Support NeoGAF

[Corporal.Hicks]

If using the term "powerful" like so many have, then yes, understanding what that actually means in hardware, rather than being impressed with a lot of flat texturing with scant fidelity fx and saying more powerful, doesn't cut it in such a discussion.

Carmack's email conversation with Nvidia engineer talking about shadow stencil volumes working on PS2, but then the Xbox version didn't have that brutally bandwidth demanding feature is pretty definitive.

Perhaps stencil volumes would offer even better fidelity than the shadow buffers in Splinter Cell 1, but they would be expensive to use for sure. Developers would think twice before using this technology. Xbox could render realistic looking shadow casters relatively cheap and that's why xbox games had shadows literally everywhere (even in racing games).

The PS2 had problems with even simple shadow casters, and you want me to believe that sony console could render FX effects even better than xbox. I admire your imagination, but you should know when to stop dreaming.

I also found DEFINITIVE confirmation that the PS2 was unable to reach the polycounts found on the wiki page in real games. Sony's extensive sampling with the Performance Analyzer found the maximum sustained on PS2 was 7.5 million polys a second, a far cry from 70Million, and average was half of that.

PS2 performance analyzer statistics (from Sony)

http://www.technology.scee.net/sceesite/files/presentations/PSP/HowFarHaveWeGot.pdf What a shame that there are still many developers that are not even using VU0. Fredi

forum.beyond3d.com

Here's a discussion about this on the beyond3d forum. The link for the Sony PDF is no longer active, but you can still find it here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://retrocdn.net/images/8/81/HowFarHaveWeGot.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjqypm0tP-HAxXbCRAIHUrwO34QFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1LT5mi9jaFMkLLiqMtuGM1

 

[Xaeroxcore666]

I love all 6th gen consoles, it´s my favorite generation by far. Back in the day during the actual gen i had Dreamcast and Gamecube. But my ordet should be 1.Dreamcast 2. Xbox 3. GCN 4. PS2

 

[PaintTinJr]

Perhaps stencil volumes would offer even better fidelity than the shadow buffers in Splinter Cell 1, but they would be expensive to use for sure. Developers would think twice before using this technology. Xbox could render realistic looking shadow casters relatively cheap and that's why xbox games had shadows literally everywhere (even in racing games).

The PS2 had problems with even simple shadow casters, and you want me to believe that sony console could render FX effects even better than xbox. I admire your imagination, but you should know when to stop dreaming.

I also found some DEFINITIVE confirmation that the PS2 was unable to reach the polycounts found on the wiki page in real games. Sony's extensive sampling with the Performance Analyzer found the maximum sustained on PS2 was 7.5 million polys a second, a far cry from 70Million, and average was half of that.

PS2 performance analyzer statistics (from Sony)

http://www.technology.scee.net/sceesite/files/presentations/PSP/HowFarHaveWeGot.pdf What a shame that there are still many developers that are not even using VU0. Fredi

forum.beyond3d.com

Here's a discussion about this on the beyond3d forum. The link for the Sony PDF is no longer active, but you can still find it here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://retrocdn.net/images/8/81/HowFarHaveWeGot.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjqypm0tP-HAxXbCRAIHUrwO34QFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1LT5mi9jaFMkLLiqMtuGM1

I feel like we keep going in circles because you aren't really aware of what you are arguing

Take for example, you made reference to quake3 in the previous comments which is exactly the type of cheap fillrate, all large quality texture maps and precalculated lightmaps of large planar polygon workloads that is the thesis for Xbox OG and the antithesis for PS2.

You keep going on about DX8 water, yet because it wasn't massively pushing the PS2, I suspect the particle water fx in Ico weren't being compared, or the particle fx smoke of the enemies which was definitely beyond the Xbox GPU, and lots of shader examples better than DX8 fx were implemented and some even were available as examples to try out on PS2 linux kit that some of us did own.

Even you stating the PS2 could only manage 7.5m ploys is just analysis of games from 2001-2003, and these would all be using at a minimum basic T&L with texturing and fog. So weren't exactly looking to lean to one strength or another, and as expected align to multiplatform results observed.

The wiki info has come from developer sdk documents too of working samples that achieved those results. Otherwise the wiki would have been edited.

Edit, as for the Cube projected shadows comment, that is quite telling he wasn't looking to shadow map like many first party games did like Wind Waker.

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

The wiki info has come from developer sdk documents too of working samples that achieved those results. Otherwise the wiki would have been edited.

That wikipage should be edited a long time ago because it gives people a wrong impression. The Xbox was faster and more capable console, not the other way around. It had 4x more flops, much more texture memory and modern features allowing to use easy to implement FX effects at relatively low cost. Perhaps the PS2 could render similar FX effects, but not as many (because the PS2 was VRAM limited) and not as fast. My Splinter Cell 1 comparison shows these differences. Ubisoft managed to approximate the Xbox shadows and lighting effects on the PS2 thanks to clever workarounds. However shadows in this game were nowhere near as detailed and not used as often.

