The ultimate GTA IV X360 vs. PS3 comparison! :p

[Essem]

Rart at ps3 ikke ble i stand til å kjøre GTA4 i ekte HD, men det er vel en annen diskusjon.

 

Er det full HD, 1080p du kaller ekte HD?

[Bebeluv]

Isåfall klarer ikke 360 det heller

[Andrull]

Kan ikke fatte å begripe att folk klarer å henge seg opp i att Konsoll A viser kanskje tre piksler bedre enn konsoll B.

Nå kjører jo xbox360 spillet i 720p og ps3 kjører det i 640p, så mer enn 3 piksler er det sikkert. Men de kan jo maskere bort den lavere oppløsningen på ps3 med litt bluring av bildet. Rart at ps3 ikke ble i stand til å kjøre GTA4 i ekte HD, men det er vel en annen diskusjon.

Oppløsning styres kun av skjermkortet, og PS3 er ikke kjent for å ha et særlig sterkt skjermkort.

Hvor i all verden har du det fra at PS3 kjører GTAIV i 640p? Merkelig oppløsning tbh.

Ikke så altfor unormalt.

[freke]

Rart at ps3 ikke ble i stand til å kjøre GTA4 i ekte HD, men det er vel en annen diskusjon.

 

Er det full HD, 1080p du kaller ekte HD?

Nei da ville jeg skrevet full HD. Men saken er nå engang den at 720p er ekte HD. Ikke full HD. Mens 640p ikke er en HD oppløsning.

[Essem]

Daså, uansett tror jeg ikke man ser forskjell når ps3 maler over mangelen på HD.

[freke]

Daså, uansett tror jeg ikke man ser forskjell når ps3 maler over mangelen på HD.

Det er jeg i og for seg enig i. Blur ut så ser man ikke store forskjellen i praksis. Det som kanskje er litt overraskende er at "FULL HD monsteret" ps3 på GTA4 ikke greier "HD-ready" kravet engang.

Det gjør jo denne 400 ganger zoom (som vi jo ofte benytter ved spilling hehe) affæren høyst suspekt. Min teori er at ps3 og 360 har blitt byttet om. Siden en høyere oppløsning (720p vs 640p) gir høyere oppløsning også ved 400 gangers forstørring. Om ikke jeg har misforstått hvordan det hele fungerer...

[Essem]

De 400x zoom-greiene kan vi bare glemme, de er tatt forskjellige steder hvor lyset og alt er annerledes.

[Krypto.]

Hvordan i all verden kan noen kjøpe spill til den konsolen som gir best bilde når man zoomer inn 400%??

 

Håper virkelig ikke dere sitter så nærme TVen når dere spiller...

[freke]

Håper virkelig ikke dere sitter så nærme TVen når dere spiller...

Det er jo hvertfall en måte å få "kinofølelsen" for de med små skjermer. Lime netthinnen fast til skjermen

 

edit: Eller var netthinnen den man mistet når man surfet på internett første gangen? Anatomi altså... Phew

Endret 7. mai 2008 av freke

[Kenny Bones]

Jeg må si at jeg ikke forstår hva enkelte mener med at det er blurry bilde på PS3? Har selv PS3, GTAIV og en 37" HD-skjerm og bildet er definitivt ikke blurra. Selvfølgelig på lange avstander men det er jo en effekt likt som på Assassins Creed. Det kan vel ikke menes at ting på normal avstand er blurry? Jeg ser tydelige piksler og dersom det hadde vært blurry så hadde jeg jo ikke sett pixler. Spillet trenger sårt litt AA btw

Derfor setter jeg TVen til Multimedia-mode (Philips) og dermed har jeg nesten null Aliasing samtidig som at bildet er herlicht. Fornøyd med det jeg ihvertfall. Og om spillet kjøres i 640p eller hva det var, hvorfor står det 720p, 1080i og 1080p bak på coveret da? Er det lov isåfall?

[Gjest Slettet+981234789]

jeg skrudde av "sharpness" på PJ`en min i går og da ble det helt forferdilig blurra på alt, ble litt små svimel, alt ble ufokusert.

skrudde opp sharpness igjen så ble alt mye bedre.

har også den farge greia i spillet nesten på fult , ett eller 2 hakk under.

