Eurogamer just posted an article with the developers of the Force Unleashed 2 discussing some technology they've created that gives 30fps gameplay the illusion of being 60fps through the interpolation of multiple frames, much like the way current 120/240hz TVs are able to artifically increase the framerate of normal 24fps video. This technology was cronstructed too late to make it into the final game, but the concept is incredibly intriguing.
Here are some of the more interesting tidbits from the article:
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Andreev and his colleagues have devised a system that gives an uncanny illusion of true 60FPS, and uses less system resources than its existing motion blur code. Swap out the blur for the frame-rate upscaler and you effectively have all the visual advantages of 60FPS for "free", as there's very little need to run full-on multi-sample motion blur if your game is already running at 60FPS. |
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You'd think that this technique would cause lag, but as the interpolated image is being generated using elements from the next "real" frame, it actually reduces latency. Andreev's technique is single-frame based rather than dual-frame. The latter approach would require buffering two images so has a big memory and latency overhead, while the technique Andreev used effectively interpolates on the fly using past and future rendering elements. |
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According to his figures, The Force Unleashed II's motion blur eats up 2.2ms of resources on Xbox 360 (give or take 0.4ms), while the five-SPU-powered PS3 version is much faster at 1.4ms (give or take 0.5ms). Compare this with the frame-rate upscaler, which runs at 1.5ms on 360, and 1.4ms on PS3 (again parallelised over five SPUs). |
Here are two example videos of how this technology works:
HD Comparison Video
SD Comparison Video
And as a side note, the article mentions that the Cell-based MLAA solution pioneered by Sony Santa Monica and now seen in God of War III, LittleBigPlanet 2, and Killzone 3 is now available for all ps3 developers to implement into their games through the SDK:
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...Sony's extremely impressive MLAA solution which is now available for all developers to insert into their games as part of the PS3 SDK. |
This gen is awesome.