According to developer "ERP" (he wrote games on Xbox / PS2 and GC) on the beyond3d forum, the Xbox was faster and better in every single way except for particle rendering.

Here's what "ERP" wrote:

Your beliefs about the PS2 were based on wiki misinformation and maybe a Sony marketing. I have played hundreds of games on both consoles and there was nothing to suggest the PS2 had the upperhand at polycounts or FX effects. Xbox games were more detailed, ran better and had more impressive FX effects.

Edit, as for the Cube projected shadows comment, that is quite telling he wasn't looking to shadow map like many first party games did like Wind Waker.

He also explained the tricks used in GC games to overcome this limitation.

I do not want to continue this discussion because I have presented more than enough arguments to prove that the Xbox was a faster and more powerful console. If you still want to believe wikipedia and sony marketing, please continue to do so, because some people may prefer to live with false beliefs if that's what makes their lives happier.

 

[PaintTinJr]

That wikipage should be edited a long time ago because it gives people a wrong impression. The Xbox was faster and more capable console, not the other way around. It had 4x more flops, much more texture memory and modern features allowing to use easy to implement FX effects at relatively low cost. Perhaps the PS2 could render similar FX effects, but not as many (because PS2 was VRAM limited) and not as fast. My Splinter Cell 1 comparison shows these differences. Ubisoft managed to approximate the Xbox shadows and lighting effects on the PS2. However, they were nowhere near as detailed and not used nearly as often.

According to developer "ERP" (he wrote games on Xbox / PS2 and GC) on the beyond3d forum, the Xbox was faster and better in every single way except for particle rendering.

Here's what "ERP" wrote:

Your beliefs about the PS2 were based on wiki misinformation and maybe a Sony marketing. I have played hundreds of games on both consoles and there was nothing to suggest the PS2 had the upperhand at polycounts or FX effects. Xbox games were more detailed, ran better and had more impressive FX effects.


He also explained the tricks used in GC games to overcome this limitation.

I do not want to continue this discussion because I have presented more than enough arguments to prove that the Xbox was a faster and more powerful console. If you still want to believe wikipedia and sony marketing, please continue to do so, because some people may prefer to live with false beliefs if they make their lives happier.

Whatever, it is a complete copout when you are arguing by proxy, anyway and the proxy is talking about 5th gen shadow techniques for 6th gen designed consoles, but apparently good performance and resolution with 5th gen techniques was more important to show off powerful hardware than actually doing 6th gen techniques that align to referenced and vetted wikipedia information.

People inconsistently pick and choose, we certainly don't give AMD the GPU performance crown today because they are crushing it at raster graphics and losing at RT, do we?

 

[Romulus]

That wikipage should be edited a long time ago because it gives people a wrong impression. The Xbox was faster and more capable console, not the other way around. It had 4x more flops, much more texture memory and modern features allowing to use easy to implement FX effects at relatively low cost. Perhaps the PS2 could render similar FX effects, but not as many (because PS2 was VRAM limited) and not as fast. My Splinter Cell 1 comparison shows these differences. Ubisoft managed to approximate the Xbox shadows and lighting effects on the PS2. However, they were nowhere near as detailed and not used nearly as often.

According to developer "ERP" (he wrote games on Xbox / PS2 and GC) on the beyond3d forum, the Xbox was faster and better in every single way except for particle rendering.

Here's what "ERP" wrote:

Your beliefs about the PS2 were based on wiki misinformation and maybe a Sony marketing. I have played hundreds of games on both consoles and there was nothing to suggest the PS2 had the upperhand at polycounts or FX effects. Xbox games were more detailed, ran better and had more impressive FX effects.


He also explained the tricks used in GC games to overcome this limitation.

I do not want to continue this discussion because I have presented more than enough arguments to prove that the Xbox was a faster and more powerful console. If you still want to believe wikipedia and sony marketing, please continue to do so, because some people may prefer to live with false beliefs if they make their lives happier.

Yeah every single thread on beyond3d with actual multiplatform devs the conversation went like above. It's only when I go to forums there's people saying they got it all wrong. The devs that worked on all 3 are actually mistaken lol

 

[PaintTinJr]

Yeah every single thread on beyond3d with actual multiplatform devs the conversation went like above. It's only when I go to forums there's people saying they got it all wrong. The devs that worked on all 3 are actually mistaken lol

For the first time the vast majority of developers needed a middleware engine in that gen to get the most out of the PS2 multi plats because of its complexity being ridiculous, and the introduction of techniques like inverse kinematics and animation blending being possible in the 6th gen. Teams of programmers were needed for doing stuff like that on their own in-house engine.

