Article: The Case for PS Move

04 September 2010 08:30 GMT

And how Sony could have owned motion control six years ago.

The location: Stanford University. Sony's R&D mastermind Dr Richard Marks is once again showcasing motion control technology with a variety of ingenious technical demos very much along the lines of those recently seen by Digital Foundry. The difference this time is that the date is January 21, 2004 and the host console for the impressive tech is... PlayStation 2.

Marks has been waiting a long time to bring depth-sensitive "3D" motion control to the mass market. Even longer than you might think. His original camera-driven demos for the PS2 have been carbon-dated to before the turn of the century, with his original swords-and-sorcery style demo actually receiving a public outing at the summer ECTS Show at the Islington Design Centre in 2000.

There's even coverage of his work in the launch issue of Future Publishing's Official PlayStation 2 Magazine. Rare's Nick Burton recently talked about their prototype Kinect demo called "seagull" where you flapped your arms and flew around the environment. In that self-same issue of the Official PS2 Mag, you can see pictures of a very similar demo put together by Marks' team using the prototype camera that would one day become EyeToy.

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Blog: Project Sword wows on iOS devices

02 September 2010 13:00 GMT

Direct feed vid of iPhone UE3 demo.

Epic's Project Sword, the star of last night's Apple press conference, is the first Unreal Engine 3-powered game for the iOS platform, and what many believe is a quantum leap in the quality of 3D visuals running on Apple's handheld devices.

Little has been seen of the iOS rendition of UE3 since the initial reveal, where an old Unreal Tournament level was demonstrated running on an iPhone 3GS. Back at GDC 2010, we attended a session where Epic's Josh Adams described the process by which the development framework was ported across to the platform, how it integrated with Apple's XCode and how artwork and lighting were convincingly downsampled to run effectively on the system.

iPhone 3GS, iPad and iPhone 4 owners can get their first taste of Project Sword and Unreal Engine 3 running on their systems by visiting iTunes now, or alternatively you can check out our screenshot gallery plus the video below.

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Blog: Vanquish demo showdown

02 September 2010 07:30 GMT

Platinum targets PS3 as lead platform.

Platinum Games is on a mission with its upcoming shooter, Vanquish. In the wake of the disappointing reception offered to the third-party PS3 conversion of its last title, Bayonetta, the developer has switched to the Sony platform as its lead console.

"The PS3 is kind of like a sports car that's very high-performance and specific in its usage, whereas the 360 is more like a car that everybody's driving. It doesn't have the same range as a sports car, but it has more versatility," producer Atsushi Inaba told VG247 during E3.

"It's about adapting your game to those two sorts of different framework. That's where we're focusing. Fundamentally, the gameplay experience itself is the exact same game."

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Blog: Open source PSJailbreak released

01 September 2010 06:16 GMT

"Ethical" hack loses piracy bits.

An open source alternative to the PSJailbreak hack called PSGroove has been released to PlayStation 3 owners this morning.

The release takes the form of a download package that users must compile and then transfer across to a AT90USB or related microcontroller found in USB development kits such as the Teensy++ or AT90USBKEY. These small dongles are typically available for around £25.

The open source version of the jailbreak is effectively a clone of the commercial hack, which has yet to make it in volume to the modchip suppliers, but it features a couple of fundamental changes over the original.

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Interview: Tech Interview: LucasArts' frame-rate upscaler

31 August 2010 15:45 GMT

Digital Foundry talks in-depth with creator of the 60FPS "miracle" tech.

On Saturday, Digital Foundry covered a SIGGRAPH 2010 presentation by LucasArts' Dmitry Andreev on the process of frame-rate upscaling. This intriguing concept potentially offers all the advantages of rendering a console game at 30FPS, along with the visual smoothness and potentially even the crisper response of 60FPS gaming.

Almost five years into the lifespan of the Xbox 360, it's a fascinating insight into the kind of tricks, techniques and thinking that developers are employing in order to produce ever more impressive console titles.

If you've not downloaded the eye-opening footage of Andreev's demo showing the technique in play on the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II engine, it's well worth a look, with both HD and standard def versions available for download, and the original presentation also online for public viewing. Be sure to have an h264 decoder installed on your machine so you can view the AVI files (Windows 7 has one installed by default).

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Article: LucasArts' 60FPS Force Unleashed II tech demo

28 August 2010 06:00 GMT

A frame-rate upscaler that really works? Digital Foundry investigates.

At the recent SIGGRAPH 2010, LucasArts coder Dmitry Andreev showed off a quite remarkable tech demo based on work he carried out during the development of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. In a video demonstration running on Xbox 360, he showed the game operating at its default 30FPS, but then seemingly magically running at 60FPS - with no apparent graphical compromises aside from the removal of motion blur.

It's a demo that you can download and see for yourself right now, either in HD or else in a more bandwidth friendly standard def encode, with Andreev's original presentation also available to view. Two AVI videos (requiring an h264 decoder) are in the package: an original prototype, along with a further, more refined proof-of-concept running in the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II game engine.

It's safe to say that it's impressive work that has generated a lot of discussion within the games industry.

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Article: Digital Foundry vs. PSJailbreak

20 August 2010 22:00 GMT

How PlayStation 3's security has been compromised and what it means.

