Assassin's Creed Unity Dev speaks: Consoles locked at 900/30, CPU's holding game back

[jrphoenix]

I do not understand why people care about a magical and pointless resolution or frame rate number in a game like this. 1080/60 is just a buzzword. If they never at any point in development mentioned the resolution or frame rate 99% of people would never know or care. Mention it's less than 1080/60 in an article and people lose their minds.

I agree.. in my opinion, Ryse is one of the best looking console games on either any system and it isn't even 1080. Who cares if it looks good and is fun to play.

 

[futurefields]

It isn't. And CPU speed has little to do with video resolution.

They are using the GPU to compensate for the weak CPU. So the GPU can't focus all it's task on graphics processing purely. Thus it not being able to push 1080p. It's an ecosystem.

 

[Rakehellion]

"We could be running at 100fps if it was just graphics, but because of AI, we're still limited to 30 frames per second"

They were suggesting the CPU bottleneck was for the 30fps lock not the resolution. CPU can most definitely have impacts on fps. While I don't for a second believe the 100fps boast or that it would be anywhere that dramatic if the AI is hugely demanding on the CPU then fps will be affected.

Cool. And this has nothing to do with anything I said.

 

[Rakehellion]

They are using the GPU to compensate for the weak CPU. So the GPU can't focus all it's task on graphics processing purely. Thus it not being able to push 1080p. It's an ecosystem.

The PS4 has more GPU power, so that isn't an excuse.

 

[Bateluer]

I do not understand why people care about a magical and pointless resolution or frame rate number in a game like this. 1080/60 is just a buzzword. If they never at any point in development mentioned the resolution or frame rate 99% of people would never know or care. Mention it's less than 1080/60 in an article and people lose their minds.

Statements like that are why people look down on the console gamer. 1080p60 is not a buzzword, thats a technical standard. Phrases like 'cinematic feel' are buzz words.

Unfortunately, this is going to be the norm for the 8th gen consoles; they're simply too underpowered to deliver minimum visual standards for 2014. We've seen almost every major title on the 8th gen consoles get cut back now. And its not going to get any better. The XB1 was capped out before it every launched, and PS4 isn't much better. As the 8th generation games progress, expect to see 720p30 in a failing attempt to maintain some semblance visual improvement over the life of the console.

 

[Lil Frier]

I agree.. in my opinion, Ryse is one of the best looking console games on either any system and it isn't even 1080. Who cares if it looks good and is fun to play.

I think the issue is from a long-term perspective. I don't care about resolution really, as I'm running on a 720p TV, ad I have no complaints. However, they want another 7-10 years out of these consoles, most likely. In 5 or so years, 4K could be the affordable norm for TV purchases. Does the Xbox One even do 4K upscaling, and if so, how good will it look upscaling from 720p or 900p to 4K?

I thin, on the whole, folks aren't concerned about pixels because of right now. It's just that 1080p is becoming the sales standard for TVs, and 4K won't take long to get affordable for many. It seems really foolish for console makers to put out consoles where 1080p isn't consistently available, when 1080p is basically the everyday buyer's resolution. It's just going to make it worse when we get into the Ultra-HD resolution.

Seriously, 720p upscaled to 4K? I have no faith in that.

 

[Socio]

I think the issue is from a long-term perspective. I don't care about resolution really, as I'm running on a 720p TV, ad I have no complaints. However, they want another 7-10 years out of these consoles, most likely. In 5 or so years, 4K could be the affordable norm for TV purchases. Does the Xbox One even do 4K upscaling, and if so, how good will it look upscaling from 720p or 900p to 4K?

I thin, on the whole, folks aren't concerned about pixels because of right now. It's just that 1080p is becoming the sales standard for TVs, and 4K won't take long to get affordable for many. It seems really foolish for console makers to put out consoles where 1080p isn't consistently available, when 1080p is basically the everyday buyer's resolution. It's just going to make it worse when we get into the Ultra-HD resolution.

Seriously, 720p upscaled to 4K? I have no faith in that.

