Killzone Shadow Fall Resolution – Temporal Reprojection & Shadow Fall 1080P

Killzone Shadow Fall in single player runs at a native resolution of 1080P, 30FPS. It is important to remember that based on the documentation Guerrilla games released that their MRT (Multi Render Target) was around 800MB. For the sake of online, the team decided to do something a little different and instead tried out a new technology known as Temporal Reprojection.

[Sammy777]

excellent article but this is very taxing on the hardware
the output is a native 1080p with a hash algorithm like this :

output(1080P)
{
frame1 = frame (n-1)/2 + frame(n+1)
return frame1;
}

KZSF mp outputs full 1080p native image

[KingKionic]

Guerrila says the game isn't native 1080p

http://killzone.com/en_GB/b...

"In multiplayer mode, however, we use a technique called 'temporal reprojection', which combines pixels and motion vectors from multiple lower-resolution frames to reconstruct a full 1080p image. If native means that every part of the pipeline is 1080p then this technique is not native."
"

Reconstructing sounds like guerrilla games was stitching together the resolution like frankestiens master lol

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[AGaryColemanClone]

Give it a rest.

[scott182]

It's not native, but it is taxing on the hardware to use the technique. It improves controller feedback and makes the multiplayer experience better, that's why it was done.

[SardoNumspa]

A full 1080p frame - end of story. 1080p native Time to move on. When something like this backfires so badly it is time to throw in the towel and move on to the next article that attempts to trash the PS4. Right now any further talk is just reinforcing that Killzone MP is native 1080p, GG is an amazing developer, and the PS4 hardware really is as powerful as people hope(and fear) it is.

[Sammy777]

@Warlord
The image output on screen has the same amount of pixels as a native 1080p image. You have no idea about how that algorithm works. It is 100% native 1080p image but achieved by superimposing a horizontal 960 frame against a 960*1080 image . This is NOT UPSCALING or 1080i..1080i image has no superimposition :)

Secondly , Xbox One has 7 games which are 720p/ish right now

Dead Rising 3, Killer Instinct , Cod, Battlefield , MGS , Witcher 3, Titanfall and the next Gears probably won't be 1080p on Xbox One as well. 900p Xbox one game includes AC4, Thief, Ryse , Watchdogs , PVZ and so on as opposed to just 1 900p game on PS4

oh sorry the next DQ and FF are also 720p on Xbx One as per CH4 forums and 1080p on PS4

I expect brother that this gen will be painful for you cuz negative res talk hurts xbox one and the corresponding multiplat game sale,see Titanfall preorders. PS4 will perhaps get 1/2 900p games down the line as games become more demanding over time, but for Xbox One bro it will be a bloodbath. Again, MS remaining in the war will be good for SONY but that is unlikely to happen

@warlord

bro you are not a kid and Eurogamer's anti SONY agenda won't work cuz there are many techies across n4g and neogaf who understand a thing or 2 about tech , so those negative publicity or declaring Thief which runs at higher rez and frames on ps4 as loser will only do that media outlet disservice

@nolimit

It is fully 1920*1080 = 960*1080p+960 superimposed on the image . Like i said, fully NATIVE 1080p. same resolution as 1920*1080 image

[Muerte2494]

(1920)= X value= vertical lines running horizontally on the "X"axis. This determines the images aspect ration

(1080)= Y value= horizontal lines running vertically on the "Y" axis. This determines the images resolution.

Aspect ratio/resolution = image quality

"Q: Is KILLZONE SHADOW FALL running 1080p, or something else?
A:KILLZONE SHADOW FALL’s single and multiplayer modes both run at 1080p."
http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

each frame contains 1080 horizontal lines running vertically on the "Y" axis. Everyone else has provided numbers, graphs, and statements from the developers themselves. I'll take the word of the people actually making the game over an internet troll everyday. You're just mad because Xbox One is actually having problems with the "Y" value aka the part of the equations that determines the resolution (900p/769p/720p). Stop trying to lump Sony in with Microsoft. This is the same thing that happened with the who ANTI used games/DRM policy MS tried to force on everyone. People just assumed Sony was going to follow their lead. By people I mean Xbox fans

Like he said more studios are going to start using this. Congratulations Xbox fanboys, Guerrilla just made it to where you can also get 1080p using ESRAM there you go. You're Welcome.

[BitbyDeath]

Did you not see the first two Q&A's?