It's real. Almost four years after its launch, the PlayStation 3's much vaunted security has finally been completely and unequivocally compromised. Within weeks, if not days, PS3 users willing to pay an exorbitant premium have the option of copying all the games they own - and any they don't - onto hard disk, and nothing stops them from spreading them across the internet. The question is, how can Sony fight back? Can new firmware updates keep the platform holder one step ahead of the hackers?

As sample "PSJailbreak" hardware circulates around shops and modship suppliers around the world, further details emerge, giving us some idea of how the system works. From that we can extrapolate the scale of the task facing Sony as it embarks on what must surely be the biggest damage limitation exercise in its recent history.

This attack on PlayStation security consists of both software and hardware. A USB dongle is attached to the PS3, and pressing the eject button on the console while it cold-boots causes the code on the stick to override the console's typical launch procedure. Based on views of the XMB seen in the now numerous YouTube videos, the dongle appears to inject elements from debug PS3 firmware onto the retail unit. The option to install PKG files, available only on development and test units, now works on the retail machine. From here, the main tool to "backing up" software is added to the machine.

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Blog: Hackers may have cracked PS3

19 August 2010 13:09 GMT

Does "PSJailbreak" herald PS3 piracy?

Rumours are swirling this morning that the PlayStation 3's security has finally been breached and "backup" software now runs on the Sony platform.

A company of unknown origin has created what it calls the PSJailbreak - a combination of software and USB dongle that seemingly allows all makes and model of retail PlayStation 3 to copy and run any kind of game code, even with the latest firmware updates in place.

While it remains to be seen whether it is another in a long line of elaborate fakes, it's understood that multiple modchip resellers were sent anonymous packages from Hong Kong, and one of the recipients - Australia-based OzModChips - has posted two convincing-looking videos on YouTube showing the system in action.

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Blog: Digital Foundry vs. Mafia II demo

18 August 2010 18:25 GMT

Optimised for each platform?

2K Games has taken the unusual step of responding to negative fan comments over the PS3 version of its forthcoming Mafia II, claiming that the game code has been optimised for each specific platform.

"When designing Mafia II, we optimised for each of the three different systems the game would run on to make sure the core experience was the best it could be," wrote 2K's senior manager of interactive marketing, Elizabeth Tovey, on the company's forum.

"Because of this, there are some differences from one platform to the next. In terms of the PS3 version, I wanted to clarify a couple points you have been asking about. There will not be highly detailed grass or large pools of blood, the cloth movement is less noticeable than, for example, the PC version, and the visual fidelity in the demo is generally representative of what you'll see in the full game."

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Face-off: Face-Off: Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

17 August 2010 14:00 GMT

Xbox 360, PS3 and PC versions under the microscope.

The seemingly never-ending summer drought in gaming is finally reaching an end. Square-Enix is first off the blocks with its high profile shooter sequel, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. Released simultaneously on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC this Friday, it's the first opportunity we've had in months to produce a full-on triple-format Face-Off, and we hope to do the same with Take Two's Mafia closer to its release.

As usual, we present our unstoppable onslaught of Digital Foundry comparison assets, all derived from direct digital dumps of the HDMI and DVI ports of the respective platforms. There's also a triple-format gallery to enjoy. To begin with, here's the first of three videos designed to highlight the similarities and differences across all formats.

It's fair to say that Kane & Lynch 2 has a somewhat unique visual make-up. The framebuffer itself is undoubtedly sub-HD on both consoles - 1024x576 or slightly higher would be a good ballpark guess, but an exact, definitive measurement is difficult to ascertain (update: 1024x600 for both systems looks closer based on some fresh shots we've captured). Due to the range and number of post-processing filters in effect, the usual methods of measurement in comparing rendered pixels with native resolution seems to offer up a range of different numbers depending on the shot being analysed. What is certain is that both versions of the game operate with 2x multi-sampling anti-aliasing, and lower resolution alpha buffers are in place that add noticeable jaggies when transparencies are overlaid on characters and environments.

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Article: In Theory: Is Xbox 360 3D Ready?

15 August 2010 07:00 GMT

Microsoft says "yes". Digital Foundry investigates.

While Sony and the PlayStation 3 are doing most the pioneering work in establishing stereoscopic 3D gaming, Microsoft's public approach has been to ignore this new dimension in gameplay, instead concentrating its resources and marketing on its Kinect motion control system.

"We're a fully 3D-capable console today. We support 3D games that are in the market today," Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg told VG247.

"If you look at things like Avatar and the new Batman game, and some of the titles that were announced in 3D [at E3] like Crysis 2, they're coming to Xbox 360. There's no confusion that anyone looking for a 3D gaming experience will find those same experiences on the Xbox. We're also demoing here, behind closed doors, movies in 3D running on Xbox 360. The capability is there. The question is whether or not the consumer demand is there. That's the unanswered question. We're not a consumer electronics company that's trying to sell 3DTVs, so we have the benefit of waiting until the market responds. We're going to take probably more of a pull than a push approach."

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Blog: How DICE collaborated on Need for Speed's game world

14 August 2010 12:04 GMT

Battlefield devs join Criterion on Hot Pursuit.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is set to take centrestage at EA's press conference next Tuesday at gamescom, but what you may not know is that Mirror's Edge and Battlefield developer DICE has worked closely with Criterion in building the new racer's massive open world. Speaking to Digital Foundry during our recent studio visit, key Criterion staff talked in-depth about Need for Speed's Swedish connection.

Faced with the task of creating an in-game map four times the size of Burnout Paradise's city, the small Guildford based studio called upon the might of the 200-strong DICE in order to lend a hand in creating a world massively divorced in terms of style and make-up from Criterion's previous Burnout work.