Anyone building their own engine in a AA developer for the PS2 is hardly going to get the dialled in results they got from DirectXPC Xbox, and certainly weren't going to compare to Renderware or Unreal engine 2 for pushing the PS2, or getting anything good from working with PS2 antithesis iDtech for FPS games.

 

[Romulus]

For the first time the vast majority of developers needed a middleware engine in that gen to get the most out of the PS2 multi plats because of its complexity being ridiculous, and the introduction of techniques like inverse kinematics and animation blending being possible in the 6th needed teams of programmers doing stuff like that on their own in-house engine,
Anyone building their own engine in a AA developer for the PS2 is hardly going to get the dialled in results they got from DirectXPC Xbox, and certainly weren't going to compare to Renderware or Unreal engine 2 for pushing the PS2, or getting anything good from working with PS2 antithesis iDtech for FPS games.

This has nothing to do with developers mentioning how much faster xbox was. They're always using ps2 as a base and because of the larger install base it got more love. But still just throwing it at the xbox it was faster.

State of Emergency was a prime example. The devs developed it as an exclusive to take advantage of ps2s complex but powerful cpu. It was completely customized for ps2. Years later they were paid to do the xbox port and got 2x the framerate, higher resolution textures and higher resolution.

 

[PaintTinJr]

This has nothing to do with developers mentioning how much faster xbox was. They're always using ps2 as a base and because of the larger install base it got more love. But still just throwing it at the xbox it was faster.

State of Emergency was a prime example. The devs developed it as an exclusive to take advantage of ps2s complex but powerful cpu. It was completely customized for ps2. Years later they were paid to do the xbox port and immediately got 2x the framerate, higher resolution textures and higher resolution.

So they weren't using middleware to utilise physics acceleration, inverse kinematics, animation blending and they were using largely 5th gen rendering with the likes of shadow casters, CPU hidden surface removal? Or have I got that wrong?

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

Yeah every single thread on beyond3d with actual multiplatform devs the conversation went like above. It's only when I go to forums there's people saying they got it all wrong. The devs that worked on all 3 are actually mistaken lol

The forums are often visited by the console's advocate's, and these people have certain programmed beliefs. To such people, facts mean nothing. I knew that my arguments in this thread would not convince die hard sony fans, but I continued this conversation because I knew that some people might realize something.

The PS2 was less powerful, but talented developers still managed to create some stunning looking games on this platform thanks to amazing art dorection. They were also using clever tricks to hide imperfections/limitations. For example, cars in Gran Turismo 3/4 had darkened windows to hide the lack of interior detail. When I was young I thought the GT3/4 looked photorealistic, so this trick obviously worked. GT5 had dynamic lighting, the cars had detailed interiors and the game ran at a much higher resolution, but sometimes GT3/4 still looked more realistic to me.

 

[Romulus]

So they weren't using middleware to utilise physics acceleration, inverse kinematics, animation blending and they were using largely 5th gen rendering with the likes of shadow casters, CPU hidden surface removal? Or have I got that wrong?

None of that is relevant in this discussion.

 

[Slayer-33]

Gamecube>xbox>>>>>>dreamcast

Shattap

Putting DC that far back is a sin.

Xbox > DC = GC

I had a GC for MP, sold it soon after playing it a bit. Definitely went through a ton of more games on DC vs GC, PSO was f'ing magical on DC, so was MSR, Shenmue, F355 Challenge, Skies of Arcadia, etc.

Xbox was the spiritual successor of DC imo.

 

[SomeGit]

If using the term "powerful" like so many have, then yes, understanding what that actually means in hardware, rather than being impressed with a lot of flat texturing with scant fidelity fx and saying more powerful, doesn't cut it in such a discussion.

Carmack's email conversation with Nvidia engineer talking about shadow stencil volumes working on PS2, but then the Xbox version didn't have that brutally bandwidth demanding feature is pretty definitive.

Back in those days, zbuffering/stencilling, fog, lighting had the same type of performance impact as RT does today.

????

The Xbox version had shadow stencil volumes, have you actually seen the Xbox port?

Hell, even your source is complete bogus, neither Carmack's e-mails to Mark Kilgard nor his talks or patents on Carmack's Reverse ever mention the PS2 at all, you should really not blidly trust CoPilot.
Like at no point even in the references you included, is the PS2 ever mentioned, let alone say that it would be more suitable on PS2. And it would not even make sense, because the conversations and patent happened in late 99/early 00, before the Xbox and Gamecube were even announced.

EDIT: Some screens to show that it is there

Spoiler: Xbox

Spoiler: PC-Stencil-Shadows-Enabled

Spoiler: PC-Stencil-Shadows-Disabled

 

[Gambit2483]

Xbox was the spiritual successor of DC imo.

