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Horizon Forbidden West - Digital Foundry Tech Review - A PS5 Graphics Masterclass

ChiefDada

Gold Member
Both these have the same meaning. Checkerboarded 1800p just means 3200x1800 but with half resolution on the horizontal axis (so, 1600x1800) which gets reconstructed to a final 3200x1800 output. This output is always upscaled to 4k regardless of what the input resolution was.

There tends to be a lot of confusion over this but 'checkerboarding 1800p to 2160p' is a contradiction. It's just 'checkerboarded 1800p' which makes it all the more strange why the game looks so poor in performance mode. Unless it's simply the wrong number or possibly just a bug that needs fixing.

How so? 1800p that's achieved via checkerboarding will inherently have a lower native resolution base than a native 1800p rendering that is checkerboarded to 4k.
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
Yeah but no, 30fps is shite
Alright I done had enough of this 30fps slander

Angry Stephen Amell GIF by Heels
 

Hunnybun

Member
How so? 1800p that's achieved via checkerboarding will inherently have a lower native resolution base than a native 1800p rendering that is checkerboarded to 4k.

As far as I understand it, '1800p checkerboarded to 4k' is really an impossibility. Checkerboarding by definition renders half the pixels and uses the upscaling technique to achieve the output resolution.

2160cb is half the native res of 2160p. 1800cb is half the native res of 1800p. By definition - there's no other way of doing it.

Reconstruction from more or less than 50% of pixels, such as Insomniac's temporal injection, are just different things altogether.
 
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scydrex

Member
I will wait to play this. They needed to go 1440p 60fps not the CB resolution. I hate CB unless well implemented. I prefer native. They need to add a 40fps. I will wait a bit to play this to see what they do. Maybe 2 or 3 months. For example Rachet got the 40fps mode like 1 month later or so. Don't know if GG will do it but i hope so. If i play this right now would be at 30fps with Blur off or in 1 but 40fps is way better than 30fps.
 

Hoddi

Member
How so? 1800p that's achieved via checkerboarding will inherently have a lower native resolution base than a native 1800p rendering that is checkerboarded to 4k.
Hunnybun explained it accurately. There's no such thing as 'checkerboarding 1800p to 4k'. There's just 'checkerboarded 1800p' which then gets upscaled to 4k.

Saying that something is 'checkerboarded from resolution X to resolution Y' is simply a misnomer. It's just 'resolution X is checkerboarded' and the output is then upscaled/downscaled to whatever the display resolution is.
 
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Hunnybun explained it accurately. There's no such thing as 'checkerboarding 1800p to 4k'. There's just 'checkerboarded 1800p' which then gets upscaled to 4k.

Saying that something is 'checkerboarded from resolution X to resolution Y' is simply a misnomer. It's just 'resolution X is checkerboarded' and the output is then upscaled/downscaled to whatever the display resolution is.
That's good to know. Why is the image quality so much worse in FW compared to ZD then? If they are both 1800p checkerboard, then scaled up to 4k, why does FW have all these other problems with performance mode. Aliasing and blurry image mainly.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
That's good to know. Why is the image quality so much worse in FW compared to ZD then? If they are both 1800p checkerboard, then scaled up to 4k, why does FW have all these other problems with performance mode. Aliasing and blurry image mainly.
IIRC the first Horizon checker boards to 2160p, not 1800p.
 

Hunnybun

Member
That's good to know. Why is the image quality so much worse in FW compared to ZD then? If they are both 1800p checkerboard, then scaled up to 4k, why does FW have all these other problems with performance mode. Aliasing and blurry image mainly.

For a start Zero Dawn was checkerboarded to 2160p, so it was always a higher resolution.

Whether in addition checkerboarding is particularly ineffective at sub native resolutions, or FW's visuals are particularly incompatible with the technique, I couldn't say.

I think the only time I've seen 1800cb is GT Sport, and that looked fine to me tbh. 4kcb like HZD, GOW and Days Gone always looked really great to me.

So it's all a bit of a puzzle tbh, and really disappointing.

As I understood it, checkerboarding was supposed to work much better at 60fps because it has twice the information to work from.
 
