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Graphical Fidelity I Expect This Gen

winjer

Gold Member
The consoles just don't have the bandwidth to render too much data or take too many samples. It is what it is.

One question I have to ask you, regarding technical terms.
When you say bandwidth. Do you mean memory bandwidth? Or are you talking about shader throughput?
Because most of the times, it seems you are referring to shader throughput.
 

SeraphJan

Member
Consider last gen, we had Jaguar CPU, and look at games such as Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us 2, Gears 5, how graphically impressive they are

This gen we have ZEN 2, RDNA2, SSD and with FSR, DIRECTML and other type of reconstruction/upscaling technique, I'm optimistic on this gen, It will be nothing less than amazing
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Consider last gen, we had Jaguar CPU, and look at games such as Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us 2, Gears 5, how graphically impressive they are

This gen we have ZEN 2, RDNA2, SSD and with FSR, DIRECTML and other type of reconstruction/upscaling technique, I'm optimistic on this gen, It will be nothing less than amazing
Yes but this gen is seeing more cross platform dev.
Games like uc4 and tlou2 were only posible because these were developed only with ps4 in mind.
gears 2 don't even comes close imo
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Yes but this gen is seeing more cross platform dev.
Games like uc4 and tlou2 were only posible because these were developed only with ps4 in mind.
gears 2 don't even comes close imo

Im presuming you mean gears 5, the reason you think UC4 and TLOU2 look better is an artistic preference not a technical one. Naughty dog hand craft a lot of locations in there games, wheres as the coalition and other devs simply dont have the time or resources to add as much detail consistently throughout the game. But on a technical level the polycounts, texture quality, effect technologies etc are the same or very similar.

Its why a last gen game like RDR2 will look better then a current gen open world game like forsaken in some ways, because the artists and engineers simply have more time to add light coat of dust on a wall, with some weeds growing in the cracks for example.

Another way to look at it, somone could take a photo in real life of inside a brand new train cabin, and they could take a another photo of the same train cabin using the same camera 30yrs later, now 30yrs later the train cabin has scuff marks and signs of wear on the floor, dirt and grime built up around the seat fixings where they touch the ground, rips and wear in the seat apolstery, gum on the seats and tables, discoloration of everything, bits of trash on the floor and other signs of age and use you can think of.

Which photo looks "better" from a videogame perspective?
 
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SeraphJan

Member
Im presuming you mean gears 5, the reason you think UC4 and TLOU2 look better is an artistic preference not a technical one. Naughty dog hand craft a lot of locations in there games, wheres as the coalition and other devs simply dont have the time or resources to add as much detail consistently throughout the game. But on a technical level the polycounts, texture quality, effect technologies etc are the same or very similar.

Its why a last gen game like RDR2 will look better then a current gen open world game like forsaken in some ways, because the artists and engineers simply have more time to add light coat of dust on a wall, with some weeds growing in the cracks for example.

Another way to look at it, somone could take a photo in real life of inside a brand new train cabin, and they could take a another photo of the same train cabin using the same camera 30yrs later, now 30yrs later the train cabin has scuff marks and signs of wear on the floor, dirt and grime built up around the seat fixings where they touch the ground, rips and wear in the seat apolstery, gum on the seats and tables, discoloration of everything, bits of trash on the floor and other signs of age and use you can think of.

Which photo looks "better" from a videogame perspective?
I found Gears 5 look very good, its artistic direction might be different from TLOU2 and UC4, but it looks good in its own way. I still remember the first time I play the game when I descend from the helicopter in the first stage, I was blown away by how the landscape looked.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
I found Gears 5 look very good, its artistic direction might be different from TLOU2 and UC4, but it looks good in its own way. I still remember the first time I play the game when I descend from the helicopter in the first stage, I was blown away by how the landscape looked.

It does some things better than TLOU2, I think the in game skin shaders are better in gears 5, AAA games use similar technologies, the differences come from, specific technologies time and attention to detail.

I mean sea of thieves is never in conversations about the best graphics, but if we are talking about the best looking water and ocean sea of thieves still has the best graphics in that area.

