The biggest problem with GT5 that nobody talks about.

[paskowitz]

If you are on this site there is a 99% you think GT5 is great, and it is. However, it is not extraordinary. It has flaws. What a shock. Most of these are actually not all that critical, they are just spotted everywhere. Some have been fixed with a couple megabytes of patches. The most obvious are the blocky shadows and smoke aliasing. It’s pretty hard not to notice sitting next what is a stunning game. But in the end they do not ruin the experience.

While observing the game yesterday I found a flaw that I do not think anyone has mentioned or at least in the detail I am about to. Also, I am in no way saying that I expected any of what I am about to say to be in GT5. That would be crazy.

GT5 implemented new smoke effects. They are very nice. If you kick up smoke it has a weight that has been missing for years in the series. It even blows in the wind. And this has lead me to what I think to be one of the biggest visual and immersive flaws in GT5.

Besides the smoke and a few bits of grass, nothing else in the game's environments reacts and acts naturally. And besides the time of day the environmental effects are more on/off. All grass moves. It is not a flat texture. Trees sway in the wind and are more than just two pieces of cardboard stuck together. Snow whips up from the ground and builds up as time passes. Rain is more than a blotch on the windshield and pools where there are changes of surface. Also snow and rain are simply filters put over a screen with added volumetric effects. This may seem like a trivial matter but it is not.

The cars in GT5 are near flawless. But the environments and their lack of effects do not hold up. I feel like the world I am in is static, lifeless. There is no life. There are no birds flying across the sky. No sun glare off of the car in front of me. The 24hr layout of The Ring is the most convincing track because it has life to it. I can't believe I am saying this but it is the smoke from people grilling outside their tents. Like Kaz said, you can almost smell the BBQ. This brings me into the moment.

For the next GT, PD need to think real hard what they want to accomplish. They have a tremendous opportunity to work with the next hardware and create something that is truly extraordinary. Imagine a world where the crowd changed as the race when on. People moved about in the off track area. The clouds, sun, shadows all changed. Bugs hit your windshield and your car got dirty over the course of the race. Imagine racing up Spa and suddenly a plume of fog engulfed the track. Or experiencing a white out at Chamonix. Small waves hitting the port at Monaco. I miss things like the moving crowd on the Gran Canyon track in GT4. Things like this make me feel like I am experiencing something real.

This is what takes out of the world you are in and fools your mind into thinking what you are doing is real. GT5 offers moments of this. In fact it does it better than almost any other game. NFS Shift was not bad, but overdone. It is the essence of what GT is and it is what the next game needs to improve.


If you read all that give yourself a pat on the back.

To all those who are pointing out that the PS3 can only handle so much and has a ancient GPU... really I did not know that tell me more . I am not saying I expected PD to do all this. I did not say I was disappointed in GT5 because it does not have X, Y and Z. I am simply pointing out a flaw that I believe is very valid. If you read the entire post you would understand that this is more a statement of what PD should work on for the next game if it is on new hardware.

 

[Freakonomix]

If you are on this site there is a 99% you think GT5 is great, and it is. However, it is not extraordinary. It has flaws. What a shock. Most of these are actually not all that critical, they are just spotted everywhere. Some have been fixed with a couple megabytes of patches. The most obvious are the blocky shadows and smoke aliasing. It’s pretty hard not to notice sitting next what is a stunning game. But in the end they do not ruin the experience.

While observing the game yesterday I found a flaw that I do not think anyone has mentioned or at least in the detail I am about to. Also, I am in no way saying that I expected any of what I am about to say to be in GT5. That would be crazy.

GT5 implemented new smoke effects. They are very nice. If you kick up smoke it has a weight that has been missing for years in the series. It even blows in the wind. And this has lead me to what I think to be one of the biggest visual and immersive flaws in GT5.

Besides the smoke and a few bits of grass, nothing else in the game's environments reacts and acts naturally. And besides the time of day the environmental effects are more on/off. All grass moves. It is not a flat texture. Trees sway in the wind and are more than just two pieces of cardboard stuck together. Snow whips up from the ground and builds up as time passes. Rain is more than a blotch on the windshield and pools where there are changes of surface. Also snow and rain are simply filters put over a screen with added volumetric effects. This may seem like a trivial matter but it is not.