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Hoddi

Member
That's good to know. Why is the image quality so much worse in FW compared to ZD then? If they are both 1800p checkerboard, then scaled up to 4k, why does FW have all these other problems with performance mode. Aliasing and blurry image mainly.
I honestly have no idea. There's nothing about these metrics that suggest that it should look this bad in performance mode but somehow it still does. Either DF misreported the resolution or there's simply a bug in the latest patch.

I still use an old 1080p plasma with my consoles because the idea was that I didn't want to choose between these modes. I'll still happily use the performance mode in HFW but, even so, the 4k30 mode looks vastly better even at 1080p. And that's very unusual.
 
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ChiefDada

Gold Member
As far as I understand it, '1800p checkerboarded to 4k' is really an impossibility. Checkerboarding by definition renders half the pixels and uses the upscaling technique to achieve the output resolution.

2160cb is half the native res of 2160p. 1800cb is half the native res of 1800p. By definition - there's no other way of doing it.

Reconstruction from more or less than 50% of pixels, such as Insomniac's temporal injection, are just different things altogether.

Hunnybun explained it accurately. There's no such thing as 'checkerboarding 1800p to 4k'. There's just 'checkerboarded 1800p' which then gets upscaled to 4k.

Saying that something is 'checkerboarded from resolution X to resolution Y' is simply a misnomer. It's just 'resolution X is checkerboarded' and the output is then upscaled/downscaled to whatever the display resolution is.

I don't fully understand yet. There would always be a base/native resolution (what the GPU has organically rendered without sourcing from previous frame) that the checkerboard rendering will source from. For example, here is eurogamer/digital foundry comments on Death Stranding CB solution:

Checkerboard rendering as found in Death Stranding is non-standard and it's the result of months of intensive work by Guerrilla Games during the production of Horizon Zero Dawn. Curiously, it does not use PS4 Pro's bespoke checkerboarding hardware. Base resolution is 1920x2160 in a checkerboard configuration, with 'missing pixels' interpolated from the previous frame. Importantly, Decima does not sample a pixel from its centre, but from its corners over two frames. By combining these results over time in a specialised way similar to the game's TAA and a very unique pass of FXAA, a 4K pixel grid is resolved and the perception of much higher resolution is achieved. According to presentations from Guerrilla, of the engine's 33.3ms per-frame render budget, 1.8ms is spent on the checkerboard resolve.

In this case, the native/Base resolution is 1920x2160 = 4.15 million pixels. It then gets checkerboarded to produce 4k/~8million displayed pixels on screen using neighboring GPU generated pixels from the prior frame to approximate and fill in missing pixels.
 

ethomaz

Banned
It obviously can. Why does vr have to run at a high refresh rate?
Actually it is because the response time.
It is needs to track your movement fast enough to what is show for your eyes don’t get disconnected… so giving the immersion needed to you really believes it is real.

BTW it doesn’t have to run at higher framerates… you can play VR games in 30fps… it is just better and more immersive at 90+fps.
 
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lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
Is the shimmering a common issue or it only affects a certain group of people?
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Guerilla needs to do something because the only real talk I’m seeing about forbidden west on the internet is about it’s graphics, one mode is too sharp with colours going wrong when you turn the camera and the other looks like a blurry mess to reach 60fps And there’s shimmering spoiling the overall image on both? Then there’s the bugs on top, and weird issues with traversal and feeling janky compared to the original.

game probably needed a little more time in the oven.

I know it will be a case of a vocal minority But it’s not what I expected the discourse to be about such a competent studios game.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Guerilla needs to do something because the only real talk I’m seeing about forbidden west on the internet is about it’s graphics, one mode is too sharp with colours going wrong when you turn the camera and the other looks like a blurry mess to reach 60fps And there’s shimmering spoiling the overall image on both? Then there’s the bugs on top, and weird issues with traversal and feeling janky compared to the original.

game probably needed a little more time in the oven.

I know it will be a case of a vocal minority But it’s not what I expected the discourse to be about such a competent studios game.
Its really weird and i hope they can sort it out. This is where vrr would’ve helped with a 1440p 60 fps mode. That drops frames only during some rare instances but vrr TVs would’ve sorted that out.