Best graphics a lot of the time is just the new hotness, it might not even be the best tech.
But a game will come along with something new visually and everyone will be visually smitten.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Part of the problem is with unified memory you are sharing bandwidth with the cpu.

True. And I supposed there are also contention issues that reduce the overall memory bandwidth when the CPU has more accesses. Similar to what happened with the PS4.
Curious how on the PC, overclocking the memory of a 2070Super, that has the same 448GB/s as the PS5, will net very small gains in performance. Simply because it doesn´t have to contend with sharing bandwidth with the CPU.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
What I expect from the first ND PS5 game (not any remakes)

  • Dynamic real time global illumination, similar to UE5's + cry engines
  • A new environment streaming system, providing nanite like detail but more versitile then nanite, can be used on vegetation, relies heavily on streaming 5+GB/s
  • Revamped gameplay animation + A.i
 

kikkis

Member
What I expect from the first ND PS5 game (not any remakes)

  • Dynamic real time global illumination, similar to UE5's + cry engines
  • A new environment streaming system, providing nanite like detail but more versitile then nanite, can be used on vegetation, relies heavily on streaming 5+GB/s
  • Revamped gameplay animation + A.i
Why would linear games need dynamic global illumination? Baked lighting can even be used for doors and baked dynamic elements like in COD. So do you prefer games that are absolutely humongous in storage or made out of heavily repeated elements with that streaming requirement?

Even those constraints in mind its extremely unlikely that Nd can somehow pull breakthroughs of that magnitude, considering that tlou2 engine didn't do anything out of the ordinary.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Why would linear games need dynamic global illumination? Baked lighting can even be used for doors and baked dynamic elements like in COD. So do you prefer games that are absolutely humongous in storage or made out of heavily repeated elements with that streaming requirement?

Even those constraints in mind its extremely unlikely that Nd can somehow pull breakthroughs of that magnitude, considering that tlou2 engine didn't do anything out of the ordinary.

 

RoboFu

One of the green rats

I don’t even have to watch the video but I bet it talks about raytracing.


GI raytracing is the big next step in gaming and you know a new tech is big when it can enhance every single graphical style from ultra realistic to cartoon shaders. Even “ mobile “ looking games can be enhanced greatly from raytraced GI.
 

Haggard

Banned
Like said baked elements can have have their partly dynamic lighting, and things like characters don't really influence GI that much, and faster methods like capsules can be used to add some ambient shadows.
It looks like shit....those elements stick out like sore thumbs in every scene.
Probe lighting is extremely inaccurate and prebaked lighting is completely static, those are the technological facts. Unless you really like glowing objects or completely static environments there is now way around dynamic lighting....
 
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VFXVeteran

Banned
Why would linear games need dynamic global illumination?
I hear you with this but you could have a linear game with dynamic day/night cycles.

Baked lighting can even be used for doors and baked dynamic elements like in COD. So do you prefer games that are absolutely humongous in storage or made out of heavily repeated elements with that streaming requirement?
Well, most games do reuse elements by instancing of geometry. I disagree with using baked lighting though. The problem is that it destroys the rendering equation because not enough ambient occlusion is used to normalize the extra light bounce. AO is extremely expensive when done properly (i.e RT is the best method but an advanced world space AO algorithm would be better than the typical 2D screenspace one).

Even those constraints in mind its extremely unlikely that Nd can somehow pull breakthroughs of that magnitude, considering that tlou2 engine didn't do anything out of the ordinary.
I agree here. ND isn't a leader in graphics tech. I don't expect this to change where they have a Nanite-like solution. In fact, I don't think any of the proprietary engines will have Nanite-like algorithms this generation.
 

Dolodolo

Member
I agree here. ND isn't a leader in graphics tech. I don't expect this to change where they have a Nanite-like solution. In fact, I don't think any of the proprietary engines will have Nanite-like algorithms this generation.
We have all understood that you do not expect anything.
PC is the best platform ever.
Yes Yes
Then some kind of console game comes out only on a new generation. You are again wrong in your reasoning, but you continue to ignore it
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
We have all understood that you do not expect anything.
PC is the best platform ever.
My comments have nothing to do with the PC being the best platform. This is about companies regardless of platform exclusivity. Don't make this about a hate speech. It's not.