The cars in GT5 are near flawless. But the environments and their lack of effects do not hold up. I feel like the world I am in is static, lifeless. There is no life. There are no birds flying across the sky. No sun glare off of the car in front of me. The 24hr layout of The Ring is the most convincing track because it has life to it. I can't believe I am saying this but it is the smoke from people grilling outside their tents. Like Kaz said, you can almost smell the BBQ. This brings me into the moment.

For the next GT, PD need to think real hard what they want to accomplish. They have a tremendous opportunity to work with the next hardware and create something that is truly extraordinary. Imagine a world where the crowd changed as the race when on. People moved about in the off track area. The clouds, sun, shadows all changed. Bugs hit your windshield and your car got dirty over the course of the race. Imagine racing up Spa and suddenly a plume of fog engulfed the track. Or experiencing a white out at Chamonix. Small waves hitting the port at Monaco. I miss things like the moving crowd on the Gran Canyon track in GT4. Things like this make me feel like I am experiencing something real.

This is what takes out of the world you are in and fools your mind into thinking what you are doing is real. GT5 offers moments of this. In fact it does it better than almost any other game. NFS Shift was not bad, but overdone. It is the essence of what GT is and it is what the next game needs to improve.


If you read all that give yourself a pat on the back.

A lot of these are not in there due to the lack of memory on the PS3, which is also the reason for the block shadows. There is only so much detail you can cram into the hardware available.

 

[CodeRedR51]

*Pats self on back*

And I do agree. 👍

 

[naughtyaudio]

If you read all that give yourself a pat on the back.

Naughtyaudio 'Likes This'

 

[BigYoSpeck]

I'm pretty sure people have bemoaned the environment / car quality disparity

I will say this though, a lot of people comment that when you're actually racing and focused on driving you don't notice the 2D tree's etc.. and for 90% of the time they are right. But you also don't notice the smoke effects and how they are technically improved over prologue either until you spot a low res car outline through them.

 

[Flogger]

Cars do get dirty in a race.

 

[Silver_MK]

Console will have always these limits... step forward would be GT for PC

Silver

 

[CodeRedR51]

Cars do get dirty in a race.

But they don't stay dirty. I want to take my Subaru to the car wash in the game caked in mud and dirt. This is not something required, but certainly would be cool.

 

[Crumpet]

In a way I get what your saying, I don't mind how it is now, but some things really do need to be fixed.

 

[davidson]

But the environments and their lack of effects do not hold up. I feel like the world I am in is static, lifeless. There is no life.

This pretty much says it. It doesn't bother me as much as it does you, but I get where you're coming from with it.

 

[manhorsedog]

I think the real problem is US, we have no clue on what it actually takes to make a game like this on a restricted system like the ps3 or Xbox. Sounds to me like everybody wants it to be like it will be on ps5.

This system is just not powerful enough to do everything people complain about. What we did get however is one of if not the best console racers ever made. Be thankful for what you have is the best approach.

 

[tinram]

Let's just remove the snow, rain, time of day, smoke, trees, grass, etc. There you go no more flaws!

YAWT

 

[GregTheStig]

*pats on ze back*

I totally get what you're saying too, and I agree with the guys that said it's complicated. I think it if were up to Kaz and PD we'd have the most realistic game with all those elements you mentioned, but right now it may not be practical or possible.

 

[deftonesmx17]

I think the real problem is US, we have no clue on what it actually takes to make a game like this on a restricted system like the ps3 or Xbox. Sounds to me like everybody wants it to be like it will be on ps5.

This system is just not powerful enough to do everything people complain about. What we did get however is one of if not the best console racers ever made. Be thankful for what you have is the best approach.

Not a good excuse when racing games released 2-3 years ago do have features such as those mentioned (3d trees that move in the wind, normal-mapped environment textures <- good freeaking lord the original xbox was capable of this!!!).

 

[manhorsedog]

Sure it can do it, but can it do that with all the features in gt5? Doesn't look that way. This is a massive massive game and let's face it the ps3 can not really handle it. Maybe when the ps4 or 5 comes out it will be a different story but as of now no game looks like how you want it with this much content.

