Games Analysis |OT| Time To Argue About Pixels And Frames!

Post-launch patch

Like day one patch?

Just my insights here, but with regard to the “wobble”, it could be a vertex issue where they are rendered at a lower precision, as John said, but only in more complex situations where they need to pull some CPU back. My first thought was a compression artefact, which is quite common on older hardware and titles and shows up progressively worse with higher density vertex counts. But then, that would be an engine wide thing and would appear all the time. The fact it only shows up when outdoors, and even then only in certain places with various levels of, well, wobble, suggests to me that its something they are doing on the fly to bring CPU utilisation down.

HOWEVER.

This is something you would expect on an old system, like say, the Xbox One. I would not expect this, at all, on the Series consoles (EITHER of them).

This and a few other technical curiosities, are telling me that they are not quite taking advantage of the new systems in the way one would expect. They are simply running the game in higher resolution, without much change anywhere else. Things like the wobble and half rate animations have no need or indeed place on current gen systems. The shadow map resolution and fallout distance for cascades can be changed easily for only next gen systems but remains the same short falloff…

So many of these little things that I picked up on before, that I would have put money on being just old legacy stuff about to be changed for the new consoles, was just… Forgotten about. And that happens. They wanted to get the game out and be the best it could be. But the little tiny technical niggles…? They shouldn’t be here. They have some how been forgotten, or missed, and I can’t say why. There appears to be more than enough CPU overhead to allow for the above half rate and vertex precision issues to not exist, so to see them in the new gen consoles is baffling.

Will it change my enjoyment of the game? No. Not at all. I’ve put in 2 and a half days total playtime of the MP beta so far. I think I’ll be ok. And thats likely why these issues were missed.

7 Likes

i don’t think these things have been forgotten or were missed. I’m pretty sure all these are tasks in 343i backlog.

I just hope they don’t rush the patch like Playground just did. Take your time, i have enough games to play and Halo Infinite is a 10 year game.

3 Likes

the reasonable explanation for the vertex wobble is 343 built Infinite with PS1 in mind. :rofl:

no, post-launch is not day one.

It seems most of the issues come from th cross-gen nature of the game (mostly a last gen product) and the well known development woes, as John said, it’s all fixable. Within this context, it’s like many other 3rd party games, X1X version is better than XSS because the game was done with X1 as the main target and without using any of the next-gen features, it’s impossibile for XSS to stand-out much.

That said, I think 343 and Playground should exchange some info/staff, because one excels where the other fails: polish and content-wise Playground is tiers above 343, on the contrary, from a network stability point of view, the things are reversed, FH is always a mess with network stability.

1 Like

Not sure you can compare engines and just say one works and the other doesn’t. Its not that simple. As you say work on this engine started before the One X was out - arguably before the One X even had confirmed specs. So its going to be iterative to take it to Series S/X.

PG have worked on an existing engine that has been iterated on every 2/3 years and their latest game had 3 years with (as PG have said) a known next gen spec to work towards in an engine that is very well established and highly scalable.

Slipspace is new, was built for last gen (initially) and doesn’t have the maturity or one assumes tools PG are working with.

Things will change over time but HI is also a game with greater scope than FH5. Overall I think the result for HI is superb - it looks great and runs great. Some things could be better but those things all scream immaturity of the engine and tools more than lack of know-how or skill from the dev team.

Thats a strange comparison regarding polish. PG iterated on the same game for the fifth time and their latest release and patch broke stuff working properly before in FH4 or on release day in FH5. 343i did a new game.

Both will be fine.

That’s surprising, more so after Halo 5, I just hope that it’s either fixed for day one or not something I notice.

So it’s solely cutscene stuff that has these issues? As soon as we control Chief it looks fine in terms of gamma and stutter?

What exactly makes HI’s scope bigger than FH5?

During gameplay it’s fine, but again when you’re clambering and doing these weapon animations, it looks legit like choppy anime framerate for some reason, which needs to be solved cuz it looks jarring even on a 60hz monitor.

I mean they are both open world games. Sure. But after that Halo Infinite has flying vehicles, complex physics, variable action on screen, minimum framerate of 60FPS, rendering of enemies, particle effects from weapons etc…

I just think its a more complex game to build - than FH5. With more systems and mechanics going on.

1 Like

Saying PG “iterated the same game” is hugely downplaying their accomplishments, far superior than 343i honestly.

Splipspace is an iteration of the Halo engine, like the FH5 one is of their previous games engines, they’re both cross-gen and open-world, so it’s the best possible comparison. I don’t see the greater scope in Infinite, FH5 has even coop and its own Forge at launch. XD

Yeah, that’s not good at all. Something you wouldn’t expect from 343 after 4 and 5, they knew what they were doing with those games tech wise.

I’m not watching the video myself, but my buddy watched the DF video and apparently they find Halo visually underwhelming and they mention the lighting still looking flat. Something I definitely noticed with the gameplay overview a month or two ago. It’s unfortunate because lighting can make a world of difference. Is this a engine thing I wonder?

I you’re kind of underselling all the things Forza does.

2 Likes

So me and John finally agrees on something… The initial Slip Space trailers left a lot for desire on table with the final product

Huge potential and may come true once last gen is left behind

Shadows may get fixed with RT Occlusion maybe ?

Lighting may also improve with RT GI

But gameplay looks awesome

1 Like

The lighting and shadows especially the long distance shaosws seem to be what’s making the game look flat in some open world instances. Not all the time and probably not even half of the time, just in instances where it’s sunny I guess and you’re overlooking a vast open view, and that sometimes is hidden with some fog and the shadows of the clouds. Overall the game looks really beautiful and clean, the visuals also serve gameplay purposes at the expense of realistic simulation and I appreciate that actually. The material work is top-notch.

I guess different tatses but the game doesn’t look underwhelming to me, at all. Just not anywhere near ‘perfect’, you know, like RDR2, GoW, Gears 5, FH5, etc. But to be honest, I can actually prefer a lot of things that Infinite does visually, because it actually serves the gameplay. The game also just looks so comfortable to the eyes.

1 Like

Slipspace is a completely new engine built from scratch by 343.

The engine for FH5 is the same for 4 and 3. Just iterated on in between.

There is a substantial difference. And that’s before we get to the complexity of physics and environmental interaction, AI etc…

Why does it share similar problems that were also in the previous Halo games then? It’s clearly not “built from scratch” and shares so much with the old engine, if not the old engine in essence but configured for their open-world stuff.