Xbox One Resolutiongate: Infinity Ward responds

Hopes for 1080p native with future Xbox One Call of Duty games.

ByWesley Yin-PoolePublished Monday, 4 November 2013

Call of Duty: Ghosts has found itself in the firing line of the next-gen console power war. With Infinity Ward's COD: Ghosts a next-gen launch title, the news that the PlayStation 4 version runs at 1080p resolution native, whereas the Xbox One version runs at 720p native upscaled to 1080p, was seen as a huge blow to Microsoft. This from a game series that over the course of the current-generation has become synonymous with Xbox.

Ever since Infinity Ward executive producer tweeted the Call of Duty: Ghosts resolutions, the debate has focused on what it means for comparisons between the PS4 and Xbox One hardware. Here, in an interview with Eurogamer, Rubin offers Infinity Ward's side of the story, revealing the "engineering nightmare" the developer suffered navigating the shifting waters of next-gen launch dev kits, and insisting it did all it could to optimise the Xbox One version of the game in the months ahead of release.

If there is something about the Xbox One hardware that's to blame, it is the way it allocates memory resources, Rubin suggests. As Digital Foundry explains in its recently-published article "Xbox One Resolutiongate: the 720p fallout", Microsoft's console reserves 10 per cent of GPU time for its operating system. As DF's Richard Leadbetter describes it, features such as Kinect skeletal tracking account for "precious resources that are inaccessible to game developers". Rubin discusses this issue, and more, in the below interview.

He also suggests future Xbox One Call of Duty games may not suffer a similar resolution issue, as developers further optimise the COD engine and Microsoft - potentially -

tweaks the Xbox One's OS reserved memory allocation

.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

If there is something about the Xbox One hardware that's to blame, it is the way it allocates memory resources, Rubin suggests.

Ouchie

again microsoft is trying to shift all the blame to that 10% but reality is, there must be a way bigger difference than 10% for the difference to be between 1080p and 720p.

125% res drop for 10% GPU?

NOPE.

Wonder Woman sheds a tear.

" I shall leave an offering at the temple of Hades, and pray for a quick and painless end to the Xbox 1."

The gist of the interview - the SDK needs to mature. The Xbox One is doing a lot of things than the PS4 so it comes down to how the OS allocated resources. The next COD will run 1080p 60FPS as by then the SDk would have matured.

ouch but well expected. you all just wait until Forza5 direct feed vids are out, the thing is far from a graphics king.

10% isn't close to enough to bridge a more than 125 % resolution difference paired with a Xbone framerate disadvantage .

I

I didn't realise IW was part of MS.

Forza 5 looks fantastic, and it's a launch title.

Everyone who have seen and played Forza complains about the god awefull jaggies, now at 1080P that can only be because they had to skip on AA .

Yawwwwwnnnnn

Trouble with Launch titles does not represent the lifetime of the generation. It will get sorted.

I've seen it. I have no complaints.

Its far from "fantastic" and if it did look fantastic you wouldn't need to add "and its a launch title" at the end of your sentence. Launch title or not, the game doesn't look good outside car visuals that are plagued by jaggies all over the place (reminds me of PGR3 when i thought my brand new HDTV was broken because there was too many jaggies on the screen back in 06 lol)

It looks fantastic. I have Forza 4. Forza 5 looks fantastic. I have no complaints. Try and stay on topic?

what does Forza 4 has to do with anything? You're supposed to see the whole game look significantly better (isn't this the reason you're paying $500?) and that's not the case with Forza 5. This thread isn't about Forza 5 so im not gonna argue but the game comes out in 3 weeks, you'll see what i meant.

It does look significantly better. I'm not sure what your fetish is with Forza 5. Stay on topic.

EDIT: There's a topic for you to complain about the game you can't stop posting about HERE.

There cannot be more than a 100% drop. A 100% drop means a drop to 0 pixels...

happens when they are on a tight release dates.

Does DICE and Respawn also lack the talent?

Almost every game on Xbone will be in 720p. It is an underpowered and poorly optimized console.

Pretty much. He explained most of what we already new. The devs tools aren't mature and as they get a better handle on both systems both will be capable of a lot more. Its a good interview. All in all if a sacrifice need to be mace for this launch game, better the resolution than the framerate. I'm waiting for reviews before I call this a buy, and my fingers are crossed.

@AMD655:

Yeah. I don't really believe that either.

At launch. The system isn't straightforward like the PS4 is. And these are launch games. I, you, and everyone knows the PS4 is more powerful and that won't change. But the One will certainly get better as devs get more time with the finished hardware and software. PS4 will get better to. But the PS4 power hasn't made me want it yet as I see it as a very basic console, whereas I see the One having better games and features I value more than that extra power the PS4 has. Opinions are like assholes, everybody got one

Pretty much what I was thinking.