Yes Yes
Then some kind of console game comes out only on a new generation. You are again wrong in your reasoning, but you continue to ignore it
There is nothing that was released on console exclusives last generation that was the first use of new tech. PBR shaders were first shown in early papers and demos by the film industry long ago. Nvidia started putting out demos with the tech. ND, SSM, Insomniac, etc.. were never first to introduce last gen's tech. And this generation it is clearly Unreal Engine 5.0 and 4A games for first use of full ray-tracing pipeline.

Why you take issue with this by calling me a hater of consoles is beyond me. Even the latest PS exclusive installation - Forbidden West - has no ray-tracing in the game despite several studios already putting it out in their games.
 
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Yes but this gen is seeing more cross platform dev.
Games like uc4 and tlou2 were only posible because these were developed only with ps4 in mind.
gears 2 don't even comes close imo
Cross gen only is a thing because of lack of next gen consoles available, we are in the cross gen phase of the console life cycles, high cost of game development and publishers wanting more money…once next gen only games release they will blow last gen away like Ratchet Rift Apart and The Matrix Awakens demo…even HFW which is cross gen,looks better than any game available today…(I still think TLOU II looks on par sometimes and better than almost every game out)
 
What I expect from the first ND PS5 game (not any remakes)

  • Dynamic real time global illumination, similar to UE5's + cry engines
  • A new environment streaming system, providing nanite like detail but more versitile then nanite, can be used on vegetation, relies heavily on streaming 5+GB/s
  • Revamped gameplay animation + A.i
Yes a nanite solution is required similar to UE5…going forward I believe it will become the standard…to reach offline renders fidelity standards…
 
What I expect from the first ND PS5 game (not any remakes)

  • Dynamic real time global illumination, similar to UE5's + cry engines
  • A new environment streaming system, providing nanite like detail but more versitile then nanite, can be used on vegetation, relies heavily on streaming 5+GB/s
  • Revamped gameplay animation + A.i

Yeah not gonna happen. The reason naugthy dog games have such great visual fidelity is exactly due to the fact they don't use dynamic real time GI. DGI is expensive and quality is not up to par with baked GI.

Their games are ridiculously linear, no time of day, weather, etc none of that stuff. If they turned to DGI this gen, they visuals will suffer tremendously. As some users already said, they don't need it.

Plus the environment they take place in are forest, nature, abandoned or post-apostolic buildings. Just a bunch of neutral muted colors and no need for color bleeding, reflections, etc. Now if they made a modern game that took place in urban cities and environment then yes.
 
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Yeah not gonna happen. The reason naugthy dog games have such great visual fidelity is exactly due to the fact they don't use dynamic real time GI. DGI is expensive and quality is not up to par with baked GI.

Their games are ridiculously linear, no time of day, weather, etc none of that stuff. If they turned to DGI this gen, they visuals will suffer tremendously. As some users already said, they don't need it.

Plus the environment they take place in are forest, nature, abandoned or post-apostolic buildings. Just a bunch of neutral muted colors and no need for color bleeding, reflections, etc. Now if they made a modern game that took place in urban cities and environment then yes.
Do you think naughty dog could bake in environment GI, but then use real RTGI for dynamic objects and characters so they look like they actually belong in the scene?
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
Do you think naughty dog could bake in environment GI, but then use real RTGI for dynamic objects and characters so they look like they actually belong in the scene?
No. ND is better off just using RT shadows. They are the sore thumb of most games today. Lack of multiple light-sourced shadows and ambient occlusion is a huge problem in realtime rendering.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Hey VFX,

I'm not interested in all the back and forth graphical stuff whether ND can do this or that, but let's get to the real important stuff..... What other Sony games are coming to PC after GOW?! There's no way the rest of 2022 is blank.

