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Horizon Forbidden West Graphics Comparison: PS4 vs. PS5

Hunnybun

Member
Ok, but they’re objectively not. PS5 has far more complex and dense geometry/vegetation, and the textures are significantly higher res and more detailed. It also has weather, particle, and water effects that aren’t seen on the PS4 version. Character models are more detailed, etc. the list goes on.

Watch the digital foundry video. He goes into detail about just how different the PS5 version is. And honestly, it’s pretty easy to spot yourself unless you’re on a phone or something. Even on my shitty iPhone 6 I could spot the differences. On a 4K tv, the difference was pretty significant. And that’s with youtube compression.

The difference between PS5 resolution mode and PS4 Pro is indeed pretty stark. It's immediately obvious, really. Yeah, obviously it's the same base game, so there is a strong resemblance, but the versions aren't really close beyond a superficial level.

It's similar to something like Doom on the Switch vs the PS4.
 

FStubbs

Member
So is this topic supposed to be arguing that we've reached the point of diminishing returns? All of these screenshots look good.
 
IMO 4k30fps mode is the biggest jump from PS4 Pro to PS5 I saw this gen for a cross-gen game.
There’s been a number of unstable 1080p60 games on ps4 pro that are locked 4k60 on ps5 so I don’t agree.

If you go from ps4 pro to ps5 performance mode you basically get same image quality on horizon. Which is no different from like days gone ps5 patch although yes I know horizon has more graphics improvements than days gone patch.

Speaking of days gone it still looks damn nice!
 
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kyliethicc

Member
While the team was conscious of making things work for the PS4 throughout the game’s development, they also were painstaking about having the PS5 version stand out visually. “We’d look at screenshots for every single thing on-screen, whether it was the grass, the sky, the leaves, the cloth, the hair – everything should have something where if you look at the screenshots, you'd feel like this is definitely the PS5 version,” van der Leeuw said.

...

The end result is a game so quick that the development team had to revamp the tips that appear on loading screens. “In Horizon Zero Dawn, we called it fast travel, but it could take maybe a minute to actually load,” de Jonge said. “With the PS5, it’s maybe four or five seconds, it loads so quickly that players can’t even read the hints.” But from testing, Guerrilla knew that players came to rely on these hints, so they decided to slow things down just a bit. “We had to add a very simple feature where it hangs on the loading screen for enough time so you can actually read at least one hint while it loads.” Of course, people who want to speed through things can just mash X or turn off the pause in settings so that the game loads up as fast as possible.


 

Elysion

Banned
Do we know how the PS4 version compares to the first game in terms of image quality? Does it look blurrier than the first game due to using cb, or is it roughly the same?
 

kikonawa

Member
People actually upset that one the best if not the best looking game in 2022 is playable on PS4...
Thanks Deal With It GIF by Britannia on EPIX
Probably xbox owners
 
More images.
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Zero Dawn on PC running at 4k Ultra. Can't distinguish it from Forbidden West.

Z227LeD.jpeg


nfQMMxH.jpeg
as I was scrolling down and noticed this screenshots, I thought to myself... "oh well, so forbidden west does actually look kinda last gen like zero dawn did". And then you say it's zero dawn.
 

assurdum

Banned
What they achieved on PS4 is still phenomenal. People said they are the same but it's not because it's crossgen but more thanks to Guerrilla who has peaked the impossible, such graphic on PS4 is not common especially so late in his lifespan. Though the differences with the ps5 version are not subtle.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Called what?
That it would basically be like Forza Horizon 5 where we all thought that it would be severely downgraded on the base xbox one, but it turned out to be a PC low vs max situation. If you recall, we had discussed how they would ever get the PS4 to render that massive upgrade in Aloy's character model. How the waves and water looked next gen. We all said that has to be a PS4 specific feature. Well, it turns out they found some secret sauce in the PS4 and basically got all the features to run on the base PS4 and simply upgraded some settings on the PS5. Same as pretty much every PC game when you go from low to max settings.
 