Basically everything from the XBOX 1 and PS4 should have been 1080p the very fact that is not the case shows what a minor leap in technological advancement they really are.

This small leap means it could be 3-4 generations down the road before we ever see a true 4K resolution "console" game. In the interim we will have to settle for scaled which will probably work for single player games and movies but likely cause a great deal of lag for multiplayer.

 

[dguy6789]

Statements like that are why people look down on the console gamer. 1080p60 is not a buzzword, thats a technical standard. Phrases like 'cinematic feel' are buzz words.

Unfortunately, this is going to be the norm for the 8th gen consoles; they're simply too underpowered to deliver minimum visual standards for 2014. We've seen almost every major title on the 8th gen consoles get cut back now. And its not going to get any better. The XB1 was capped out before it every launched, and PS4 isn't much better. As the 8th generation games progress, expect to see 720p30 in a failing attempt to maintain some semblance visual improvement over the life of the console.

I have probably played PC games and built high end gaming PCs longer than the majority of people on this forum. Regardless of what it was or what your opinion is on the matter it has been made into a marketing buzzword.

As for the latter statement, it would be the first time in history that console games did not look better and better as the systems age and developers improve their ability to code for the hardware.

 

[Anubis]

I think the issue is from a long-term perspective. I don't care about resolution really, as I'm running on a 720p TV, ad I have no complaints. However, they want another 7-10 years out of these consoles, most likely. In 5 or so years, 4K could be the affordable norm for TV purchases. Does the Xbox One even do 4K upscaling, and if so, how good will it look upscaling from 720p or 900p to 4K?

I thin, on the whole, folks aren't concerned about pixels because of right now. It's just that 1080p is becoming the sales standard for TVs, and 4K won't take long to get affordable for many. It seems really foolish for console makers to put out consoles where 1080p isn't consistently available, when 1080p is basically the everyday buyer's resolution. It's just going to make it worse when we get into the Ultra-HD resolution.

Seriously, 720p upscaled to 4K? I have no faith in that.

there is absolutely no point in bringing 4k into the picture. we will prob see the PS5 and whatever MS calls their next console before 4k TVs have enough market penetration to even start worrying about

 

[Lil Frier]

Basically everything from the XBOX 1 and PS4 should have been 1080p the very fact that is not the case shows what a minor leap in technological advancement they really are.

This small leap means it could be 3-4 generations down the road before we ever see a true 4K resolution "console" game. In the interim we will have to settle for scaled which will probably work for single player games and movies but likely cause a great deal of lag for multiplayer.

I wouldn't say that the games are in ANY way small leaps forward in tech. I mean, consider that, despite the fact that we're on the 2013 low-end of hardware, we're comparing to the cutting edge of about 2005 with the last generation. Those consoles were aiming for 480p and 30 FPS, in many cases, no? So while 1080p/60 FPS isn't standard, I'd say that when you factor in the improvements in multitasking on the console, visual advances in games, and the more-prevalent existence of open-world experiences, hitting even 720p/60 FPS or 900p/30 FPS is still a sign of significant progress for consoles.

So yeah, they're a disappointment by 2013 PC standards, but they're certainly not a small improvement over the last generation. The 360 had 512 MB of DDR3 memory. The One has 16 times that, while the PS4 has the same 16 times, while also upping it to GDDR5 RAM. The GPU in the 360 was something so old that Windows 7 didn't support it at launch, if I remember correctly. I think it was a Radeon x1800 that was the comparison GPU.

there is absolutely no point in bringing 4k into the picture. we will prob see the PS5 and whatever MS calls their next console before 4k TVs have enough market penetration to even start worrying about

I'd say otherwise. I mean, it only took maybe 5 years for 1080p TVs to become super-affordable, from the time I spent $1,000 on my 720p TV (2008). Considering 1080p stuff is now in the $500-700 range for solid, decently sized TVs, I think we could see 4K at a reasonable price by 2019. Considering that they like to talk up a 10-year lifespan for consoles, that would indicate a replacement in 2023, well after I'd expect 4K to be affordable.

