Alan Wake: the sub-HD debate (Eurogamer)

DigitalFoundry writes:

"Remedy has responded to online claims that upcoming Xbox 360 exclusive Alan Wake runs with a sub-HD resolution, releasing a statement saying that "modern renderers don't work by rendering everything to a certain final on-screen resolution".

Despite a review version of Alan Wake being sent out by Microsoft to the games media with a strict embargo that expires in early May, some websites have run videos and taken screenshots from which pixel counters reckon that the game's native resolution is 960x540. This appears to be a somewhat different state of affairs when compared with early Wake footage we took a look at back in August last year, which was definitely a native 720p."

[DigitalAnalog]

"If, as the pixel counters say, Alan Wake is running at 960x540 with 4x multisampling anti-aliasing, we do have an existing example of how this looks. Sony's Siren Blood Curse remake on PS3 runs with exactly the same framebuffer set-up."

Interesting...... very interesting.....

-End statement

[Rhythmattic]

I bought Siren Blood Curse ( never played the original) and love it.

As for AW,

PS3 users put it down, & 360 Users Put it up. Ah, the way of Singularity.

Tech wise, thats where this game will most likely suffer.. Frame- this and that, Res- This and that.. But as a game, no one knows yet.

I'm sure I'm getting this title. If it gets 6 - 6.5 scores, I'll Wait, but I'm sure its going to be a very decent game.

For me call it Alan Want.

[Anon1974]

I think Alan Wake looks great and I love the premise. There aren't enough of these types of games being made and I hope it does well. When I'm playing it the furthest thing from my mind is going to be "I wonder what resolution it's running at."
I've said it time and time again, are you here to play a game or count pixels?

The only people debating this are 360 fans who need to prove to the world that the 360 can match up to the PS3 graphically and PS3 fans who simply want to thumb their noses at 360 fans.

In the middle are actual gamers who are simply interested in playing the games and, thankfully, we're still the majority of gamers.

[Varodor]

miracle, low resolution doesn't matter
but what if alan wake have sh*t gameplay when gameplay will dont mater?

[AAACE5]

I don't know... I like great graphics and all, but I have kind of got past all this and am just looking for games that look good and are fun to play! It seems petty to judge every game that comes out based on graphics alone. There have recently been some sh***y games out on both sides with great graphics, but no one cares because they look good!

If Ps3 is the only console with HD graphics then so be it. I just want fun games that look good enough to see clearly in. Alan Wake looks to have fun gameplay and good graphics so that's all that matters to me!

[nix]

not when you play games like KZ2, UC2, Heavy Rain and God of War 3. 'real' gamers don't miss out on great games.

[Inside_out]

Wow, who are these clowns..."while we agree"...blah, blah, blah....Remedy is a class act...totally professional...listen to this idiot agree and disagree at the same time...lol...the game is in the review stages already...every person who has seen this game running have claimed this to be one of the best, if not the best looking game this gen...Remedy has bent over backwards, while most developers hide, to explain how this masterpiece was created, released a great in game trailer a couple wks back and blew everyone away....

Why Remedy waste there time with the haters who can't play this game anyways is beyond me...Remedy are amazing at what they do...make games that matter....He ends with, we will revisit AW when it releases....That what these morons should of said in the begging instead of trying to hurt the sales and reputation of Remedy BEFORE the game is even released....

Digitalfoundry caters to ignorant gamers out there...Remedy just schooled these losers on video gamming 101...Can't wait, big screen, big sound...one masterpiece...PS3 kids...back to your hole.....

[AliTheBrit19]

"real gamers dont miss on great games"

So I take it you have an Xbox 360 then to play its fantastic exclusives?

[Method]

Still doesn't change the fact that if the game was developed on the PC or PS3 it wouldn't have these poor limitations.

Remedy sacrificed their integrity as developers and gimped their game just for Microsoft's low standards.

[nix]

nope Ali, i'm interested in the game but to buy a fault-ridden-hardware for one game... i don't think it's worth it. i have commonsense too, you see.

[nycredude]

cez of rage

You need to either go back to school or something or lay of the sauce man. Also stop putting every Ps3 owners in one category. Only fools like you think that just because someone doesn't have both consoles that they CAN'T play some games. If someone wants to they can alway go and buy a 360. duh! You know there is no law against having both consoles. Only in your delusional fanboy world is it a sin to own both. I have both consoles and if Alan Wake is a decent game AND I have time for it then it's a definite buy.

I love how you fools come here and diss the "other side" thinking you are so smart and yet you are pretty much the same only on a "different" side. Next time do yourself a favor and just don't comment cause you sound like a fool.

While this doesn't really matter to me cause I can enjoy a good game no matter how it looks (hell MGS still is a great game to me), it's pretty clear that in order for the 360 to compete in the graphics department certain concessions are required. No biggie and the overall product still looks great. But let's not make Alan Wake out to be some kind of King of Graphics here, like alot of people are doing. It looks like a good game and let's leave it at that.

[sid4gamerfreak]

half life 2 runs in 1080p while crysis runs in 720p. Hmmm, which one looks better??

[raztad]

It's funny how DF cant wait to do Damage Control. I cant imagine how their actual analysis of AW will be.