So far,

- a handful of games nobody cares about like Predator and Helldivers
- HZD
- Days Gone
- Uncharted pack
- GOW
 

Lethal01

Member
Hey VFX,

I'm not interested in all the back and forth graphical stuff whether ND can do this or that, but let's get to the real important stuff..... What other Sony games are coming to PC after GOW?! There's no way the rest of 2022 is blank.

So far,

- a handful of games nobody cares about like Predator and Helldivers
- HZD
- Days Gone
- Uncharted pack
- GOW
If you aren't interested in the topic of the thread there's a thing called a DM
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
Hey VFX,

I'm not interested in all the back and forth graphical stuff whether ND can do this or that, but let's get to the real important stuff..... What other Sony games are coming to PC after GOW?! There's no way the rest of 2022 is blank.

So far,

- a handful of games nobody cares about like Predator and Helldivers
- HZD
- Days Gone
- Uncharted pack
- GOW
I could try to find out but things are tight. I can guarantee you that TLOU is coming to PC though.
 
Yes, these also make it obvious we still have a long way to go, but I think in 15~25 years we can get there, hope some of the people in this thread get to live to see it.
still sticking with 15-25 years huh?

Like i said, PS6 / next Xbox we will do to character rendering and VFX what we are doing with environment rendering this gen. Which is scaling it beyond just a small room (aka one hero character). No longer will you have one character which looks absolutely stunning and then the rest look like xbox360/ps3 character. You will actually have a scene with a dozen character like above and they will all have the same fidelity.
 
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VFXVeteran

Banned
still sticking with 15-25 years huh?

Like i said, PS6 / next Xbox we will do to character rendering and VFX what we are doing with environment rendering this gen. Which is scaling it beyond just a small room (aka one hero character). No longer will you have one character which looks absolutely stunning and then the rest look like xbox360/ps3 character. You will actually have a scene with a dozen character like above and they will all have the same fidelity.
The realtime sector doesn't even have a good hair system yet. It also still struggles with per-light shadow-casting in environments. Yes, it will be 15-25 yrs for sure but I'm sure GAF will figure out a logic to dream of photorealism for PS6/XSX2 like they did these past 2 generations only to be disappointed.
 

Vick

Gold Member
Yeah not gonna happen. The reason naugthy dog games have such great visual fidelity is exactly due to the fact they don't use dynamic real time GI. DGI is expensive and quality is not up to par with baked GI.

Their games are ridiculously linear, no time of day, weather, etc none of that stuff. If they turned to DGI this gen, they visuals will suffer tremendously. As some users already said, they don't need it.

Plus the environment they take place in are forest, nature, abandoned or post-apostolic buildings. Just a bunch of neutral muted colors and no need for color bleeding, reflections, etc. Now if they made a modern game that took place in urban cities and environment then yes.
Naughty Dog games make extensive use of dynamic GI, and have been for almost a decade now.








It was limited to interiors only on PS3 and PS4 games, but the tech is there already.
 

UnNamed

Banned

Ok good, but the real challenge is to run this thing when the CPU is stressed with a game code behind it.
Matrix and Valley of the Ancient are actual games, not ultra complex of course, but an actual case of real usage of the CPU and other components.
This is just a cutscene.
 
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tmarmar

Member
I'd say that's a pretty high grade. Even if you don't pay much attention to me. This is the last game I've played:
QDwWqHR.jpg
 

Blendernaut

Neo Member
Given that I, as many other architectural vizualization artists, usually achieve a quite photorealistic look in the real time applications I make using Unreal Engine 4 (not even 5), I expect big companies to achieve even better results. Its just a matter of work and investing money on it. Its not a technical issue. Using static lighting, its been a while since we have the tools to achieve an incredible level of realism. Its just they dont normally invest the needed time on it. Or they normally tend to use dynamic lighting solutions. I think that the mixed solution combining static + dynamic elements could deliver incredible results as well. In the ends, its more a matter of time than the power of the PCs/consoles what limits the visual fidelity of games. Ruins, ancient temples, postapocalyptic settings, etc, obviously require a lot more work as textures and models are a lot more complex.