Just like the guy above said do you really think they wanted this way? Do you rely think those flaws goes unnoticed?

 

[VooDoo-Reverend]

You forgot temperature. It doesn't seem to matter if you're on a cold snow track or a hot sunny track. The car should react differently. The tires warm up just as fast in sunny Laguna Seca as they to on the cold and damp Nurburgring.

Tire temperature is a HUGE issue on the track.

 

[SuperCobraJet]

Amazing.
The game has practically no A-spec content, almost none of the best Tracks, no car setup saves, no wheels for 80% of the cars, that also look inferior, the worst progession system I've ever seen in a game, and he's pointing out the lack of naturalization of trees, birds, grass and spectators.

Buddy, thats the least of this games problems.

 

[danjama]

Ferrari challenge did what you're talking about nicely, leaves blew across track, trees swayed, its shocking that gt5 doesn't.

 

[Ride]

The static world you're complaining about is pretty much what a 5 year old graphics chip can do. Time to go buy a new PC.

 

[xchristox]

All goes down to the PS3. IF this game would someday be designed for the PC, prepare for quattro video cards with a total of 64GB memory, 32 CPU cores running at 10 Ghz each and system ram starting from 128 GB running at insane speeds.

If you let Kaz design this game without any hardware limits, this is what you'll probably need. Stop complaining, and learn to appreciate the wonderful job they've done with the very limited PS3.

 

[UkHardcore23]

Amazing.
The game has practically no A-spec content, almost none of the best Tracks, no car setup saves, no wheels for 80% of the cars, that also look inferior, the worst progession system I've ever seen in a game, and he's pointing out the lack of naturalization of trees, birds, grass and spectators.

Buddy, thats the least of this games problems.

Lmao! ...but sadly your right! Im still really disappointed with GT5 and it's not the tree's im disappointed with 👎 it really is not the game i was expecting

 

[IndyRacer]

A lot of these are not in there due to the lack of memory on the PS3, which is also the reason for the block shadows. There is only so much detail you can cram into the hardware available.

Exactly the software is more robust than the hardware (Wirth's Law). The hardware needs to catch up to the software. You can only do so much then the hardware cannot keep up. We need a PS 4!👍

 

[FLIGHT50]

If you are on this site there is a 99% you think GT5 is great, and it is. However, it is not extraordinary. It has flaws. What a shock. Most of these are actually not all that critical, they are just spotted everywhere. Some have been fixed with a couple megabytes of patches. The most obvious are the blocky shadows and smoke aliasing. It&#8217;s pretty hard not to notice sitting next what is a stunning game. But in the end they do not ruin the experience.

While observing the game yesterday I found a flaw that I do not think anyone has mentioned or at least in the detail I am about to. Also, I am in no way saying that I expected any of what I am about to say to be in GT5. That would be crazy.

GT5 implemented new smoke effects. They are very nice. If you kick up smoke it has a weight that has been missing for years in the series. It even blows in the wind. And this has lead me to what I think to be one of the biggest visual and immersive flaws in GT5.

Besides the smoke and a few bits of grass, nothing else in the game's environments reacts and acts naturally. And besides the time of day the environmental effects are more on/off. All grass moves. It is not a flat texture. Trees sway in the wind and are more than just two pieces of cardboard stuck together. Snow whips up from the ground and builds up as time passes. Rain is more than a blotch on the windshield and pools where there are changes of surface. Also snow and rain are simply filters put over a screen with added volumetric effects. This may seem like a trivial matter but it is not.

The cars in GT5 are near flawless. But the environments and their lack of effects do not hold up. I feel like the world I am in is static, lifeless. There is no life. There are no birds flying across the sky. No sun glare off of the car in front of me. The 24hr layout of The Ring is the most convincing track because it has life to it. I can't believe I am saying this but it is the smoke from people grilling outside their tents. Like Kaz said, you can almost smell the BBQ. This brings me into the moment.

