The Witcher 3 To Look Same on All 3 Platforms

[bystander36]

I wonder, when they say they look the same on all platforms, are they saying that the PC is looking the same while on the current High settings, or the not ready "Ultra" settings?

And it really looks like having consoles on the same basic architectures is going to be a bane for PC gamers. Rather than making a separate game engine for the PC, which then gets tailored to perform well on a PC, they are giving everyone the same game, as they no longer have to do much to port it to the PC.

 

[bystander36]

I see there is some conflicting info on this link: http://www.gamepur.com/news/17793-w...pecs-will-run-it-30fps-not-60fps-details.html

In addition to this, Adam stated that PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One use the same build, textures and models of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and it looks identical on all platforms, although Xbox One version will be showed in 900p, scaled up to 1080p.

Then later this is said:

PC has better shaders, textures, more colorful and better AA compared to consoles.
Grass and similar detail pops in ~5m on consoles. Double that on PC.
PS4>X1. PS4 textures blurrier than PC high.
PS4 runs at 1080p/30FPS
XB1 runs at 900p/30FPS, slightly blurrier than PS4.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I worry this will be another title that has horrible performance because of using nvidia's gameworks libraries. Every game released with those features as yet has been a disaster to one degree or another with varying degrees of optimization issues. Extremes like the complete trainwreck that was AC: Unity and Watch Dogs to milder issues like shadow bugs in FC4 or stuttering issues in Mordor.

Dying Light released today and is another gameworks game. It's a complete disaster. Stuttering and FPS drops everywhere.

This does not sound good for Witcher 3. I'd rather they dropped gameworks as it adds nothing we can't get from them in house, but it's likely too late for that. My guess is this game is a stutterfest at launch and we see numerous reports of terrible optimization with the suggestion it's 'next-gen' to cover it. The most recent 1080p 60fps gameplay from PC was not bad looking by any stretch, but it was nothing I have not seen before in other games.

I don't know about other games but Dying light is terribly unoptimized. Look at the CPU benchmarks here. http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37119391&postcount=1

It shows some weird performance from the CPU side. I don't think it's gameworks, it's the developer.

 

[tential]

I don't know about other games but Dying light is terribly unoptimized. Look at the CPU benchmarks here. http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37119391&postcount=1

It shows some weird performance from the CPU side. I don't think it's gameworks, it's the developer.

You think it's every developer that's made a big title around Gameworks?

 

[cmdrdredd]

You think it's every developer that's made a big title around Gameworks?

What do you mean by that? I found Watch Dogs very playable at release as I also find Far Cry 4 very playable. I've heard bad things about AC Unity but then there are some who are happy with it. I do know that each developer needs to work out the optimization. Don't blame Gameworks because of Ubisoft's failure for example.

 

[futurefields]

it's these weak, underpowered consoles ruining everything for gaming.

your pc hardware just wont be taken advatnage of with multiplats.

i mean come on guys, economics dictate this.

the consoles HAVE To be seen as impressive by the general public.

when you have PC Gamer magazine sitting on the shelf talking about "The Witcher 3 on PC looks twice as good as PS4 omgz" that is a major problem for PS4, which is an even bigger problem for the Witcher developer than it would be to release a crap PC version that looks the same as a PS4 yet requires 4x the brute force power to run.

 

[TechFan1]

Windows 10/DX12 can't come out soon enough.

 

[HeXen]

You guy sure do get all whiny, snobbish and spoiled about this stuff. And no there isn't some conspiracy to keep consoles from looking bad, that sounds worse than the Alien conspiracies.

 

[bystander36]

I don't think there is any conspiracy either, but I do believe that Dev's have taken advantage of the similarities of the console and PC. Now that they don't have to completely rebuild the engine to work on the PC, they only have to work on 1 design. This makes it really easy for them to simply make all 3 platforms the same, which means PC gamers are no longer getting the experience they are used to.

I'm not even talking about graphics. I'm talking about controls. So many of the new games being built with all 3 platforms at once, are no longer functioning well with a keyboard and mouse.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I don't think there is any conspiracy either, but I do believe that Dev's have taken advantage of the similarities of the console and PC. Now that they don't have to completely rebuild the engine to work on the PC, they only have to work on 1 design. This makes it really easy for them to simply make all 3 platforms the same, which means PC gamers are no longer getting the experience they are used to.

I'm not even talking about graphics. I'm talking about controls. So many of the new games being built with all 3 platforms at once, are no longer functioning well with a keyboard and mouse.

I'm different, I care about graphics and framerate more. I can use a controller fine. I play some games on PC to get the higher resolution and better visual quality and 60fps if I can.

 

[futurefields]

I don't think there is any conspiracy either, but I do believe that Dev's have taken advantage of the similarities of the console and PC. Now that they don't have to completely rebuild the engine to work on the PC, they only have to work on 1 design. This makes it really easy for them to simply make all 3 platforms the same, which means PC gamers are no longer getting the experience they are used to.

I'm not even talking about graphics. I'm talking about controls. So many of the new games being built with all 3 platforms at once, are no longer functioning well with a keyboard and mouse.

when have they ever had to do this? maybe outside of a few weird examples. these engines were made to be scalable.

they need the PS4/Xb1 experience to be as close to high end PC as possible. these things just came out, if the multiplats already look like crap compared to PC it would be a problem for them.

 

[ImpulsE69]

You guy sure do get all whiny, snobbish and spoiled about this stuff. And no there isn't some conspiracy to keep consoles from looking bad, that sounds worse than the Alien conspiracies.

Seriously, I have no problem believing companies conspire to make more money by using underhanded means. I mean...it only gets reported on like..every other week.

People around here need to look up what conspiracy really means.

