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[In Cold Blood]

I was reading this old thread on GAF about the Forza engine and why didn't MS let other studios use it, and some people were speculating that Fable was properly using a different engine, as a racing car engine isn't suitable for an RPG.

It was interesting to read the different views before it was announced that they were using forzatech.

Those concerns were right at the time, as Turn 10 and PG had to do alot of work to the Forzatech engine to make it suitable for Fable.
It was a racing game engine, with no mechanics for RPGs. No fighting mechanisms, no character animations or high level character models. There was a ton of work that was done to the engine to get it to be able to make Fable on.

Well, now that they have made those alterations to the engine, and its the newest, most advanced engine in MSs studios, which has been built to take advantage of all the XSX features, will we see MS use it more often?
I mean, the results speak for themselves, the engine produces amazing looking graphics, and as well have seen with Forza games, the frame rate performance of the engine is elite. Fable looked that good, people are still in denial that it wasn't CGI.

So there was two reasons why they used Forzatech for Fable.
One, they were used to the engine and didn't want to have to bring in another different engine and decided all the extra work needed for the engine was worthwhile just to have Fable on the same engine as FH.
Or, alternatively, MS has bigger plans for the engine and making it capable of more than just a racing car game means they can use it across more of their studios.

MS has a couple of really good in-house engines in Forzatech and Idtech, and it gives more options to their studios other than just Unreal Engine.

Outside of those two, MS also has the Void Engine, Creation Engine and cough, cough, Slipspace.

Its really good to see the investment in Forzatech, and I can't wait to see what both Fable and Forza MS turn out like.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/microsoft-and-the-forzatech-engine.1487848/

 

[MidGenRefresh]

All I can say is that I didn’t find the recent Forza Motorsport gameplay reveal particularly impressive, graphically speaking.

Edit: this is the footage I'm referring to:

 

[Riky]

It's obviously far more versatile than people originally thought, Forza Horizon 5 was stunning and Fable looks like the true next gen leap we've been waiting for. I'm sure when we see the final build for Forza Motorsport it will be right up there.

 

[small_law]

Both FH4 and FH5 really impressed me, especially how they stayed working on those games post release. Some fixes took longer than others, but the patches did come out. There's a level of diligence there that you don't see from studios that release crappier games with far worse issues.

FH4 was my pandemic game. I still play FH5 weekly. From what I've seen, it's okay to be optimistic about Fable.

 

[Robb]

I think we need to see how Fable turns out in the end before we can say much about it.

But the Horizon games look outstanding and the latest Fable trailer did as well (assuming it’s not b/s).

It’s definitely nice to see them expand it, especially since I don’t really care much for racing games myself.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Love seeing these proprietary engines shine and come into their own with versatility and the like.

 

[hyperbertha]

This is like seeing the watchdogs demo and saying the engine is amazing. Wait until it releases looking like this.

 

[nkarafo]

I haven't seen the new Forza but the previous one wasn't great on PC.

The menus were horrible. Very laggy, very unresponsive, the cars took too long to load, etc. During race, you had zero control over your car's headlights. The wheels would not turn during replays. And who can forget the N64 cardboard trees.

It was pretty bad.

 

[Negotiator101]

Just remenber how much they'll sacriface because of Series S!

Still have to read rubbish like this? Come on mods get this shit out of here.

 

[HL3.exe]

Curious how how it'll turn out. Still have questions how they handle memory management. Will it have proper persistence? Rewriting an engine to serve different needs is not as cut and dry. Remember CDPR rewriting the whole Witcher engine so it could support more runtime simulations elements (originally it was way more tailored for context sensitive and canned situations) and playing Cyberpunk you still felt these issues under the hood.

But there are some positive stories as well. 'Rockstar's Advanced Game Engine' (RAGE) was originally 'Anglestudios Game Engine' (AGE) and was also originally build for only Driving games (midtown madness, Smuggler's Run). Their implementation of character movement, blending and their Euphoria physics implementation is now second-to-non. The only way you still feel it's a driving engine, is that there's no persistence. You're still in a bubble where the simulation happens. Going too far away -> everything just resets.

 

[GymWolf]

I particularly love that third pic in OP first post where he show the engine's prowess.

