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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Digital Foundry takes a closer look at Breath of the Wild

Watching videos of this game makes me happy

Nintendo must be putting a lot of effort into polishing it.

Esit: How did this thread devolve into discussing the power of the Cell? 



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Azuren said:

Iirc, didn't the Cell Processor help with the workload of the RSX? I could have swore I read that somewhere.

Allow me to repeat.

Pemalite said:


the CPU was mostly used for basic framebuffer/overlay effects.

It wasn't involved in setting up triangles, it wasn't performing complex shaders, heck it wasn't even involved in any texturing. (Unless you count texture decrompression with Megatexturing, but that happened on every platform.)

So what was it used for? Well. Anti-Aliasing. It was a post-processing effect that would blur the edges of geometry and it was used to great effect, otherwise known as Morphological Anti-Aliasing, it was cheap.
It would also apply colour filters, possibly do some blur effects, but mostly that was all simple post processing stuff.

People are under the impression the Cell could render entire game worlds, well. It can't. Not unless you want PS1/N64 levels of graphics, it's simply not fast enough for heavy duty graphics rendering, never was.

And you know what? Despite the Cell having "crazy" levels of theoretical performance, that theoretical performance advantage was never truly realised in the real world, in games. - Halo 4 and Gears 3 showed the 360 could compete with the best the PS3 could offer.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

curl-6 said:
GOWTLOZ said:
GTA V and BOTW can't be directly compared. GTA V's open world is filled with NPC's, buildings and traffic, something that BOTW doesn't have. Also BOTW has cel shaded graphics so a lot less details are required for it. Both have impressive physics, but PS3's CPU has more powerful and higher clocked individual cores than PS4, so it should handle BOTW's physics. BOTW is better in terms of framerate than last gen GTA V, that's the only place its better.

Also GOW 3 can run on PS3 at 45-60fps so BOTW would run on it easily. GOW 3 had incredible scale to it, some of the bosses were bigger than entire levels in some other games. Not open world, but as they are all animated that makes it more impressive and it still looks like a PS4 game on PS3.

Only the characters in Breath of the Wild are cel shaded; rock, snow, trees, pavement, water, dirt, etc all use regular textures. And rendering a world as big and detailed as BotW takes more than just CPU grunt, it also places considerable demands on RAM and GPU power, two areas where Wii U exceeds PS3 and 360.

Also, GOW3 looks as good as it does because it is highly scripted; levels are linear, the developers control the camera so they can always micro-manage exactly what's on screen at any given time, and a lot its eye candy is smoke and mirrors. It looks flashy but its not as technically demanding as an open world game like Breath of the Wild.

 

DonFerrari said:

It's possible some downgrades would be necessary, but I would bet that if in the hands of SSM or ND they would be able to produce basically the same product with those differences not being very perceptible. And a lot of games were sub 720p on PS360 so it wouldn't look out of place.

I doubt resolution would be the primary downgrade; I think the most noticeable cut would have to be level of detail. With half as much RAM, you couldn't fit as many assets into play at once, leading to a lot more pop-in.

Ok, I can agree that half the RAM could affect the LoD or the size of the world. But how much opmization and tricks would make the loss smaller is another point.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

DonFerrari said:
curl-6 said:

Only the characters in Breath of the Wild are cel shaded; rock, snow, trees, pavement, water, dirt, etc all use regular textures. And rendering a world as big and detailed as BotW takes more than just CPU grunt, it also places considerable demands on RAM and GPU power, two areas where Wii U exceeds PS3 and 360.

Also, GOW3 looks as good as it does because it is highly scripted; levels are linear, the developers control the camera so they can always micro-manage exactly what's on screen at any given time, and a lot its eye candy is smoke and mirrors. It looks flashy but its not as technically demanding as an open world game like Breath of the Wild.

 

I doubt resolution would be the primary downgrade; I think the most noticeable cut would have to be level of detail. With half as much RAM, you couldn't fit as many assets into play at once, leading to a lot more pop-in.

Ok, I can agree that half the RAM could affect the LoD or the size of the world. But how much opmization and tricks would make the loss smaller is another point.

Impostering and Streaming can help bolster world size and LoD anyway to the point where it's almost irrellevent from that perspective.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Pemalite said:
DonFerrari said:

Ok, I can agree that half the RAM could affect the LoD or the size of the world. But how much opmization and tricks would make the loss smaller is another point.

Impostering and Streaming can help bolster world size and LoD anyway to the point where it's almost irrellevent from that perspective.

So you would say that is quite possible that Zelda could be put on PS360 without major drawbacks but some consessions right?



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

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DonFerrari said:
Pemalite said:

Impostering and Streaming can help bolster world size and LoD anyway to the point where it's almost irrellevent from that perspective.

So you would say that is quite possible that Zelda could be put on PS360 without major drawbacks but some consessions right?

There would be concessions.
The most readily apparant would likely be texturing and the lighting.
The WiiU has a more efficient GPU than the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 to the point where even if it had less flops, it would still be faster.
It has better texture compression, which when coupled with it's larger system memory capacity would be one of the major concessions a developer would make porting it to the other consoles.

And the WiiU also has superior geometry performance, so models will likely be a little simpler on the 360/PS3.

Lighting and shaders will be a big one, the WiiU has the shader grunt to handle more complex effects and more of them on screen.