Art director Henry LaBounta is an ILM alumnus who has contributed to previous Need for Speed titles including Hot Pursuit 2 and Most Wanted. He joined up with Criterion for the new project and as you might expect, he is very enthusiastic about the partnership with DICE.

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Blog: Sony Ericsson to launch PSP Phone?

12 August 2010 09:21 GMT

Android-powered with joypad-style controls.

Engadget is reporting that Sony Ericsson is on the cusp of releasing a brand new Android-powered smartphone with PlayStation branding.

According to the report, the device is based on Android 3.0 (codenamed Gingerbread) and features a large 3.7" to 4.1" screen with at least WVGA resolution, meaning 800-854 pixels wide by 480 high. It's a slide phone with PSP controls emerging from beneath the screen. Here you'll find the traditional PlayStation buttons along with a digital d-pad along plus a curious multi-touch analogue bar, a kind of scaled-down laptop trackpad. Shoulder buttons are also included in the design.

Allegedly powering the device is a 1GHz Snapdragon SoC (system on chip), allowing for graphics designed to be of the same ballpark quality as the original PlayStation or the PSP and the original report says that titles including God of War, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Little Big Planet might be coming to the platform.

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Article: The Case for Kinect

07 August 2010 08:00 GMT

The strengths. The weaknesses. The facts. Digital Foundry investigates.

As we move closer to Kinect's November release date, games developers are talking in more detail - on and off the record - about the new motion control system: what it can do, what it can't do, and what we should expect from the system going forward.

Microsoft itself is stepping up its marketing efforts. This week, two articles (one from T3 and another more impressive piece from Gizmodo) arrived, giving us our first peek inside the Kinect camera and giving us enough technical info to banish the somewhat unkind "EyeToy HD" talk that has dogged the internet since E3: Kinect is a state-of-the-art consumer-level piece of motion capture equipment with voice recognition and biometric ID capabilities and Microsoft wants you to know that.

In the meantime, since E3, Microsoft has shown the system working on TV shows, and rolled out playable demos in Macys stores across the USA, leading to a range of Kinect "fail" videos appearing online, along with attempts at other events to deliberately trip up the sensor with the use of baggy black, reflective clothing amongst other things.

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Interview: Tech Interview: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit

31 July 2010 00:00 GMT

Digital Foundry visits the tech leads in Guildford for the inside story.

The circle is now complete. Just over a year ago, Digital Foundry kicked off its extensive range of tech interviews with the leading lights in game development by talking to Criterion technical director Richard Parr and senior engineer Alex Fry. Last week, we visited the Guildford-based developer to take a look at the new Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and took the opportunity to meet up with Parr and Fry once more to discuss the latest technological innovations for their new game.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit represents a big departure for Criterion. This is no mere re-skin of Burnout Paradise - the development team has created a brand new engine for the game, with a different driving experience and a new graphical look far removed from their previous title. It's Need for Speed, but more than that, it's classic Need for Speed, brought up to date for the high-definition era with state-of-the-art rendering and physics.

We'll be talking in more depth about the game soon, and revealing some surprise information on the creation process, but in the mean time, it's transcript publication time: Fry, Parr and Leadbetter in the Criterion war room. This is what happened...

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Article: The Future of PlayStation Move

24 July 2010 07:00 GMT

Sony tech demos reveal rich potential for motion control gaming.

During E3 2010, Digital Foundry had the chance to sit down and talk in-depth with Dr Richard Marks, one of the creative minds behind EyeToy and the new PlayStation Move. It was a great opportunity to learn more about Move and the creation process behind the project, and the conversation left us hugely enthused about the potential of the new controller.

This week Marks was in the UK to talk in more depth about PlayStation Move and to showcase some of the superb technical demos his team has created. These demonstrations are used by Sony itself to give game-makers some idea of the sheer diversity and flexibility of the new controller - and it's fair to say that the scale and scope of what we saw here far eclipses anything we have seen in any of the launch titles.

Thanks to a superb assist from Eurogamer TV, we're able to bring you Richard Marks' entire presentation, complete with direct feed video of the demos in action. Put simply, this is brilliant stuff.

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Face-off: Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3: Round 27

20 July 2010 11:25 GMT

Singularity, Transformers, Tiger, Harry and After Burner.

Welcome back to the Digital Foundry/Eurogamer cross-format Thunderdome. Two games enter, one game leaves. Usually.

Yes, once again it's time to put the latest multi-platform console titles under the microscope with full Digital Foundry commentary, performance analysis, high quality comparison videos, screenshots and a whole bunch of bonus facts 'n' figures: the full monty, the whole nine yards, the full shooting match, nothing added, nothing taken away.

Just the five games this time, but we manage to tick off all the major releases of recent times, while including coverage of an all-time arcade classic updated for the HD generation.

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Blog: Guerrilla cuts Killzone pad lag

17 July 2010 15:12 GMT

Accel, dead zone, latency improvement.

Guerrilla Games is promising tighter, more responsive controls for the forthcoming Killzone 3.

Writing on the official Killzone site, Guerrilla Game Director Mathijs de Jonge described the difficult decisions the team took in addressing this highly contentious issue. On the one hand, the response from the controls was the subject of much criticism from many gamers. On the other, the sensation of weight and inertia was one of the defining features of the game's primary handshake with the player.

