A new game engine for the next GT?

[SDSPOWER01]

At this point I believe dynamic time and weather would put too much stress on the PS4's CPU.
This can be clearly seen because of the multiple sacrifices there is in game to achieve realistic lighting.

Uppon closer inspection, despite GT Sport being an upgrade compared to past GT; you can clearly see compromises being made (low res reflection, rough edges and some minor texture quality downgrade on the cars body) to achieve a solid framerate with minor dips from time to time.

Given the fact that GT Sport has such an amazing lighting engine these things cannot be spotted immediately.
Now with the implementation of Dynamic time and weather (heavy weather mostly yes I am looking at you PC(2))! It can take quite a hit on the CPU with huge framerate drops).
Ruling out their objective of "quality gameplay".
Now yes I know Forza 6 maintained a solid 60 FPS on the Xbox One, but uppon closer inspection a lot of compromises had to be made (considering it wasn't even heavy weather ala PC(2)).

We gotta be honest to ourselves when developers said that the so called next gen console (PS4 and Xbox One) could potentially fix the (framerate) problem we should have taken it with a grain of salt (as these are just marketing speaks).

At this point even for the rumoured more powerfull PS5 I would believe some compromises have to be made to achieve for a stable gameplay. It is all a matter of balance... I hope PD proves me wrong but not expecting huge changes.

 

[TonyJZX]

its the lighting engine. There's something very very natural looking about the GTS engine. I find it almost relaxing to drive... its able to trick my eyes so it feels effortless.

If you look at the Forza 6/7 engine then you see the very flat lighting the flat textures and it looks almost cartoony to a degree.

I then find it slightly tiring to drive because it just doesnt look like "real life" - this sort of disconnect makes it tiring to drive.

If I never bought GTS and never seen it then I wouldnt feel disatisfied with the Forza engine.

If the price of the Gran Turismo engine is no night time and no rain then I'm ok with it - I dont enjoy driving at night or rain so its an acceptable sacrifice to me.

I'll tell you how bad it is for me... I work sometimes 7.30am etc. and get home at 4pm - this is good as a I miss the traffic. My current daily car has a 400hp 6.0 V8 w/ 6 spd manual... you Americans know what engine this is. This car is a fun effortless drive despite the dire fuel econ... but even so sometimes I get home and have a drink and wind down... and then start up GT Sport to relax.... yes, there's something very cathartic and relaxing about doing my daily 42km... I cant explain it. My heart rate is much lower at the end.

If you made me drive 42km a day in Forza 7 I'm likely to hit you. I can only stand Forza 7/FH3 to do the Forzathons as I find that kind of puzzle fun.

 

[queleuleu]

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.
Do you think they can fix all the known flaws like ridiculous collisions or static TOD with the current engine?

 

[eran0004]

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.
Do you think they can fix all the known flaws like ridiculous collisions or static TOD with the current engine?

How is anyone supposed to be able to answer that question without knowing what the engine looks like?

 

[queleuleu]

How is anyone supposed to be able to answer that question without knowing what the engine looks like?

It's more or less the same engine since GT5 prologue.

 

[eran0004]

It's more or less the same engine since GT5 prologue.

1. What do you base that opinion on?

2. What did that engine look like?

 

[_ApexPredator]

This isn't an engine issue. They just made design choices in order to focus on better graphics.

Exactly. Everything is a compromise. I really can't believe people are complaining about GT Sport's graphics & performance - the photos you can take from in-game replays are astonishing. If it's being held back anywhere it's current hardware restrictions. I'm sure there are compromises in the game engine too, but GT has always looked miles better than comparable racing games, and that has always been a core "value" of the franchise.

I wouldn't discredit what Wreckfest and PC2 achieved simply because of their less-than-ideal frame rates. That's a bit close-minded.

Well not really. You have to make compromises to run at a smooth 60fps. When you compare the features that a game running at half the frames has it's not really a fair comparison.

 

[Vspectra]

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.
Do you think they can fix all the known flaws like static TOD with the current engine?

Here's the thing man. There is nothing to fix, it isn't an engine issue. Static TOD isn't a flaw. It's simply a design decision to focus on better graphics, specifically very realistic indirect lighting (where light bounces from one object onto a nearby object), which is massively graphically intensive. Hence, GTSport uses very high quality pre-baked lightmaps for global illumination (like Assassin's Creed Unity) instead of a real-time solution that only approximates global illumination on a very small scale, one which just wouldn't look as good especially during mid-day time setting (see driveclub here: https://abload.de/img/driveclub_20151108014xaxku.png). If you've played Forza 7, even that game doesn't have dynamic time of day, mid-day afternoon stays mid-day afternoon, the environment shadows in that game are also literally painted onto the textures and don't even move. F7 also uses baked global illumination and is also the reason why it also looks better than something like Pcars 2.

There isn't anything wrong with the GT engine. It's fantastic and allows for these types of realistic visuals at a steady 60fps, massively long draw distances, and easily some of the best and realistic PBR material rendering out of any other game whilst running at double the framerate.

It's more or less the same engine since GT5 prologue.

Forza engine is basically the same as the one in Forza 3, pCars 2 is running on the same engine as 1. Uncharted 4 is using the same engine as the one NaughtyDog used on PS3. EA's Frostbite engine also started on xbox360/ps3 too. If you have a perfectly capable engine, you don't throw it all away, you build on it, revamp parts of it, optimize it further to fit whatever designs you want to do next.

Furthermore, GT5 was literally the only racing game on last gen with both a full 24 dynamic time and weather system, so that already answers your question of whether or not this engine is capable of it.

 

[GTWelsh]

I don't think they need to make a new game engine, tweaking the current one would be enough. They already have the graphics and the physics look like they can do it, just don't want to do it ("it" being "be more sim like").

For example, the pretty nice visual tyre flex would need a lot of the same data physics tyre flex would, for example, so the values are there, the potential is there, it just hasn't resulted in the physics we wanted.

It's more or less the same engine since GT5 prologue.

Source please?

 

[queleuleu]

@Vspectra GT is the only game where cars look really like cars. Sometimes in brand central, I'm simply astonished by how real it looks. However, if the engine is good enough, their game design choices are special. No weather in a 2018 game? So-so hitboxes (between cars or cars and wall, the Colorado rally track is almost a joke). Ping-pong collisions...

 

[Vspectra]

@Vspectra GT is the only game where cars look really like cars. Sometimes in brand central, I'm simply astonished by how real it looks. However, if the engine is good enough, their game design choices are special. No weather in a 2018 game? So-so hitboxes (between cars or cars and wall, the Colorado rally track is almost a joke). Ping-pong collisions...

Those things you don't like about it aren't because of the engine though, it's PD's design decisions and priorities. We had a great procedural visual damage system in GT5 which got removed in GT6 and GTS and the cars barely take deformations now, is that because the engine? No, it's PD design choice. Forza 6 and 7 also had a degraded visual damage system compared to Forza 2 and 4, it isn't because of the game engine.

We know weather is coming and confirmed. We already have a sample of it in the game. If you're impressed by the current graphics then you can assume they're taking a long time because they're handcrafting the wet weather visuals like they did for all of the different lighting conditions.

Car collisions have never been a priority for the series and developer. I'd like for a more realistic collision model too but this again isn't an engine issue. You can code better and more realistic collisions even on some of the worst and outdated game engines going back to the PS2 and original Xbox era, Toca Race Driver has more convincing collisions and damage compared to a bunch of racing games today, it's entirely up to the devs.

If you haven't already noticed PD's always had special design choices. Why can't we turn off the rear-view mirror in bumper cam or turn it on in hood view? Engine issue? No it's not.