Digital Foundry -- Halo 4 Tech Analysis

Shtof said:
So is Halo 4 actually looking better than Rage and Crysis 2 on the 360? Because those two are just mindblowing, not exactly Killzone 3 level but way more than I expected from the 360.
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it is, if anything, Crysis 2 is certainly the nearest visually, but Halo 4's IQ is much nicer, and it runs flawlessly at 30 throughout, where as Crysis 2 is a mess.
 
A7IcRpgCYAA6Z9n.jpg:large


Thought my days cannot get better than Halo launch,invention patent cube arrives for my lighting research for Halo team
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From Corrinne Yu twitter.
 
papersleeves said:
I'm going to grab many screenshots of the awesome textures found in Halo 4 later this evening. This game is so beautiful. Sublime art designs really make all the difference.

Still, somehow console "warriors" have to down play, as usual. You know the discussion has turned into stupidity Olympics when all the arguments are concentrated around minor technicalities (see nit-picking). So the 360 gets a top tier game that rivals the best of PS3. So what?

This whole comfy zone you guys need to clear up around your beloved consoles baffle me. Why is it so hard to simply enjoy a visually stunning game? Hell, Halo 4 isn't only beautiful. The campaign is so much fun. Just enjoy the game and be happy such a good game was made for you to play.
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People downplayed KZ3 as well and that came out almost 2 years ago and imo looks better than Halo 4. Go read the KZ3 DF tech thread for a laugh.
ibf1YWskvmbmIE.JPEG
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Is that red thing the damage location indicator? Man why can't more games do that instead of the COD jelly.
 
Lion Heart said:
People downplayed KZ3 as well and that came out almost 2 years ago and imo looks better than Halo 4. Go read the KZ3 DF tech thread for a laugh.


Is that red thing the damage location indicator? Man why can't more games do that instead of the COD jelly.
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Because COD gets you that craving for peanut butter & jelly:)
 
Lion Heart said:
People downplayed KZ3 as well and that came out almost 2 years ago and imo looks better than Halo 4. Go read the KZ3 DF tech thread for a laugh.


Is that red thing the damage location indicator? Man why can't more games do that instead of the COD jelly.
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Actually, Halo 4 does the strawberry jamming, it's just digital HUD jam. In that image, he just isn't hurt enough for it to kick in.
 
StuBurns said:
it is, if anything, Crysis 2 is certainly the nearest visually, but Halo 4's IQ is much nicer, and it runs flawlessly at 30 throughout, where as Crysis 2 is a mess.
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I think Crysis 2 is further ahead of the pack technically compared to Halo and Killzone.

The performance suffers because of it.

c2lights1ynic.gif
 
Reiko said:
I think Crysis 2 is further ahead of the pack technically compared to Halo and Killzone.

The performance suffers because of it.

c2lights1ynic.gif
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If you're going purely on tech, I'd place Witcher 2 above Crysis 2. Has many of the same features (HDR, deferred lighting, real time shadows, motion blur, etc.) but has better IQ and frame rate.

Still don't consider either game to be the best though. =P
 
papersleeves said:
I'm going to grab many screenshots of the awesome textures found in Halo 4 later this evening. This game is so beautiful. Sublime art designs really make all the difference.

Still, somehow console "warriors" have to down play, as usual. You know the discussion has turned into stupidity Olympics when all the arguments are concentrated around minor technicalities (see nit-picking). So the 360 gets a top tier game that rivals the best of PS3. So what?

This whole comfy zone you guys need to clear up around your beloved consoles baffle me. Why is it so hard to simply enjoy a visually stunning game? Hell, Halo 4 isn't only beautiful. The campaign is so much fun. Just enjoy the game and be happy such a good game was made for you to play.
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Yeah, Halo 4 has some great high quality textures. It´s just too bad it´s mixed between some very low res textures. You can see, how this game would have looked on the next gen, with every texture being like the high quality ones.
 