Overall, it would technically be the same game, but it would still look the best on the WiiU, it's simply more modern and more capable machine than the 360/PS3.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Pemalite said:
DonFerrari said:

So you would say that is quite possible that Zelda could be put on PS360 without major drawbacks but some consessions right?

There would be concessions.
The most readily apparant would likely be texturing and the lighting.
The WiiU has a more efficient GPU than the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 to the point where even if it had less flops, it would still be faster.
It has better texture compression, which when coupled with it's larger system memory capacity would be one of the major concessions a developer would make porting it to the other consoles.

And the WiiU also has superior geometry performance, so models will likely be a little simpler on the 360/PS3.

Lighting and shaders will be a big one, the WiiU has the shader grunt to handle more complex effects and more of them on screen.

Overall, it would technically be the same game, but it would still look the best on the WiiU, it's simply more modern and more capable machine than the 360/PS3.

Agreed... but considering it's a cell shaded game and that textures seem simpler than other games worked by PS360, wouldn't that end up becoming a very small concession and geometry diminishing returns also end up as a small concession?

Perhaps end product graphical punch wouldn't differ more than 10% (ass pulled) difference between WiiU and PS360?



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

DonFerrari said:
Pemalite said:

There would be concessions.
The most readily apparant would likely be texturing and the lighting.
The WiiU has a more efficient GPU than the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 to the point where even if it had less flops, it would still be faster.
It has better texture compression, which when coupled with it's larger system memory capacity would be one of the major concessions a developer would make porting it to the other consoles.

And the WiiU also has superior geometry performance, so models will likely be a little simpler on the 360/PS3.

Lighting and shaders will be a big one, the WiiU has the shader grunt to handle more complex effects and more of them on screen.

Overall, it would technically be the same game, but it would still look the best on the WiiU, it's simply more modern and more capable machine than the 360/PS3.

Agreed... but considering it's a cell shaded game and that textures seem simpler than other games worked by PS360, wouldn't that end up becoming a very small concession and geometry diminishing returns also end up as a small concession?

Perhaps end product graphical punch wouldn't differ more than 10% (ass pulled) difference between WiiU and PS360?

Yep it would. Art can play a larger role than graphics fidelity in how pleasing a game can look, really depends how a developer goes about things, hyper-realistic games tend to age faster.
There are some PS2/Gamecube games when emulated on PC can look pretty darn good even today.

Overall, I would be happy to play a Zelda on a 360 or PS3.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Pemalite said:
DonFerrari said:

Agreed... but considering it's a cell shaded game and that textures seem simpler than other games worked by PS360, wouldn't that end up becoming a very small concession and geometry diminishing returns also end up as a small concession?

Perhaps end product graphical punch wouldn't differ more than 10% (ass pulled) difference between WiiU and PS360?

Yep it would. Art can play a larger role than graphics fidelity in how pleasing a game can look, really depends how a developer goes about things, hyper-realistic games tend to age faster.
There are some PS2/Gamecube games when emulated on PC can look pretty darn good even today.

Overall, I would be happy to play a Zelda on a 360 or PS3.

One less HW to worry about... but although I would like to have all Nintendo games available on my Playstation (or in your case all nintendo, xbox and playstation games on PC, with only exclusives taking a time to hit emulators) there is a charm to playing the game on the machine it was originally intended to work on.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

curl-6 said:
GOWTLOZ said:
GTA V and BOTW can't be directly compared. GTA V's open world is filled with NPC's, buildings and traffic, something that BOTW doesn't have. Also BOTW has cel shaded graphics so a lot less details are required for it. Both have impressive physics, but PS3's CPU has more powerful and higher clocked individual cores than PS4, so it should handle BOTW's physics. BOTW is better in terms of framerate than last gen GTA V, that's the only place its better.

Also GOW 3 can run on PS3 at 45-60fps so BOTW would run on it easily. GOW 3 had incredible scale to it, some of the bosses were bigger than entire levels in some other games. Not open world, but as they are all animated that makes it more impressive and it still looks like a PS4 game on PS3.

Only the characters in Breath of the Wild are cel shaded; rock, snow, trees, pavement, water, dirt, etc all use regular textures. And rendering a world as big and detailed as BotW takes more than just CPU grunt, it also places considerable demands on RAM and GPU power, two areas where Wii U exceeds PS3 and 360.

Also, GOW3 looks as good as it does because it is highly scripted; levels are linear, the developers control the camera so they can always micro-manage exactly what's on screen at any given time, and a lot its eye candy is smoke and mirrors. It looks flashy but its not as technically demanding as an open world game like Breath of the Wild.

It requires less RAM for streaming, but the sheer number of polygons and details, and the great use of lighting and textures plus all the enemies on screen at once, it is definitely a VERY demanding game for its hardware and would have been demanding had it been on Wii U.

There are many linear games, but none of them try to do what God of War 3 does so successfully. Just about any scene with titans in the game are damn impressive, as those titans are not just gigantic but also very well animated, and that requires a alot of resources.

Not just that but the particle effects are really good as well, and there are dynamic light sources too, such as when you use the Head of Helios.

Also it does all of this running at 45fps while Zeldaa runs at 30fps.

LipeJJ said:
God of War III? Are we talking about this game below? I think people really have selective memories.

You know I'm not talking about scenes such as this plus it looks like it has been cropped, as in this particular fight there is a gigantic titan destroying a city in the background nowhere to be seen here.

If you've played the game, there are much more stunning gameplay sequences than this anyways.