BTW, Siren looks good but it's not exactly pushing PS3 limits.

@sid4

Interesting question coming from someone with a PC as a avatar. PC gamers are always trying to get games running at the higher possible resolution, because 720p looks "blurry". I do agree somehow, 1080p is much sharper, but a 720p game with high quality assets looks wonderful as well.

[DeepInterludium]

Siren's a good game, graphics aren't it's strong suit. It's a PSN game that was a port of a PS2 game.

I don't remember anyone touting Siren's graphics, saying it's one of the best looking games or saying that it surpasses 360's graphics.

That is the problem with Alan Wake, they hyped up the graphics so much and failed so hard to match expectations. It's the same thing that happened to KZ2, it was the best looking game by far, but people still complained it didn't look as good as the 2005 trailer.

Alan Wake looks like a blurry mess and is far from taking the graphics crown on 360, let alone come close to the heavy hitters on PS3.

[AnttiApina]

"This appears to be a somewhat different state of affairs when compared with early Wake footage we took a look at back in August last year, which was definitely a native 720p."

The E3 version was native 720p?!

[sikbeta]

Sorry, but WTH Siren Blood Curse has to do with AW?

Comparison?

Survival Horror?, OK, so?

PSN Game vs Retail Game?

2 years old Game vs incoming (2010) Game?

[Rhythmattic]

Actually sikbeta

It was available on BR. I bought It on BR.

As DigitalAnalog said , Its doing the same things "Tech Wise" as AW, Thats the only reason I reiterated.

I'm not Bashing AW, I'm buying it.

[AliTheBrit19]

So who else is picking up the very cheap (for its contents) special limited edition of the game?

[AliTheBrit19]

I'm not going to get into the Xbox 360 hardware right now

But by your logic, and only your logic

You are not a real gamer, because as YOU put it, real gamers dont miss out on great games, which is what you are doing.

And how did I come to this conclusion? well, I have common sense ;)

[Fanb0y]

Resolution honestly does not matter too much during gameplay.

Heck, Halo 3 looks incredibly detailed running at 640p no AA.

Alan wake is 576p with 4xMSAA. That makes a huge difference. You won't see 'low quality' frames. The details will still be there.

[sikbeta]

@Rhythmattic

[1] The European version with Extra Content, making of and stuff? I Envy You lol

[2] I didn't think you were bashing AW, I thought people were going to compare AW vs S:BC, which is a game that didn't set any Graphic Bar [still So Damn Scary]...

[Arnon]

You guys realize that the resolution of a game is not entirely indicative of it's overall appearance, right? MGS4 was gorgeous, and won many "Best looking game of 2008" awards, and the game ran below 720p.

We've all seen Alan Wake gameplay. The game is gorgeous, no matter what resolution or upscale it goes through. Who honestly cares what resolution it runs at?

[The Lazy One]

I don't know why people think running at a lower resolution is that bad. The game looked fantastic in the gameplay videos. I'm sure remedy did plenty of experimentation on whether having a 50 buffer composite with a 540p opaque geometry map or a 20 buffer composite with a 720p opaque geometry map to see which looked best. I doubt they chose the worse looking one. If the game composites to 720p before any AA or post processing is applied (I'm guessing they do it this way as they said they output at 720p, and they could just output at 540 and let the 360 deal with it if they weren't doing something else), then I'd doubt anyone would realistically know the difference unless they were a pixel counter.

[Xeoset]

Wow, what utter tools.

"All together the render targets take about 80 MB of memory, equivalent in size to over twenty 720p buffers."

"It isn't strictly 540p. But it isn't strictly 720p either."

"Alan Wake's renderer on the Xbox360 uses about 50 different intermediate render targets in different resolutions, color depths and anti-alias settings for different purposes."

""Modern renderers don't work by rendering everything to a certain final on-screen resolution, but use a combination of techniques and buffers to compose the final detail-rich frames, optimizing to improve the visual experience and game performance."

http://n4g.com/xbox360/News...

Anybody with a brain can see how this works, and why it makes for a better game. Think of it as the Xbox 360's RAM setup, 512MB it can throw into either the CPU or GPU, depending on the tasks, comapred to the PS3's 2x 256MB, which is dedicated, meaning that it has a cap. The prior is a better setup when considering demand/load.

With every Xbox 360 release we see this bull; thought those 3 shooters would keep the PS3 Fanboys at bay.

[raztad]

Please people stop acting like resolution doesnt matter. I dont know about you but I want my games to look as sharp as possible, otherwise I'd be playing PS2 games (in the best case) up to 480p.

Resolution matters big time, lower res means more blurrines. I was very disappointed when GoW3 was announced to be 720p instead of 1080p, and N4G exploded with fans arguing about it, if it was relevant to GoW3 how is not relevant to any other game.

What it's interesting is that probably Remedy decided to go lower res because it produces the best results in terms of overall image quality. Dont forget 4xMSAA is being applied and game is gonna be v-synced. As most of the game is under poor lightning blurriness is NOT big deal, fair trade off if you ask me.

[nix]

wake me up when 360 gets great games i like. the only games i want from 360 are GeOW series and Alan Wake. so, don't tell me i'm missing out on ANY great games that i'm interested in.