Funny considering most people at the time considered Nintendo the new home of SEGA/Sonic the Hedgehog. So much that they even put him in the next Smash Bros, created a new Olympics franchise with him and Mario and released a ton of Nintendo exclusive Sonic titles.

 

[BlackTron]

Does a person believe that Xbox isn't stronger than PS2 because he wasn't there at the time, or because he was and can't let go?

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

????

The Xbox version had shadow stencil volumes, have you actually seen the Xbox port?

Hell, even your source is complete bogus, neither Carmack's e-mails to Mark Kilgard nor his talks or patents on Carmack's Reverse ever mention the PS2 at all, you should really not blidly trust CoPilot.
Like at no point even in the references you included, is the PS2 ever mentioned, let alone say that it would be more suitable on PS2. And it would even make sense, because the conversations and patent happened in late 99/early 00, before the Xbox and Gamecube were even announced.

EDIT: Some screens to show that it is there

Spoiler: Xbox

Spoiler: PC-Stencil-Shadows-Enabled

Spoiler: PC-Stencil-Shadows-Disabled

Stencil shadows were very demanding. On PC, not even the GeForce 3 Ti500 could run Doom 3 at playable fps at 480p with stencil shadows on. The Xbox version had stencil shadows and that's one of the reasons why the xbox port was so impressive.

However, Riddick was released even before Doom 3 and also used this technology. The shadows in Riddick were dynamic and pixel perfect. This game could have passed for an early x360 title. Seeing this game in 2004 was a sublime and next-gen experience running on an existing console. No PS2 game came close, yet some people still believe there was nothing special in the Xbox hardware. The PS2 could do all of that in software...

Uncover the Technological Breakthrough of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

Discover the revolutionary game that pushed the boundaries of graphics and gameplay. Explore the immersive world of Riddick and experience the blend of stealth, combat, and stunning visuals that made it a gaming milestone.

www.toolify.ai

Riddick came out of absolute nowhere and blew people away with it's graphcis. It was also an amazing and very challenging experience. The game had Interesting story and great stealth too.

"Wanna live? Get a shiv"

 

[SomeGit]

Yes, xbox version had stencil shadows, however Riddick was released even before Doom 3 and it also used this technology. Shadows in Riddick were dynamic and pixel perfect. This game could have passed for an early x360 title. Seeing this game in 2004 was sublime and next gen experience running on existing console.

Uncover the Technological Breakthrough of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

Discover the revolutionary game that pushed the boundaries of graphics and gameplay. Explore the immersive world of Riddick and experience the blend of stealth, combat, and stunning visuals that made it a gaming milestone.

www.toolify.ai

Riddick came out of absolute nowhere and blew people away with it's graphcis. It was also an amazing and very challenging experience. The game had Interesting story and great stealth too.

Wanna live? Get a shiv

There’s a couple more, Deus ex IW and Thief 3 used them extensively. Also Shrek, of all games, used them.

 

[Drell]

Why are 6th gen topics (whatever their title and subject are) always deriving to insecure fanboys fighting over dead consoles?

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

Why are 6th gen topics (whatever their title and subject are) always deriving to insecure fanboys fighting over dead consoles?

War never has an end and never changes.

 

[GigaBowser]

xbox was armazing in the olden days

 

[PaintTinJr]

????

The Xbox version had shadow stencil volumes, have you actually seen the Xbox port?

Hell, even your source is complete bogus, neither Carmack's e-mails to Mark Kilgard nor his talks or patents on Carmack's Reverse ever mention the PS2 at all, you should really not blidly trust CoPilot.
Like at no point even in the references you included, is the PS2 ever mentioned, let alone say that it would be more suitable on PS2. And it would not even make sense, because the conversations and patent happened in late 99/early 00, before the Xbox and Gamecube were even announced.

EDIT: Some screens to show that it is there

Spoiler: Xbox

Spoiler: PC-Stencil-Shadows-Enabled

Spoiler: PC-Stencil-Shadows-Disabled

If you think those soft shadows on Xbox are stencil shadow volumes you probably don't have the background knowledge about shadowing and the potential shadow map issues for art teams to understand why robust shadowing was being researched by John in the beginning of Doom 3 to understand why building an engine that could be used by a small team of artists without manual consideration of shadowing from whatever they built in the horror shooter was important.

 

[CobraAB]

Xbox only on the list because Halo.

 

[SomeGit]

If you think those soft shadows on Xbox are stencil shadow volumes you probably don't have the background knowledge about shadowing and the potential shadow map issues for art teams to understand why robust shadowing was being researched by John in the beginning of Doom 3 to understand why building an engine that could be used by a small team of artists without manual consideration of shadowing from whatever they built in the horror shooter was important.