KageMaru said:
If you're going purely on tech, I'd place Witcher 2 above Crysis 2. Has many of the same features (HDR, deferred lighting, real time shadows, motion blur, etc.) but has better IQ and frame rate.
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Witcher 2 isn't doing real-time global illumination while crysis 2 is. I believe crysis is the only console game utilizing that tech at the moment. Im actually still impressed crytek got it to work on 8 year old hardware.
 
clutch.as.it.gets. said:
Yeah, Halo 4 has some great high quality textures. It´s just too bad it´s mixed between some very low res textures. You can see, how this game would have looked on the next gen, with every texture being like the high quality ones.
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What console game has consistently high resolution textures across the board?

Even one of the best looking games, God of War 3 doesn't even accomplish this.
 
clutch.as.it.gets. said:
Yeah, Halo 4 has some great high quality textures. It´s just too bad it´s mixed between some very low res textures. You can see, how this game would have looked on the next gen, with every texture being like the high quality ones.
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Ya but every game has low ress textures. 512mb ram does that in these consoles.
 
im only an hour in Halo 4 but I have been really impressed. I think the
textures in Reach appear sharper but Halo 4 has the lighting.
Speaking of lighting, any of you are playing NFS: Most Wanted?
Criterion is doing some amazing work in that game. Sure the frame rates
take a hit but with all the VFX its a really beautiful racing game.
 
clutch.as.it.gets. said:
Yeah, Halo 4 has some great high quality textures. It´s just too bad it´s mixed between some very low res textures. You can see, how this game would have looked on the next gen, with every texture being like the high quality ones.
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Yeah too bad the filtering is still pretty crappy.

benzy said:
Witcher 2 isn't doing real-time global illumination while crysis 2 is. I believe crysis is the only console game utilizing that tech at the moment. Im actually still impressed crytek got it to work on 8 year old hardware.
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Yeah that's true, though it's only used for a select few scenes since they cut most of it out from the console releases. Not even sure if it's real time on consoles.
 
StuBurns said:
it is, if anything, Crysis 2 is certainly the nearest visually, but Halo 4's IQ is much nicer, and it runs flawlessly at 30 throughout, where as Crysis 2 is a mess.
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Yeah, but Rage runs at 60 FPS and looks insanely good without the killing blur of Crysis 2.

Have to mention Killzone 3 again, the snow levels are for me the absolute peak graphics wise this (console) gen, maybe with the exception of certain parts of Uncharted 3. Yeah, and snow levels in Uncharted 2.
 
clutch.as.it.gets. said:
Yeah, Halo 4 has some great high quality textures. It´s just too bad it´s mixed between some very low res textures. You can see, how this game would have looked on the next gen, with every texture being like the high quality ones.
Click to expand...

Actually, apart from the character models almost all the textures are pretty low res. I've yet to see an environment texture that actually looks high definition. Although, I haven't played the full game, I'm only going from all the pics I've seen in this thread, a 10 minutes HD video from Gamersyde and a brief multiplayer session of about 20 minutes in a sub-optimal setting (I was standing at around 50 cm from a 42" TV in a Microsoft booth at a videogame event).

Edit: Although, maybe it's just the FXAA and lack of filtering that makes everything blurry and prevents from seeing all the good details... I don't know.
 
Hypron said:
Actually, apart from the character models almost all the textures are pretty low res. I've yet to see an environment texture that actually looks high definition. Although, I haven't played the full game, I'm only going from all the pics I've seen in this thread, a 10 minutes HD video from Gamersyde and a brief multiplayer session of about 20 minutes in a sub-optimal setting (I was standing at around 50 cm from a 42" TV in a Microsoft booth at a videogame event).
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The interpretation of low res textures varies from gamer to gamer. But of course, if people are primarily PC gamers, they will obviously not find the AF and texture resolution up to snuff.

Realistically, by current gen console standards, this is the only real example of low resolution textures.

metal-gear-solid-hd-collection-screenshots-oxcgn-14.jpg
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If Halo 4 is decorated with PS2 textures through and through... Then it's low resolution textures. By the screens posted... It's obviously not.
 