'In both SP and MP, KILLZONE SHADOW FALL outputs a full, unscaled 1080p image at up to 60 FPS. Native is often used to indicate images that are not scaled; it is native by that definition.'

It is native 1080p according to GG.

[scott182]

@Sammy777
I just don't understand how it works. But it sounds like the image comes in at 1080P, and is a taxing way to do it so other things like controller feedback improve.

I will leave this to the tech savvy people, it hurts my head.

[KingKionic]

Run run run as fast as you can you cant catch me im the 1080p man!

[No_Limit]

In another word, it is still 960x1080. I just love the new excuse now from supporters by saying "but it is very taxing on the hardware". LOL

[Pandamobile]

Long story short: Guerilla was having difficulty getting KZ:SF to run at native 1080p60 in multiplayer.

Their solution:

Render the current frame at 960x1080, and use information from two previous frames to fill in the gaps in the image. The reconstructed image that is outputted to your TV is technically 1080p, but the multiplayer portion of the game doesn't actually render at 1080p.

Those who still don't understand, feel free to ask me about it and I can try to break it down further.

[Sy_Wolf]

Frankenstine was the scientist, not the monster.

[SardoNumspa]

"Those who still don't understand, feel free to ask me about it and I can try to break it down further."

LOL!!!!

Nothing but respect to Guerrilla Games. Making fools out of PC and Xbox fans for two straight generations.

Maybe the Titanfall devs will learn how to do MP properly from Guerrilla Games and try to get something better than their unstable framerate at 792p.

[CryofSilence]

I read the Q&A, and it clarified this whole issue for me. It's a very interesting technique and potentially greatly improves AA and performance. For the less tech savvy or those who don't understand, all you need to understand is that it is a 1080p image output. However, due to imperfections in their pixel prediction technology, there will occasionally be a slight image degradation where the combined images don't match up entirely (which is remedied by parenting the glitched pixel to nearby ones). For the most part, it runs at full 1080p and is indistinguishable from traditional techniques.

[badz149]

@No_limit

"In another word, it is still 960x1080."

it's true that there's no limit on your ignorance!

did you even read the tweet from GG themselves and watched this video? it basically says, "the MP is native 1080p" BUT only half of the 1920 vertical lines are rendered in real time while the other half are predicted renders based on past frames and then superimposed on the real time renders. so, the output is indeed NATIVE 1920X1080 and there is no upscaling involved if that is what you're trying to imply!

of course if they can render all 1920X1080 pixels at the same time, that would be best but they acknowledged the hardware limitation and used a "trick" to make the game still full HD while doing 60fps too. unlike CoD Ghost, KZSF is very demanding graphically thus maintaining true 1920X1080 would be hard if they want to achieve 60fps and that's why the SP is not 60fps but it's indeed true 1920X1080 unlike the MP.

in the end of the day, it's still 1920X1080 achieved using a trick and those saying that they are lying, guess what? GG didn't lie afterall!

[Bigpappy]

Wow. How about them just saying the game is not native 1080p instead of explaining how they added fillers and patches.

It is up scaling while using fillers, NOT NATIVE.

It hard to just say we mislead customer or we lied.

[No_Limit]

@badz149 ,

"of course if they can render all 1920X1080 pixels at the same time, that would be best but they acknowledged the hardware limitation and used a "trick" to make the game still full HD while doing 60fps too"

The game does not run on 60fps, it avg. about 50fps which was already tested by DigitalFoundry.
DF: "Here Guerrilla Games has opted for a 960x1080 framebuffer, in pursuit of a 60fps refresh. Across a range of clips, we see the game handing in a 50fps average on multiplayer. It makes a palpable difference, but it's probably not the sort of boost you might expect from halving fill-rate"
http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

and you just contradicting yourself:
"the output is indeed NATIVE 1920X1080 and there is no upscaling involved if that is what you're trying to imply!"

and then follow by: "KZSF is very demanding graphically thus maintaining true 1920X1080 would be hard if they want to achieve 60fps and that's why the SP is not 60fps but it's indeed true 1920X1080 UNLIKE THE MP."

So which one is it? Please make up your mind. like Bigpapy already stated "It is up scaling while using fillers, NOT NATIVE."

NATIVE is true 1080p which the MP of KZ is definitely not. Guerrilla games already confirmed it is not.