"Our first priority when we started working on the controls for Killzone 3 was to listen closely to Killzone 2's players - what they liked, what they disliked, and how they felt things could be improved," Mathijs wrote. "Accuracy and responsiveness consistently came up as the top issues. At the same time, a lot of players were saying they loved the weighty feel."

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Blog: Red Dead Redemption: World in Motion

17 July 2010 07:43 GMT

Time-lapse footage of Rockstar's western opus.

It's game engines as art, innit? In a week where Red Dead Redemption proved its sales dominance throughout the summer, with DLC announcements just yesterday, Digital Foundry set about completing its own RDR project: the world created by Rockstar San Diego, displayed via the beauty of time-lapse video.

Although based on the same RAGE engine as GTA IV with plenty of commonalities and parallels, it's clear that Red Dead Redemption stands apart as a distinct technical and artistic achievement in itself: the attention to detail in what is basically a barren wasteland is simply phenomenal, and the scale of the game's vistas is hugely impressive. It's almost as if the draw distance goes on forever: compare and contrast to the pared-back, fog-shrouded GTA IV environments in the far distance.

However, similar to GTA IV, the use of lighting and shadow is key to the overall effect of the game and in this respect, the time-lapse shows just how much care and attention has gone into this. The whole scene is realistically lit from the major light source (the sun) with what looks like two animated 3D layers of clouds backed by a larger, inanimate rotating layer. Lighting seems to filter accurately through each element before bathing the environment realistically.

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Article: Digital Foundry vs. OnLive

09 July 2010 22:00 GMT

At stake: the fundamentals of gaming as we know it.

OnLive. Hands-on. Away from controlled conditions, in the public domain, out of beta, and no longer covered by non-disclosure agreements, this article has been a long time coming.

This service is a revolution in the concept of how we buy our games and play them and for a lot of people with vested interests OnLive is scary stuff. Gameplay is transmitted over the internet to a dumb terminal in your home that decompresses audio and video, relaying your gaming inputs back to the server hosted many miles away.

This means that you won't need to buy a new console in future and you'll never need to buy fresh gaming hardware ever again. All technology is upgraded server-side. Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony plus a bunch of PC hardware vendors have every right to feel threatened by this.

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Blog: OnLive Latency: The Reckoning

07 July 2010 20:00 GMT

Can Cloud gaming really compete with PC and console response?

OnLive latency has finally been measured, and the results are pleasantly surprising. In Digital Foundry's independent tests, we achieved an optimum response of 150ms - similar to playing Killzone 2 locally, and in line with Rare's claims for lag when using the new Kinect camera controller.

The tests form part of our complete breakdown of the OnLive platform, based on extensive testing of the launch titles in the USA. This article is set to be published on Digital Foundry this Saturday and includes an extended look at the front end and the OnLive feature-set, along with detailed analysis of game performance and video encoding quality.

The crucial factor in judging whether the platform is viable has always been the lag. Just how playable OnLive is all comes down to how quickly it responds to your commands, and here is where the company's claims have been met with the most incredulity.

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Blog: Kane & Lynch 2 targets 60FPS

05 July 2010 17:30 GMT

Full analysis of limited release 360 demo.

There seems to be a certain formula for a great many third-person shooters in this console generation: target 30FPS, slip out of v-sync if you need to, perhaps use Unreal Engine 3. Square-Enix's Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days immediately makes an impact because it breaks away from that recipe. IO Interactive has targeted 60FPS, making for far more responsive controls and more arcade-like visuals.

IO has also opted for a very specific visual style inspired by reality documentary makers and on-the-spot video filming. There's a very strong grain filter added to the framebuffer, along with harsh lighting and contrast and a generous dollop of camera-shake, which perhaps becomes a bit too jarring when Lynch is running along at full-pelt. A pretty cool dynamic depth-of-field effect is in place, while damage is signified by the inclusion of macroblocking and artifacting, again calling to mind mobile video footage.

So, how well does Kane & Lynch 2 maintain its high performance level?

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Article: PlayStation 3D: Performance Analysis

03 July 2010 00:00 GMT

E3 Killzone demo and 3D launch titles put through their paces.

January's CES may have been the breakout event for 3DTV technology, but E3 was a similarly impressive showcase for the new format's gaming credentials. Nintendo 3DS will do more to make 3D a mainstream proposition than anything else to emerge from the games business this year, while at the elite, premium-priced end of the spectrum, PlayStation 3's full-on glasses-based stereoscopic 3D offering can only benefit from the additional exposure.

Sony says that over 15 million 3DTVs will filter into the market this year, and similar to the emergence of 1080p displays we can expect the high-end feature-set to slowly filter down to more affordable price points within 18 months to two years. The question is, how will the current-generation consoles - never designed for 3D - work with the new format?

Digital Foundry recently reported on Sony's presentation to game developers at GDC 2010 in our Making of PlayStation 3D article, describing how existing software either required extensive engine rewrites or compromised performance in order to sustain the creation of two individual images for each eye.

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Blog: Kinect tech spec finally revealed

30 June 2010 09:12 GMT

Retailer reveals details, implications.

Retailer Play.com has published new specifications for the final Kinect hardware.

While the information is unconfirmed via official channels, Play said that the details are direct from the manufacturer, while specs collected by Digital Foundry but not published to date tie in extremely closely with the new data. The smart money is on this being the real deal.

Perhaps the most interesting information we can glean from this is in how the final production Kinect camera differs from the reference technology designed by Microsoft partner PrimeSense.

