Final Fantasy XIII Xbox 360 Graphics


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Indeed we can let it end. I let it end with my link.

Oh, I probably should of posted this first, you know, the Eurogamer Digital Foundry comparison that was posted a while back in here whistle.gif

The tragedy here is that the CG is a core part of the presentation in FFXIII and it seems to be the case that the company has paid little attention to the poor quality of the final assets on the Xbox 360 version. The Microsoft XDK ships with a VC1 decoder, giving it the ability to playback video files encoded using technology supported by Blu-ray discs and players. Indeed, movie pirates out there get excellent quality VC1 encodes of Blu-ray movies that manage to fit onto a dual-layer DVD and run from the Xbox 360 dashboard.

Decent encoding takes time and effort, but the results can look good - even on challenging material. Combine this with the fact that the game doesn't need the 1080p-sized video the PS3 version boasts, and we have the ways and means with which to attack the compression issue from two different angles.

Square-Enix has bought in the Bink compression system for FFXIII on 360 and its failure in high-motion, colourful scenes does suggest a constant bitrate is being used as opposed to variable bandwidth that allocates more data to maintaining image quality on more complex scenes.

Source: http://www.eurogamer...face-off?page=3

You wonder why the GH is on a decline of users.

I noticed the DTS symbol but my z-5500's pick it up as DD.

Runs on DTS on my PS3 if I tell it not to decode HD audio to PCM for my receiver (my receiver can't bitstream HD audio, PS3 has to decode).

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The in-game cutscenes are pre-rendered though which is why even although they're using the game engine, they take up space as video.

maybe they ought to have done abit more work for the xbox360 version

instead of scaling all the textures down to fit on a dvd, i think they shouldve skipped the prerendered videos and do the cutscenes realtime

this would be a deeper change to the game than just lower resolution textures, but since they are clearly building the game for the ps3 first, i think they should have taken more time to get it to work better on the 360

it might mean that the xbox360 would play the cutscenes at a lower fps, or have altered and simplified scenes to keep up the frame rate... but it would also have the advantages of being rendered realtime, such as camera control or xbox360-exclusive costumes for characters

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maybe they ought to have done abit more work for the xbox360 version

instead of scaling all the textures down to fit on a dvd, i think they shouldve skipped the prerendered videos and do the cutscenes realtime

this would be a deeper change to the game than just lower resolution textures, but since they are clearly building the game for the ps3 first, i think they should have taken more time to get it to work better on the 360

it might mean that the xbox360 would play the cutscenes at a lower fps, or have altered and simplified scenes to keep up the frame rate... but it would also have the advantages of being rendered realtime, such as camera control or xbox360-exclusive costumes for characters

Yeah right, Square, and many Japanese devs for that matter, don't do much real-time cut scenes. They'll pack in great looking prerendered cgi scenes and shove those all over the marketing vids to sell their games. I mean, look at any FF13 promo vid, it's like 98% prerendered video and 2% of the actual gameplay.

Bioware, for example, manages to do a load of ingame real-time cutscenes for there games, look at ME2 as a prime example. Yes it's got some prerendered CGI, but very very little, the rest is done ingame in realtime. I've noticed this myself between playing the game on my 360 from the DVD and again playing it installed on the HDD, the cut scenes, specially the big long one after you do the jump in the Oemga 4 relay (those who played know the one) has moments where the framerate dips off of the DVD, while it doesn't if it's installed on the HDD (at least not for me anyways). The dip is due to the difference in transfer rate between DVD and HDD, clearly.

If you can run your game engine at 720p then you can do cut scenes at 720p, ingame, in real-time. Just script them. Hell, even back in the old PSX days FF7 had a good number of them like that. I know everyone who's played can remember walking into a real-time cut scene where the camera starts to move off to show something else but you can still keep moving your character for a bit. It wasn't used alot really, but it's there.

It just seems to me that western devs will much rather do cut scenes and or scripted events ingame in real-time off of their engine while the Japeanese devs wanna blind us with flashy prerendered CGI that look good in comercials.

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but if you do real time events you won't be playing Advent Children

Heh, Guess you're right for the most part.

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Read Emn1ty.

I said the in-game resolution and in-game cutscenes were crappy, they are 576p, sub-HD. I just said "and CGI is only 720p". No where did I say CGI @ 720p is crappy, I said only, because it's 1080p on the PS3.

There's only 40 minutes of CGI in the game, the other 8-9 hours of video are pre-rendered in-game cutscenes @ 576p.