jorge-ocana-salon-4.jpg
 
Ok good, but the real challenge is to run this thing when the CPU is stressed with a game code behind it.
Matrix and Valley of the Ancient are actual games, not ultra complex of course, but an actual case of real usage of the CPU and other components.
This is just a cutscene.
A real time cutscene that can run on consoles also…The Matrix demo is close…
 
Praise for games like TLOU2, God of War and RDR2 were exactly what made me hungry for next gen since the lighting in them still stood out as jarringly fake outside of a few sections that the engine can handle well. Nvidia announced their raytracing accelerators at just the right time to give me hope that next gen will be better.

I"m super excited to see games on the level of the UE5 demos and such.

That said I think we are a world away from the examples you used in your OP which are offline rendered with 100x the time and power being used for every single frame..

this
JsubuPB.jpg


vs

E19rv_IWUAUf4Ro.jpg


This isn't something that takes a machine that's 10x more powerful than a PS4, we would be lucky to do it on one that's 10x strong than a 3090 I think you underestimate the vast gulf between the two but If you really think the visual difference between them isn't that big I can't disagree with something that subjective. But this may be a case where something you see as a slight improvement like getting hair like that could take atleast an extra PS5 worth of power.

Hopefully, in 4 years I get a game that lets me ecstatically admit I'm wrong, but I feel like it will be a repeat of TLOU2 where everyone says it looks like real life while I'm waiting for next gen.

Luckily there are always stylized games that don't have the issue of aiming for realism and failing, I'll take play BoTW2 in 8k on an emulator over TLOU2 anyday.
10x strong as 3090? Still believe that?
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
For you guys talking what can and cant be done in 15 years on PS6 a few days ago, you just got to remember what can be technically done in a demo vs a real game.

That 10 year old Unreal Engine 3 demo The Samaritan was showcased assuming a PC or Xbox 360/PS3 could handle something like that. Ya right. That canned demo still looks better than just about every game released now, even though were up to UE5 on systems 10x more powerful.
 
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Arioco

Member
For you guys talking what can and cant be done in 15 years on PS6 a few days ago, you just got to remember what can be technically done in a demo vs a real game.

That 10 year old Unreal Engine 3 demo The Samaritan was showcased assuming a PC or Xbox 360/PS3 could handle something like that. Ya right. That canned demo still looks better than just about every game released now, even though were up to UE5 on systems 10x more powerful.


The Samaritan demo was always meant for PS4 and Xbox One (and the PC, of course), the demos for PS3 and 360 were very different (Unreal Tournament for PS3 and something based on Gears of War for 360). And it goes without saying that the final games looked on par or even better than the shown demos.

The Samaritan demo, according to Epic, requires 2.5 Tflops for 1080p@30fps, so not even possible on PS360.

Even at 720p@30fpd it would require 1.1 Tflops (or 4.4 the power of 360 according to Epic itself).

And if you ask me we've see games on PS4 and One that look better than that demo. I mean, I we compare that demo to a cutscene from God Of War or TLOU2... Maybe you are remembering better than it really was.

samaritanprocessingrel3yqn.png
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
The Samaritan demo was always meant for PS4 and Xbox One (and the PC, of course), the demos for PS3 and 360 were very different (Unreal Tournament for PS3 and something based on Gears of War for 360). And it goes without saying that the final games looked on par or even better than the shown demos.

The Samaritan demo, according to Epic, requires 2.5 Tflops for 1080p@30fps, so not even possible on PS360.

Even at 720p@30fpd it would require 1.1 Tflops (or 4.4 the power of 360 according to Epic itself).

And if you ask me we've see games on PS4 and One that look better than that demo. I mean, I we compare that demo to a cutscene from God Of War or TLOU2... Maybe you are remembering better than it really was.

samaritanprocessingrel3yqn.png
Fair enough. Maybe it was meant for PS4/Xbox One.

There are PS4/Xbox One games running on UE3 that look better than that demo?