I don’t think, I know because:

1) OG Doom 3 has no soft shadow until BFG, and they are visually not soft shadows, they are literally razor sharp.
2) The description of the command I used to disable on PC is "Enables drawing of shadow volumes.", it's usage on the Doom 3 source code is to return null or not on the R_CreateShadowVolume which creates the stencil shadow volumes and RB_StencilShadowPass to draw them.

If you can't even visually identify stencil shadow volumes, even when I show you the comparison between on/off on PC, I can't tell you have 0 clue what you are talking about.

 

[Corporal.Hicks]

I don’t think, I know because:

1) OG Doom 3 has no soft shadow until BFG, and they are visually not soft shadows, they are literally razor sharp.
2) The description of the command I used to disable on PC is "Enables drawing of shadow volumes.", it's usage on the Doom 3 source code is to return null or not on the R_CreateShadowVolume which creates the stencil shadow volumes and RB_StencilShadowPass to draw them.

If you can't even visually identify stencil shadow volumes, even when I show you the comparison between on/off on PC, I can't tell you have 0 clue what you are talking about.

Yes, the Xbox version had per-pixel lighting and razor sharp shadows. Soft shadows have never been used in this game, not even on PC (2004 version).



You need a high-end Geforce 5 FX series to run doom 3 at playable framerate with per-pixel shadows enabled, so it was quite an achievement that the Xbox was able to run the game with such demanding settings. Xbox version also had bump mapping.

But it seems the PS2 would run doom 3 even better than the Xbox, as Wikipedia says Sony's console could render up anywhere from 36 million to 70 million polygons (compared to the Xbox's unimpressive 7-21 million), and it's GPU could render even more advanced FX effects (on pair with DX10). The only reason the game was not ported to the PS2 is because that platform had even better looking games and no self-respecting PS2 owner would want to play a game as average looking as Doom 3. The graphics in this game relied on old and cheap bump mapping gimmick and this technology was only there to mask low poly objects. The PS2 console did not need to use such cheap FX tricks because it was so fast it could render millions of polygons without the need to use bump mapping. The PS2 exclusives prove this, bump mapping was rarely if ever used there.

 

[daninthemix]

Whichever one you fanboyed for was objectively the worst.

 

[Hero_Select]

I am sorry. I did not know you were throwing parties for autistic man-children with hygiene problems.

As opposed to the different rage-filled parties of sweaty Halo players with bad hygiene problems? Lmao

Hygiene isn't a Melee problem. It's a problem for any 'gamer' who takes them that seriously. But hey you get to try and say "Nintendo for kids" again.

S'alight man. It's just a poll and GameCube won

 

[Fatmanp]

Xbox

It’s best games were better than the other consoles best games. Modern online play is what it is because of the of Xbox. It had the best versions of nearly every multiplatform game.

Halo CE
Halo 2
Ninja Gaiden
Kotor
Project Gotham 2
Forza Motorsport
Jet Set Radio Future
Morrowind
Fable

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

DC >>>>>>> Xbox >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> GCN

“Better to burn out than to fade away” sums up the Dreamcast perfectly. Such an amazing run of incredible games over a short span.

 

[NeverYouMind]

Hygiene isn't a Melee problem. It's a problem for any 'gamer' who takes them that seriously.

S'alight man. It's just a poll and GameCube won

It lost in the poll of life...

 

[BlackTron]

It lost in the poll of life...

When you start screenshotting sales numbers and Kotaku in a "best console" thread you know itstimetostopposting.jpeg

 

[NeverYouMind]

When you start screenshotting sales numbers and Kotaku in a "best console" thread you know itstimetostopposting.jpeg

When I have ammunition, I am using it!

 

[PaintTinJr]

I don’t think, I know because:

1) OG Doom 3 has no soft shadow until BFG, and they are visually not soft shadows, they are literally razor sharp.
2) The description of the command I used to disable on PC is "Enables drawing of shadow volumes.", it's usage on the Doom 3 source code is to return null or not on the R_CreateShadowVolume which creates the stencil shadow volumes and RB_StencilShadowPass to draw them.

If you can't even visually identify stencil shadow volumes, even when I show you the comparison between on/off on PC, I can't tell you have 0 clue what you are talking about.

Go look at the OG footage and watch shadows as mechanical spider and characters move through doorways and stairs disappear or fail to change projected size consistently, or shadows (casters) that don't cast onto lift controls but the shadow casts onto the back wall and floor behind the lift like a projected shadow caster, or the pipe work shadows around lifts that don't change and look like shadow casters too.