ALL video is 720p, since none of the cutscenes are in-game, but pre-rendered. In-engine =/= in-game. It is more than likely they used 720p native to make those look better as well. Regardless, the number itself represents nothing, considering the way it is implimented. Take Halo 3 for example which runs at 640p but still looks stunningly crisp in 1080p. Even then, all these games are going to be upscaled during gameplay anyways and be a poorer quality of themselves. So no matter what they won't look as good as they should. The only thing that will is the PS3 pre-rendered cutscene and that is assuming your TV is 1080p. If it is 720p (like the majority of bought and sold televisions these days are) then that resolution is wasted. I wonder just how many gigs of space they would have saved if they dumbed the video down to 720p. Maybe they could have added in a town or ten.

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If it is 720p (like the majority of bought and sold televisions these days are) then that resolution is wasted. I wonder just how many gigs of space they would have saved if they dumbed the video down to 720p. Maybe they could have added in a town or ten.

Which then would've added another disc onto the 360 version. The CGI on the 360 is in 720p. Making it 1080p on PS3 is merely taking advantage of the extra space.

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Which then would've added another disc onto the 360 version. The CGI on the 360 is in 720p. Making it 1080p on PS3 is merely taking advantage of the extra space.

Really though, this whole 3rd or 4th DVD bit, cost, imo, is hardly an issue as some make it out. MS, it was said years ago, doesn't chanrge you per DVD royalty wise, it's per game as a whole. So be it 2 or 4 DVDs they're not getting paid more. The only added cost is the making of the dvds which, lets face it, after all this time and the sheer mass production of DVDs in general costs very very low. I'd be interested in seeing some hard numbers on how much it actually costs you to print out a DVD today, remember we're talking about volume wise as well, the more you print the cheaper it is as well.

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This game is seriously EPIC! I would have gotten it for the PS3, if I had one. I know i'm going to hear "but the 360 version sucks, ps3 looks better" blah blah blah. Well, I don't have a PS3, so I am playing it on the xbox360, and to be completely honest, it looks PERFECT to me.

I'm on Chapter 3 already, I haven't put the game down yet since I opened it. This game is honestly the best Final Fantasy i've played so far.

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This game is seriously EPIC! I would have gotten it for the PS3, if I had one. I know i'm going to hear "but the 360 version sucks, ps3 looks better" blah blah blah. Well, I don't have a PS3, so I am playing it on the xbox360, and to be completely honest, it looks PERFECT to me.

I'm on Chapter 3 already, I haven't put the game down yet since I opened it. This game is honestly the best Final Fantasy i've played so far.

This is all that matters

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This is all that matters

I wouldn't notice a difference unless i put the games side-by-side. Even then, it's such a minor comparison..

But, unlikely other "people" in this thread, I don't waste my time arguing over stupid "facts" that a game looks better on a certain console.

Instead, I would rather go play the game, than to sit and argue on the Internet about it.

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I read that those screens that looked equal in quality were fakes... just button swaps and Square admitted it (actually it's impossible to make such identical screenshots at the same angle). So I suppose the screens with the clear noticeable difference are the real deal. Sorry for you 360 users.

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Gametrailers did a comparisson video

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/360-ps3-comparison-final-fantasy/62809

All I've got to say is by no means is this a crappy port. People can argue resolutions all they want, but when it comes down to it, if one person plays it on one platform without another TV playing the same game at the same time, these differences will not even surface. Even for people that are upset about a few more pixels in strands of hair

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Lens of Truth

Apart from a lower resolution, the only thing really noticeable is the lack of self shadowing on the 360 with the roll over pictures.

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Lens of Truth

Apart from a lower resolution, the only thing really noticeable is the lack of self shadowing on the 360 with the roll over pictures.

Does anyone really notice that during a cut scene? lol...

Again, minor, minor details.. not worth me trading in my xbox360 for a PS3 :p

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Does anyone really notice that during a cut scene? lol...

Again, minor, minor details.. not worth me trading in my xbox360 for a PS3 :p

You're pretty spot on, they're minor. Everyone is nitpicking it now in order to either brag or try and defend it or w/e. In motion those minor details are lost. And you're not going to freeze frame a game and zoom in 200% or 400% in order to find differences. You're going to sit and play the damn thing.

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All I care about is the 3 discs bit. Who the hell wants to go back to swapping discs? Not me... :ermm:

I sure hope there doesn't come a time when you have to swap BDs as well. But you never know. :whistle:

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I can't wait till we get to the point where everything is digital download so we don't even have to swap discs to change games :unsure:

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