Another thing about those demos, what are supposed to represent? Cut scene quality? Or gameplay quality?
 

Arioco

Member
Fair enough. Maybe it was meant for PS4/Xbox One.

There are PS4/Xbox One games running on UE3 that look better than that demo?

Another thing about those demos, what are supposed to represent? Cut scene quality? Or gameplay quality?


Not necessarily on UE3, by the time the necx generation of consoles launched pretty much everyone moved to UE4. There was another demo (Elemental, maybe you remember it) that was shown during PS5's presentation and it was already UE4.

As for your last question, I think that would depend on the type of demo. A demo like The Samaritan, which is basically a real time cutscene, should be compared in my opinion to other real time cutscenes, and are meant to give us a glimpse of what we could expect from cutscenes using that engine. On the other hand demos like The Matrix Awakens, which actually let the player "play" (even in a limited way, since it's not a final game) are useful to know what can be achievable in gameplay if devs use that technology.

If we compare The Samaritan demo to a real time cutscene from God Of War or TLOU2 I honestly think devs have gone even farther than the demo despite no console from last gen matching the 2.5 Tflops that Epic said running the Samaritan demo would require.
 
Environments still have a long way to go, so by your logic on the PS6 we might have that to photorealistic standards in specific circumstances, and another gen for characters.
We already have nanite and mesh shaders. What more do you want?

The realtime sector doesn't even have a good hair system yet. It also still struggles with per-light shadow-casting in environments. Yes, it will be 15-25 yrs for sure but I'm sure GAF will figure out a logic to dream of photorealism for PS6/XSX2 like they did these past 2 generations only to be disappointed.
Photorealism != Perfect Realism.

It doesn't have to be perfect to be photo realistic.

Lastly people don't realize that its not the GPU power, its the tools that are created as a result of the GPU power.
For example, people praise the infiltrator demo as a hallmark.
Look at the facial, eye and hair character rendering then and compare it to what UE had in 2018.
So 2014-2018. Remember the power dynamic of these consoles didn't change from launch.

Here is UE4 from 2014 and how characters looked like and their progression as better tools were made overtime. Notice the improvements although the power level stays the same. Think of this as cutscene graphic:

2014

vYMA0fb.png



2016

5d2d9a4a95632.jpg



senua_sidebyside-1267x801-1138683280.jpg


2017

DigitalHuman_Screenshot01-1920x1080-4dbc3feff13715eadc37736e988a5064.png


2018

SPI_Disabled.webp


So with the start of the next gen we have the Matrix characters and this Enemies demo. What will character rendering look like in 2025 when better tools are created due to the increase in power of this current gen?
 
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VFXVeteran

Banned
We already have nanite and mesh shaders. What more do you want?


Photorealism != Perfect Realism.

It doesn't have to be perfect to be photo realistic.

Lastly people don't realize that its not the GPU power, its the tools that are created as a result of the GPU power.
For example, people praise the infiltrator demo as a hallmark.
Look at the facial, eye and hair character rendering then and compare it to what UE had in 2018.
So 2014-2018. Remember the power dynamic of these consoles didn't change from launch.

Here is UE4 from 2014 and how characters looked like and their progression as better tools were made overtime. Notice the improvements although the power level stays the same. Think of this as cutscene graphic:

2014

vYMA0fb.png



2016

5d2d9a4a95632.jpg



senua_sidebyside-1267x801-1138683280.jpg


2017

DigitalHuman_Screenshot01-1920x1080-4dbc3feff13715eadc37736e988a5064.png


2018

SPI_Disabled.webp


So with the start of the next gen we have the Matrix characters and this Enemies demo. What will character rendering look like in 2025 when better tools are created due to the increase in power of this current gen?
The skin shaders are still not as good as they can be. And each of these characters you are seeing isn't how they will look in a gameplay environment where you can tell without going into photomode. Also, the faces looking this real should also have had the environments just as good and yet they are not.

As I said, if you look at the gameplay of these games out now, they are only slightly better than last gen but running on significantly more powerful hardware.
 
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