 

[Kumomeme]

we need to see how Fable perform later to properly see how it gonna do and makesure there is no issue during development like how Frostbite engine has before. it is not just about pretty visual. the performance of the game and how much it helped in development particularly to adhere developers needs with different type of genre is important. so far this engine only used for racing game. Frostbite has issue with this where it good for shooters but not for another genre that resulted to problematic output from various studios under EA. CD Projekt's Red engine also another example of where they finally ditched it for UE5 because they need to rewrite the engine everytime they make new game.

so we will see.

 

[nemiroff]

I haven't seen the new Forza but the previous one wasn't great on PC.

The menus were horrible. Very laggy, very unresponsive, the cars took too long to load, etc. During race, you had zero control over your car's headlights. The wheels would not turn during replays. And who can forget the N64 cardboard trees.

It was pretty bad.

Headlights and wheels..? Are you having a stroke? Almost none of what you wrote has to do with the topic.

 

[Chukhopops]

I don’t know how it’s going to look for Fable but FH5 (and especially the rally expansion) still looks incredible a year and a half later, especially the draw distance and lightning.

If they keep that level in a RPG it’s going to be glorious.

 

[M1chl]

All I can say is that I didn’t find the recent Forza Motorsport gameplay reveal particularly impressive, graphically speaking.

Edit: this is the footage I'm referring to:

Even if we not comparing it with other games, FH5 looks better on same engine.

 

[StueyDuck]

Lol just wait for fable to release before making such insane sweeping declarations.

Right now I'd say Snowdrop seems to be offering the most versatility. And REengine seems ridiculously performant

But I have never worked in any of these engines so let's just wait and see how all these games actually release and how they perform

It is, for the games that have released on it so far however, a very tech rich and impressive engine.

Although FH5 had plenty of issues at launch. Essentially requiring an SSD on PC and hard crashing often

 

[Beer Baelly]

We dont know how it functions outside of racing games

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Even if we not comparing it with other games, FH5 looks better on same engine.

100% agree. They better have some amazing simulation going on in the background to justify the hit on graphics. I'm not sure it's even worth it as vast majority of players will play it with a controller. And Forza Motorsport 4 is arguably the best feeling sim-cade when playing with a controller. Without any fancy modern-day physics.

 

[CGNoire]

All I can say is that I didn’t find the recent Forza Motorsport gameplay reveal particularly impressive, graphically speaking.

Edit: this is the footage I'm referring to:

That video reminded me Where never gonna have truly great looking interiors without RTGI standard during gameplay so maybe PS6.

 

[Ozriel]

This is like seeing the watchdogs demo and saying the engine is amazing. Wait until it releases looking like this.

We dont know how it functions outside of racing games

We saw the Fable in-game trailer...

Although FH5 had plenty of issues at launch. Essentially requiring an SSD on PC and hard crashing often

That seems unlikely, since it runs off a MicroSD card on Steamdeck. Also has a 'Very Positive' user rating on Steam, suggesting issues you might have experienced weren't widespread.

 

[X-Wing]

It's obviously far more versatile than people originally thought, Forza Horizon 5 was stunning and Fable looks like the true next gen leap we've been waiting for. I'm sure when we see the final build for Forza Motorsport it will be right up there.

All that was shown was an in-game cutscene... It seemed to be on par with Forbidden West.
Avatar Frontiers of Pandora looks a lot more like a generational leap than Fable (and that was gameplay footage), IMO.

 

[M1chl]

100% agree. They better have some amazing simulation going on in the background to justify the hit on graphics. I'm not sure it's even worth it as vast majority of players will play it with a controller. And Forza Motorsport 4 is arguably the best feeling sim-cade when playing with a controller. Without any fancy modern-day physics.

Even then they would have to do the simulation on GPU, to not push better looking pixels.

I am confused tho, the last year video, where it was the BMW, seemed like big step up from the predecessor.

 

[hyperbertha]

We saw the Fable in-game trailer...



That seems unlikely, since it runs off a MicroSD card on Steamdeck. Also has a 'Very Positive' user rating on Steam, suggesting issues you might have experienced weren't widespread.

Why are people acting like games have never been downgraded from in game showcases before? Ever seen the watch dogs, ghost of tsushima demos? Those were gameplay as well, and far less sus than fable 2 seconds of what might be gameplay.

 

[Ozriel]

All that was shown was an in-game cutscene... It seemed to be on par with Forbidden West.
Avatar Frontiers of Pandora looks a lot more like a generational leap than Fable (and that was gameplay footage), IMO.