 

[purbeast0]

I agree.. in my opinion, Ryse is one of the best looking console games on either any system and it isn't even 1080. Who cares if it looks good and is fun to play.

because then the fanboys don't have anything to justify their purchases with.

i have noticed how the sony fanboys kept mocking some of the x1 games that were 30fps, and then driveclub, which is supposed to be the "forza killer" according to sony, comes out at 30fps yet none of the sony fanboys are crying about it only being 30fps.

and i agree with you - ryse is still the best looking game i've played this gen.

 

[purbeast0]

Statements like that are why people look down on the console gamer. 1080p60 is not a buzzword, thats a technical standard. Phrases like 'cinematic feel' are buzz words.

Unfortunately, this is going to be the norm for the 8th gen consoles; they're simply too underpowered to deliver minimum visual standards for 2014. We've seen almost every major title on the 8th gen consoles get cut back now. And its not going to get any better. The XB1 was capped out before it every launched, and PS4 isn't much better. As the 8th generation games progress, expect to see 720p30 in a failing attempt to maintain some semblance visual improvement over the life of the console.

the fact of the matter is, 99.99% of "console gamers" don't give a crap that the elitist pc gamers "look down" on them.

and if the consoles were "too underpowered" for people, they wouldn't be breaking records in sales. they are "too underpowered" for an extremely small minority who want the highest possible resolution that technology can push, which is not the target audience of a console.

as for the bolded ... i'd like you to look at this link...

http://kotaku.com/the-ps3-had-12-games-at-launch-heres-what-they-looked-513396910

are you telling me that ps3 games currently don't look any better than those?

 

[poofyhairguy]

it would be the first time in history that console games did not look better and better as the systems age and developers improve their ability to code for the hardware.

I can see that happening this time around. The reason for that improvement normally is that developers need time to adjust to whatever crazy hardware Sony or MS threw at them. But these are just x86 machines, I bet 90% of the optimization was there day one for any developer that also made PC games.

Another thing I think will hold consoles back this time is that they are so close it will be cheaper just hitting the mean (aka the Xbone) than optimizing to the platform (aka really taking advantage of that PS4 GPU).

 

[BrightCandle]

Has it occurred to people that there are dramatically more people in the world than there were in 2005? More than that there is a vastly large middle class in the world today as many countries are developing rapidly. The end result of which is that it would be shocking if this generation of consoles sold less than the previous ones. Increased sales doesn't mean much for comparisons to PC sales at all, that is a market share question, the increased sales are purely a factor of an increased wealth in the world over nearly a decade of progress.

The fact that the consoles are targeting 30 fps is a disappointment but not wholey unexpected, the 30 fps games sold well on the previous generation and too few cared for it to change. The fact they are targeting less than 1080p is the more concerning thing, most of the early xbox 360 games were native resolution and the reduction came later so they could try to keep up with the ever zooming off into the distance PC performance and the look of its games. In essence the optimisation they did was dropping antialiasing and reducing the resolution and then finding cheaper ways to do effects that were becoming prevalent on PC (like ambient occlusion). But by starting with reduced resolution they are showing the consoles are already struggling for parity with a PC and that suggests they are going to age a lot quicker than the previous generation did, because they started a year behind not a year ahead.

 

[Rakehellion]

I can see that happening this time around. The reason for that improvement normally is that developers need time to adjust to whatever crazy hardware Sony or MS threw at them. But these are just x86 machines, I bet 90% of the optimization was there day one for any developer that also made PC games.

Another thing I think will hold consoles back this time is that they are so close it will be cheaper just hitting the mean (aka the Xbone) than optimizing to the platform (aka really taking advantage of that PS4 GPU).

Programming for PS4 is pretty different than programming for windows.

 

[dguy6789]

Another thing I think will hold consoles back this time is that they are so close it will be cheaper just hitting the mean (aka the Xbone) than optimizing to the platform (aka really taking advantage of that PS4 GPU).