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Interview: Tech Interview: Crackdown 2

26 June 2010 08:00 GMT

Agency resupply point.

Three years on from its release and Realtime Worlds' Crackdown still commands an incredible level of respect from committed Xbox 360 gamers, and we count ourselves among its many fans. Indeed, the very first Digital Foundry feature in the now-regular Saturday slot was a tech retrospective of this very special game.

Now, finally, there is a sequel, courtesy of new development studio Ruffian Games, staffed by many of the people who helped create the original game. With the demo released earlier this week, and the first pressed retail copies of the game back in the hands of the developer just a couple of days later, Digital Foundry approached Ruffian to talk tech about the new sequel.

In this piece, studio head Gary Liddon, along with senior engineers Janq and Neil Duffield, talk us through some of the story behind the original game and highlight the major enhancements in the sequel. Sit back and enjoy: the Ruffians have been extremely open and candid about the development process.

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Blog: Digital Foundry vs. MOH beta

24 June 2010 12:28 GMT

DICE answers the Call of Duty.

With Call of Duty so conclusively dominating the first person shooter genre in recent years, it's going to take something very special indeed to overwhelm the all-powerful Activision franchise. Electronic Arts' response has been to launch a new attack on two fronts: firstly via the simply sensational Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and now, with a reboot of the classic Medal of Honor for PC and HD consoles.

The Medal of Honor package is a curious beast. It's actually two games in one, with EA's Los Angeles studio using Unreal Engine to create the single-player game, while Battlefield veterans DICE are crafting the multiplayer experience in Sweden, using their own proprietary Frostbite engine. Closed beta invitations for the online portion went out this week allowing us to get our first look at the game away from the canned footage and the solo-player E3 sampler we played last week.

Eurogamer has already run hands on impressions of the code, but it's fair to say that the beta accurately represents the dilemmas DICE must be facing with its latest project. With Battlefield: Bad Company 2, it's clear that the team worked incredibly hard to produce a multiplayer game that differentiates itself substantially from the Call of Duty template, while at the same time offering gameplay likely to tempt the Modern Warfare veterans to jump ship.

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Blog: Tech Analysis: Crackdown 2 demo

22 June 2010 15:30 GMT

Good job, Agent.

It's been a long time coming. Crackdown is something of a fan favourite for many Xbox 360 owners, and the confirmation of a much-delayed sequel from Ruffian Games was some of the most exciting news to emerge at last year's E3.

But actually, it doesn't seem to have been a long time in development. Ruffian itself is a fairly new outfit, and the development schedule for this one has been brief compared to the typical AAA title (if there is such a thing). There was nothing to show at the E3 2009 announcement other than a CG trailer, yet the final game passed Microsoft's certification process and effectively went gold on 4th June just over a year later.

So how has Ruffian done? The recently released demo code gives us our first chance to play Crackdown 2 in the Digital Foundry labs.

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Interview: Tech Interview: PlayStation Move

19 June 2010 00:00 GMT

Digital Foundry vs. Dr Richard Marks.

With Microsoft Kinect and Nintendo 3DS dominating the E3 headlines, it is perhaps too easy to overlook the strong showing of PlayStation Move at the industry's showpiece event.

The launch line-up of games is looking impressive: bespoke Move titles like Start the Party are genuinely great fun, previous hits like Heavy Rain are getting the upgrade treatment with well-realised interface implementations, while forthcoming heavy-hitters from Sony such as Killzone 3, Gran Turismo 5 and LittleBigPlanet 2 are all slated to support the new hardware.

While Move doesn't have the sci-fi allure of Kinect, the foundations of its basic design are extremely strong, and its performance in terms of precision and latency is best-in-class. There's also the device's basic flexibility: Move can "do" gesture-based games similar to Harmonix's excellent Kinect title, Dance Central. The E3 unveiling of the accomplished SingStar Dance proved that while full-body scanning can't be achieved, the overall effect turns out to be much the same.

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Article: Tech Analysis: Kinect

15 June 2010 08:25 GMT

Digital Foundry on latency, CPU overheads and how it all works.

It's the day after the night before, and a chance to reflect on our hands-on playtest of the new Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360 platform, contact our sources and attempt to put together some semblance of the technical picture behind the device formerly known as Project Natal.

It's difficult to dislike what Microsoft has done, despite the fact that none of the games on offer were designed to appeal to the core audience that has loyally stuck by the platform over the last five years. Behind the Avatar-driven, cutesy, cartoon-style games is a technological masterpiece that is simply a breathtaking achievement: full-motion capture of multiple players simultaneously combined with excellent quality voice recognition, all in a consumer-level package.

So what are the crucial components within Kinect for Xbox 360, and how have we seen them implemented in the titles we got to play on Monday night?

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Blog: New Xbox 360: the tech breakdown

14 June 2010 21:59 GMT

New ports, refined chipset, cooling.

As expected, and indeed widely leaked yesterday, Microsoft has revealed a brand new slim rendition of the Xbox 360.

At the company's E3 media briefing earlier today, details on the new console were finally unveiled: a somewhat Marmite-looking device in glossy black with "chrome accents", featuring a bump in hard drive capacity from the Elite standard 120GB up to the more spacious Super Elite 250GB. Also included is in-built Wi-Fi functionality, at the fastest 300mbps "N" standard to boot.

