tomorrow children
You can say, dig into a mountain and have the light seep in from the outside instead of just having some uniform ambient value. The deeper you dig... the darker it gets!

Similarly, if someone is coming around the corner you could see the light from a torch they are carrying before they even round the corner... just from its bounce light!

Cool stuff like that. Just like how real time dynamic shadows enabled you to see enemies in shooters around corners or even things sneaking behind you (doom 3).
 
Its Crytek, they were already working on powerful PC hardware, and have a scalable engine. So I don't think what you say is the whole story. As for the latter, I don't fully agree. There are other devs out there that can compete. I am sure Crytek can do better than Ryse, as good as that looks. As of now though, I think the Order looks clearly better.

The differences in the Xbone since then would have improved the framerate a bit. It isn't a big enough difference to make it 1080p though.

Defninitely not 1080p, Crytek even said that had they done Ryse on PS4, they would have targeted 900p as well. I was just replying to someone who wanted to compare Ryse to The Order, but it's simply not a fair comparison for too many reasons to list.
 
If the measuring stick for how impressive the tech is used is something that is directly related to the complexity of its calculations, then a console game will, by construction, never be more impressive than a top-end PC one.

Which is just fine, of course -- but not exactly a very interesting discussion for me.
While this is true, simply looking at the final output while disregarding the complexity required to achieve it is also not particularly fruitful for technical discussion. E.g. if two games look the same but one has a dynamic day/night cycle the latter is far more impressive, and the same is true for, say, fixed vs. free camera perspective or linear vs. wide open traversal.
 
This comment reminds me...

Heads up!

I am actually creating a dedicated game engine tech thread like I promised so long ago. And due to something nib95 posted a while back there will be some (hopefully) cool rules to make it not-platform wars inducing as well as have interesting content (not just, "Assassins Creed has da best lightin!1"). Your comment reminds me, because your use of the word "lighting" is actually accurate to what you are referencing: aka, the cool dynamic lighting solution in Tomorrow Children.

Expect it in the near future!


Looking forward to it.
 
They destroyed IQ, its even hard to see the level of AF in many shots, because they are so blurry. If You dont see how blurry they are in comparison to native games, then i really dont know what more i can say.
They didn't destroy the IQ. The game would look wrong if it had the tack sharp, unprocessed visuals. But the detail is there, and it's undeniable. I've seen what a similar scene to this looks like in BF4 with its 900p/FXAA, and it's uncomparably worse, and I bet in motion the difference would be even more profound on all those subpixel details.

ibddQt29PMHAip.jpg
 
The more I see Ryse on PC comparisons, the more I think that game looks better than The Order, even if that's a subjective decision, you cna't argue witht he difference in complexity in much of the scenes.

Ryse is just handling scenes with a LOT more complexity than the Order.
I know basically nothing about Ryse, but since its on PC, more effects and such wouldnt surprise me. The opposite would surprise me more when we talk purely about the technical aspect concidering that its a Crytek developed game on PC (although to be fair, i havnt followed Crytek that much lately, but i dont think that they have slacked down when it comes to their PC games, concidering how much powerful a PC can be compared to a PS4).
 
i was referring to both games in motion. the tomorrow children from a visual standpoint doesnt look impressive. i also dont see what 3 bounce GI enables in terms of gameplay wrt the tomorrow children

The tomorrow children is using its is lighting for gameplay. The avatars cannot survive in darkness and you often have to dig and sometimes traverse in the dark.

It is so neat that you can pick up lights and drop them anywhere, all the while they act exactly as you expect a light to act wrt to changing geometry (because the islands in the TC are not static geometry).
 
the order is superior to ryse

http://www.gamersyde.com/leech_34085_1_en.html

ive never seen shading and lighting of such a high quality in any other released title

Yes, I've no idea how people can under-value quality over horsepower.

It doesn't matter how many tflops you throw at a scene, and even how detailed the geometry is, if the material shaders are lower complexity, and the lighting isn't as advanced, then the end result is still inferior.

There are many ways to advance graphics and adding transistors is only half the battle if the algorithms are not bang up with the present as well. The Order for all its faults, appears to have done something spectacular with material shaders and how light interacts with them. So until another game and studio gets the to same level in software, the horsepower underneath it all is being wasted on porcine lipstick application.
 
They didn't destroy the IQ. The game would look wrong if it had the tack sharp, unprocessed visuals. But the detail is there, and it's undeniable. I've seen what a similar scene to this looks like in BF4 with its 900p/FXAA, and it's uncomparably worse, and I bet in motion the difference would be even more profound on all those subpixel details.
I was curious so I cropped some ryse xb1 shots.
iovcczooq64zi5zuea.png

ibddQt29PMHAip.jpg

ibzvcxxtjkqvnum8uuh.png

ibzvcxxtjkqvnu1s6pp2.png


The film grain, CA, and TAA (which I imagine they are using) sort of makes the obvious advantage in native pixel mapping and 4XMSAA seem not as large as one would imagine. I would hope this translates though in motion for subpixels.
 
I was curious so I cropped some ryse xb1 shots.