To me that is like saying "man they are really holding things back by focusing on the machine with the Radeon HD 4870 and ignoring the machine with the Radeon HD 4890; they could really get so much more out of games if they focused on the latter."

The two platforms aren't really different enough to be all that significant. Virtually every single cross platform game except for the ones from early launch have identical visuals and performance now. I don't think it is reasonable to figure they are limiting the PS4's game settings just to match the One because the PS4 has frame rate slowdowns in those games too.

 

[cmdrdredd]

The only real differences appear from first party teams who have the most experience with the hardware, first access to new SDK and other development tools, and direct access to the people who designed the hardware for questions.

 

[gmaster456]

As the consoles continue to age developers will squeeze more and more performance out of the them. Look at how much different Xbox 360 games looked in 2005 compared to 2014. Same with the PS3 and its launch titles. Graphics and resolution will get better with time. Compared to what we had last gen, I highly doubt devs are being bottle necked by either consoles CPU just yet. Especially considering this is coming from Ubisoft. The CPU's aren't fast by PC standards but they are a good bit faster than the 8-9 year old chips found in last gens consoles and they have a lot more system resources to work with. First party devs don't seem to be having an issue.

 

[BrightCandle]

Let's remember how they squeezed that performance out of the Xbox 360. They dropped the frame rate to 30 fps, they stopped using msaa and used low quality fxaa, they invented a cheaper form of ambient occulsion , they reduced texture quality and polygon counts. Then they also reduced the resolution pretty significantly, some games were 512p at 30hz. The optimisation they did wasn't magic, they traded one type of graphics quality for another. In essence a blurry image with better lighting looks better on a TV than a sharp image with flat fixed function lighting. But its not magic, all the techniques they used to improve the image are well documented over the years.

 

[Sonikku]

Shoulda just dropped an i5 in and called it a day sony/m$.

 

[Aikouka]

Shoulda just dropped an i5 in and called it a day sony/m$.

Can't do HSA with that setup.

 

[Fulle]

Not being able to push a resolution that's roughly 30% larger, on a GPU that's 40% more powerful, and has much more memory bandwidth available? Nah. I don't really buy it.

I've seen some people blaming the "CPU bottleneck" for the issue, but the PS4 and Xbox One have very similar CPU performance, and the resolution bump wouldn't increase the CPU workload, at all. It has nothing to do with it.

Ubisoft is just being lazy, and/or doesn't feel that comparisons between game versions is good for marketing. As gamers, we can only hope that this "parity" issue, generates enough bad press for Ubi, so they'll either change the decision, make a patch, or at the very least, their next game doesn't do this.

 

[BrightCandle]

Since when did Ubisoft ever care about bad press. It seems almost everyone of their games is getting bad press coverage for some crazy thing they did that was completely unnecessary and hurt gamers somewhere. They seem to have the agenda to be the worst games publisher on the planet and leave everyone else in the dust.

 

[dguy6789]

Not being able to push a resolution that's roughly 30% larger, on a GPU that's 40% more powerful, and has much more memory bandwidth available? Nah. I don't really buy it.

That's a massive oversimplification of the two consoles. You're completely omitting the fact that the Xbox One GPU is clocked higher than the PS4 GPU(if all other things were similar and the clocks were the same then it could theoretically but never in real world be 40% faster) and the extremely fast eSRAM the Xbox One has that together significantly close the performance gap.

Current games where developers bother to spend a little extra time optimizing show that both consoles have very similar overall performance levels.

 

[smackababy]

Ubisoft is just being lazy, and/or doesn't feel that comparisons between game versions is good for marketing. As gamers, we can only hope that this "parity" issue, generates enough bad press for Ubi, so they'll either change the decision, make a patch, or at the very least, their next game doesn't do this.

How much "bad press" do you think will cost them sales vs sales made because gamers with only an Xbox One don't feel slighted by the game performing inferior?

This isn't changing. They are, as I predicted a year ago, developing for the inferior console and porting with identical performance to the more powerful. Third party developers don't give a crap which one can push more. They care about gamers on every available side purchasing their products. Creating disparity between versions is only a bad option.