I don’t know what’s going on with the 30 fps version. It feels choppy, its too straining on the eyes, either the sharpness is too high or there is information overload. Either way it feels off.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Its really weird and i hope they can sort it out. This is where vrr would’ve helped with a 1440p 60 fps mode. That drops frames only during some rare instances but vrr TVs would’ve sorted that out.

I don’t know what’s going on with the 30 fps version. It feels choppy, its too straining on the eyes, either the sharpness is too high or there is information overload. Either way it feels off.

Guerilla are a great technical studio so I am sure this will be fixed in the coming months. After all this Covid shit I’ve basically retired myself to thinking games need an extra 6 months from release to be in the state they would normally launch in.

it’s great for me, since I’ve taken this approach because I can work on my backlog and have a great experience and then pick up these games in a sale and enjoy them.

I’ve found it also helps cut through the bullshit hype cycle these podcast, video content reviewers put out to generate clicks. I’ve had just as much fun with games like outlanders in co op with my buds than I’ve had with some big triple A masterpieces.

Elden Ring is a day one, so I hope that’s not broken…but it wouldn’t surprise me.

I think GG will fix these issues soon, as there is a lot of upset on the internets about forbidden west.
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Yeah ssr looks bad.
I am playing in 4k30 mode and I wish it was a bit better anti aliased and had longer shutter motion blur. The blur they use is a bit too fast. Especially on animations. It’s okish on camera.

I don’t have any bug with changing colours. I tell you guys. It’s a shar 4k game with lots of details and va tvs can’t handle it with some of their processing. Perfect on oled
 

Inviusx

Member
Forget the IQ problems, this game has SSR problems. :lollipop_flores: Its also bad when your underwater and look up at the surface.

7c430f34090fbfce487a40c44806d13f.gif

I really enjoy Digital Foundry but I feel like they honestly dropped the ball with their HFW coverage. Rather than being impartial and pointing out legitimate flaws like they normally do, John just gushed the entire time and swept a lot of stuff under the rug that people are starting to now discover for themselves.
 

Loxus

Member
Wow, this game have so many people triggered, they're finding every little detail to complain about, unbelievable.

I can't imagine some of you played games back in the PS2/3 days and complaining about how games look today.

Games are starting to look near photorealistic and still finding things to complain about.
 
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RafterXL

Member
I really enjoy Digital Foundry but I feel like they honestly dropped the ball with their HFW coverage. Rather than being impartial and pointing out legitimate flaws like they normally do, John just gushed the entire time and swept a lot of stuff under the rug that people are starting to now discover for themselves.
Digital Foundry has been bad this entire generation. Every single video they either miss a ton of stuff or are just plain wrong in their assessments. It's like their mainstream popularity changed their focus from being the best at examining gaming tech to being just good enough to keep people watching.
 

Gamerguy84

Member
Wow, this game have so many people triggered, they're finding every little detail to complain about, unbelievable.

I can't imagine some of you played games back in the PS2/3 days and complaining about how games look today.

Games are starting to look near photorealistic and still finding things to comcomplaabout
Agree. I'm playing at 60 because of how smooth it is. That's not saying 30 is bad, quite the opposite, it was a tough choice between the two.

I'm immersed in the gameplay and keep finding myself stopping to admire how beautiful it is, at 60.

If I never played it and only read most of this thread I would think it was trash so mission accomplished I guess.
 
Forget the IQ problems, this game has SSR problems. :lollipop_flores: Its also bad when your underwater and look up at the surface.

7c430f34090fbfce487a40c44806d13f.gif

I mean SSR is always pretty bad if you know its weaknesses but it does seem particularly awful in this game.




And here is another video showing the the poor IQ and pixel shimmering. If you watch that on a TV and can't see the foliage crawling as the camera moves then I think maybe visit an optician.




Here is Spider-Man for comparison. Look how much cleaner the trees look and that is in RT Performance which goes as low as 1080p I think. Sure it is a simpler looking game and sure there are TAA artifacts if you look very very closely but the shimmer in Horizon is obvious without hunting for it.