(Xbox360 versjonen)

Endret 8. mai 2008 av Slettet+981234789

[Kenny Bones]

"Fargegreia" på min GTAIV har jeg på litt under halvveis tror jeg. Har sikkert en del med innstillinger på TV / PJ å gjøre også tenker jeg. Alt handler vel om hva den enkelte bruker foretrekker. Men til sammenligning har jeg samme innstillinger på TVen når jeg spiller GTAIV som med Skate., Uncharted eller Assassins Creed f. eks. Og når det da er fint lite blur på GTAIV så burde det jo ikke ha noe med TVen å gjøre. Teoretisk sett ihvertfall

[freke]

Og om spillet kjøres i 640p eller hva det var, hvorfor står det 720p, 1080i og 1080p bak på coveret da? Er det lov isåfall?

Jeg tror det er standard praksis. Var det ikke noe ramaskrik om at et Halo spill ikke kjørte i mer enn 640p og da? Og så vidt meg bekjent har aldri 640p oppløsningen vært "reklamert" med på spillcoveret på Halo heller.

Endret 8. mai 2008 av freke

[Eremal]

Jeg leste litt om hele 640p oppstyret nå. Og jeg må si meg enig med det som blir sagt mange steder. Om ikke en fyr hadde sittet med 400% zoom og telt piksler og kommet fram til at det var 80 piksler for lite, så hadde folk aldri lagt merke til det.

 

Btw så er oppløsningen 1152x640. Men mtp at PS3 gjør en god jobb på upscaling, så vil det ikke medføre noe særlig konsekvenser.

Endret 8. mai 2008 av Eremal

[freke]

Btw så er oppløsningen 1152x640. Men mtp at PS3 gjør en god jobb på upscaling, så vil det ikke medføre noe særlig konsekvenser.

I tillegg vil bildet bli skalert til den respektive skjermoppløsning man har. Forutsatt at man ikke sitter med en CRT skjerm naturligvis.

[UrgeLoL]

En veldig nøye comparisons test av Eurogamer.net. Og siden mange er veldig late har jeg pastet inn en god del av teksten. Samt uthevet en del saker.

 

Comparison videos appear to be all the rage, even though they're mostly low-res blur-a-thons that demonstrate absolutely nothing, so we decided to take a different approach. Our vids are encoded in supreme quality h264, but more than that, we've zoomed in on the action so you can actually see the difference. Unless otherwise stated, one pixel in the Eurogamer player corresponds to one pixel on your HDTV. Most of the clips are run at 50 percent speed too, again making the job of comparison that much easier, with more bandwidth dedicated to picture quality.

 

I think the most important thing to say right from the get-go is that there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that Grand Theft Auto IV is a 10/10 game no matter which console you own. Having spent the last six days of my life playing both versions simultaneously, painstakingly matching up the gameplay and recording over 500GB of video captures in the process, everything in Tom's original review stands regardless of the platform you're playing it on. As one leading developer said to me the other day, "I think this game, like Crackdown before it, changes everything." Quite.

 

Rockstar also makes use of the PS3 hard disk, with a mandatory 3,339MB installation of game data that takes around seven minutes. This doesn't do much for the initial loading of the game, which takes around 100 seconds on both systems, but certainly helps with mission loading, shaving a few seconds off each time a new task is initiated. There are also improvements in texture streaming as you navigate around Liberty City, but the advantages are barely perceptible.

 

Finally, a nice little touch is that the PS3 version of the game has much higher resolution versions of the various TV shows available to view in Niko's apartment. Additional camera angles are also included to show off the extra resolution - a cool bonus, somewhat reminiscent of a similar feature in Starbreeze Studios' PS3 conversion of The Darkness.

 

Høyere oppløsning på ingame tv!! PS3 rulez xbox 360 suxors!

 

First things first. Xbox 360 runs at full 720p (1280x720), whereas the PlayStation 3 code takes a 20 per cent hit, being natively rendered at 1152x640 before being software-upscaled. Regular readers of the face-off features know that this approach can work well (check out the comparison gallery for Dark Sector in the last face-off) but in most cases, the PS3 port just tends to look like a blurrier version of the original Xbox code: not impressive considering that typically, PS3 hardware - and sometimes software - is more expensive.

 

GTA IV is a kind of weird combination of the two. Both versions feature heavily post-processed visuals, in particular when it comes to depth-of-field effects. Objects in the distance on both versions are blurred in an effort to match the natural focus of the human eye. Where post-processed blur meets the upscaling effect of PlayStation 3, the result usually looks very good indeed - a little softer, of course, but rarely distracting. A slight change of hue (particularly noticeable on indoor cut-scenes) also makes the PS3 version look slightly warmer.

