240°

DigitalFoundry - Face-Off: Rage

DigitalFoundry writes: In terms of the consoles, the purchase recommendation is very straightforward: Rage is an easy win for the Xbox 360 - if you have the hard drive attached. The dynamic resolution scaling technology works more effectively on the Microsoft platform, and there are very few instances where you feel or even recognise that you're playing a sub-HD experience - unfortunately the same cannot be said for the PlayStation 3 where the visual sleight of hand is not quite so effective.

Another major issue we have with Rage is with the checkpointing system, which is fundamentally broken and can set you back well over half an hour of gameplay time if you haven't been religiously saving your progress manually. This in itself is time-consuming and annoying, more so on PS3 where both saving and loading takes longer than the preferred full 360 install.

Texture streaming is the other main bugbear people will have with Rage: it's noticeable on all platforms (even PC), but a full 360 install up against a partial PS3 install is no contest - the 360 wins hands-down and provides the better experience. At its worst, the combination of low resolution textures and sub-HD resolution combines to make Rage look rather bland, a touch blurry/blocky and detail-lite on the PS3 at times, something that just doesn't seem to be the case with the 360 game running exactly as id outlines.

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eurogamer.net
GrayFox0075254d ago (Edited 5254d ago )

Easy win for 360?, lol no. I've seen comparison videos and it looks the same to me on PS3/360

Digital Foundry needs to get off Microsofts c**k

qwertyz5254d ago (Edited 5254d ago )

it is better on 360 than ps3 I think carmack put more work into the 360 version but I'm not sure. the pc verison reigns supreme though and destroys everything on consoles in the visual department even without unlocking the advanced graphics features(even with all its problems running on an nvidia gpu it works great). PC FTW

even without a HDD install the 360 version has less pop-ins than the ps3 verison its obvious ID didn't put enough time into the ps3 version. by the way I'm NOT a ps3 fanboy just stating facts

WrAiTh Sp3cTr35254d ago

Out of the box, there isn't any destroying! Haven't you heard? And we just read here that the results are minimal. Yes, the PC is the overall winner, but there isn't any "destroying"...yet.

gamingdroid5254d ago (Edited 5254d ago )

@qwertyz:

It's even worse than that as indicated by the article:

"Another word of warning we should note concerns the way that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 file formats differ. Format a USB drive on your 360, plug it into your PC and make hidden files visible and you can see exactly how Microsoft's system works - it generates a big bunch of large files and stores data within that allocated space. When you download a demo or piece of DLC from Xbox LIVE, it is also stored as a series of large files on the disk - this helps tremendously in terms of keeping fragmentation of the drive low.

The PlayStation 3 doesn't do this: when a game or demo installs to your HDD, there can be thousands of smaller files (in the case of GT5, up to 44,000 files) which does mean that over time your drive can fragment and drive performance will degrade a lot faster. In a recent discussion with a game developer who developed a data-heavy open world game, their extreme stress tests on the PS3 HDD actually reduced performance to lower than that of streaming in the same assets from Blu-ray."

http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

@WrAiTh Sp3cTr3

"Out of interest, we ran some tests where we would continuously change direction 180 degrees in the exact same spot on the Xbox 360 with and without an install and then compared that with performance in the exact same spot on the PlayStation 3. Curiously, after repeating the process a couple of times, no matter how we ran Rage - even with no hard drive at all - the 360 would resolve prominent textures faster."

However, I agree there is no destroying. These differences will be hardly noticeable/significant for the average gamer even when you include the PC in the comparison.

Jocosta5254d ago

I don't even see the point of comparing PC to console anymore, sure the first year it was fun but now it's a no brainer that PC trumps console by 1000 times.

gamingdroid5254d ago (Edited 5254d ago )

It is almost pointless to compare PC to consoles. There is no question, PC is superior in the technical department (as far as your pocket book will go).

The main problem is the strength don't necessarily make up enough for the weaknesses (simplified platform) for some (or more appropriately for the majority) of us gamers.

However, I'm starting of thinking of upgrading my graphics card and hooking up that Xbox 360 controller to my PC. With every release, it gets more tempting because the gap is so gapingly obvious now.

ProjectVulcan5254d ago (Edited 5254d ago )

As a PC gamer i have to say the game is overall a letdown. Even a console gamer, even as a 360 owner, its a letdown really.

This from both the technical standpoint and the gameplay standpoint.

From a technical perspective 360 owners might be most happy, but other games on PS3 massively outstrip it as a technical showcase, ditto PC.