According to the devs, some of it - eg the part where she threw a fireball - was gameplay. And that part looked phenomenal.

If you think it looked on par with HFW, you're proving OP's point since Decima is also one of the better engines around.

Not everything has to be a competition. It's perfectly fine if you think Ubisoft's SnowDrop engine is also top tier.

 

[Ozriel]

Why are people acting like games have never been downgraded from in game showcases before? Ever seen the watch dogs, ghost of tsushima demos? Those were gameplay as well, and far less sus than fable 2 seconds of what might be gameplay.

Watchdogs demo wasn't running on console hardware. The Fable snippets were running on Series X hardware. I suspect you know this distinction already.
Not to mention the fact that Playground have already long established themselves with excellence in visuals.

 

[tusharngf]

horizon 5 with ultra ray tracing looks awesome and thats a last gen game

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Even then they would have to do the simulation on GPU, to not push better looking pixels.

I am confused tho, the last year video, where it was the BMW, seemed like big step up from the predecessor.

Most likely a PC ultra Vs. console settings type of situation.

 

[M1chl]

Most likely a PC ultra Vs. console settings type of situation.

Sure but the whole "artstyle" looked updated, not just quality

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

horizon 5 with ultra ray tracing looks awesome and thats a last gen game

It's also still full of weird bugs on PC and corrupts textures on RTX cards for no apparent reason. And don't get me started about the state of netcode and weird wheel support.

With Fable, lessons of Ubisoft and CDPR gone in vain, it seems. The game will be out in 2025-2026 at best and, as already happened with Hellblade 2, I'm sure that UE5-fueled industry of 25-26 will look on-par with currently shown in-engine footage. If not better. And if (a huge if) it's Forza Tech and not unmarked UE5 footage. Because outside of a very moot cutscene presentation we know almost zilch about the actual game and it's tech.

The came could also change priorities during the later development and as it was with Witcher 3, don't act surprisied if overall fidelity of the game will be lower for the sake of consistency and development time.

 

[acm2000]

Just remenber how much they'll sacriface because of Series S!

Cause pc games have to sacrifice so much for lower end hardware right? It's exExactly the same here, you develop to the highest possible hardware (x) and then dial down to the lowest target (s)

Grow up and get over it.

 

[Godot25]

It's hilarious that at the start of the year there was a rumor that spread on the internet like wildfire that PG is "rebooting" Fable because they need to switch to Unreal Engine. And now they showed Fable which looks so good, that people can't believe that game could look that good.
Good on Microsoft.
They have top tier studio on Unreal (The Coalition), excellent engine in form of id Tech and also ForzaTech. Slipspace is lost cause at this point.

 

[Turk1993]

The engine is really impressive

 

[hyperbertha]

Watchdogs demo wasn't running on console hardware. The Fable snippets were running on Series X hardware. I suspect you know this distinction already.
Not to mention the fact that Playground have already long established themselves with excellence in visuals.

Iirc the ghost of tshushima and tlou2 demos were running on PS4 hardware before downgrades. Playground's pedigree doesn't matter since ubisoft also has the pedigree of ac unity, arguably the best looking last gen game. all games are liable for downgrades and incredible visuals should be taken with a grain of salt until release.

 

[Pelta88]

The problem is that Microsoft are targetting High end PC so there's an inherent distortion between what is and what will not be running on my series X. Forza tech engine is a good engine but that PC/XB distortion is becoming more of a problem for XBOX.

It has limitations but those limits are enhanced by obfuscated messaging from XBOX. Something that's been increasingly noticed by the official reddits.

 

[Ozriel]

Iirc the ghost of tshushima and tlou2 demos were running on PS4 hardware before downgrades. Playground's pedigree doesn't matter since ubisoft also has the pedigree of ac unity, arguably the best looking last gen game. all games are liable for downgrades and incredible visuals should be taken with a grain of salt until release.

We just had crossgen Forza Horizon 5 come out with fantastic visuals and the demo they showed of Fable was running on actual Series hardware.

Sure, nobody can say how the final version will look like, but this thread was about the engine capabilities…and we’ve just seen superb visuals from that engine in a non-racing game, running in real time in-game on a Series X.

I’ve seen you were laughed at in the GoT threads when you talked about ‘massive downgrades’ even when the final version looked really close to the E3 2018 demo.