For the next GT, PD need to think real hard what they want to accomplish. They have a tremendous opportunity to work with the next hardware and create something that is truly extraordinary. Imagine a world where the crowd changed as the race when on. People moved about in the off track area. The clouds, sun, shadows all changed. Bugs hit your windshield and your car got dirty over the course of the race. Imagine racing up Spa and suddenly a plume of fog engulfed the track. Or experiencing a white out at Chamonix. Small waves hitting the port at Monaco. I miss things like the moving crowd on the Gran Canyon track in GT4. Things like this make me feel like I am experiencing something real.

This is what takes out of the world you are in and fools your mind into thinking what you are doing is real. GT5 offers moments of this. In fact it does it better than almost any other game. NFS Shift was not bad, but overdone. It is the essence of what GT is and it is what the next game needs to improve.


If you read all that give yourself a pat on the back.

The problem I see with this, is that you are asking for the real world in a racing game. The cars are not near flawless, to point out. Now some cars (premiums) yes, but not all cars. I think the environment is fine the way it is. I don't need to see birds, people moving or trees swaying. If you are driving then yes, but me I am racing in GT5. I don't have time to see all this. What your asking for will take up space and memory. They have other issues beyond real life track occurrences to fix or place in the these games. IMHO, I don't see the point in adding this for a GT title. I think PD pretty much accomplished the environment the way they wanted to. Its what your wanting that your asking them to think real hard about.

 

[alonsof1fan91]

They have just overdone the graphics issue. It has to many highs and lows. They spend to much ressources for the car modells.

The standard cars look nice, they just need some tweaks and reworked textures + cockpit view. That graphic level could have been enough. The enviroment is also strange, sometimes it looks photo realistic, sometimes it looks strange (Deep Forrest!).
Just ask yourself, what makes more fun:

A game with GT5 Physics, with not so good car models, decent enviroment graphics, but better enviromental effects, 20-30 cars on track, better pit stop animations, alot more single player content, more fluent online gaming, time trial leaderboards, maybe a livery editor...

or GT5.

Dont tell me that 5-6 years of developing time isn`t enough for such a game.

 

[deftonesmx17]

The static world you're complaining about is pretty much what a 5 year old graphics chip can do. Time to go buy a new PC.

So, why could a 10 year old graphics chip that was in the original xbox produce non-static environments? FFS people, the trees in Forza 1 looked better than these. The track environments in Forza 1 used bump/normal mapping to add depth and make them less lifeless. The dithering on the trees in GT5 is far worse than the dithering in the Xbox 360 version of GTA4. Quit giving PD excuses...

 

[seanchump]

I have high hopes for where the series, especialy after GTHD/Prologue.

The Eiger track was super detailed (much higher res than GT5) with butterflies, people walking around, light bloom from the mountain snow, more waiving flags, more track side grass and flowers reactions etc. It had flickering problems and screen tears but at least the environment detail was headed in the right direction. Unfortunatley it was scaled down for GT5 but I am positive the next gen will handle Polyphony's vision.

 

[Kwicko]

In a way I get what your saying, I don't mind how it is now, but some things really do need to be fixed.

Yup. Minor quibbles, really, but they DO take you "out of the game" in a sense. One of the races, I couldn't help notice that I was apparently running an event at Monza during typhoon season. No matter which part of the course I was on, there seemed to be a howling wind blowing the roostertail of rain AWAY from the infield of the course. Go north, the wind blows your trail west; turn south, and it blows to the east!

It was jarring enough that it broke my concentration a bit, and I spun off in the rain.

 

[XEPEGTP]

A nasty nasty little bug from the old days and is still present is when a car is motionless and its wheels rendered in 3d, then as soon as the wheels get moving they are replaced by nasty 2d flat wheels.

 

[Big Ron]

If you are on this site there is a 99% you think GT5 is great, and it is. However, it is not extraordinary. It has flaws. What a shock. Most of these are actually not all that critical, they are just spotted everywhere. Some have been fixed with a couple megabytes of patches. The most obvious are the blocky shadows and smoke aliasing. It’s pretty hard not to notice sitting next what is a stunning game. But in the end they do not ruin the experience.