Reiko said:
The interpretation of low res textures varies from gamer to gamer. But of course, if people are primarily PC gamers, they will obviously not find the AF and texture resolution up to snuff.

Realistically, by current gen console standards, this is the only real example of low resolution textures.



If Halo 4 is decorated with PS2 textures through and through... Then it's low resolution textures. By the screens posted... It's obviously not.
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I know it's not that bad, that's why I said "pretty low res". I haven't played a game on a home console in ages, so if that's about the best that can be done on a 360, I suppose I've been a bit spoiled by PC gaming... [please don't quote this calling me a PC elitist, I'm really not, my rig is not even good]

Edit:

XtremeXpider said:
Not the best pic quality but it show some good textures:
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That's better!
 
Shtof said:
Yeah, but Rage runs at 60 FPS and looks insanely good without the killing blur of Crysis 2.
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While I accept it's a technical achievement, I think Rage looks terrible most the time. Dingy low res corridors. The overworld can look great, but there's also very little happening there. I certainly don't think of it as being in the same league as Halo 4 or the Killzones.

Halo 4's texture work is kind of weak, and it's filtering is crap, but I think the art design negates that very well for the most part.
 
KageMaru said:
Yeah that's true, though it's only used for a select few scenes since they cut most of it out from the console releases. Not even sure if it's real time on consoles.
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What? Real-time GI is used throughout the whole game. It's the lighting solution for cryengine 3 and allows for easy and quick lighting adjustments across all 3 platforms at the same time.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-analysis-crysis-2-demo?page=2

You might be thinking of BF3, in which case GI from the PC version was completely cut out in favor of prebaked lighting for the console versions.
 
benzy said:
What? Real-time GI is used throughout the whole game. It's the lighting solution for cryengine 3 and allows for easy and quick lighting adjustments across all 3 platforms at the same time.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-tech-analysis-crysis-2-demo?page=2

You might be thinking of BF3, in which case GI from the PC version was completely cut out in favor of prebaked lighting for the console versions.
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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-the-making-of-crysis-2?page=3

"Our innovative real-time GI solution was not fully complete/robust on consoles yet, it still had visible issues/artefacts which we ran out of time to address," Sousa confirms, going on to explain that as development on Crysis 2 came to end, console resources really were being pushed to breaking point, and something had to give.

"On consoles all milliseconds and memory counts, so at end of this project we made the tough decision to disable it for consoles. We still have a very simple and coarse GI approximation on consoles, where our art department fully controls the look, meaning we pay couple of milliseconds on areas where it is actually making a significant visual contribution."
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Hopefully it makes it in Crysis 3.
 
Is there any game that has ever used the tired orange-and-teal crutch as much as Halo 4? Combine that with the radioactive lighting, and you may have something technically impressive, but certainly not interesting.
 
Duffyside said:
Is there any game that has ever used the tired orange-and-teal crutch as much as Halo 4? Combine that with the radioactive lighting, and you may have something technically impressive, but certainly not interesting.
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In a world filled with brown and grey shooters I'd take orange and teal any day of the week.


In other news:
Seems that H4 swaps in 2d backgrounds dynamically. once an area is distanced enough it gets swapped for 2d image. (only happens after the "loading...done" section)

The effect is relatively convincing.
 
benzy said:
Witcher 2 isn't doing real-time global illumination while crysis 2 is. I believe crysis is the only console game utilizing that tech at the moment. Im actually still impressed crytek got it to work on 8 year old hardware.
Click to expand...

You would be wrong. Crysis 2 on consoles does not have global illumination. It is unfortunately faking it. PC feature only.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/digitalfoundry-crysis2-tech-interview

Tiago Sousa: Our innovative real-time GI solution was not fully complete/robust on consoles yet, it still had visible issues/artefacts which we ran out of time to address. Due to this, also on consoles all milliseconds and memory counts, so at end of this project we made the tough decision to disable it for consoles. We still have a very simple and coarse GI approximation on consoles, where our art department fully controls the look, meaning we pay couple of ms on areas where it is actually making a significant visual contribution.
Click to expand...