"If native means that every part of the pipeline is 1080p then this technique is not native, "theproducer of KZ:SS, Poria Torkan said."
http://www.gamespot.com/art...
So the real answer is that MP is NOT 1080p as in progressive. We were lied to by Sony when they clearly states that the MP and SP were both true 1080p. No amount of tricks and patches is going to change that fact.

The spin and damage control is strong still. LOL

[imt558]

Still is better than upscaled 720p or 900p, If Xbone struggle to achieve 1080p/30fps, this is great solution.

So, temporal 1080p>>>>900p>& gt;>>>720p

[Volkama]

Is it better than upscaled 720p though?

I'm not trolling, I'm genuinely curious! I've seen enough people complain that multiplayer looks blurry, I'd like some of them to set their PS4 to output at 720p (so the TV can handle the upscale) and give an honest opinion on whether it looks better or worse.

I used to set my XBox One to output at 720p for Battlefield or Dead Rising. Not because I love 720p, it just gave a much nicer image before they fixed the scaler.

[reed_richard]

The biggest problem is that the people who are saying that Killzone Sf mp is not in 1080p don't know what 1080p is. 1080p is the amount of pixels displayed on the screen at any one time. That means that 1080p is 2,000,000 pixels. What you are confused by this upscale resolution is blow-up Or stretching of a smaller pictures To a large image. KillzoneSf doesn't Upscale it takes pieces From older frames or pictures and drawers new pictures or frames in 1080p to speed up the process. This is not new but is faster than drawing a new frame every time . This is great for console better than upscaled resolution it cuts down on processing new frame and speeds up frame-rates.

[starchild]

Nope, it reduces the rendering load. Why else do you think Guerrilla did it?

The fact that they have to use an interpolation algorithm to "predict" what the missing pixels should be says everything that needs to be said.

[AGaryColemanClone]

Wow, that Eurogamer FUD has really backfired.

Killzone MP 1080p confirmed. The PS4 is a beast.

[thorstein]

They really tried hard on that article, didn't they? I read that and was like what? And it was quoting an earlier article about it as if they had "discovered" this shocking news. But in reality, they just didn't understand what they were reading.

[Volkama]

Don't be stupid. GG confirmed that what Eurogamer said was 100% accurate. How is that FUD?

The final image is 1080p, but the final image of every single Xbox One game is 1080p too. Because of upscaling.

It might help if you stop thinking of upscaling as "stretching pixels" or using "basic interpolation". TVs these days have dual or quad core processors that run extensive, complex algorithms to calculate what pixels to render based on previous frames, edges/lines/colours/focal points and far more within the picture. Sony's own TVs reference a large database of images rendered at different resolutions to determine the best upscale for a given frame.

GG are calculating pixels software side, but that doesn't mean it's anything better than upscaling. Crytek use software upscaling in Ryse, that produces a 1080p image without the console's upscaler touching it as well. And Ryse isn't native 1080p either.

Maybe GG's method gives a better end result than the PS4 scaling chip, or maybe they're wasting CPU resource. We wont know for sure without side by side comparisons.

[reed_richard]

Please stop this is not upscaled. Upscale is stretching or blowing up a smaller image. What GG is reusing old frame to cut down on the time it takes to draw new ones. Just like in cartoon they reuse the background to save on time and money. This is not upscaled

[akaFullMetal]

I guess that clears that up.

[STANK08]

The spin is real

[GTgamer]

Its a spin by who? They explained what they did just becuz you don't understand it's a spin :/.

[badz149]

yeah, seriously, what spin? they revealed the trick they used to achieved 1080p and that's spinning? it's not a spin as the output is indeed native 1920X1080p WITHOUT upscalling. they just do it differently to compensate the hardware limitation.

[aquamala]

nothing changed. only half the screen is rendered, the other half are "predicted" based on what's in the previous frames. don't need to do tricks like this if they can just do native 1080p

[Sammy777]

ofcourse it is 1080p native...same amount of pixels as a native 1920*1080 image

960*1080p superimposed on another 960* image . See my hash algorithm above

The image has the same amount of pixels as native 1080p game

@below
COD xbox one runs at 1280*720...the output on screen is same too . KZSF's output image is 1920*1080= 100% native 1080p image

There is no half rendered or anything

The rendering algorithm is 1/2 +1/2 ..see above done CONCURRENTLY

[aquamala]

"same amount of pixels as native 1080p game"

yes, except only half of it is actually rendered, so no, not like a native 1080p game

[No_Limit]

Sammy, how can you keep going on in every KZ articles and spreading these false information that KZ is true 1080p when in fact it is not.

