Digital Foundry FFXIII comparison

[NightAntilli]

BW_JP said:
No. the DF article is incredibly flawed.

First, it is wrote in the sense that the author is trying as hard as he can to make the 360 version look okay.

First points: He says you can use VC-1 for better encoding for the 360. FALSE. you can not. This is available for HD-DVD only, which is a dead format. The only way to make the CGI look even 720p on the 360 would be to add two more discs. for 1080p, probably 3-4 more discs. Remember, each disc needs to contain the entire game engine and at least some of the content. you'd be looking at matching 28GB of Video and need to contain all the other content required for the game, and a reasonable amount of game content on every disc.

His article is completely flawed. VC-1 is IMPOSSIBLE for a 360 GAME to use. Bink video is the best alternative. and this is what it produces.

 

He doesn't mention anywhere about the self shadowing. the 360 versions shadows just randomly stop working. He doesn't talk about serious texture loss, he doesn't talk about how the audio sounds off and weird in the background in most CG cutscenes. He doesn't talk about the true severity of the macroblocking, its so bad, the videos on the 360 version are almost appauling. They are distasteful to the eye.

 

This video should of shit all over the 360  version, its bayonetta 2.0, but he did not.

It was a lazy port, but it's a really _really_ bad port. Obviously it could look better, but not much better.

You talk about how its okay for him to say the faults are because of the developer and not the game, well why don't we do this for every game? if we did, we'd be saying it for every single comparison because the ps3 is capable of better graphics and better performance if coded properly for the system. 

It's a moot point, this is the game you're getting. If bayonetta was developed properly for the ps3, it would look better than the 360 version, fact. Doesn't mean its worth mentioning in the video!! 

Bias much. The article is not flawed. It states the truth

1) Encoding doesn't have anything to do with the disc format. They can easily put it on dvd. Sure, a whole movie won't fit on a DVD with that format, but for FMVs, it should work. I mean come on, there's 1GB of space left on TWO discs. This is clearly evidence of lack of time and/or lack of optimization for the X360. Nothing more, nothing less. Decoding videos to fit a DVD is something that basically any amateur can do. If they didn't do it to make use of the disc space, what other conclusion can you draw that the port was rushed? I know the one you want to draw.. "The PS3 is superior in every way blah blah blah". Tough luck. It's not like that. Period.

2) He doesn't talk about the shadowing, but he also doesn't talk about the filtering, which can be superior on the X360 as well. He basically focussed the whole article on how the X360 is faulty, and did not bother mentioning all the drawbacks. Why would he? He clearly states to go for the PS3 version. Isn't that enough for you? Of course not.. You want him to say "the PS3 is way more powerful". Again, though luck.

3) This is not the Bayonetta for the X360. The X360 version apparently even performs better than the PS3 version. That could not be said about Bayonetta, which basically always runs at half the framerate on the PS3. The X360 version will do fine. It's not on par to the PS3 version, but it's not unplayable either.

4) Your bias towards the PS3 does not make the PS3 more powerful. There are enough examples of the PS3 being lead platform and turning out to look better on the X360 after all. In this case, SE simply didn't take/have the time to optimize for the X360 at all. That's all it is. It does go both ways, but there are no guarantees that "the PS3 version of Bayonetta would look better if they developed it properly on the PS3". And you're completely missing the point. The X360 hardware does have some advantages over the PS3 (other way around as well), like the alpha-to-coverage on the hair (that simply wasn't needed on the X360...) and SE didn't bother utilizing those advantages at all. They took the short road and simply dumbed down the resolution to fit into the eDRAM and that's it.. Their whole X360 engine is maybe a year old, while the PS3 version is over 3 years old.. You do the math.