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That it would basically be like Forza Horizon 5 where we all thought that it would be severely downgraded on the base xbox one, but it turned out to be a PC low vs max situation. If you recall, we had discussed how they would ever get the PS4 to render that massive upgrade in Aloy's character model. How the waves and water looked next gen. We all said that has to be a PS4 specific feature. Well, it turns out they found some secret sauce in the PS4 and basically got all the features to run on the base PS4 and simply upgraded some settings on the PS5. Same as pretty much every PC game when you go from low to max settings.

OG PS4 looks extremely muddy

The extra detail for PS5 is nuts
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Pop in looks so bad, even on PS5 going by these videos. Who really thinks it's good to change lod levels/add objects relatively close to the players as they move? I'd prefer lower overall detail if it loaded in way in the distance instead. We see this a lot since Crysis and it sucks, even on PC detail options never do enough or at least offer the ability to just disable all the obvious clutter objects altogether and avoid having the world constatly pop as it gets gradually populated with them, leaving lod levels just for terrain, characters and big structures where it's less noticable/more distant 🤷‍♂️
 
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Yup. People looked at me like I was crazy when I said the PC version of HZD would look similar or better than the PS5 version. I knew the graphics engine was going to be the same for HFW therefore not much new features (i.e. RT) was going to be implemented. The results prove there is no generational jump between the two games like many assumed - just small differences (i.e. hero light rig) that can easily be implemented without an entirely new graphics pipeline. The games look great on all the platforms!
Lol wut?
 

01011001

Banned
Pop in looks so bad, even on PS5 going by these videos. Who really thinks it's good to change lod levels/add objects relatively close to the player at a constant pace as they move? I'd prefer lower overall detail if it loaded in way in the distance instead. We see this a lot since Crysis and it sucks...

same. I hate this trend of brute-forcing super high detail models just to have them on screen if you basically touch them, and then switching them out super visibly if you go 3 steps back.

lower detail + less pop-in > higher detail + more pop-in


Translation: the PS5 version is like running the game on high, while the PS4 version is like running the game on a mix of Low and Medium
 
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Sega Orphan

Banned
same. I hate this trend of brute-forcing super high detail models just to have them on screen if you basically touch them, and then switching them out super visibly if you go 3 steps back.

lower detail + less pop-in > higher detail + more pop-in
I'm going off a little half cooked here, so might not have everything correct, but with the Sampler Feedback Streaming on the XSX and XSS they were saying it would load in low lod textures at a distance and then replace them with higher ones as you got closer to that area? I know this isn't a PS5 thing, but just looking at it from fixing pop in even on the XSX.
I am really miffed about why the lod pop in is still like it is.
 

01011001

Banned
I'm going off a little half cooked here, so might not have everything correct, but with the Sampler Feedback Streaming on the XSX and XSS they were saying it would load in low lod textures at a distance and then replace them with higher ones as you got closer to that area? I know this isn't a PS5 thing, but just looking at it from fixing pop in even on the XSX.
I am really miffed about why the lod pop in is still like it is.

SFS is more a RAM saving tech and not meant to improve pop-in

when using SFS it only loads the parts of the textures needed, as in if you only see half the texture it will only load in that half you are seeing. if you see an object from a steep angle and the far end is so far away that you don't need the highest detail version of the texture, it can granularly load in high and low res parts of the texture as needed for the perspective you see it from.

this will improve load times and RAM usage.

things like Nanite will be what will help with pop-in issues.
many engine developers will most likely implement similar technology into their engines going forward
 
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Sega Orphan

Banned
SFS is more a RAM saving tech and not meant to improve pop-in

when using SFS it only loads the parts of the textures needed, as in if you only see half the texture it will only load in that half you are seeing. if you see an object from a steep angly and the far end is so far away that you don't need the highest detail version of the texture, it can granularly load in high and low res parts of the texture as needed for the perspective you see it from.

this will improve load times and RAM usage.

things like Nanite will be what will help with pop-in issues.
many engine developers will most likely implement similar technology into their engines going forward
So what's the bottleneck that is causing pop in then? Again, I will reference PS5 as it has a raw speed advantage over the XSX, but the PS5 SSD has the speed to well and truly keep the RAM full of the needed textures etc. So the next step is the RAM speed and the power of the GPU to draw it on the screen. The XSX might require more engine work than the PS5 to get their Max speed, but with the PS5 it is hardware 100%, so it shouldn't need a heap of work on the engine side of things. As far as I know faster RAM.doesnt need engine changes compared to slower RAM.

