Graphic downgrade

[Sephira]

The problem with what you say is that there are little to no reason to downgrade gameplay. I have almost never heard of gameplay downgrade, but there are several reasons to downgrade graphics, and, you want it or not, almost all of them are related to consoles and can be explained with detail and examples.

This thread is not about gameplay, this thread is about graphical downgrade. There are already, many threads about gameplay, and a thread about the video.

Problem is that there a lot of downgrade talk in this forum. A lot of it. I invite you to check the previous topic.

PC vs Consoles is the main topic it seems. I wonder how many PC gamers will say something like "Suck it console owners" when the game will come out and they will play it. And they will forget this downgrade talk. Because I believe Witcher 3 will be a full real gem on PC.
I'm not good in criticize technical aspect, but hey I want to make an, maybe ridicolous, example: I remember playing Hitman: Blood Money on PS2, which looked like... *censored*, yeah you know that. Instead PC version graphics were really awesome, it didn't change anything, it didn't affect anything.

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But I said a lot yesterday about witcher senses and how they should be implemented in quest design.

Where did you say it?

 

[Phinnway]

I have nice pic for lighting change
compare light quality on buildings in background

it looks simpler now more stylized and catoonish

Personally, I don't think the lighting looks worse. Different? Yes. Worse? No. In fact, I don't think the lighting in the game looks worse at all; I think your second pic is just a bad example.
The evidence:

Spoiler

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And I can tell you one thing we have now that weren't in any of the earlier pictures: dynamic sun rays

Spoiler

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Like I said in my post (and you said in your reply) evidently that is the style they wanted for their game. And I don't consider cartoonish a dirty word in video-games. Especially when it comes to fantasy RPGs I tend to prefer vibrant colors.

 

[triprunner]

Again: PC. yes? Ultra. Yes? 60fps? Do you know where i'm going with this? These videos do not represent what i want to see, a PC only gameplay at maximum settings, which will inform me about buying the game. Fair enough?

 

[dexter2]

They mentioned how those are ultra settings, which haven't been shown yet

So you are saying that after all these talks that game will look similar on every platform, we will have difference like between those two screenshots?

I highly doubt that, because difference is pretty big. No volumetric clouds and mist, no reflections.

 

[moonknightgog]

My point is that its not just consoles that are to be blamed but also the fact that very few people have $3000 pcs with 3 way sli to run the game as it was before. Especially if you think that a single gtx 980 cant run the game on high at 60fps with nvidia hairworks disabled (rumor).

Yeah, and so what?
No one could run Crysis 1 at max setting when it came out. But Crytek didn't downgrade anything.

 

[CostinRaz]

Last time people swallowed up CDPRs bullshit with Youtube compression when it came to Elder Blood, regardless that I and others who know how the compression works would not have accounted for the changes.

Now it's pretty clear there is still a downgrade. Oh certain things have improved like hair but there's still plenty of major issues.

As for anyone arguing: "Hey remember when it was OK for early trailers to look better then what the game actually did?" It was never and it will never be OK and every time it's happened the game has always received a large amount of flack. Screenshots are different, but screenshots can and are in fact retouched.

 

[moonknightgog]

Where did you say it?

In the PAX East thread, about the new video gameplay. XD

 

[Phinnway]

The fact is...with the PC version you don't have limited power at all. Even if doesn't exist a PC capable to run it with the graphic quality similar to the screenshots/trailers, it will be exist in the future.

True in theory. But in practice it's fairly non-nonsensical to design a game that won't run on any hardware for at least 5 years. So in practice I think there is a limit, just not a concrete one.

 

[CostinRaz]

The limitations exist and personally I'd demand when a game came out it ran at well over 60 FPS on a 980. The fact it didn't run at 60 FPS months before release is OK because that's when the bulk of optimization occurs.

What I'd fucking expect from CDPR is to push technical graphics further then Bioware did with Inquisition. I'll give the Animation guys credit however. Their facial animations beat the snot out of Bioware also hair looks better.

Everything else related to technical graphics is either similar or worse and that's unacceptable.

 

[triprunner]

PC vs Consoles is the main topic it seems. I wonder how many PC gamers will say something like "Suck it console owners" when the game will come out and they will play it. And they will forget this downgrade talk. Because I believe Witcher 3 will be a full real gem on PC.

I'd like to believe it too, but without any proof but retouched screen shots and the first trailer i can't get myself to push that pre-order button although i'd really like to, it's a really nice button.

 

[dragonbird]

First deletion.

Don't describe people who disagree with you as "sheep".

 

[hamilcarBarca.196]

There was a time where early trailers and early screenshots were considered "marketing", and no one expected the final product to look that good, nowadays it seems that these are taken as if they were supposed to represent the final product, well, guess what, the optimization hammer will do its work no matter how you whine, I don't know where the them "downgrade" come from but I know it has been overused since Watch_Dogs, yet, that game was an extreme example, it was delivered without most of the tech announced and this without proper warning, is it the case for The Witcher 3? Well no, we know what we will get (so far) and most of the tech announced is still present.

I feel there is a distinction to make between "downgrade" and simple (normal) optimization process. I would also like to point out that we have no idea at what settings all these comparisons were made, seems a little premature to scream "downgrade!" at this point when all we can see is a few difference in textures, for the most part...

downgrade=lowering visual settings to get better performance.
optimisation=getting better performance without lowering visual settings.

optimisation means that you have to find a smarter way of writing your algorithms or using the capabilities of your hardware to achieve better memory and computing usage.

we can't talk about downgrades about this game,simply because people are comparing trailers to gameplay...
it's like comparing cinematics to gameplay...trailers are pre rendered,and gameplay are in real time...
if the game was like what the trailer have shown,I don't think there are a lot of people out there who can play it above 20 fps,especially because it is an open world...