I don't believe for a second that there isn't a way of keeping 60fps in a way that doesn't hurt the IQ so much.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
I mean SSR is always pretty bad if you know its weaknesses but it does seem particularly awful in this game.




And here is another video showing the the poor IQ and pixel shimmering. If you watch that on a TV and can't see the foliage crawling as the camera moves then I think maybe visit an optician.




Here is Spider-Man for comparison. Look how much cleaner the trees look and that is in RT Performance which goes as low as 1080p I think. Sure it is a simpler looking game and sure there are TAA artifacts if you look very very closely but the shimmer in Horizon is obvious without hunting for it.




I don't believe for a second that there isn't a way of keeping 60fps in a way that doesn't hurt the IQ so much.

the shimmering one just proves that 4k is not enough to resolve this new, small extra detail.
So we need bigger resolutions or preferably just dlss stuff on console
 

RafterXL

Member
the shimmering one just proves that 4k is not enough to resolve this new, small extra detail.
So we need bigger resolutions or preferably just dlss stuff on console
No. The shimmering is because they applied a sharpening filter and jacked it up too high. They know people jerk off over photos mode and screenshots so they sacrificed motion clarity for still image clarity.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
No. The shimmering is because they applied a sharpening filter and jacked it up too high. They know people jerk off over photos mode and screenshots so they sacrificed motion clarity for still image clarity.
Could be. I prefer the softer TAA or DLSS myself so for sure, hrizon looks better in pics than gameplay
 

Vick

Member
Yeah the 4k mode is quite a big improvement in clarity on over the 60fps mode.

Still not nearly enough to sacrifice 60fps.

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152030.jpg

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152043.jpg


Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152123.jpg

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152139.jpg


Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152259.jpg

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152309.jpg


You see this kind of difference all the time on PC when you switch from the playable say 60/120fps 1440p to something like 8K + ReShade at 5fps. All the fucking time. There's always something better, something to increase.
The fact we are complaining this damn much about the same exact game playable at 60fps because of IQ differences in full compressed 4K screenshots seen on a Monitor from inches away is just weird af.

Hopefully they'll find a way to improve this Mode by reducing artifacts without having to resort to downgrades.. and also fix the issues present in both modes.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
There is no difference in framerate between videos or games… in fact when you watch somebody in YouTube playing is basically watching a movie.

A 30fps movie (if exists) will have 30 frames being showed in sequence per second.
A 30fps game will have 30 frames being showed in sequence per second.

The difference between movies and games tho is that in movies you can turn on motion smoothness without any penalty.

These people have been watching movies and television at 24/29/30fps their whole lives. Movies, specially action movies, are filled with camera pans and that always causes motion blur. These people don’t feel sick with this, but they do with games? Nah, I’m calling it fake outrage, hyperbole and BS.
They want to play games at 60fps with pristine image, there’s a place for them: PC.

That's true but back in the day movies used to have a single continuous shot, so 24FPS worked fine, whereas nowadays a single take changes between 20 different cameras every 0.1-0.2s, and shakes like crazy while doing so, which is indeed unbearable, modern action movies are basically unwatchable in movie theatres.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Still not nearly enough to sacrifice 60fps.

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152030.jpg

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152043.jpg


Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152123.jpg

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152139.jpg


Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152259.jpg

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152309.jpg


You see this kind of difference all the time on PC when you switch from the playable say 60/120fps 1440p to something like 8K + ReShade at 5fps. All the fucking time. There's always something better, something to increase.
The fact we are complaining this damn much about the same exact game playable at 60fps because of IQ differences in full compressed 4K screenshots seen on a Monitor from inches away is just weird af.

Hopefully they'll find a way to improve this Mode by reducing artifacts without having to resort to downgrades.. and also fix the issues present in both modes.

The performance mode does look better in Your shots here, then the link i posted.
 

RafterXL

Member
Still not nearly enough to sacrifice 60fps.