The game still looks great on the OG Xbox, but the soft colour lit shadows aren't consistent with the geometry motion all the time, and the fake soft penumbra styled PCF shadow mapping effect that pops up occasionally - when enemy's are casting shadows towards the player is a more modern technique than Xbox OG and - is actually a limitation of the Carmack reverse stencil shadow volumes that the technique doesn't get and is considered too complex to modulate to reintroduce as opposed to just using shadow mapping instead along with a penumbra altering technique, and is the reason stencil shadow volumes for all its robust coherent greatness on PC Doom 3 OG wasn't kept for BFG and wasn't adopted by games at the time. That and along with the fact CreativeLabs owned the Carmack Reverse technique patent already and negotiated Carmack to give preference to their audio library in the game at the last minute in PC Doom3 to allow him to retain the stencil shadow volume technique freely as iD's big technical sales pitch.

Even when seeing guards killed by the player in Xbox OG footage the shadow casters disappear when the skeletal corpse is switched in, whereas in the PC game the shadow extrusion volumes go from any shadow casting geometry and onto every receiver geometry, the boss battle footage I watched had no shadows casters either from what I could see.

But it is to be expected Xbox faked it because the PC cards like a ATI 9700 that could just about run the game at launch pretty well needed crazy bandwidth to render that specific shadowing technique, that just wasn't in the Xbox.

 

[SomeGit]

Mate, get an Xbox and play the game. Like it's not fun to talk with someone who keep talking about what they don't know and their only knowledge is from CoPilot and badly compressed YT videos.

Go look at the OG footage and watch shadows as mechanical spider and characters move through doorways and stairs disappear or fail to change projected size consistently, or shadows (casters) that don't cast onto lift controls but the shadow casts onto the back wall and floor behind the lift like a projected shadow caster, or the pipe work shadows around lifts that don't change and look like shadow casters too.

Wrong. The react accordingly to casters, they are 100% consistent with the PC version when applicable (keep in mind the maps and number of casters changed from the PC version.

Xbox



PC

The game still looks great on the OG Xbox, but the soft colour lit shadows aren't consistent with the geometry motion all the time, and the fake soft penumbra styled PCF shadow mapping effect that pops up occasionally

What soft colour lit shadow are you seeing on Xbox but not on PC? Please ilustrate them.

Even when seeing guards killed by the player in Xbox OG footage the shadow casters disappear when the skeletal corpse is switched in, whereas in the PC game the shadow extrusion volumes go from any shadow casting geometry and onto every receiver geometry, the boss battle footage I watched had no shadows casters either from what I could see.

This is also wrong, in both the PC version and the Xbox version there is no shadow casting when the killed enemies switch to their skeletal remains.
You can see that it doesn't cast on the videos above, but here's a close up on the PC version. It also happens with anyboss, when they switch to their "remains" the stop casting any shadows.

But it is to be expected Xbox faked it because the PC cards like a ATI 9700 that could just about run the game at launch pretty well needed crazy bandwidth to render that specific shadowing technique, that just wasn't in the Xbox.

It's not faked, in the MVG it's explained how they achieved that and what cutbacks they had to make of course the NV20 isn't a 9700. But at no point did they "fake it", they reduced the number of shadow casters, they cut down the maps, but the stencil shadows are still there.
I know what you are going to say next, "oh you are uneducated bla bla bla" please keep the charade to yourself, if you really want to argue any of this show concrete examples between the xbox and PC. At this point you have shown 0 clue about what you are talking about, because otherwise there's 0 point of keep talking if your only sources are "well I saw this" and fucking CoPilot of all things.

I’ve shown images and videos the show clearly stencil shadow maps being used on Xbox, it’s delusional to say that the are “fake” soft shadows.

Oh and please find me where Carmack said the PS2 was better at stencil shadows than the Xbox, I'm still waiting on that one.

 

[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

Worth noting that gaf did a game of the generation thread back in the day with Resi 4, Metroid Prime and Snake Eater unsurprisingly taking the top 3 spots. Halo also did well coming in at number 9. Despite the larger install base of the ps2 there were lots of other gamecube games in the top 20 like melee, windwaker and thousand year door, GC really was an amazing console.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Mate, get an Xbox and play the game. Like it's not fun to talk with someone who keep talking about what they don't know and their only knowledge is from CoPilot and badly compressed YT videos.



Wrong. The react accordingly to casters, they are 100% consistent with the PC version when applicable (keep in mind the maps and number of casters changed from the PC version.

Xbox



PC






What soft colour lit shadow are you seeing on Xbox but not on PC? Please ilustrate them.



This is also wrong, in both the PC version and the Xbox version there is no shadow casting when the killed enemies switch to their skeletal remains.
You can see that it doesn't cast on the videos above, but here's a close up on the PC version. It also happens with anyboss, when they switch to their "remains" the stop casting any shadows.





It's not faked, in the MVG it's explained how they achieved that and what cutbacks they had to make of course the NV20 isn't a 9700. But at no point did they "fake it", they reduced the number of shadow casters, they cut down the maps, but the stencil shadows are still there.
I know what you are going to say next, "oh you are uneducated bla bla bla" please keep the charade to yourself, if you really want to argue any of this show concrete examples between the xbox and PC. At this point you have shown 0 clue about what you are talking about, because otherwise there's 0 point of keep talking if your only sources are "well I saw this" and fucking CoPilot of all things.