 

[Ozriel]

The problem is that Microsoft are targetting High end PC so there's an inherent distortion between what is and what will not be running on my series X. Forza tech engine is a good engine but that PC/XB distortion is becoming more of a problem for XBOX.

It has limitations but those limits are enhanced by obfuscated messaging from XBOX. Something that's been increasingly noticed by the official reddits.

And yet the devs have come out to state clearly that the Fable demo was running on a Series X.

There’s no ‘inherent distortion’ there.

 

[hyperbertha]

We just had crossgen Forza Horizon 5 come out with fantastic visuals and the demo they showed of Fable was running on actual Series hardware.

Sure, nobody can say how the final version will look like, but this thread was about the engine capabilities…and we’ve just seen superb visuals from that engine in a non-racing game, running in real time in-game on a Series X.

I’ve seen you were laughed at in the GoT threads when you talked about ‘massive downgrades’ even when the final version looked really close to the E3 2018 demo.

I see you've moved the goalposts. Forza horizon looks like a top tier last gen game. its nothing next gen. And I don't know what the fuck you mean by your final part but ghost of tsushima was a significant downgrade. So was witcher 3 and tlou2.

 

[Pedro Motta]

Amazing engine. We need more of this.

 

[feynoob]

Something that's been increasingly noticed by the official reddits.

Reddit, the place where people consider themselves smart and know more than the people that knows how to do their job.

 

[In Cold Blood]

Iirc the ghost of tshushima and tlou2 demos were running on PS4 hardware before downgrades. Playground's pedigree doesn't matter since ubisoft also has the pedigree of ac unity, arguably the best looking last gen game. all games are liable for downgrades and incredible visuals should be taken with a grain of salt until release.

When they say running on PS4, or running on Xbox Series X, they mean running on the dev kit.
The dev kit for the XSX has 40gb of RAM for instance.
When you are then trying to get the game into the 16gb of the retail console, you are going to have to dial a few things back.

 

[In Cold Blood]

The problem is that Microsoft are targetting High end PC so there's an inherent distortion between what is and what will not be running on my series X. Forza tech engine is a good engine but that PC/XB distortion is becoming more of a problem for XBOX.

It has limitations but those limits are enhanced by obfuscated messaging from XBOX. Something that's been increasingly noticed by the official reddits.

From the little that we have been told, the Forzatech 2.0 engine has been rebuilt to make use of the RDNA 2 and XSXS feature set.
Now we are assuming at this point, but that should mean mesh shaders, Sampler feedback streaming and XVA is being used. SFS alone will make the RAM perform better, and mesh shaders should increase performance.
Maybe this is why Forza MS is able to run RT on track with the new engine on XSXS, but it wasn't possible to have it with FH5 which was using the old engine.

We know two things.
Turn 10 know how to build a highly optimised game engine. That bitch runs at 60fps on a potato.
We also know Playground are legit top tier developers, who know how to make amazing looking and playing games.
Between the two of them, you would expect them to make something that sings.

 

[Pantz]

Maybe in Forza Horizon 6 characters can get out of their cars and walk around now.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

an engine is way more than visuals. (frostbite). There is no way of knowing how good an engine is until there are multiple games released on it.

 

[Neilg]

It's obviously far more versatile than people originally thought,

I don't think it 'was' that versatile until they invested an insane amount of money, manpower and time into making it that versatile...

That being said, MS definitely saw value in investing in a new custom engine, and if fable nails it they're definitely going to get some use of it with other games. They want their own version of decima.
But after fable comes out. Might not happen.

 

[In Cold Blood]

an engine is way more than visuals. (frostbite). There is no way of knowing how good an engine is until there are multiple games released on it.

Not many games have releases on Unreal Engine 5, but we have a good idea of what it is capable of.
If Turn 10 had of kept their same engine and just bumped up the visuals for the new hardware it would still have been amazing looking.
Remember when FH5 was shown off for the first time? We had lots of people claiming that it was CGI back then, and that was the old Forza engine.

 

[DenchDeckard]

It's really interesting when we see engines that were created for one purpose branch out and find success in others. Can't wait to see more of Fable in playgrounds modified version of the engine.

 

[DaGwaphics]

FH5 is such a beautiful game, they definitely can create a believable world with it. I assume that they had to add a lot of things to it for a non racing game, will be interesting to compare FH5 to Fable as a finished project