Why are the best looking 360 games on Multi-Plat Engine?

Looking at the best looking 360 games (Gears of War, Mass Effect 2), it seems they run on multiplatform engines, like the Unreal 3 engine. Does any game actually fully take advantage of the 360, similar to how God of War 3/Uncharted 2 on PS3 and Mario Galaxy on Wii do? Or does it not matter if the engine is built specifically for the console or not?

From what I have seen, it has more to do with the system that it is on.

Yes you're right. Gears is built on a multi-plat engine, so is Mass Effect. Halo is not linear enought to be graphics king. Also it has split-screen, which further reduces graphical quality. Left 4 dead uses a 6 year old engine. Rare hasn't made a game in 2 years. Fable 2 looked like garbage. It's clear that MS isn't interested in making "graphics kings".

Part of the reason why is due to the lack of first party studios that Microsoft has, and the second is because developing an engine specifically for a system takes time and more money. Look at Killzone 2, they were working on that game for over five years and most of that was the game engine. It is so much easier to license the Unreal 3 engine and use it in your game that it is to design a brand new engine that will only be used a handful of times.

The GPU and CPU.

yeah, 360s best-looking games are on multi-plat engines.

A couple of reasons, MS don have any first party devs relating to engines or technical aspects of games. It also seems that they dont need a dedicated engine because it seems to be quite easy to develop for compared to another console.

Banjo 3 looks amazing, Alan Wake also

Alot of Rare games arent on multiplat engines, neither are the Halo games, but Bungie dont prioritise graphics.

Looking at the best looking 360 games (Gears of War, Mass Effect 2), it seems they run on multiplatform engines, like the Unreal 3 engine. Does any game actually fully take advantage of the 360, similar to how God of War 3/Uncharted 2 on PS3 and Mario Galaxy on Wii do? Or does it not matter if the engine is built specifically for the console or not?

After_Math

As rare as hardware Tessellation usagei.e.the problem was with content production tools and lack of support in PC world(prior to DX11).

According to MS, DX11 brings Xbox 360 and PC closer together.

IATITessellationD3D9 is an unofficial extension of Direct3D9 implemented by ATI only exposing a hardware feature that is basically equivalent to the Xbox 360 hardware tessellation solution--which itself is rarely used on Xbox 360. It is not supported by Microsoft for Windows, and NVIDIA has no equivalent for Direct3D 9 or Direct3D 10.x class hardware.

Hardware tessellation is a first-****feature of DirectX 11 and is supported by all DX11-capable video cards as a required part of the specificiation for Feature level 11 hardware. Feature level 10.0, 10.1, 9.1, 9.2, and 9.3 hardware do not support hardware tessellation.

http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/52183/315616.aspx

360 doesnt have many first parties working for it. Anyway at this point, multiplat engines like RDR, Gears2, Gears3, Alan Wake, Mass Effect2, Rage, Crysis2, etc....are up to the best looking console games this gen

lets see the list so far:

Gears- UE3

ME 1+2- UE3

Crackdown 2- overhauled render-ware engine (GTA3 engine)

Fable 2- ugly

Rare- hasn't made a game in 2 years

Bungie/halo- doesn't prioratize graphics

Good science studio (kinect adventures)- UE3

Turn 10- doesn't prioritize graphics

Alan Wake- overhauled Maxpayne engine

Splinter cell conviction- UE2

Too Human- UE3

I see a pattern. atleast Firebird studios will change that.

Turn 10- doesn't prioritize graphics

mayceV

I pretty sure before the release all they talked about is how many polygons a car had and how much better they looked than a certain other racer.

[QUOTE="mayceV"]

Turn 10- doesn't prioritize graphics

I pretty sure before the release all they talked about is how many polygons a car had and how much better they looked than a certain other racer.

Simple answer: They have few first party studios and the studio most capable of producing the best looking 360 games is stuck making wii sports HD.mattacular

Banjo 3 looks amazing, Alan Wake also

a_simple_gamer

Which is why we dont see mind blowing looking games on the 360. Not that it cant handle it, but because no-ones taking advantage of the consoles specific features.

Well..except for RARE maybe. Every game theyve made this gen (PDZ, Kameo, VP1/2 and Banjo) look superb, run well and theres nothing like it out there. I think theyre using their own engine? Or it could be a heavily updated Xbox 1 engine (which was an updated GC engine).

Which is why we dont see mind blowing looking games on the 360. Not that it cant handle it, but because no-ones taking advantage of the consoles specific features.

Well..except for RARE maybe. Every game theyve made this gen (PDZ, Kameo, VP1/2 and Banjo) look superb, run well and theres nothing like it out there. I think theyre using their own engine? Or it could be a heavily updated Xbox 1 engine (which was an updated GC engine).

Oonga

Yeah, MS didn't really have the PR promises like Sony did....

However, Halo:Reach and Gears 3 may start the 360's comeback..

Not that it cant handle it, but because no-ones taking advantage of the consoles specific features.

Oonga

EDRAM has been used for years now.

[QUOTE="Oonga"]

Not that it cant handle it, but because no-ones taking advantage of the consoles specific features.

EDRAM has been used for years now.

[QUOTE="heybooboo19"]

[QUOTE="Oonga"]

Not that it cant handle it, but because no-ones taking advantage of the consoles specific features.

ronvalencia

EDRAM has been used for years now.

Nobody has thought of unintended tricks or took advantage of the EDRAM in cross platform development in 5 years?

[QUOTE="ronvalencia"][QUOTE="heybooboo19"]

EDRAM has been used for years now.

heybooboo19

Nobody has thought of unintended tricks or took advantage of the EDRAM in cross platform development in 5 years?

capcom uses it great.They use it for 4xAA in RE5 with hi res particles,they have much easier time to adapt motion blur and per object motion blur because of eDRAM and many things.All capcoms games run butter smooth on 360...

[QUOTE="mayceV"]

Turn 10- doesn't prioritize graphics

convicted_94

I pretty sure before the release all they talked about is how many polygons a car had and how much better they looked than a certain other racer.