Grand Theft Auto 5 remastered - the Digital Foundry verdict

Back in June this year, Rockstar presented a stunning vision for its new remaster of Grand Theft Auto 5. The final release is an impressive effort with a mammoth amount of work invested in it, but there are a few curious differences between the reveal footage and the final game.

The good news is that most of the promises are delivered: the level of detail is consistent, lighting is suitably upgraded, and lots of new post-processing effects are implemented. In fact, the trailer doesn't even really cover the full breadth of what has been added here, so in many ways Rockstar has actually exceeded expectations. There's a catch though, and that lies in the game's traffic and population density. The trailer showcases a few specific areas jam-packed with cars and pedestrians, yet we could not replicate those results in the final game - despite spending multiple days within the game world monitoring those areas. There are indeed more pedestrians and cars on-screen in many areas and the draw distance of such objects has been expanded, but don't expect to see anything quite like the initial E3 trailer in this regard. It's possible that performance issues kept the team from delivering on this vision, but it seems equally plausible that such thick traffic patterns simply weren't much fun and interrupted the flow of the gameplay.

It's for this reason that we're quite eager to get our hands on the PC version of the game. With the potential for greater customisation, it should hopefully shine some light on the settings used in the console version. GTA 4 allowed users to adjust traffic density, and we're hopeful that a similar option will make its way into the upcoming PC remaster. Will it be possible to recreate those traffic-filled streets observed in the trailer? We're looking forward to finding out. We're also curious about performance on PC. GTA 4 was an incredibly demanding game that doesn't run particularly well, even on modern hardware, yet Max Payne 3 - a game with a narrower focus - ran like a dream. However, with the consoles resembling PC hardware in many respects, and based on the quality of the latest release, we're hopeful that performance will be solid.

As always, the future of the series remains unclear, but this latest Rage (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine) engine-powered release is quite promising. Performance is much more consistent than any previous GTA release and plenty of advanced visual features, typically reserved for more linear games, are implemented. Even without a significant increase in world detail, moving to a physically-based pipeline alone could transform the game's visuals into something truly extraordinary. Grand Theft Auto as a series has typically suffered from pretty serious performance issues and, while it never limited its popularity, we'd love to see a new, mainline instalment that runs properly out of the gate.

For now though, we have the excellent, almost definitive version of Grand Theft Auto 5 to enjoy. The host of visual and performance improvements makes a huge difference and we've deeply enjoyed re-playing the game over the last couple of weeks. Looking back over the last year of last-gen remasters it's clear that Grand Theft Auto 5 stands above the pack - it's one of the only releases to lack any sort of "remastered" subtitle, yet it's one of the few that truly deserves it.

more at http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-grand-theft-auto-5-the-remaster-deconstructed

Pretty good news for the console people! Cant wait to get the PC version in January though!

I'm not too bothered about the traffic density really the fact that it looks better than the trailer though is just awesome.