"same amount of pixels as a native 1920*1080 image 960*1080p superimposed on another 960* image"

LOL, your made up algebra makes no freaking sense. What the heck is "superimposed on another 960* image"?

The end result is they weren't able to keep the MP at 1080p and 60fps and have to made sacrifice to make it run as clost to 60fps as possible(can't even do that as it is avg. only around 50fps) even with this new interlacing technique of 960x1080 buffer in on every other horizontal column to fill in the gap.

[DJ]

The media has essentially made a mountain out of a molehill. To complain about temporal reprojection is like complaining about how normal maps aren't "real detail".

Maybe we should all just give it a rest and stop complaining about the technical aspects of how games work. We really have no right to judge.

[chaosx]

why can't the PS4 just do True HD 1080p @ 60 fps.
From all the stories I've read thats the main selling point over the xbox 1.

its a bit like buying a car saying its top speed is 200mph.
But when you get the car it only hits 200mph on a down hill with a back wind.

[scott182]

COD ghosts does on the PS4... how do you spin that?

[sorane]

A game that drops down into the 30s and spends a lot of time in the 40s is not 60fps no matter how much you want it to be.

[scott182]

Whaaaaa? The Ps4 runs the game OVER 60 fps, not under, no matter how much you want it to.

here's the article. http://www.cinemablend.com/...

Edit: The frame rate drops are skipping frames caused by the PS4 overpowering the engine, that is straight from digital foundry. :) https://www.thesixthaxis.co...

[sorane]

Really? Maybe you should watch this then.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Funny because I see it in the 30s and 40s a lot yet not even once do I see it running "OVER" 60fps no matter how much you want it to. I love using undeniable facts to backup my claims :)

[chaosx]

Was referring to Killzone here . sure ghosts got a Patch , but it wasn't a selling point for the console, if anything it was a after thought by activation.

If Sonys flagship FPS can't perform then they should not be using it as a selling point till it does. I think its called false advertising.

No spin needed.

[sorane]

@scott

Straight from your own article.

" However, the trade-off for 1080p is the game now drops the frame rate slightly more than when it was running in a lower resolution. Digital Foundry say “at worst we’re looking at a drop down to 40fps when the engine is more heavily stressed.”

Game is not 60fps case closed. Love them facts :)

[iceman06]

Who says it can't? It really depends on the developer, the engine, the type of game that they are creating, and then the optimization of the code. This, of course, takes time and resources. I just can't believe that we, as a gaming community, are making such a fuss over LAUNCH titles as if they are a complete representation of what the entire generation of games will achieve.
As for your analogy, my Ford POS can reach 200 mph (although I'd probably throw a gasket in the process) but it would take significantly longer than a Ferrari. But, my Ford POS gets good gas mileage and is miles less expensive to maintain. What am I saying? You buy consoles for a complete feature set that fits you...not just potential power. If you just want raw power, there's no console that beats a PC. (hated to say it, but it remains true! LOL)

[Dusdg]

@scott182 Forza 5 does on the xbox one... how do you spin that?

[scott182]

I never said it didn't...

[Dusdg]

That's not the point. this thread is about killzone. Even the guy in the video says you cannot compare games resolutions to one another because they are running on different engines. Chaosx made a good point. For the last year all we have heard from articles is how powerful PS4 is and how 1080p is not a big deal when you are working with the PS4. Well guess what this game does not have what it takes.

[scott182]

No, he wasn't referring to the article, he was making a general statement about the PS4's capabilities. And I went ahead and proved him wrong.

[MysticStrummer]

"Forza 5 does on the xbox one... how do you spin that?"

No spin needed.

Just look at it.

[Dusdg]

Best looking sim racer on console. Also it never dips below 60fps unlike gt.

[MysticStrummer]

"Best looking sim racer on console."

That's not really much of an argument, since it's the only current gen sim racer on console at the moment.

[Edsword]

So if this is so taxing to the system, I wonder why they chose this instead of some other slight downgrades to get to 60 fps, after all the sp campaign runs at above 30fps. My guess is this was the fastest solution to implement in a crunch. It was a launch title after all and expectations were pretty high. It's amazing how good this looks, it took a long time for it to even be recognized. I know there are going to be a lot of people disagree, that is why I said it was a guess. It makes perfect sense if you think about it, this is a quicker solution than downgrading character models or lighting effects to get the frames per second up.