 

[bystander36]

when have they ever had to do this? maybe outside of a few weird examples. these engines were made to be scalable.

they need the PS4/Xb1 experience to be as close to high end PC as possible. these things just came out, if the multiplats already look like crap compared to PC it would be a problem for them.

Maybe "complete" redesign is an overstatement, but they had to build the PC versions quite differently than the console versions. I'm not talking about the art, but with the controls and graphics engines. They are so close now, it seems as if they are just giving PC's the exact same controls, only with a tiny bit of change for K&M users.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I don't think developers should care whether console gamers get a graphically inferior version. They are selling games, not the console. A console gamer will buy a good game.

 

[tential]

I don't think developers should care whether console gamers get a graphically inferior version. They are selling games, not the console. A console gamer will buy a good game.

I think devs don't want to spend the time optimizing for PC to make it leaps and bounds nicer.
Devs associate PC Gamers with less revenue. Console gamers spend more on games and "pirate less" so therefore focus is on Console games.

Showing a PC version that was 1.5x the graphical fidelity on Console (even if it took a top of the line PC to do so), means people will think the PC version is better. They'll buy the cheaper PC version, or even just download the pirated version for free.

That's what I think devs are thinking anyway.

 

[cmdrdredd]

You're definitely right on the "PC gamers pirate" idea.

 

[escrow4]

I think devs don't want to spend the time optimizing for PC to make it leaps and bounds nicer.
Devs associate PC Gamers with less revenue. Console gamers spend more on games and "pirate less" so therefore focus is on Console games.

Showing a PC version that was 1.5x the graphical fidelity on Console (even if it took a top of the line PC to do so), means people will think the PC version is better. They'll buy the cheaper PC version, or even just download the pirated version for free.

That's what I think devs are thinking anyway.

HA! Day one, GTA V was up for download for cracked consoles. And right as I type this you can bet $100 that someone somewhere is working on cracking next gen. Devs are just lazy and keep on treating PC as a second class citizen.

 

[tential]

HA! Day one, GTA V was up for download for cracked consoles. And right as I type this you can bet $100 that someone somewhere is working on cracking next gen. Devs are just lazy and keep on treating PC as a second class citizen.

Except a cracked version of GTA 5 on consoles requires a modded console.
A Pirated version of GTA 5 on PC, just requires a PC.

We all know piracy is vastly easier on PCs lets not pretend we don't know why people are worried about piracy on the PC.

 

[Carfax83]

This is definitely unequivocally false. Witcher 3 is already confirmed to have an ultra setting that will include things like hair and fur simulation, better physics, more tessellation, more post processing effects etcetera..

As for textures, models etcetera, that's probably true. From what I've heard, they implement some sort of dynamic adjustment that will scale the models and textures depending on how much memory is available.

So this way, they can have the same assets across all platforms, but it will still look different. VRAM is going to be very important in the Witcher 3 when it comes to performance, and image quality it seems.

 

[motsm]

I see there is some conflicting info on this link: http://www.gamepur.com/news/17793-w...pecs-will-run-it-30fps-not-60fps-details.html

Yeah, sounds like the broad parody statement is just to assure console gamers that they won't be getting a vastly inferior product. I'm still in the wait and see camp as always though, especially considering the game only has controller support at this point; that seems ridiculous to me. Far too many quirks come out of quickly ported controls, like overly contextualized function keys because of the limited buttons on a controller, certain keys not being rebindable, or even rebinds only working with one of multiple contextual uses for a key (this happens in so many ports, and never gets fixed) and of course the all too common mouse acceleration.

 

[Black Octagon]

So did any of you bother to read the following post from Page 1?

So I bothered to look at the link and:

PC has better shaders, textures, more colorful and better AA compared to consoles.
Grass and similar detail pops in ~5m on consoles. Double that on PC.
PS4>X1. PS4 textures blurrier than PC high.
PS4 runs at 1080p/30FPS
XB1 runs at 900p/30FPS, slightly blurrier than PS4.
Still looks great on any platform.

I mean from the moment I saw before 900p on XO and upscaled, there's just no way it's the same, lol.

If correct, then this thread is much ado about nothing.

 

[Fire&Blood]

If you guys are saying what I think you are saying, I really hope you are wrong. All of a sudden there are negative news about Witcher 3 and I can't believe it, people are talking about CDPR like they are..Ubisoft. If CDPR lets me down like many other studios did, I should man up and only spend money on PC exclusives, as rare as they may be.

I can't say no to Witcher 3, I'll get it day one. I'm still expecting a great game but I would appreciate it if CDPR did something to stop this parity with consoles noise.

 

[smackababy]

Ah, this thread makes me happy. It just confirms my bias against "PC gamers". If a game only needs a 4 year old graphics card to run at ultra, everyone screams "OMG consoles are holding us back!" If a game can't even hit 60FPS on the best graphics cards available when it is released, everyone screams "OMG consoles are holding us back!".


So, how does a game created to tell a story unable to perform that task at 30 frames per second, but able to do that at 60 frames per second?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Ah, this thread makes me happy. It just confirms my bias against "PC gamers". If a game only needs a 4 year old graphics card to run at ultra, everyone screams "OMG consoles are holding us back!" If a game can't even hit 60FPS on the best graphics cards available when it is released, everyone screams "OMG consoles are holding us back!".


So, how does a game created to tell a story unable to perform that task at 30 frames per second, but able to do that at 60 frames per second?

Cause there is a difference in motion clarity and it is distracting to see 30fps. Remember last of us on ps4 had a 60fps mode and it was a huge difference over 30.

 

[motsm]

So, how does a game created to tell a story unable to perform that task at 30 frames per second, but able to do that at 60 frames per second?

Games do more than tell stores, so it's rather pointless question. Sure, the Witcher 3's story will be the same at 30 or 60 fps, but the gameplay won't be.