Subsequent to the briefing, official PR materials from Microsoft offered up further details on the new hardware. First up, it looks as though our story from 17th March was on the money: the motherboard we saw there was almost certainly a prototype of the PCB found in the final console announced today. The big news is that the CPU and GPU are combined into one single package, with a die-shrink from 65nm for both components down to the more power-efficient, cooler 45nm.

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Blog: 3D Super Stardust boosts 2D performance

12 June 2010 16:46 GMT

1080p60, extra AA, split-screen upgrades.

Housemarque has said that the 3D update to its stunning PSN shooter, Super Stardust HD, also significantly boosts elements of the existing 2D version of the game.

Writing for the official PlayStation Blog, Housemarque CEO and co-founder Ilari Kuittinen said that the original Super Stardust HD only utilised around 50 per cent of the SPU power available, so the original game code was upgraded to run in the studio's brand new engine.

Housemarque talked about this process in a Digital Foundry interview back in January. The enhanced tech, combined with the SPU overhead, made an effective 720p120 a reality, but also allowed for improved graphical fidelity in 2D mode.

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Interview: Tech Interview: LittleBigPlanet 2

12 June 2010 07:00 GMT

Alex Evans on building a platform for games.

In Digital Foundry's last Saturday feature before the onslaught of E3, we talk to one of Media Molecule's tech masterminds, Alex Evans, about the origins of the company's association with Sony and how they got to grips with unique PlayStation 3 architecture.

We also go in-depth on the make-up of the proprietary engines that power both LittleBigPlanet and its forthcoming, hugely anticipated sequel.

It's a frank, candid and in-depth technical discussion about what is clearly something of a singular release, revealing a mine of hitherto unknown information about one of Sony's best-loved first party franchises.

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Blog: In Theory: How Blu-ray players could host cloud gaming

11 June 2010 10:30 GMT

Is this OnLive and Gaikai's secret weapon?

Whether we like it or not, whether we're ready or not, cloud gaming is coming. The idea is simple - instead of buying consoles or high-end PCs, instead we log in to servers many miles away hosting the requisite hardware and while our control inputs are transmitted across the net, video streams of the gameplay are beamed back over IP. Say goodbye to the console and indeed piracy as we know it, say hello to the dumb terminal.

While the concept may still seem implausible, the technology that powers the likes of OnLive and Gaikai is now a known quantity. Basic human ingenuity, combined with an enormous Space Race-sized piles of cash has overcome many of the key concerns, and the astonishing truth is that future Blu-ray players, HD cable receiver boxes and even HDTVs themselves could easily handle cloud gaming video streams. The browser plug-ins, Flash players and "microconsoles" we've seen thus far are just the beginning.

Key to this mammoth convergence of technology is the video compression system that makes it all possible: h264. It has swiftly become the de facto standard video codec for all major HD transmission systems in the wake of the DVD and MPEG2 era. Blu-ray uses it, satellite HDTV systems like SkyHD use it. So do the cloud gaming systems and therein lies the common ground.

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Face-off: Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3: Round 26

09 June 2010 14:00 GMT

Split/Second, Lost Planet 2, Green Day: Rock Band, Prince of Persia and Backbreaker.

Another month, another multi-game Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3 Face-Off. Let's get the party started with all the stats, videos, comparison galleries and performance analyses you crave, derived from an eye-watering array of big names and quality wares.

Thankfully the mania of the release schedule diminishes as we enter summer, perhaps allowing us to do some catch-up coverage on other titles, but the immediate future is E3: Project Natal, Move, Nintendo 3DS, OnLive, Gaikai, and masses of AAA titles for us to preview. Woo! In the meantime, let's get this show on the road.

We've been blessed recently with the release of two superb-looking racing games on the HD consoles.

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Blog: NVIDIA unconnected with 3DS

05 June 2010 17:00 GMT

No Tegra chipset in new Nintendo handheld.

Mobile industry insiders, speaking with Digital Foundry, have said that the much-rumoured tie-up between Nintendo and NVIDIA for the console-maker's auto-stereoscopic 3D handheld is not happening.

According to our two independent, unconnected sources, the Nintendo 3DS - almost certain to be revealed at E3 - features a design totally divorced from the NVIDIA Tegra SoC (system on chip) initially thought to have been powering the DS successor. It's now thought that Nintendo has instead chosen a Japanese partner for the 3D acceleration hardware within the 3DS.

Sources also confirmed that the 3DS' development codename is "Nintendo CTR", meaning that this motherboard picture we ran a couple of weeks back, sourced from the FCC website, is indeed something akin to a development or test station for the new handheld.

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Face-off: Face-Off: Geometry Wars 2/Touch

05 June 2010 00:00 GMT

Xbox 360 vs iPad: Retro Devolved?

It's time for full disclosure. From an entirely personal perspective, I think that Geometry Wars 2 on Xbox 360 is one of the best games ever made, and probably just pips Trials HD to the post as the single greatest download title available on the Live Arcade. The recent release of a mobile rendition of Bizarre Creations' classic for iPad has seen that insane Geometry Wars score addiction take hold once again: the handheld version is wonderful.

It's all down to that "retro evolved" formula of course. The core brilliance of the Robotron 2084 twin-stick control method, the perfectly realised vector graphics, the exponentially increasing score multipliers... All combined with modern-day enhancements like the friends leaderboard. The formula is nigh-on perfect, the execution flawless.

