Typically speaking, once you go past the high preset on most games, the 'ultra' one usually consists of heavily unoptimized things such as fancier ambient occlusion (generally only a higher scaled one tbh), small detail physics(hair, etc), and more expensive processes (small things) here, and there that will add up overall, but in no means greatly change the overall visuals of the game. That's really way more dependent on the base rendering quality, art style, and assets etc.
Obviously, nobody has specified what this 'ultra' preset consists of, yet, so I'm only speculating towards this game. But it's usually the case. In any case, I wouldn't worry about it - we can already see that the base renderer is of good, high quality, and visually speaking that's the backbone of all the visual fidelity.
I'll take what we've seen so far tbh (great attention to detail, great assets, animation quality, etc) , at least in my own opinion. I'm only speaking in terms of visual quality here, ofc ^.^
Obviously, nobody has specified what this 'ultra' preset consists of, yet, so I'm only speculating towards this game. But it's usually the case. In any case, I wouldn't worry about it - we can already see that the base renderer is of good, high quality, and visually speaking that's the backbone of all the visual fidelity.
I'll take what we've seen so far tbh (great attention to detail, great assets, animation quality, etc) , at least in my own opinion. I'm only speaking in terms of visual quality here, ofc ^.^
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And the plot thickens... Just by a brief description it sounds like a more interesting and meaty mechanic than Adrenaline was in TW2.
Hopefully something else that will get a bit more in-depth information in some form of video over the coming months!
Do you think they are gonna release some more in depth videos closer to launch? Separate videos dedicated to combat, the world etc like they did for the Witcher 2. A lot of stuff change during development so closer to launch when things are set would make sense.
Funny that they should mention Geralt's shadow, because it's pretty much the only thing that casts one. Look at the rocks in the scene below, they don't even look like they're part of the scene.
Likely a performance enhancing mechanic. I would expect higher settings to have shadows on more objects, as well as higher quality ambient occlusion.
With this much detail in the scene, adding shadows would increase the amount of draw calls which can bog down mid range CPUs that aren't powerful enough to handle it. Plus with the game being streamed, adding more shadows would increase the performance penalty even more as shadow complexity is a massive performance hog.
As for ultra settings, I wouldn't expect to see any indication of it until close to launch when NVidia releases their customary Gameworks trailer. Also, those settings are still likely being optimized anyway. But we do know from earlier reports that ultra settings will include higher levels of tessellation, better physics, higher quality textures, more post processing effects, hairworks etcetera....
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Funny that they should mention Geralt's shadow, because it's pretty much the only thing that casts one. Look at the rocks in the scene below, they don't even look like they're part of the scene.
Not sure why its deactivated there, in the january video rocks like that cast shadows in the ground, it might be because of the day time, when the sun is not "high up" enough yet, it wouldnt reach those rocks and hit them directly with light in order to have projected shadows. Geralt's shadow is very long, which indicates that kind of position from the sun.
Grass projected shadows arent in the january video though, and the lack of HBAO makes it even more apparent, but it will improve by release I bet. They dont appear neither in SOD or VGX however.
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Thats a great point as well, and a possibility. I still think it's a settings issue though to conserve performance, because the game was being streamed from a mile away. Shadow detail and complexity are massive performance hogs. In fact, I remember an article where a CDPR dev was complaining about getting the console versions to run at acceptable performance without sacrificing important things like shadow detail..
Hopefully. The scenes are very complex for an open-world game, so I'm not expecting miracles, in fact what they have right now is pretty impressive, it just looks like there were sacrifices in some areas to maintain fidelity in others. I'm not even that fussy about graphics, I just thought I should put in a word to counter-balance everyone saying the graphics are the same or better, because with my fanboy goggles firmly removed, I'm not seeing it.
Thats true I remember that.
After looking at the video in question bit by bit im almost sure its that the effect is disabled, in parts where the terrain is higher enough to get hit by the sun the rocks still dont project anything, but its in the previous video so I'd say we will get that effect.
Now the grass shadows puzzle me more
, wonder if we will get it or not. they arent present in any footage for what I know.Thats true I remember that.
After looking at the video in question bit by bit im almost sure its that the effect is disabled, in parts where the terrain is higher enough to get hit by the sun the rocks still dont project anything, but its in the previous video so I'd say we will get that effect.
Now the grass shadows puzzle me more
I found that article!
It was from Eurogamer:Source
So it's very likely that this particular clip was running at settings that closely mirrored the settings the consoles will use, and thus shadow complexity and detail were sacrificed in certain areas to maintain performance.
Shadows on small things like rocks, grass etcetera are a lot less noticeable than on larger objects such as trees, buildings and various creatures.