[Pandamobile]

The cost of doing the temporal reprojection is far less than rendering a full 1080p frame - which is why they do it in the first place.

[iceman06]

This makes COMPLETE sense. There is a finite time for game development, especially those in the launch crunch. They had a vision and they reached their vision using less conventional (though it seems by the article more conventional than we knew) means. It was a quick fix to reach 1080 and keep the framerate and graphical fidelity within their expected limits.

[lonewolfjedi]

this way is better than just upscaling. hopefully devs that are making xbox one games will give this a try

[aragon]

so is it native 1080 p or not?

[badz149]

the output is native 1920X1080p no question and no upscaling is involved BUT it's only achieved using a trick. not as good as rendering all 1920X1080 frames but still 1920X1080 nonetheless.

[aragon]

nah if it was putting out native 1080p why would it show up as 960 and start this debate?

All i can hear is blah blah big words temporal bla bla , lets not admit its not native lets use big words.

[badz149]

it is native 1920X1080 for every frame. what is so hard to understand? every frame is 1920X1080 with half of the vertical lines rendered in real time and the other half is predicted lines based on past frames and they are superimposed on each other to generate 1920 vertical lines.

the quality is not as good as all pixels rendered at the same time but still 1920X1080 regardless. what do you want them to say? "yeah, it's 960 upscaled" which is not true? they admitted that the PS4 has a limitation and when they are being creative and trick the system to achieve higher res image while maintaining high fps for MP instead of producing low res image and let the upscaler do the job to get 1080p and call it a day like many XbOne games are, you bash them for it!

if you're asking, "why don't they just use the upscaler, then?" it's because they are not lazy and they feel like they can do something extra to make the game looks good as this technique is better than 720p or 900p upscaled because there are real 1080 horizontal lines exist unlike 720p or 900p!

[zeuanimals]

@Aragon:

"All i can hear is blah blah big words temporal bla bla"...

If any dev is to explain anything about the technology and techniques they're using, whether ancient or state of the art, without dumbing it down for people like you, they'd be using big words...

It's 960 because one frame is outputting 960 and the next frame is outputting a different 960. This technique can't be seen by the eye when you speed it up to 30+ of these frames per second. Those 2 sets of 960 pixels adds up to 1920 making it 1920x1080. It's not native 1080p, but it's a lot better than upscaling.

It's still taxing because the system has to constantly alternate between the 2 sets of pixels without creating dithering and artifacts, but 1080p native is even more taxing.

[aragon]

" It it works and the guess is correct, you’d be hard pressed to find a difference between it and a regular 1080P natively rendered image. If it is “wrong” however you’ll get a vertical line because the two images don’t quite match up.

NOT NATIVE

Nice try though why not just answer one simple question gg is it native or not? instead give an explanation using big words that the average troll wont understand. Why not just say it is native 1080p or not?

is it 1080 p per frame like real hd? is it native just answer that question?

[iceman06]

Asked and answered! Here's GG's quote from yesterday.

"If native means that every part of the pipeline is 1080p then this technique is not native."

They went on to say that if by 1080p if every frame represents a full 1080P image, then yes.

Explanation: Because their particular solution predicts pixels for part of the frame and renders the other part, unlike traditional interlacing that only renders half of the information per frame and relies more on cycling to create the illusion of 1080.
You may not LIKE their answer, but they DID answer. Now it's up to you to decide what your definition of 1080p is, if you care that much. Me? I'll just play good games. No disrespect intended. Just, IMO, graphics are good but gameplay is crucial in deciding what I play.

[Ra3030]

IMO ....What is it with Microsoft? One week they pay to have articles put out onto the internet asking "Does Resolution Matter"? The next week their paying to have articles that bash Sony games about Resolution......again my opinion. They really do want it both ways. To bad for the few people that purchased the Xbox One that Microssoft didn't put more time and effort into the X1 making sure those pipe dreams aka TV thing and NSA Spycam Kinect were useful and working and less time paying people to hype thier thing. It's really to bad. $500 is a lot of money to waste. Again my opinion.

[Pandamobile]

If you really think Microsoft is involved in any of this, you're paranoid and delusional.

[Kennytaur]

Not giving a shit about the fanboy war, I find this very interesting. It sounds like a clever technique for improved performance while retaining full HD detail. We may well see other devs use this as well in the future.

I wonder how it affects the framebuffer, perhaps it could be used on the Xbox One to sneak around the ESRAM issue?