Its been built for 360 clearly, early on the days when Carmack spoke of struggling to get PS3 to 60 frames meant that 360 was lead. The time spent in development has not helped the game at all.

PC probably ends up with the 'best' version technically, but actually the worst if you think about it relatively. The worst treatment. The least attention. Only sheer hardware brute force wins the minor battles, not exploitative programming.

Relatively speaking the PC version is nothing but a straight over dumped port, with virtually zero enhancements over the console versions bar the standard resolution and AA that we have come to expect from any game regardless. The main improvements just coming from having a faster hard drive which every desktop PC has anyway.

Its a piss poor port, minimal attention paid to making PC gamers happy. This is extremely disrespectful from a company that is what it is today BECAUSE of PC gamers. Sure i have the machine to beat up the consoles even on a port like this, but frankly id don't deserve my money. So i am not gonna give it them like i had planned to.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 5254d ago
Kur05254d ago

I didn't get this game for PS3 because of the bullshit 8gb install that resulted in still bad performance. I got it for PC.

megaglitcher5254d ago

Is it too hard to read? it has nothing to do with graphics, they look damn identical when in optimal resolution but the game has dynamic resolution and it dips lower 640x720 on PS3 while 360 dips to 896x720 or 1152x720.

It clearly says: "The effect on PlayStation 3 seems to be much more frequent and the resolution drops are significantly more noticeable."

zeddy5254d ago

ah crud! i was honestly thinking of getting this for the ps3, just for the graphics. but if its better on another platform besides pc of course i feel like im missing out on a better experience. looks like its going to have to be darks souls then.

DaTruth5254d ago (Edited 5254d ago )

Dark Souls is the best game I ever played! I have two other brand new games just sitting there, doing nothing!

cyclindk5254d ago (Edited 5254d ago )

BS... RAGE is anything but close to matching Xbox's performance here.

But despite the visual hiccups (or even downright horrible visuals at times on the PS3 version) the game has so many other issues it's ridiculous.

For me, the most overhyped game I've played this generation considering the pedigree behind its development, PC-centric devs or not.

Carmack has just lost a customer.

cyclindk5254d ago

I did buy it by the way, preordered and disappointed.

50Terabytespersec5254d ago

All this 2 pages worth of comparisons, Just TO CLARIFY SOMETHING WE ALL KNOW!
CONSOLES XBOX/PS3 NEEDS MORE MEMORY.
Now what would an ID exclusive on a PS3 with 1GB of VRAM be like????
I will not buy a next Gen Console unless it has 2GB min of Vram period..

meetajhu5254d ago (Edited 5254d ago )

Rage what a technical achievement. id and John Carmack are masters of game engines.

Digital Foundry - "Now compare and contrast that with Call of Duty: Black Ops and you'll have some idea of how much of a technical achievement it is for id software to be able to sustain that frame-rate, pretty much without fail, with this level of graphical detail."

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 5254d ago
WayneKerr5254d ago

360 keeps on bitch slapping the compo

jetlian5254d ago

yup and they can't handle it! Rage is easily one of the best looking console games. Rage,crysis, gears and uncharted all top.

WrAiTh Sp3cTr35254d ago

MS really knew what they were doing when they wrote the books on the Xbox 360's performance, I wish they would make it viewable to the public though. But alas, we have to rely on people like Carmack to show and tell what's going on under that 6 year old hood, but that's a win also though.

green5254d ago

Pirelli said it best "Power is nothing without control".

gamingdroid5254d ago

If you actually look at how MS designed the Xbox 360 architecture and the API it is clear that is a genius design. The 10MB EDRAM is a huge win albeit a little on the small side while the API gives them a lot of flexibility in the hooks for the dash.

That is why they can easily push out a new dash, new content and completely change the Xbox 360 software every year without compromising existing features and add new ones.

Unbalanced power is useless, unless you want highly specialized types of computing load.

corrupted_sharingan5254d ago

I was thinking the same thing, how is the graphics on xbox 360 superior??may b Digital Foundry's right hand side screen is damaged

kaveti66165254d ago

Read the whole article.

It's explained in detail.

Paradicia5254d ago

The res can get as low as 640x720 on PS3 and 896x720 on the 360. Interesting to know that they scale down the resolution to keep the frame-rate smooth. Never seen an engine do that before on the fly.

CernaML5254d ago

Wipeout HD did it actually. So did Motorstorm 3D games.