Yeah, isn't it weird, they almost look like they've been photoshopped into the picture? I don't know whether it has anything to do with LOD, but I think the lack of shadows is one of the biggest reason for the the game's occasional bland look. This is quite apparent on the vegetation as well, like tree leaves, they just blend together most of the time.Funny that they should mention Geralt's shadow, because it's pretty much the only thing that casts one. Look at the rocks in the scene below, they don't even look like they're part of the scene.
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Shadows LOD is old gen in the case of characters, the shadows start to cast when you are 5 meters from them and you see the shadows appearing from no where. Grass as was said doesn't exist. Most trees uses "speed tree" (paperboard turning around to the player with the camera). Some bushes looks like they are too shiny or bright pale, without shaders and/or shadows. The Last gameplay was on PC without any nvidia effect in high settings, running at 35 fps with i7 and gtx 980, this is in high settings too, don't know the frame rate and systems specs used to run the demo, but probably the same from the january demo. CDPR said these high settings are just a little and almost nothing above PS4 config graphics, so to play the witcher 3 at medium console setting, will we need a gtx 970 or gtx 780? probably the announced gtx 770 for recomended is the ps4 equivalent for pc, in this game, but amd users should use a r9 290 as the official specs say. hope some serious optimizations are done when the game comes out. Graphics side, i don't see them as the screenshot in my wallpaper, not even on the highest settings that will need gtx 980 sli.
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It has to be more than 5 meters. Even the grass textures pop in at more than twice that distance..
The January gameplay video was running much higher than 35 FPS. The frame rate was described as "fluent" by Gamestar.de, and "smooth as butter" by TechnoBuffalo. 35 FPS definitely isn't smooth as butter. For gameplay to be smooth, I'd say at least 50 FPS is required.
Source
High settings on PC has better shaders, textures, lighting and AA than the PS4 version, as confirmed by Gamestar.de. Guy N'wah posted a good translation here:
Translated Gamestar article
As I said above, the PC version of high is significantly better looking than the PS4 version. The PS4 version will likely be using a combination of high, medium and low settings for various assets, but it won't match the PC version on high..
so you are saying that for running this game on the same graphical quality than console,you need a gtx 780?
to run it on "medium"??
there is less than 20% power difference between a 780 and a 980,if you can't max this game with a 780,you will not be able to fully maximize it with a 980 either.
I don't know what kind of spell can be used to make a ps4 gpu render with the speed of a 780 gtx.
I'm just hoping there is good options/tweaking flexibility for these parameters. I really don't like when the lod, draw, shadow, etc, distance values are engine-locked, and out of reach to the end user. Even if it's in the graphics ini settings that can be modified past the 'preset' values. It would be sweet, and much appreciated.
I enjoy min/maxing the graphical settings of a game, to try get the best visuals, for the performance I have. Prioritizing the things I would like.
I enjoy min/maxing the graphical settings of a game, to try get the best visuals, for the performance I have. Prioritizing the things I would like.
35 FPS, who said smooth as butter lie, because the "60 fps" video runs at 30 - 40, never pass 40.
the 5 metters is an aye assumption, i'll give you your 10, bad LOD anyway, characters shadows are invisible and appeared in front of the player in the video. I can take a shot of that. Grass doesn't cast any shadow.
Shadow quality in the game is fine, overall, the problem is the distance and what drop or not the shadows. Everything else is OUTSTANDING.
My concern aren't about graphics, they are about performance, and a little about the map size declared.
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The game is running on high (cdpr information official), the game doesn't look really better than the PS4 version (cdpr information), the game runs in that demo with an i7 and a gtx 980. Maybe the medium settings have less details that normally we don't see, but anyway how many details had to be "cut" to make this high preset run ok on medium or less on a PS4. I don't know, just saying what's going on with the gameplay demos right now.
Sorry, Kellhus, but while this - at least to a certain degree - might be a matter of perception, calling the PC version on high settings "significantly better looking" than its PS4 counterpart seems to exaggerate what editor Michael Graf (the guy who previewed Witcher 3 for Gamestar) reported. Yes, the game on PC with high settings enabled will undoubtedly look superior to what is achievable on PS4, no surprise there, but the gist of his analysis seemed to be that the differences, overall, are NOT that signifacant.
In fact, he reiterated what he wrote in the article in a video stream that was posted shortly afterwards on the site, saying that "while the PC version looks the best out of the three, admittedly, on PS4 the game looks nevertheless really great and the visual downgrading is almost imperceptible when sitting in a normal viewing distance from your TV screen (not counting pop-ins, I guess).
I'm not trying to split hairs here, but it seems that Graf's impressions in regards to the technical quality gets oftentimes slightly misrepresented or is translated out of context. Again, not doubting the PC version's advantages in both the graphics and performance department when played on an appropriately powerful system, just that "significantly better looking" is somewhat at odds with what the guy actually reported.
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