The Future of PS3 & Xbox 360 Graphics? Stone Giant tech demo inside to benchmark PC.

[Neal]

I’ve just download and watched the avi video from this article (http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2010/04/22/the-future-of-ps3-xbox-360-graphics/) and it’s pretty impressive to say the least. The article below explains everything but if this is what we can expect on the PS3 and Xbox 360 in the near future there’ll be some amazing games to look forward to.

EDIT: If any one has a uberPC let me know what the demo is like

Readers with meaty PCs and graphics cards that support DirectX 11 will want to have a look at Stone Giant (http://www.stonegiant.se/), a 400MB tech demo that runs off a brand new visual engine called BitSquid Tech. BitSquid Tech supports a highly parallel design model, support for all new DirectX GPUs, incredible depth of field effects and dynamic level of detail.

The actual tech is beyond my comprehension, but I get the impression it means that polygon counts aren’t nearly as crucial anymore to keeping everything running smooth.

The Stone Giant tech demo was produced by Fatshark, the guys behind Lead and Gold (http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2010/04/17/hands-on-lead-and-gold/), which is out tomorrow on PSN. “At Fatshark, we have been creating the art content seen in Stone Giant”, said Martin Wahlund, CEO. “It has been amazing to work with a bleeding edge engine, without the usual geometric limitations seen in current games”.

Why are we telling you about this? Well, nestled at the bottom of the press release is a note that says “PS3 and Xbox 360 support will be available in the fall of 2010.” Yep, it looks like the current-gen consoles will get at least some of the features of BitSquid Tech, which will enable developers to produce games that carry this level of fidelity:



You’ll have to excuse the compressed, lower resolution screengrabs from the tech demo, but bandwidth limitations prevent us from carrying the full versions. If you don’t have a PC capable of running Stone Giant, you can download an AVI of the thing in motion from the FatShark website here (http://www.fatshark.se/stonegiant/). Interesting stuff, especially if all this does emerge for the PS3 and 360.

 

[magburner]

Sounds good, but the links don't work! 👍

 

[Neal]

Sounds good, but the links don't work! 👍

Not sure why the links aren't working so I've copied and inserted them into the first post. If they still don't work just check out the below article from TheSixthAxis.com

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2010/04/22/the-future-of-ps3-xbox-360-graphics/

 

[Moglet]

Damn .exe files.

Where's the Mac love?

 

[Neal]

Damn .exe files.

Where's the Mac love?

and that's why I'm a PC

Have you checked out the video? It still shows off the detail and depth of field effect. I haven't seen anything on a console with DOF like this!

 

[G.T]

This benchmark for some reason always crashes my computer or makes my video driver crash.

I have a i7 860 and an ATI 5850 so I don't see what the problem is...

Edit: It says Tessilation isn't supported, which is even more odd...

 

[Neal]

^ I don't really know what Tessilation is so can't help you there mate, have you tried hitting it?

 

[G.T]

It's a DX11 feature which should work with my video card. But weirdly it doesn't. If I run it on medium it plays for like 2-3 seconds and then crashes my PC. On full it don't even get to see it.

Scroll down to the computer model secion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation

Edit: Ah I don't have the latest Catalyst Control Center installed. Hopefully this will work.

 

[G.T]

Okay it works now. I took these screenshots with Depth of Field enabled:


Tessellation Off:





Tessellation Medium:





Tessellation High:





There's such an incredicle amount of polygons on the highest setting. No wonder I have a lot of framerate drops.



It might be worth changing the title of this thread so people know this benchmark is in here? I know a few people may want to benchmark their PC on this.

 

[Neal]

Thanks for the wiki link and screen shots, I think I understand tessellation now 👍 It baffles me how PC's and consoles can calculate that many polygons multiple times per second let alone 60!

I've changed the thread title so people should be able to see the demo is inside to benchmark their PC.