 

Technically speaking, Xbox 360 really should be winning this contest hands-down, but bizarrely, it doesn't. There's support for proper hardware-assisted anti-aliasing, eliminating a great deal of the jagginess of the PlayStation 3 version, plus it's running at full-fat 720p. However, Rockstar has introduced a 360-specific post-processing effect that dithers just about every texture on-screen. It's an effect not present at all on the PS3 version and serves to introduce an oil-painting-like effect to the overall look of the game, particularly on background objects. Unfortunately, it also seems to actively distort the edges of detail in the textures and occasionally looks really ugly.

 

 

Time for a spot of myth-busting then. Aside from a slight tweak to the colour palette (going back once again to Houser's 'warmer' PS3 comments), the two games feature virtually identical lighting. Day and night cycles are basically the same, weather likewise. A case has also been made online with judiciously chosen screenshots that the PS3 version has better-realised explosion effects, but again, in controlled conditions this is proven not to be the case. In fact, the only lighting issue between the two versions that stands out is a shimmering on shadows on the 360 version. Noticeably improved on PS3, but hardly earth-shaking stuff.

 

Onto the next bone of contention then: draw distance. The theory is that the PS3's mandatory hard disk installation gives the Sony version an advantage here, but once again, the evidence clearly shows that the Xbox 360 game matches it. It's not difficult to see why. If the hard disk is good for anything, it's the swift streaming of texture detail, not the actual geometry.

 

Despite the hard disk advantage of PS3, I found it very hard indeed to show a tangible advantage in terms of texture streaming, aside from whatever wear and tear on the 360's DVD-ROM unit the game might inflict long-term. Maniacal flying of the helicopter showed obvious pop-in on 360 that the PS3 version coped better with, but in more common game conditions both versions acted in a very similar manner. In fact, both games infrequently exhibited pop-in textures, something you wouldn't expect from the PS3 code.

 

Frame Rate Tests

 

So far, aside from the different visual approaches, there's not much to tell the two games apart. But the one difference I couldn't help but notice was the sense that as well as possessing a higher resolution, the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV runs noticeably smoother than the PlayStation 3 code.

 

What is clear is that both versions adhere to no specific frame-rate. They'll pump out as many frames as they can, roughly averaging out to around 30fps (though it can go higher). However, the amount of time any given frame will stay on-screen is variable, leading to a very inconsistent look. Compare and contrast with, say, Project Gotham Racing 4, or Criterion's Black - both examples of games with a rock solid 30fps refresh rate. In terms of GTA IV, its basic inconsistency means it's really difficult to say whether one version drops more frames than the other just by trusting your own eyes. A more scientific approach is needed.

 

In previous face-off features, where I've felt that it's relevant, I've always mentioned the difference in refresh rate, but now I can show you how I do it. Essentially, the basic method is simple - capture every single frame that is output over the HDMI port in a lossless format, then examine the capture to check for the amount of unique frames. Digital Foundry's coder programmed a very useful little tool that does that count for me; useful considering the first test is based on a video with over 16,000 frames.

 

For GTA IV, I performed six tests on a varied amount of material. All of the game's cut-scenes are based on the same engine as the gameplay, so a variety of them were chosen, both indoors and outdoors, and of varying lengths. As the cut-scenes are rendering identical scenes on the fly, it's the best test I could come up with. In all cases, the respective 3D engines will be dealing with 100 percent identical source material.

 

Links to compressed versions of the test material are provided, but please bear in mind that there's some pretty hardcore swearing. Oh, and possibly some spoilers.

 

Test One: Game Intro

360: 31.990fps

PS3: 26.460fps

See it on EGTV.

 

Test Two: Clean Getaway

360: 28.624fps

PS3: 23.452fps

See it on EGTV.

 

Test Three: Final Destination

360: 35.262fps

PS3: 29.041fps

See it on EGTV.

 

Test Four: Station Face-Off

360: 26.076fps

PS3: 26.081fps

See it on EGTV.

 

Test Five: Rigged to Blow

360: 26.712fps

PS3: 23.781fps

See it on EGTV.

 

Test Six: Ivan the Not So Terrible

360: 33.798fps

PS3: 28.313fps

See it on EGTV.

 

So the results clearly show that over the course of the entire clip, 360 out-performs PlayStation 3 in all but one of the six scenarios presented here. Indeed, on the longer vids we're seeing a good 17 to 18 percent variance. Tests on gameplay (playing through the same mission, but not rendering identical scenes, obviously) saw a similar range of variance too. For example, the 'Ivan the Not So Terrible' stage has a nice range of in-car, on-foot, rooftop and cut-scene action. 30.704fps average on a 360 runthrough, compared with 26.522fps and 26.274fps on two separate PS3 captures of the same mission.