While observing the game yesterday I found a flaw that I do not think anyone has mentioned or at least in the detail I am about to. Also, I am in no way saying that I expected any of what I am about to say to be in GT5. That would be crazy.

GT5 implemented new smoke effects. They are very nice. If you kick up smoke it has a weight that has been missing for years in the series. It even blows in the wind. And this has lead me to what I think to be one of the biggest visual and immersive flaws in GT5.

Besides the smoke and a few bits of grass, nothing else in the game's environments reacts and acts naturally. And besides the time of day the environmental effects are more on/off. All grass moves. It is not a flat texture. Trees sway in the wind and are more than just two pieces of cardboard stuck together. Snow whips up from the ground and builds up as time passes. Rain is more than a blotch on the windshield and pools where there are changes of surface. Also snow and rain are simply filters put over a screen with added volumetric effects. This may seem like a trivial matter but it is not.

The cars in GT5 are near flawless. But the environments and their lack of effects do not hold up. I feel like the world I am in is static, lifeless. There is no life. There are no birds flying across the sky. No sun glare off of the car in front of me. The 24hr layout of The Ring is the most convincing track because it has life to it. I can't believe I am saying this but it is the smoke from people grilling outside their tents. Like Kaz said, you can almost smell the BBQ. This brings me into the moment.

For the next GT, PD need to think real hard what they want to accomplish. They have a tremendous opportunity to work with the next hardware and create something that is truly extraordinary. Imagine a world where the crowd changed as the race when on. People moved about in the off track area. The clouds, sun, shadows all changed. Bugs hit your windshield and your car got dirty over the course of the race. Imagine racing up Spa and suddenly a plume of fog engulfed the track. Or experiencing a white out at Chamonix. Small waves hitting the port at Monaco. I miss things like the moving crowd on the Gran Canyon track in GT4. Things like this make me feel like I am experiencing something real.

This is what takes out of the world you are in and fools your mind into thinking what you are doing is real. GT5 offers moments of this. In fact it does it better than almost any other game. NFS Shift was not bad, but overdone. It is the essence of what GT is and it is what the next game needs to improve.


If you read all that give yourself a pat on the back.

You should learn a bit more about technical ressource limits of video consoles and you wouldn´t write those points.

And some facts of your post are incomprehensible or not true.

Grass sways while cars are passing it, snow is only on snow tracks, where snow already is...so no need for more snow, cars get dirty (even when it happens while you celebrated some of your birthdays)

Most things you miss are a lack of the PS3-limits which are reached with GT5.

 

[calan_svc]

I think the real problem is US, we have no clue on what it actually takes to make a game like this on a restricted system like the ps3 or Xbox. Sounds to me like everybody wants it to be like it will be on ps5.

This system is just not powerful enough to do everything people complain about. What we did get however is one of if not the best console racers ever made. Be thankful for what you have is the best approach.

All goes down to the PS3. IF this game would someday be designed for the PC, prepare for quattro video cards with a total of 64GB memory, 32 CPU cores running at 10 Ghz each and system ram starting from 128 GB running at insane speeds.

If you let Kaz design this game without any hardware limits, this is what you'll probably need. Stop complaining, and learn to appreciate the wonderful job they've done with the very limited PS3.

No offense intended, but these fanboy comments get really old. You do realize that there are other games out on the PS3 that don't have the majority of issues that GT5 does...right? So how is it that other devs can get around these issues, but PD can't?

Check out the moving plant life, water, and other environmental details in Dirt 2 (along with the sounds of gravel and crap hitting the underside of the car). Or how about the close racing and shear intensity of Grid, and the incredible detail of the suspensions and engines...not to mention the damage modeling. How about the simple and intuitive menu structure in Dirt 1, or even the better menus in earlier GT games? Even the Toca series had breaking windshields and changing track textures on the PS2! And it goes on and on and on...

Are these other games perfect? Well of course not; but they all prove in their own ways that much more can be done on a PS3 than GT5 makes it appear. I like GT5 for the most part, but it could be SOOOOO much more than it is, even on the "antique" PS3.

The bottom line is that PD bit off more than it could chew... and we ended up with everything done half-ass, rather than fewer things done really well.