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152030.jpg

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152043.jpg


Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152123.jpg

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152139.jpg


Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152259.jpg

Horizon-Forbidden-West-20220217152309.jpg


You see this kind of difference all the time on PC when you switch from the playable say 60/120fps 1440p to something like 8K + ReShade at 5fps. All the fucking time. There's always something better, something to increase.
The fact we are complaining this damn much about the same exact game playable at 60fps because of IQ differences in full compressed 4K screenshots seen on a Monitor from inches away is just weird af.

Hopefully they'll find a way to improve this Mode by reducing artifacts without having to resort to downgrades.. and also fix the issues present in both modes.
Still photos...

Looks much worse in game with movement. This isn't the usual lower resolution, slightly dialed back settings. This is absolutely the worse implementation of a performance mode this generation. Like Dirt 120hz mode terrible.
 

Arioco

Member
Forget the IQ problems, this game has SSR problems. :lollipop_flores: Its also bad when your underwater and look up at the surface.

7c430f34090fbfce487a40c44806d13f.gif


That's not "SSR problems", that's exactly how SRR work, and a known limitation of the technique. If something is occluded from view it dissapears, that's why rat traced reflections are better.

And it happens the same with screen space shadows. Have a look at Elden Ring and you'll see the main character always have a weird halo effect around him. That's because shadows occluded from view by the character dissappear too, another limitation of the technique.
 
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Hunnybun

Member
I don't fully understand yet. There would always be a base/native resolution (what the GPU has organically rendered without sourcing from previous frame) that the checkerboard rendering will source from. For example, here is eurogamer/digital foundry comments on Death Stranding CB solution:



In this case, the native/Base resolution is 1920x2160 = 4.15 million pixels. It then gets checkerboarded to produce 4k/~8million displayed pixels on screen using neighboring GPU generated pixels from the prior frame to approximate and fill in missing pixels.

Yes, and the base resolution is ALWAYS half of the checkerboarded resolution. The process takes 2 pixels from every 4 of the output pixel grid and uses that partial information to render the other two to produce an approximation of the output grid's content if it was rendered natively.

If the output grid is then sub native (such as 1800p in HFW's case) then that then also has to be upscaled to whatever the display resolution is.
 

Bojji

Member
Forget the IQ problems, this game has SSR problems. :lollipop_flores: Its also bad when your underwater and look up at the surface.

7c430f34090fbfce487a40c44806d13f.gif

Typical SSR problems, it works like that in every game. They should have add RT reflections mode with 30 FPS and 1440/1800p resolution.



Gaf does this stuff all the time. I remember when Killzone shadow fall first came out this place was filthy with up close photos of tree bark and metal grating. Saw it talked and hyped about so much that I thought when I finally get a PS4 I'm going to get this Killzone game. Such a shitty game.

You could always look at MC scores, Killzone is ~73, while first Horizon was more than 90 and this one is slighty below. Different class of games.
 
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Thief1987

Member
It's mesmerezing how local tech specialists showing typical and known for many years limitations of SSR as a some hilariously bad thing. Pretty telling about level of their expertise.
 
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Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
I call this BS and hyperbole. Unless you can provide scientific research that people really get motion sickness from 30fps I’ll never believe it. Do they also get this when seeing movies at the theater? Those are 24fps. Nah, still calling it BS.

The frame rate isn't the sole factor. Sensory overload is what's actually happening and it can be caused by the frame rate but it's also driven by many factors in conjunction.

The easiest thing to point to in the frame rate, which is technically correct that it's causing the issue, but it's not the only thing causing the issue. There's some games running at higher frame rates that can cause the same sickness feeling.

Which is why some people will get sick from one game running at 30 and not another. Usually, increasing the frame rate will cause less sensory overload (lag).

Comparing it to a movie doesn't make sense.
 

RafterXL

Member
Yeah.. whatever.



You're such a clown. Did you even bother to look at these on an actual television sized screen?

Yeah, they look great on your tiny ass phone, congrats!

Do you even own the game? Because, you can't go to any discussion on the internet about this game without seeing people talking about how terrible perfomance mode looks.
 

TrebleShot

Member
Was there another shadow patch?
Seems a lot smoother in 30fps today…

Was also sitting closer yesterday …if your nose is up against a monitor it probably has more of an obvious issue.

Very smooth.
 
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