THE RULES:
Compression: Don't compress your screens (aka .jpg) or use a host that compresses them (Steam, Imgur).
Post 1.
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2014 High-Res PC Screenshot Thread of the Last Hope for Image Quality
- Thread starter Stallion Free
- Start date
THE RULES:
Compression: Don't compress your screens (aka .jpg) or use a host that compresses them (Steam, Imgur).
Post 1.
Dio Brando
Banned
It's not exactly about the format. it's because there's no reason, besides some really specific cases, to post a native 4k shot. it would be better to use a program to resize is to 1080p and them post it. it would look better, and save some people's bandwidth.
That's not really an excuse to post 4, 4K PNGs, with multiple topping out above 10Mb each.
At the very least resize them to 1080p first and ideally you'd convert it to a max quality JPEG (which has been shown to be nearly identical quality at a significantly smaller file size, and the post even has instructions on how to easily do so).
Posting a full, 4K PNG file doesn't really benefit anyone because the vast majority, maybe all of us don't have 4K displays, and the whole point of rendering at 4K is so you can downsample and get the AA that provides.
If you really want to share the full size images, you should link them and embed the smaller 1080p versions.
jim2point0
Banned
jim2point0
Banned
Yeah. The grain was hiding banding alright. And it's unfortunate.
jim2point0
Banned
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TheVampire
Banned
TheVampire
Banned
This is more of a general question to everyone but - what's up with banding in video games?
You'd think that our displays would have enough colors that when games are rendered, it's in a color space where banding is non-existant.
And there are obviously some games where banding really isn't a problem.
So what is it about same games that cause them to get terrible banding and others not? Why isn't it a gradual fade like you'd expect?
I have a feeling it's likely related to post-processing and possibly more specifically to any blur that's applied - like depth of field.
If anyone has insight I'd love to hear it.
Drunken Master
Member
ReeceIsAlive
Neo Member
From experience there are a variety of things that contribute to banding, I spend a lot of time in software like after effects, 4d, 3ds etc and usually the main cause of banding is post processing or ambient occlusion. Simulating bloom in post using after effects etc will cause a lot of banding even at a 32bit colour depth. Ambient occlusion, especially in modern games where it's really prominent and dare I say it, shit, contributes to some pretty subtle banding due to the low sampling rate and contrast. Then add some post processing to imitate hdr, bloom and dof, you've got your self some pretty hefty banding. But to answer your question I believe it's due to sampling rates being too low, as it would be difficult to get a decent framerate in realtime rendering for these effects which can cripple rendering times for composite artists and editors alike.
Appreciate the insight and I was thinking along those lines (post processing!) but didn't even consider it being low sample rates of the effects.
Thanks for sharing the knowledge
I thought I had tried turning nearly all effects off in the UDK in an attempt to improve banding, but maybe I missed some. Maybe some can't be disabled.
Four more NaissanceE shots. Please let me know if any of these are too spoilery for certain environments. I apologize that the shots are crappy, still only 2xSS, and at this point I barely know what things are supposed to look like in the game. It felt like there was 20 minutes or so where you could hardly see ANYTHING, and everything was crazy or abstract or seizure-inducing screen flashes, and then things finally went back to the architecture exploration stuff.
I got to what I assume was the very last scene of the game, only to discover that (like several earlier scenes) the checkpoint is much further back than you might hope for, and you have to wait through a slooooooow unskippable sequence where absolutely nothing happens in order to retry. I ragequit, bedtime. =P (Also, there were at least two earlier places in the game where it pretty blatantly trolls the player)
Four more NaissanceE shots. Please let me know if any of these are too spoilery for certain environments. I apologize that the shots are crappy, still only 2xSS, and at this point I barely know what things are supposed to look like in the game. It felt like there was 20 minutes or so where you could hardly see ANYTHING, and everything was crazy or abstract or seizure-inducing screen flashes, and then things finally went back to the architecture exploration stuff.
I got to what I assume was the very last scene of the game, only to discover that (like several earlier scenes) the checkpoint is much further back than you might hope for, and you have to wait through a slooooooow unskippable sequence where absolutely nothing happens in order to retry. I ragequit, bedtime. =P (Also, there were at least two earlier places in the game where it pretty blatantly trolls the player)
Last two NaissanceE shots for the evening:
Purpose of this room spoiler:
This was one of my favorite environments. After the electrical bolt flashes, nearby surfaces sometimes light up, and the sound is delayed like distant lightning would be. It's neat.
Purpose of this room spoiler:
I found no purpose to this room WHATSOEVER. Maybe there is an easter egg, maybe there is a secret or alternate route. I sure didn't find it. I wasted a bunch of time and eventually ended up going somewhere completely different, lol.
This was one of my favorite environments. After the electrical bolt flashes, nearby surfaces sometimes light up, and the sound is delayed like distant lightning would be. It's neat.
N1ghtW4lk3R
Member
Brerlappin
Member
I'm glad you liked my screenshots!And neoenigma: daamn your nfs shots are crisp!
Is there an easy way to remove the hud in that game? i never got any screens from it cause of the hud
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Oh look it's Ferro Maljinn!
jim2point0
Banned
I'm glad you liked my screenshots!