RIP XBone, we all saw it coming..

Lol, Sony will be out of business as a company before the Xbox One is dead in any way. Sony is on life support and while the Xbox One is readying to hit store shelves. Maybe you should change that to RIPSony :)

Microsoft is in full damage control.

Im not really concerned. This is the beginning of the gen, expect games to look subpar. Look at PS3 games from the beginning of the gen (Resistance: Fall of Man) and games from the end of the gen (TLOU, God of War Ascension, God of War 3)...There is a major graphical leap! I expect the same to occur with the Xbone. It may never catch up with the PS4, but it will still be able to hold its own.

I actually think this is good news....they didn't have the proper time to work with the X1 dev kit.....so in the future given more time this shouldn't happen

Did you forget how much weaker it already is? :P

The Damage Control for this started months ago - http://www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/1080p-damage-control-thread-30900541/

funny watching the last remaining lems trying to damage control through bs, sony has been *almost dead* according to lems for a decade now yet they came with a product that destroyed your xbone. Ineptitude by microsoft?

@danabo: cows want it to be a huge blow - that doesn't make it true.

It's all banter. If either of these consoles fail, gamers are in trouble.

Dude, business wise things are getting worse for Sony, but this is a gaming forum, so I'll let that go. If you want to know more just google it, lol. As for damage control, the info of the game is out and we're discussing it. Im not saying the Xbox One version will look better than the PS4 version. Hell, I can't even say that the game will be good no matter what system you get it on. But I hope it is good as I enjoy the CoD wars with my pals. As for the game development for the One, every system that has ever been released showed better and better games as the years passed. And so will the Xbox One games greatly improve as devs get more time with it and the tools mature. But I don't think the One visuals will ever eclipse the PS4. How close though, that I do feel will suprise people as it is now and will continue to do so. Time will tell.

I expected more debate from this thread, so I'll steal from my locked thread again and post this here:

I responded to a post by @PraetorianMan who stated:

"Screw the PS4, pretend it doesn't even exist.

WHY is the Xbox One only pushing 720p on a game that doesn't even look graphically impressive?"

with this article -

Why Microsoft doesn't require Xbox One devs to run games in native 1080p

which uses this article as a source -

Microsoft to unlock more GPU power for Xbox One developers

Here are some cherry picked quotes from both:

"Xbox One reserves 10 per cent of graphics resources for Kinect and apps functionality, Digital Foundry can confirm, with Microsoft planning to open up this additional GPU power for game development in the future. This, and further graphics and performance-based information was revealed during our lengthy discussions with two of the architects behind the Xbox One silicon."

"A lower resolution generally means that there can be more quality per pixel. With a high quality scaler and anti-aliasing and render resolutions such as 720p or '900p', some games look better with more GPU processing going to each pixel than to the number of pixels; others look better at 1080p with less GPU processing per pixel."

_____________

The thing is; the PS4 does exist. It's more powerful, and it's cheaper. And I'm starting to think MS were well aware that their competitor would be out-performing them from launch, and the damage control started over a month ago.

Saying that; many people, including myself, do not see much of a difference between the BF4 comparisons we have, and actually prefer the technically inferior version - this is from video and picture comparisons, and I'm certain side-by-side comparisons will show the clear differences. And the other news we have is that CoD: Ghosts, another high-profile multi-platform title, will be significantly inferior on the more expensive platform.

Should there have been a Technical Certification Requirement mandate that required Xbox One games to run at 1080p native?

Do you think the decision to include Kinect and other functionality will impact the Xbox brand?

Is the Xbox One's, subjectively, superior launch line-up worth the additional cost?

If not, what features/exclusives do you think justify the additional cost?

Disregarding cost/power, should MS ever be forgiven for their attempt at DRM?

At this point, why would you buy inferior hardware at a higher price?

LOLXBONE

Almost every title on Xbone is 720P and its $100 more expensive.

That's a huge blow.

50% stronger gpu in Ps4, shitty dev kits for Xbox atm, gimped eSRAM and DDR3 vs. GDDR5 PLUS that extra 10% = 125% res drop.

You first line is false, as is your conclusion. Google "1080p vs 720p" and get back to me. It makes a difference in PC visuals, not necessarily console visuals.

Put me in your shoes when you were told this was going to be the case. I assume your engineering team explains to you this is the way it has to be. How did you guys react internally? Could Microsoft engineers not have helped?