I’ve shown images and videos the show clearly stencil shadow maps being used on Xbox, it’s delusional to say that the are “fake” soft shadows.

Oh and please find me where Carmack said the PS2 was better at stencil shadows than the Xbox, I'm still waiting on that one.

I apologize if my lol comes across as passive aggressive. It isn't but merely a real laugh after frustration turning to laughter from seeing humour in absurdity of me borrowing a casual term ('shadow casters' for fake ortho projected shadows) used by the dev being quoted about fake gen 5 shadows on the cube, and then you misinterpreting my use of it and having another pile to respond to., including you putting words in my mouth in regards of PS2 and Carmack.

Either way, I was happy with my previous comment being pretty definitive assessment of Doom 3 on Xbox not having the PC shadowing technique that is implied in the marketing/coverage, and happy that is good enough for anyone else with thorough knowledge of shadowing techniques to take my point.

Chopping this tree down branch by branch for a good xbox game on an enthusiast website like Gaf serves no purpose, so I'm happy to leave it at that on this specific topic.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Worth noting that gaf did a game of the generation thread back in the day with Resi 4, Metroid Prime and Snake Eater unsurprisingly taking the top 3 spots. Halo also did well coming in at number 9. Despite the larger install base of the ps2 there were lots of other gamecube games in the top 20 like melee, windwaker and thousand year door, GC really was an amazing console.

It is a great list, but that's pretty amazing how the two greatest multiplayer cube games IMHO (Double Dash, and Monkeyball have seen far more love than most in the list in years since) Didn't even make the top 50 and the latter only scraped the top 100 for shame, and even Mario Sunshine which is the best platformer ever IMHO and has aged beautifully only scraped the top 50.

 

[Zathalus]

Probably the most impressive Xbox game was Half-Life 2. I don't believe there is any hope in hell the PS2 could do that game to the level of the Xbox version. Not with the most talented developers in the world. Between HL2, Doom 3, and Far Cry, I think what console was the most powerful between PS2 and Xbox should be obvious to anyone. Sure, you can bring up hypotheticals and list as many tech specs as you want, but ultimately the proof is in the pudding.

 

[Humdinger]

Xbox for me. Gaming was great for me from the launch of the original Xbox up through about 2010, first half of the 360. I owned a Gamecube but wasn't that impressed with it. Never owned a Dreamcast.

 

[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

It is a great list, but that's pretty amazing how the two greatest multiplayer cube games IMHO (Double Dash, and Monkeyball have seen far more love than most in the list in years since) Didn't even make the top 50 and the latter only scraped the top 100 for shame, and even Mario Sunshine which is the best platformer ever IMHO and has aged beautifully only scraped the top 50.

Yeah great games. I personally love those 3 games (double dash especially) but I think people are generally very divided over sunshine and many still look on the game negatively. I replayed it in the recent switch Mario all-stars collection and it was awesome just like I remembered. I loved Monkey ball 1 (mostly for monkey target) but that's not some widely celebrated game is it? It's kind of a pleasant surprise it made the top 100.

 

[SomeGit]

I apologize if my lol comes across as passive aggressive. It isn't but merely a real laugh after frustration turning to laughter from seeing humour in absurdity of me borrowing a casual term ('shadow casters' for fake ortho projected shadows) used by the dev being quoted about fake gen 5 shadows on the cube, and then you misinterpreting my use of it and having another pile to respond to., including you putting words in my mouth in regards of PS2 and Carmack.

Either way, I was happy with my previous comment being pretty definitive assessment of Doom 3 on Xbox not having the PC shadowing technique that is implied in the marketing/coverage, and happy that is good enough for anyone else with thorough knowledge of shadowing techniques to take my point.

Chopping this tree down branch by branch for a good xbox game on an enthusiast website like Gaf serves no purpose, so I'm happy to leave it at that on this specific topic.

Worse then a blind man is a man who doesn’t want to see. When you boil everything down to a 20 year marketing conspiracy even when presented with proof it just shows how you want to substitute reality with your own. Again, we either take the visual proof, the comments from devs of the port, the comments from fellow developer in MVG/erp or yours. But yeah who cares anyway.

On your post the only thing I want to highlight is the comment about putting words in your mouth. You said this:

“ Carmack himself in his discussion with Nvidia about the Carmack's reversal shadow mapping used in Doom 3 (on PC) mentioned that the algorithm was well suited to the PS2 hardware capabilities, and we know Doom3 on Xbox had that feature cut.”