Hah. I can't take credit for those. They were DeadEndThrills' shots.
OldAsUrSock
Banned
That was last gen.
Drunken Master
Member
N1ghtW4lk3R
Member
jim2point0
Banned
I'm stuck right now and have no clue how to progress. It's 95% darkness with only these random white cubes flying around in the middle of the room. I see nowhere I can go, and I'm a bit bored of trying to guess what this game wants me to do. It's just..... weird. And I don't think I can handle the banding anymore O_O
This area was also particularly difficult, but at least I knew what to do (run forward....)
jim2point0
Banned
.... fuck no.
Seriously, I think I hate this game. I'm only trying to progress to find the visuals. But I'm at a loss as what kind of interesting screenshots to take of this game. This is pretty fantastic though.
It's a first person platformer, which is already enough to scare way most people. Just lots of precise jumps and figuring out how to get to that platform up there. What's worse is that some of the layouts and environments are really confusing. One part of the game goes completely pitch black (or white, depending on the door you go through), and you can only kinda see where to go based on a random flash of light or shadow every 2 seconds. I used the UE3 wireframe command to get through that because I couldn't be bothered.
And now I'm stick in a black room where I can't even see where I can go. I guess I'm just supposed to run along the wall and wait until a doorway appears but... eh. I think I'm done.
Stein3x
Member
Thanks man, didn't realize it was the last page (it happens all the time when i post :0 )
I f. love the game . The structure/architecture is brilliant , especially when you go down town and witness the epic scale while hearing the wind blowing in every corner. love every bit of it
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Pjsprojects
Member
Lego movie. (Opps bmp format)
legacyzero
Banned
legacyzero
Banned
legacyzero
Banned
Well that's sort of a huge bummer!
I think that I'm gonna wait on a 3D vision report. If it's good in 3D I think it might be worth going through regardless of bad gameplay. Thanks for the little run through.
I stopped trying the seizure-inducing black door, but I managed to very slowly make it through the white one.
The spinning parts where you have to run forwards were really annoying like you mentioned, with a checkpoint way back.
The game actually DOES get to some really interesting environments and goes back to "normal" mode (I posted one of them with the electrical bolt), but you have to slog through the really crappy areas where you can't see anything first.
Speaking of crazy effects, did you get to the ultra bloom area?
There's a place with a lot of spinning, floating platforms you have to climb, and low gravity. It would not be so bad, but they cranked the bloom and blur to 11, so you're basically playing on drugs or something.
I posted some similar thoughts in the OT. The architecture and creativity with the enormous scale is great, but especially 6-8 hours in, there are some truly rage-inducing parts that make it difficult to enjoy.
jim2point0
Banned
When I get back to my PC, I'll try and take a screenshot where I'm at and see if anyone can tell me what to do or where to go. Because I'm stuck\frustrated. I'll probably post it in the OT (didn't know there was one)
jim2point0
Banned
Got past the part I was stuck at.
jim2point0
Banned
jim2point0
Banned
BONKERS
Member
This.
Pictures should be downsampled first. It defeats the point otherwise.
If you have to post a PNG at 4k. Make it a link only, or convert it to level 12 JPG in photoshop first.
I'd love to force SGSSAA (I have a GTX 770), but I don't even know where to enter the flag. =P Do I need a third-party tool other than the nVidia control panel?
Also, neoenigma, a bunch of your pictures got murdered by flickr.
That's what I was afraid of, the grain was to combat banding. When I would work with stuff in the UDK it seemed like banding was an awful problem and I never found a way to fix it for solid colors. Everyone just said "well use a texture" or use grain or something.
And everyone is posting the game, darnit! I have GOT to start tonight before the entire thing gets posted.
Whoops, missed your post. Thank you! I will search for nVidia Inspector.
It turns out trying to force 4xMSAA, 4xSGSSAA kills my framerate with a GTX 770 and 4.5 GHz 3570k.
Try 2xSGSSAA and some minor downsampling (IE: 1.2x * 1.2x , so if your display is 1920x1080 1.2x * 1.2x would be 2304x1296)
You can also try adding SMAA or FXAA on top of your 2xSSAA to help smooth out edges
It's a combination of a number of factors. The precision in which the rendering is done and the precision in which rendering of specific effects is done.
It's a side effect of "Optimization" unfortunately. I wish in PC versions we could have an option to change said precision of different effects so games are more forward compatible for the future.
Look at Syndicate (2012) for example, it has an RGBA8 and RGBA16(F? can't remember) option. RGBA16 is banding free for just about everything. RGBA8 has banding all over the place when it comes to things like fog and other stuff
Here's a comparison
RGBA8 http://i.minus.com/iZy2w1u6uMAdL.png
RGBA16 http://i.minus.com/ibrnqWQSZxA7dB.png
N1ghtW4lk3R
Member
R
Rösti
Unconfirmed Member
I use Abload, which is mentioned in the OP, that works well for me but I only upload PNG files. Maybe you could try Google Drive or similar, that doesn't compress images as far as I know.
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