Mark Rubin: It's not a thing, like pointing to the day he came and said... It wasn't like that. It's a long process. And we're always working with both platforms. There were Microsoft engineers there throughout development. They were always there. There wasn't an event, per se. There wasn't a meeting. It was just something that developed over time. Everybody was involved.

And it wasn't a lack of effort. It wasn't that it was like last minute. We had the theoretical hardware for a long time. That's the thing you get pretty quickly and that doesn't change dramatically. It was more about resource allocation. The resource allocation is different on the consoles. That huge web of tangled resources, whether it's threads-based or if it's GPU threads or if it's memory - whatever it is - optimisation is something that could go theoretically on forever.

The time for excuses is over,Activision is not only claiming that it wasn't lack of effort,but also stating that MS engineers were there helping them and still the game could not hit 1080p 60 FPS,when the game is not even 900p is because at 1080p the performance should had been horrible,and this sound very inline with the rumors that COD on xbox one took 4 months to get running on xbox one and it was running at 15 FPS,while the PS4 version tool online 3 weeks and was running at 90FPS....

This basically not only confirms the so call leaked problems,it also confirms the is problem in the system as a whole.

Is all that you've just described the reason the Xbox One version is native 720p and the PS4 version is native 1080p?

Mark Rubin:In a way. I don't know if I can point to one particular cause. Early on, we didn't know where exactly the resolution of anything would fall because we didn't have hardware or the software to support it. We tried to focus in on 1080p, and if we felt like we were on borderline of performance somewhere... We tried to make the best decision for each platform that gives you the best-looking game we could get and maintains that 60 frames a second.

There's no specific

This also confirms the rumors about the OS and even chat..

Funny how all xbox rumors are basically been confirmed,you have to take into account that this interview is very PR oriented,basically Activision is trying to clean it self from any fault or blame on how the game looks,but without trowing much mud at MS.

Like some one say with a meme on GA, " I am not saying the hardware is weak" "But is weak"..haha

Get eye surgery you need it the PS4 version looks better and runs better to up to 14 FPS faster is not even close while been higher res.

Hey guys the ps4 version tool online 3 weeks,dat broken English LMAO.

From the same dude who claimed the only difference would be few frames..lol

This ^^...

Even with the flops advantage the PS4 has it should not be 1080p vs 720p,but apparently what seemed impossible happen,Sony didn't only beat MS hardware wise,it also beat it making a more easy to code for unit,and has better tools than MS now,so basically the advantage MS always had of easy of coding,which helped the 360 allot and make so many problems for the PS3 is now on sony's side,which make me wonder if the gap will even be closed.

Because ease of use was suppose to be one of the cards on MS hand,making the xbox one shine easier,while the PS4 took more time,to get compute rolling,but that advantage is on sony side now,so in 3 years when MS and developers get use to work with the hardware,developers and sony would also getting use to pushing compute allot more,which is a trump card vs the xbox one.

How is his first line wrong.? all demanding games are 900p or lower and most 720p,unless you are talking about Forza which is hardly impressive or demanding or sports and crappy games all demanding games are gimped on xbox one,specially FPS.

BF4,Ghost and Titanfall all are 720p,Destiny been claim to be the definitive version on PS4 as well,if the xbox one by any change has problems running FPS engines wow what a huge blow this will be,the xbox one will really lose its status as the console for FPS even more than now the PS4 controller seems to be perfect for shooters.

Saying it make no difference in consoles is super stupid and sad i have like 60 Blu-ray movies 1080p >>>>>>>>>>>>>>720p any day dude,it looks sharper and better period,you as several people are just damage controlling there is a bigger damn difference from 1080p to 720p than from 720p to 480p look it up.

Pretty much this

Further optimization of the COD engine.

Sorry boys, but I think you've squeezed the most you can out of the quake 3 engine at this point. lol.

Funny you even need optimize CoD to be able to play in 1080p, then you have really bad hardware lol

How did you guys react internally? Could Microsoft engineers not have helped?

Mark Rubin: It's not a thing, like pointing to the day he came and said... It wasn't like that. It's a long process. And we're always working with both platforms. There were Microsoft engineers there throughout development.

Yeah ignore this part even with help from MS own engineers they could not reach 1080p 60 FPS.

Not only MS was beaten hardware wise,they also were beaten software wise and ease of use as well,so basically MS has the weaker and harder to code console,this generation will in nothing be like last gen,were Cell was very powerful but hard to code for,the xbox one is weak and hard,so spec probably 900p vs 1080p or 720p vs 900p or 1080p like now.

Hell there are scream already saying that the gap is here to stay because ESRAM will be a problem all generation long.

They ignore that what he mean by that is that accepts will be probably be turn to low with with even some missing effects to hit those 1080p 60 FPS latter one if they could.