 

The bottom line is that no matter what material I put through the detector, 360 came ahead in all tests, sometimes dramatically so.

'Grand Theft Auto IV: PS3 vs. Xbox 360 Special' Screenshot 3

 

However, it is worth bearing in mind that the frame-rate detector can only produce an average rate. By looking at the other comparison videos in this piece, you'll see that by and large the games generally run at the same speed. However, when the engine struggles to cope, the frame-rate falls and it drops harder on PS3, hence bringing down the overall average.

One curiosity I found was that the PS3 version has v-lock enabled, whereas 360 can produce the odd torn frame. This might be seen to skew results in 360's favour were it not for the fact that, typically, a torn frame is only on-screen for 1/60th of a second before v-sync is re-established. Therefore, it's not likely to affect the overall result, and is certainly not an issue during gameplay. The hosted clips are from the 360 version by the way, in case you want to check.

 

Truth be told, it's not really the visual differences as such that gravitates me slightly towards the 360 version; it's just that the game runs more solidly on the Microsoft platform, and when the frame-rate does drop, it's not quite so jarring as it is on PS3.

 

And Finally...

 

After almost two thousands words of technical discussion, the bottom line is that it's clear that Rockstar had some issues matching the basic performance of the Xbox 360 game on the PS3 hardware. Lower resolution, zero anti-aliasing support and a more variable frame-rate are the bottom line.

 

On the one hand, it's a touch disappointing that Rockstar's USD 100 million budget couldn't extend to optimising the experience to match Xbox 360, especially when you look at a game like Burnout Paradise that doesn't require a mandatory installation, has a basically rock solid frame-rate, and is technically identical cross-platform.

 

That said, it's patently clear that Rockstar hasn't handed in a lazy conversion here. Creative decisions have been made to compensate for the technical limitations, and by and large they really work, to the point where you sometimes wonder why they couldn't have been applied to the Xbox 360 version too. PS3 GTA IV looks absolutely fantastic, and even factoring in zero anti-aliasing support and a lower resolution, in many scenarios it looks as good as the 360 version, if not better.

 

I've not addressed the freezing issue being reported on the game, of course. I'll have to leave that to the people affected as - try as I might to coax the code to fall over and die horribly - GTA IV behaved impeccably for me on both systems. But the chances are that by the time you read, a PS3 patch will be out and about that should sort out those who've been affected. A 360 update after that, please, complete with a tweakable option to use the PS3 post-processing modes. Now that would be interesting.

 

Videoer og bilder finnes på linken.

 

Kilde

[Zeph]

Konklusjon: Begge versjonar har sine gode og dårlege sider, men totalt sett er det eitt fett kva du vel.

[_KroSjefen_]

eg syntes det var pussig att x360 held høgare fps jamnt over..det er det eg merker best når eg spiller vertfall, litt popups og alasing lever eg med, men ein solid framerate er alfa omega...

[UrgeLoL]

eg syntes det var pussig att x360 held høgare fps jamnt over..det er det eg merker best når eg spiller vertfall, litt popups og alasing lever eg med, men ein solid framerate er alfa omega...

 

Folk som har litt peiling skrev i en forum post på neogaf.com at de gjennomsnittlige målingene for ps3 versjonen blir litt missvisende.. På xbox 360 er ikke V-sync enablet, slik at fps går fra 20 til 40. Mens at på ps3 versjonen er v-sync enablet noe som gjør at den går fra 20 til 30. Selv om det i perioder ville vært mulig med fps over 30. Dette gjør selvfølgelig gjennomsnittsfps lavere. Men uansett så er nok fps noe dårligere i ps3 versjonen. Men kan ikke akkurat si at det plager meg.. men har merket det i mp når jeg og en kompis samlet 13 biler i en haug for så å sprenge hele dritten i lufta... tipper vi var nede på 10 fps en stund ja.

[NuckChorris]

Fanboi krigen når nye høyder?

 

Skjønner ikke helt hvordan noen kan være fan av en konsoll og klikke totalt om noen sier noe stygt om den konsollen. Forsvare den som om det var moren sin eller noe sånt. Det er helt på grensen til patetisk

 

Jeg har selv X360 versjonen og er fornøyd med den. Tipper det er et like knakende godt spill på begge konsoller med minimale forskjeller. Men men. Om det er en forskjell eller ikke spiller vel liten rolle så lenge fanbois kan forsvare sin konsoll "to the end"..