MerkinMax5254d ago

Yeah, just like the article said.

acdata5253d ago

the chronicles of riddick escape from butcher bay is the first game that use dynamic frame buffer and it done in original Xbox

Show all comments (45)
110°

Xbox Deals With Gold and Spotlight Sale Discounts – 4th-10th Aug 2020

Neil writes: "Just been paid? Fancy getting a new game added to that backlog of shame? The Xbox Deals With Gold and Spotlight Sale is back with even more discounts on a variety of great Xbox titles. If you've got time in your life for a new gaming experience, the following bargain basement titles are available for your cut-price purchasing between 4th-10th August 2020."

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thexboxhub.com
90°

Rage's Open World Was Intimate & Memorable, Not Another Huge, Empty Sandbox

Rage from id Software and Bethesda Softworks was largely overlooked, yet its handcrafted FPS open world and memorable characters transcend genre convention.

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escapistmagazine.com
Fist4achin2288d ago

I enjoyed the first game. I plan to play the sequel soon!

210°

Here are Star Wars The Force Unleashed, Crysis 2, RAGE & Resident Evil 2 Remake with Ray Tracing

YouTube’s members ‘Digital Dreams’ and ‘Jose cangrejo’ have shared some videos, showcasing Pascal Gilcher’s Reshade mod – which adds Ray Tracing/Path Tracing effects – in some really old games such as Star Wars The Force Unleashed, Crysis 2, RAGE and Resident Evil 6.

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dsogaming.com
traumadisaster2440d ago

I'm still learning how to look for the differences. At first I was focusing on shadows for some reason but I don't think that changes much, is it reflections that change?

rashada072440d ago (Edited 2440d ago )

It is supposed to be simulating how light actually works- so yes if light is reflecting off a surface accurately it should show reflection or an effect that matches what you are looking at in the environment. Next time you play a game look at a puddle of water there may be just a "baked" in texture that if you aren't paying attention seems like it is reflecting but it isn't. I would say though if the light is reflecting more accurately I would think that would give more accurate shadows as well.
I am still not 100% sold on it- it looks okay but I can't get over the hardware price jump for better reflections..

Taz X142440d ago

While games won't look immensely better, it opens up more possibilities overall. Understandably, the price jump is huge. But, that can be said for being at the forefront for any new technology. I'm currently using a 2080ti and while I've played a few games that enable it, the gpu also plays everything else incredibly well so it's not like you're buying this tech for ONLY that option. Enthusiasts will pay top dollar to check out the newest things, but this will eventually become an everyday consumer and by then they'll have optimized and become a lot cheaper.

warriorcase2439d ago

Ray/path tracing can be used how the developer wants it to be. Tracing can be used to calculate shadows/lighting, reflection and even audio, where audio waves are calculated on the bounce off material types to simulate enviroment and echos accuratly.

Should also keep in mind that this ray/path tracing system is different and less accurate option from Nvidias RTX branded type. McFly's is a reshade that layers over the top of the game and therefor the quality will vary drastically. For example you can see nice reflection in the Star Wars demo here but it then introduces colour clipping with the light saber. On a video of GTA 5 for example it was incorrectly projecting a reflection of a red car onto the road which caused a very faint red glow on the ground around the car.

If you want to see a good example of a game developed with ray tracing reflection and lighting in mind then you could look up the youtube video of "Control - Exclusive E3 RTX GAMEPLAY Trailer".

DigitallyAfflicted2440d ago

It supposed to add more realistic light Not actually more light effects and explosions

traumadisaster2440d ago

I hate to say it but I’m fine with fake lights, shadows, reflections. I just kind of like the effect, it’s also great it saves resources for other things.

I’ve been checking out some original Xbox games on x360/x1x and the engine has fake light streaming in through a stained glass window, and I love it even though I know it’s not real time lighting. Heck it even shifts as I move about.

I’ve about convinced my self rt and hdr just doesn’t work for me. Before hdr I would even complain damn why are the headlights killing me they are so bright.

I notice most frame rate, then jaggies, then resolution; with the last two interchangeable depending.

Other day watched an enthusiast rave over 4k and the poor guy was in 1080p. I played the same game the night before and thought wow this is clean, I wonder if it’s 4k, but knew differently and I thought wow even resolution is not always important. The next day he apologized and was surprised he could be fooled.

RaidenBlack2440d ago

EA should have released the Crysis Trilogy Remaster for this gen.

FGHFGHFGH2435d ago

How come the lightsabers don't give off any light? Even in the EA star wars game the guy uses it to light up a dark cave. I guess if it is using frostbite it will support rtx cards.