Over and above that is the pitch-perfect refresh of the visuals. While adhering to the original vector graphics look, Geometry Wars 2: Retro Evolved utilised the Xenos GPU within the Xbox 360 to create a huge amount of particles, enemies, and bullets - all rendered at full 1080p at an uncompromised 60FPS.

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Blog: Direct feed: Wired's iPad edition

02 June 2010 10:00 GMT

The saviour of print journalism?

US technology magazine Wired has released a brand new digital edition for iPad owners and we have video of the first edition.

This technically has very little to do with videogames (although, like videogames, Wired is also pretty awesome), but after the big response to Digital Foundry vs. iPad, cataloguing our experiences with the new tablet, we thought you might enjoy this extra tidbit.

The downloadable edition combines traditional magazine layout with several multimedia showcases, including an exclusive, rather tasty HD clip from the forthcoming Toy Story 3, complementing a cover story about the inner workings of Pixar.

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Blog: ICO and Shadow of the Colossus emulated in HD

01 June 2010 14:00 GMT

Does PC emulation show us a PS3 future?

Rumours are rapidly gathering pace suggesting that Sony is looking to follow-up the success of its HD "remastering" of the God of War titles with a similar gaming double pack featuring the classic ICO and Shadow of the Colossus.

Digital Foundry took a good, long, hard look at the God of War Collection at the tail end of last year, comparing the original PlayStation 2 titles with the new 720p60 PS3 revisions, and came away supremely impressed.

Sony Santa Monica's original PS2 art worked beautifully in high definition, and the improved performance level could only be a good thing.

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Interview: Tech Interview: Blur

29 May 2010 09:00 GMT

Tech wizards Steven Tovey and Charlie Birtwistle bring Bizarre's latest into focus.

Bizarre Creations' Blur is a hugely significant release for the Liverpool-based studio. The first game to be released since the company's acquisition by industry giant Activision Blizzard, it's also the firm's first racing title since the epochal Project Gotham Racing 4.

Technically way ahead of its predecessor, and indeed virtually identical cross-platform, Blur uses state-of-the-art technology to create something never seen before - a full 720p HD road racer with support for up to 20 cars on-screen simultaneously, a wide range of dynamic visual effects, plus both online and split-screen support.

Sensational to watch and hugely enjoyable to play, it's clear that Blur is a remarkable technical showcase. Bizarre Creations' graphics programmers Steven Tovey and Charlie Birtwistle were more than happy to discuss at length the story behind the game in a special, extended interview with Digital Foundry.

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Face-off: Face-Off: Blur

28 May 2010 14:10 GMT

Here comes the fuzz.

Digital Foundry hearts Blur. Eurogamer has already gone into depth about why the game is so good to play in its review, but this appreciation is only strengthened when you experience the scale of the technical achievement on offer: full 720p resolution, high levels of anti-aliasing, up to 20 cars on-screen at any point, a large, highly detailed rear-view mirror, masses of post-processing effects, no LOD popping. The list goes on.

So, PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360? The stakes are high. What we have is a title that pushes technical barriers in pursuit of an overall gameplay experience that is quite unique: tech deficiencies will impact the overall look and feel of the game. Bearing in mind the legion of technical accomplishments, surely something's got to give?

Let's get to work. It's time to wheel out the comparison assets, starting with the 720p comparison gallery, and this head-to-head movie:

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Face-off: Face-Off: Red Dead Redemption

25 May 2010 14:45 GMT

And the West.

The arrival of Red Dead Redemption sees Rockstar return to the realms of the big-budget gaming blockbuster, and how - it's top of the charts and a critical darling. Just like the legendary Grand Theft Auto IV, it's an immense, fully-realised open world backed up by masses of content and an accomplished script.

Regular readers of Digital Foundry will know that the original GTA IV showed clear performance advantages in its Xbox 360 guise. But does the same hold true for what some consider its spiritual sequel?

The technology behind the game is Rockstar's proprietary RAGE engine, which has been utilised for a great many of the company's releases, including GTA IV. The recent Episodes from Liberty City were built upon the same framework, and while hardly conclusive, according to our comparison back in Face-Off Round 25 it seemed to be the case that the performance advantage enjoyed by Xbox 360 was not so pronounced.

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Hands On: Digital Foundry vs. iPad

20 May 2010 14:00 GMT

The next big small thing dissected.

There's no doubt about it, Apple's iPad is a hugely polarising product. Some say it's the device the netbook should have been, an ultra-portable net browser and movie player, functionally rich and possessing phenomenal battery power. Others criticise it as little more than a mammoth, over-expensive iPod Touch, deliberately hobbled in several key technological aspects and prevented from full compatibility with a huge range of websites out there owing to Apple's dogmatic refusal to support Flash.

On the eve of the system's international launch, Digital Foundry decided to get hands on, and after a week of iPad ownership it is difficult to argue with either party. As a piece of hardware it is undoubtedly expensive for what it is, and as a paying customer I expect the browser to be fully functional, and not deliberately hobbled because Steve Jobs doesn't like Adobe.

However, these are pretty much the only criticisms I can level at the device: it seems to be the case that most of the negativity levelled at the iPad is made without checking out what it is designed to offer, and that experience definitely surpasses expectations.

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Blog: 3DS dev hardware images sighted?

17 May 2010 09:03 GMT

Two screens, only one is stereo 3D.

Nintendo appears to be testing a new DS - very likely the 3DS - with the US Federal Communications Commission.