If you wish to walk back your claims fine, but don’t gaslight others. We know the Xbox part doesn’t match reality, because the shadow volumes are on the Xbox version, I’m still waiting on the first claim. And no, a reply from CoPilot/ChatGPT won’t do

 

[GymWolf]

GC\Xbox







dreamcast

 

[Sleepwalker]

Gamecube then xbox then dreamcast at the very bottom.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Probably the most impressive Xbox game was Half-Life 2. I don't believe there is any hope in hell the PS2 could do that game to the level of the Xbox version. Not with the most talented developers in the world. Between HL2, Doom 3, and Far Cry, I think what console was the most powerful between PS2 and Xbox should be obvious to anyone. Sure, you can bring up hypotheticals and list as many tech specs as you want, but ultimately the proof is in the pudding.

Well presumably using Unreal 2 Guerrilla games made this in just the 32MB of the PS2 without a HDD, which looks more advanced in fx than the software renderer HL2 on PC did back in the day, so I'm pretty sure they could, if porting it to Unreal 2, and using the HDD.

 

[Uhtred]

Halo on Xbox was a paradigm shift in gaming for me.

 

[Zathalus]

Well presumably using Unreal 2 Guerrilla games made this in just the 32MB of the PS2 without a HDD, which looks more advanced in fx than the software renderer HL2 on PC did back in the day, so I'm pretty sure they could, if porting it to Unreal 2, and using the HDD.

That looks far worse in almost every single metric compared to Half Life 2. A HDD isn’t magically going to make it look close to Half Life 2 on the Xbox. I doubt you’ll find many people thinking they look close graphically.

 

[SomeGit]

Well presumably using Unreal 2 Guerrilla games made this in just the 32MB of the PS2 without a HDD, which looks more advanced in fx than the software renderer HL2 on PC did back in the day, so I'm pretty sure they could, if porting it to Unreal 2, and using the HDD.

Software renderer in Half life 2? Killzone on Unreal? Oh boy here we go again

 

[PaintTinJr]

That looks far worse in almost every single metric compared to Half Life 2. A HDD isn’t magically going to make it look close to Half Life 2 on the Xbox. I doubt you’ll find many people thinking they look close graphically.

Killzone's lighting and fog, and predator mode, aren't cheep flat iDtech large planar polygons with a texture and lightmap texture. There isn't any depth cuing at all in HL2 on xbox from what I can see, or like the PC software renderer all you see is a texel without cuing.

 

[Zathalus]

Killzone's lighting and fog, and predator mode, aren't cheep flat iDtech large planar polygons with a texture and lightmap texture. There isn't any depth cuing at all in HL2 on xbox from what I can see, or like the PC software renderer all you see is a texel without cuing.

Sure, that may all very well be true, I don’t know and really can’t be bothered to look into it. But I know what my eyes see and at no point during that console generation or years later has anything convinced me that the PS2 or PS2 games were superior in graphical quality to those released on Xbox. I’m not even speaking from bias here, PS3/PS4/PS5 exclusives all looked better then the Xbox of the time. PS2 simply didn’t.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Sure, that may all very well be true, I don’t know and really can’t be bothered to look into it. But I know what my eyes see and at no point during that console generation or years later has anything convinced me that the PS2 or PS2 games were superior in graphical quality to those released on Xbox. I’m not even speaking from bias here, PS3/PS4/PS5 exclusives all looked better then the Xbox of the time. PS2 simply didn’t.

Powerful hardware with resource intensive fx doesn't always mean most pleasing.

If you had to compress and preserve high detail using video capture, I'm pretty sure most high-end PS2 games like KZ result in needing more bandwidth(bitrate) than Xbox games like Doom3 or HL2, that mostly look pleasing because of the high quality static textures and lightmaps that remain vibrant and sharp when the camera moves but don't increase visual fidelity per frame like fx do.

The fog in KZ is crazy bandwidth heavy,, and capable as a result of the PS2 GS having vram bandwidth over 3x that of an ATI 9700 bandwidth - although not an even comparison because of weird setup of the GS VRAM making it orders less efficient than the 40-50GB/s number - it is still very impress compared to the capabilities of the mid-gen released hardare of xbox.

The HDD would allowed for a pagefile system like a PC giving hte console an effective 2.5x more RAM, and made it easier to have higher quality textures with mipmaps and models LoDs available for better resource use.

 

[Dr. Wilkinson]

As much as I love the gamecube and it was my main at that time, I think the xbox. Dreamcast is awesaome too but didnt get time to live long. Xbox had the best graphics so the multiplatform games on it looked better usually than gc and dc. xbox live was the clear king of online for consoles and it had great titles like Halo, PGR, Ninja Gaiden,etc.

Xbox certainly was impressive for it's ability to have big PC games like KOTOR and Jade Empire and Morrowind that otherwise wouldn't have made it to console.