Edit: Awww, beaten to death :(
 
Duffyside said:
Is there any game that has ever used the tired orange-and-teal crutch as much as Halo 4? Combine that with the radioactive lighting, and you may have something technically impressive, but certainly not interesting.
Click to expand...

I thought you had said from what you had seen (20 minutes of you tube footage) it was all brown and grey? Maybe you should play it first. I found most of the levels pretty varied. The one thing that does stand out in every level is the lens flare, but it's not used any more than the light shafts in Gears of War 3 and in certain sections it combines with art and music to really sell a scene.
 
StuBurns said:
While I accept it's a technical achievement, I think Rage looks terrible most the time. Dingy low res corridors. The overworld can look great, but there's also very little happening there. I certainly don't think of it as being in the same league as Halo 4 or the Killzones.

Halo 4's texture work is kind of weak, and it's filtering is crap, but I think the art design negates that very well for the most part.
Click to expand...

Honestly, rage looks worse than MW2.
 
Shikoro said:
For start, I'm baffled as to how people are saying some of the weirdest things in this thread, one of them being that KZ2/3's AI is nothing compared to Halo's. I'll be honest, I don't own a 360 and I haven't played Halo 4, however, judging by the videos I really don't see why it's getting so much praise. I'm probably missing something so I'd like to be pointed in the right direction, if there is any.
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That is exactly why. You need to play a game to judge the AI not watch a bloody video. You have zero interaction with the AI if you are simply watching someone else play.
 
benzy said:
Witcher 2 isn't doing real-time global illumination while crysis 2 is. I believe crysis is the only console game utilizing that tech at the moment. Im actually still impressed crytek got it to work on 8 year old hardware.
Click to expand...

The real time light bounce from the sun isn't on in the console versions. ;)

stealth edit: Romney'ed.
 
KageMaru said:
If you're going purely on tech, I'd place Witcher 2 above Crysis 2. Has many of the same features (HDR, deferred lighting, real time shadows, motion blur, etc.) but has better IQ and frame rate.

Still don't consider either game to be the best though. =P
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The 360 version of The Witcher 2 does not have motion blur, but yeah it runs pretty good (some tearing here and there) & it's a great looking game excluding the horrible texture filtering (might be the worst I've seen this gen).
 
Feindflug said:
I'd rather have Crytek focus on improving the performance since the IQ on the 360 version was decent IMO...realistically though I don't see Crysis 3 having a better frame-rate than Crysis 2 though, they'll probably push the visuals even more. :/
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Yes, absolutely. They need to realize that implementing all of these expensive features in place of a stable framerate is a poor trade-off.
 
Watching last night's Halo 4 Thursday Night Throwdown on giantbomb made something stand out to me.
The framerate in big team games is abhorrent. Solid 30 my ass, it's chugging constantly.
How are people with the game experiencing this?
 
I really wish there were some way to disable the helmet and reduce the HUD intensity. Halo has always had a low FOV, but the much larger HUD and helmet elements have pushed things too far and it ends up feeling too restrictive.
 
dark10x said:
Yes, absolutely. They need to realize that implementing all of these expensive features in place of a stable framerate is a poor trade-off.
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Games like LoS & Crysis 2 (PS360) don't deserve to be praised IMO, if a game runs at sub-30fps all the time it's disappointing even if it is does the most technically advanced things on the consoles...that's the reason I appreciate some devs that go sub-HD - devs should know where to stop pushing things, having a stable frame-rate should be much more important than having a 720p framebuffer, textures or particles.

Maybe it's difficult to implement but dynamic resolution could've been a good choice for the Crysis games on the consoles.
 
Hoo-doo said:
Watching last night's Halo 4 Thursday Night Throwdown on giantbomb made something stand out to me.
The framerate in big team games is abhorrent. Solid 30 my ass, it's chugging constantly.
How are people with the game experiencing this?
Click to expand...

30fps in the game, maybe the giantbomb streaming was not solid framerate.
 
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