Images of the testing, seemingly now removed from the FCC filing, showed what is referred to as a "Nintendo CTR Target Board".

The company's aim with this deposition was seemingly to get the Wi-Fi card used by the system approved for use in the USA.

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Interview: Tech Interview: Split/Second

15 May 2010 00:00 GMT

Digital Foundry gets technical with tech director David Jefferies.

Next week Eurogamer runs its review of Disney's Split/Second: Velocity, a brand new racing game from Brighton's Black Rock studio, the developer responsible for the superb Pure.

Digital Foundry has already got to grips with the playable demo available on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, we're big fans of Pure, and it's been a while since we've run one of our extensive tech interviews.

So, when Split/Second technical director David Jefferies offered us the chance to talk candidly about the developmental process behind the new game, we leapt at the chance.

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Face-off: Xbox 360 vs. PlayStation 3: Round 25

10 May 2010 11:30 GMT

Episodes from Liberty City, SSFIV, SEGA All-Stars Racing, Superstars V8, Dead to Rights and AVP.

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Blog: Alan Wake game data less than 2.5GB

10 May 2010 09:15 GMT

Alan's Fact of the Day.

Remedy's Alan Wake features just 2.41GB of actual game data for all six of its in-game episodes.

Examination of the XDVDFS partition of the shipping retail disc shows that an additional 3.74GB is allocated on top of that for the range of full-motion video sequences that pepper the game - a fact made all the more remarkable owing to the inclusion of audio support for a mammoth seven different languages. The combined total brings Alan Wake to 6.15GB for the final shipping product.

Bearing in mind that the game takes between 10 and 16 hours to complete, 2.41GB of data is a remarkable achievement. Playing through the survival-horror psychological shooter, only the appearance of the occasional low-resolution environment texture gives any kind of clue of the levels of compression that Remedy has achieved.

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Blog: Split/Second demo showdown

10 May 2010 09:00 GMT

PS3 and 360 sampler code on the grid.

Probably one of the most criminally overlooked racing games of recent times, Black Rock Studios' Pure was a hugely impressive off-road title, combining ATVs with SSX-style gameplay to produce superb visuals with deeply satisfying gameplay.

Split/Second: Velocity sees an evolution of the excellent tech that powered Pure, brought to us this time in a high velocity Burnout-style of game with a twist: it's not just your opponents on the road you need to do battle with, it's the environment itself. Similar to Burnout, a power meter gradually fills as you perform skillful racing - whether drifting through corners or drafting behind opponents. However, while Burnout concentrated on car-to-car battling, Split/Second opts for a different approach.

Filling up the power bar allows you to detonate areas of the track, causing different routes to open up and environmental hazards to be sent hurtling towards your opposition. The result is a game - and a demo - that offers up a range of different race permutations each time you play, some of which have their own impressive set-pieces. For example, in the demo's airport stage, bringing down the air traffic control tower not only switches the route, but also causes a jet to crash-land on the next lap. Impressive stuff.

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Article: Tech Analysis: Alan Wake

08 May 2010 09:50 GMT

Midnight feast.

As console exclusives for PS3 and Xbox 360 become rarer, the attention from media and gamers on first-party software has become more intense. Multiformat software does and will continue to break new technological barriers (Bad Company 2 anyone?), but the focus is on the exclusives to see the consoles pushing back the boundaries, unencumbered by the need to accommodate the limitations of a competing platform.

Few can argue with the assertion that Sony's mammoth network of first-party games studios has produced astonishing software in recent times. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and God of War III see the PS3 producing state-of-the-art visuals and gameplay that seem to hurdle the hardware limitations of the console running them almost effortlessly. But what of Xbox 360? Recently the focus from Microsoft has shifted elsewhere (most likely towards a certain camera-based device), with the platform holder seemingly happy to let third parties cater for the core gamer.

The emergence of Halo: Reach and Alan Wake looks set to change things. We took a look at Bungie's latest beta test last week, and today our gaze shifts towards Remedy's five-years-in-the-making survival horror epic, Alan Wake. Digital Foundry's love for Nordic games and their developers is well documented and an initial look at the Remedy game merely reinforces our belief that game-makers in this part of the world seem uniquely equipped to produce stunning titles, each with their own distinctive, impressive tech.

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Blog: Perry reveals Gaikai on iPad

03 May 2010 10:28 GMT

Pic shows playable World of Warcraft

Gaikai's David Perry has revealed the first work-in-progress shot of gameplay streaming service Gaikai running on Apple's iPad.

Posting on his blog, Perry revealed a shot of the working prototype, which you can see below, and in much higher resolution elsewhere on his site.

Few additional details were forthcoming, so Digital Foundry dropped David a line to get some more technical insight on the achievement.

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Article: Digital Foundry vs. Halo: Reach beta

01 May 2010 12:20 GMT

Performance analysis, latency tests and more with tons of video to pore over.

On Thursday night UK time, Microsoft and Bungie began to distribute the first Xbox Live redeem codes for the long awaited Halo: Reach beta, and Digital Foundry was one of the first 300 to acquire access to the sampler.

You saw a selection of 40 screenshots taken in-game yesterday, and of course Eurogamer posted some of our most early video captures. 36 hours on, we're ready to present our first tech analysis based on hands-on gameplay.

In terms of the beta itself, currently we seem to be limited to eight-player action set over two different maps, featuring a range of team-based and lone-wolf game-types. First impressions are that this is indeed "Combat Evolved".

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