The film grain, CA, and TAA (which I imagine they are using) sort of makes the obvious advantage in native pixel mapping and 4XMSAA seem not as large as one would imagine. I would hope this translates though in motion for subpixels.

Ryse is a lot more crisp, but on the other hand aliasing on the diagonals is much more pronounced. I prefer the softness on the order, even really oblique diagonals don't show that much aliasing.

It is a bit hard to tell for sure as those Ryse screens seem to be a bit heavily compressed.
 
I was curious so I cropped some ryse xb1 shots.

The film grain, CA, and TAA (which I imagine they are using) sort of makes the obvious advantage in native pixel mapping and 4XMSAA seem not as large as one would imagine. I would hope this translates though in motion for subpixels.

lighting direction and close-ups kinda sway visibility in your favor with these shots, though
 
lighting direction and close-ups kinda sway visibility in your favor with these shots, though

That is why I posted this:
I would hope this translates though in motion for subpixels.

While in normal shots the resolution advantage and MSAA samples in the Order dont look as radically different from say Ryse on xb1 (due to how they enhance up their image with PP), subpixel quality and motion quality will be higher.
 
Great piece although I think they could have also critized PSN a bit, as it affects patch download speed performance and any future DLC that may arise for this game.
 
People wants amazing graphics, well there it is there you go.. so why aren't most of you guys happy about it? why are you still whinning? You want "next-gen" (now current gen) but yet you still whimp... OH I'm sorry you want good gameplay too? Aaahhhh darn it... Too bad
 
Ryse is a good step below The Order now that I've seen plenty of footage of both, especially in motion. Seeing them side by side just exacerbates that.
 
I was curious so I cropped some ryse xb1 shots.

The film grain, CA, and TAA (which I imagine they are using) sort of makes the obvious advantage in native pixel mapping and 4XMSAA seem not as large as one would imagine. I would hope this translates though in motion for subpixels.

There's also the issue of scaling artifacts, something that I notice immediately that would be present in Ryse that won't be in The Order.
 
you own ryse on pc right?

http://www.gamersyde.com/leech_34085_1_en.html

just watch that and you can form your own opinion on how they stack up.
Well I definitely think that the order is a better looking game, if that is what you are asking?

BTW, you never responded back about the whole tomorrow children gameplay induced by tech stuff.
There's also the issue of scaling artifacts, something that I notice immediately that would be present in Ryse that won't be in The Order.

Yeah, you can see them pretty obviously in the light to dark transitions in the Ryse shots.
 
Well I definitely think that the order is a better looking game, if that is what you are asking?

BTW, you never responded back about the whole tomorrow children gameplay induced by tech stuff.


Yeah, you can see them pretty obviously in the light to dark transitions in the Ryse shots.

no in terms of if the order demonstrates less sub pixel issues.

wrt the tomorrow children, the examples offered kind of necessitate a wait and see to determine if the GI will actually affect gameplay.
 
I was curious so I cropped some ryse xb1 shots.
iovcczooq64zi5zuea.png

ibddQt29PMHAip.jpg

ibzvcxxtjkqvnum8uuh.png

ibzvcxxtjkqvnu1s6pp2.png


The film grain, CA, and TAA (which I imagine they are using) sort of makes the obvious advantage in native pixel mapping and 4XMSAA seem not as large as one would imagine. I would hope this translates though in motion for subpixels.
Wow, looking at these images really put things in perspective. It's amazing how The Order 1886 looks better than Ryse, even the PC version (I'm aware these are XB1 shots). The upscaling artifacts due to the non-native resolution are really hurting the IQ in Ryse on XB1.
 
Theres really not much of a differnce between ryse on pc and xbone. I dont see why people keep saying "even the pc version". The xbone version has great iq, just a bit softer than the native res pc version. The scaling artifacts are pretty damn hard to notice in motion without specifically stopping to look for them
 
Theres really not much of a differnce between ryse on pc and xbone. I dont see why people keep saying "even the pc version". The xbone version has great iq, just a bit softer than the native res pc version. The scaling artifacts are pretty damn hard to notice in motion without specifically stopping to look for them
Well, if you look at some comparison shots, 1080p looks noticeably better because some surfaces look less blurry. PC gamers with enough hardware grunt can even turn it all the way up to 4K. But yeah, I agree that the difference is not very significant and the assets remain mostly the same because the game was clearly developed with the XB1 in mind. Still a great looking game but I don't see how anyone can say it looks better or even comparable to The Order 1886
 
Well, if you look at some comparison shots, 1080p looks noticeably better because some surfaces look less blurry. PC gamers with enough hardware grunt can even turn it all the way up to 4K. But yeah, I agree that the difference is not very significant and the assets remain mostly the same because the game was clearly developed with the XB1 in mind. Still a great looking game but I don't see how anyone can say it looks better or even comparable to The Order 1886

Screens arent a great comparison for clarity in titles like ryse. The differnce shrinks in motion
 
Screens arent a great comparison for clarity in titles like ryse. The differnce shrinks in motion
Most games look better in motion, especially games with awesome particle effects and/or great animations. Honestly, what is your point? Ryse on PC definitely looks better than on XB1, albeit not by a very large margin.
 
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