 

[Mozalbete]

Problem is that there a lot of downgrade talk in this forum. A lot of it. I invite you to check the previous topic.

PC vs Consoles is the main topic it seems. I wonder how many PC gamers will say something like "Suck it console owners" when the game will come out and they will play it. And they will forget this downgrade talk. Because I believe Witcher 3 will be a full real gem on PC.
I'm not good in criticize technical aspect, but hey I want to make an, maybe ridicolous, example: I remember playing Hitman: Blood Money on PS2, which looked like... *censored*, yeah you know that. Instead PC version graphics were really awesome, it didn't change anything, it didn't affect anything.

The previous topic was closed under the rather terrible excuse that there was no new content to talk about. This or course was a msitake, and now there is a new topic, since the other one wasn't reopened. What a surprise.

PC vs Consoles is justified when consoles are the cause of almost any downgrade. When the game is out, if there is a downgrade, people must complain. The mustn't ignore it, that's a terrible behaviour, it encourages hiding bad things, letting them pass. People are free to enjoy the game, but they shouldn't support developers who downgrade a game. The bare minimum is to complain about it.

The fact that it must be confirmed doesn't mean people shouldn't be concerned until then. If screenshots or videos look worse, then people should complain and ask for explanations. And devs should respond with more screenshots, not PR talking.

I don't care about console versions. Until they affect the PC version, more or less directly.

If any downgrade is confirmed, then people should be really mad, and they will be.

The new trailer has obvious terrible quality, but it seems to be from One. The question is how big will the difference be. Didn't they say that assets would be the same. Because if that's the case, there are several textures which are already downgraded, and geometry seems to be very bad. So far, only the character models look really good, but these aren't important compared to the environment.

 

[501105]

Ah another one, I was quite agressive in the previous topic about the downgrade, but have learned to accept the game for what it is. The quality seen in the footage such as VGX or SoD will simply not happen (I think so anyway). Wether it was due to hardware limitations, time or otherwise, some very large concessions seem to have been implemented. Hair looks better, but many of the textures appear to have taken a lot of steps back and many effects are nowhere to be found. The funny thing is that looking back at those old trailers makes it seem like a completely different game.

 

[dasega]

long story short

View attachment 11101

 

[Mursley]

downgrade=lowering visual settings to get better performance.
optimisation=getting better performance without lowering visual settings.

optimisation means that you have to find a smarter way of writing your algorithms or using the capabilities of your hardware to achieve better memory and computing usage.

we can't talk about downgrades about this game,simply because people are comparing trailers to gameplay...
it's like comparing cinematics to gameplay...trailers are pre rendered,and gameplay are in real time...
if the game was like what the trailer have shown,I don't think there are a lot of people out there who can play it above 20 fps,especially because it is an open world...

I agree although optimisation has it's limits. I mean, once optimisation has reached it's max, you HAVE to lower some details - if you want a greater number of machines to be able to run it, and I don't think it is to be considered a bad thing.
I also agree (and said myself before) that we cannot compare trailers with live gameplays.

 

[Mozalbete]

we can't talk about downgrades about this game,simply because people are comparing trailers to gameplay...
it's like comparing cinematics to gameplay...trailers are pre rendered,and gameplay are in real time...
if the game was like what the trailer have shown,I don't think there are a lot of people out there who can play it above 20 fps,especially because it is an open world...

No, those trailers use gameplay assets. This is what you can't compare:

In a trailer, the developers can use different camera angles, and show fun to see scenes, but that's it.

 

[dexter2]

downgrade=lowering visual settings to get better performance.
optimisation=getting better performance without lowering visual settings.

optimisation means that you have to find a smarter way of writing your algorithms or using the capabilities of your hardware to achieve better memory and computing usage.

we can't talk about downgrades about this game,simply because people are comparing trailers to gameplay...
it's like comparing cinematics to gameplay...trailers are pre rendered,and gameplay are in real time...
if the game was like what the trailer have shown,I don't think there are a lot of people out there who can play it above 20 fps,especially because it is an open world...

I know what you are trying to say, but actually that is not true. Skyrim looked exactly like on this trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjqsYzBrP-M
or maybe even better. I'm not saying, that Witcher will look bad. But from what CD Project showed us on gameplays we can say that there are pretty big changes.

 

[Garrison72]

From Damien twitter:

This says it all for me. The old pics looked sharper and that's it. I suppose they did it via filter, which means if this is the look some people like, then modders will easily achieve that. So I commend him responding. As to the rest. every single game I've played has varying quality of textures, from BF3 to Crysis to TW2. When people point out a few low res textures, this isn't really proving a downgrade, but rather they picked the best screenshots before which is what any dev would do. One thing I will criticize about the visuals: the indoor lighting is not as impressive as the outdoor. Someone had mentioned they admitted to that earlier, I don't recall reading it. But so far all the caves and taverns don't have the same atmosphere and richness TW2 or TW1 did. It's not a graphical thing, but purely lighting.

 

[dasega]

No, those trailers use gameplay assets. This is what you can't compare:

In a trailer, the developers can use different camera angles, and show fun to see scenes, but that's it.

FYI

This cinematic wasn't made by cdpr but by plaige image, models, testures and all asset is made from scratch for trailer purpose only.