With SFS, won't that take the load off the RAM and GPU and elevate pop in? As far as I know no body has utilised SFS yet in a game, so we can't judge its performance.
 

sendit

Member
SFS is more a RAM saving tech and not meant to improve pop-in

when using SFS it only loads the parts of the textures needed, as in if you only see half the texture it will only load in that half you are seeing. if you see an object from a steep angle and the far end is so far away that you don't need the highest detail version of the texture, it can granularly load in high and low res parts of the texture as needed for the perspective you see it from.

this will improve load times and RAM usage.

things like Nanite will be what will help with pop-in issues.
many engine developers will most likely implement similar technology into their engines going forward

Agreed. Buzzwords like SFS really innovate the graphical paradigm as a whole and will allow gamers to reach the pinnacle of expressive freedom.
 

DavJay

Member
I see a difference but not generational difference. Even chaos theory on Xbox had generational like difference from the other consoles and that was the same gen.

This is very disappointing but impressive for the ps4 nevertheless
 

Arioco

Member
many engine developers will most likely implement similar technology into their engines going forward


I really hope so. It's high time we got rid of pop-in. We've been suffering from that annoying issue since the very beginning of 3D videogames. And yep, UE5 looks like a huge leap forward, so I hope others devs will follow that path. Last gen we pretty much said good bye to aliasing thanks to new AA methods like TAA combined with the increased resolution. Will we say good bye to pop-in this one? 🤔
 

rolandss

Member
So gentlemen, I didn't plan on buying this game so close to GT7 but I bit the review hype and just got it. I got a 1080p TV, so should I got the 4K30FPS resolution mode or the 60FPS performance mode?

Edit: playing on PS5
 
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Aaron Olive

Member
WARNING !!! LG C1 owners there might be a HDMI HDR handshake issue with the PS5 which will washout contrast, to fix disable hdmi deep color and re-enable and re-enable HDR in PS5 settings. do not mess with RGB levels on tv or console.

HDR
HGIG

Black Level
Auto/Auto

Smooth gradation OFF, blurs image quality when on.
 
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01011001

Banned
I really hope so. It's high time we got rid of pop-in. We've been suffering from that annoying issue since the very beginning of 3D videogames. And yep, UE5 looks like a huge leap forward, so I hope others devs will follow that path. Last gen we pretty much said good bye to aliasing thanks to new AA methods like TAA combined with the increased resolution. Will we say good bye to pop-in this one? 🤔

funny thing you should say that in a thread about Horizon... I just started the game and the aliasing is brutal...

this seems like it's oversharpened like crazy! the checkerboard rendering in performance mode doesn't help the matter either of course, but still, this shouldn't alias this hard o_O

the checkerboarding in general doesn't look good... it's among the weakest implementations I've seen tbh.

maybe the should have just used native 1440p instead
 
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Arioco

Member
funny thing you should say that in a thread about Horizon... I just started the game and the aliasing is brutal...

this seems like it's oversharpened like crazy! the checkerboard rendering in performance mode doesn't help the matter either of course, but still, this shouldn't alias this hard o_O

the checkerboarding in general doesn't look good... it's among the weakest implementations I've seen tbh.

maybe the should have just used native 1440p instead

I'm a bit surprise to hear you say that. I haven't had the chance to play the game but you find it too jaggy even in 4K mode? That's weird, the first Horizon was one of the cleanest open world games I'd ever played when it launched. And I know Forbidden West doesn't use TAA, but neither did the first Horizon.

Maybe a side effect caused by a way too aggressive sharpening filter, as you mention?

I say I find it weird because in 4K a game shouldn't need any kind of sharpening at all, it should be crisp enough.
 
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