1. #1
    sebastianaalton's Avatar Trials Developer
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    Trials HD graphics engine feature list

    Quick checklist of most important Trials HD graphics engine features:

    - Deferred renderer highly optimized for Xbox 360 architecture
    - Locked always 60 fps (frames per second) tearless (vsynched) graphics output
    - Floating point high dynamic range (HDR) rendering
    - Real time per pixel phong lighting from all light sources
    - All objects and scenery cast dynamic soft shadows
    - Sophisticated 12 channel per pixel material system
    - Parallax mapping on all surfaces
    - Anisotropic filtering on all surfaces
    - Tone mapping emulating eye iris adjustment to lighting conditions
    - Post process filters: depth of field and overexposure light bloom
    - Advanced GPU powered particle engine (up to 10k+ particles per frame)
    - Particle per pixel lighting, dynamic shadows and proper depth ordering
    - Sophisticated custom material and geometry compression algorithms allow uncompromized texture and object quality
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  2. #2

    Re: Trials HD graphics engine feature list

    Cool! so a constant 60fps too? And after seeing the vid, and showing my brother this morning, we have both agreed that this is gonna do really well on xbox live arcade!! not many arcade games look this good!!

    [EDIT. Oops sorry... edited your post by a mistake. The "quote" button is next to the "edit" button. Wasn't the first time . My answer below.]
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  3. #3
    sebastianaalton's Avatar Trials Developer
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    Re: Trials HD graphics engine feature list

    Yes the framerate in Trials HD is always constant 60 fps in all levels. And it's vsynched, so there is no tearing at all. The game feels ultra smooth. It's exactly as smooth as Trials 2 SE with low graphics mode on a high end computer (8800 Geforce + Core 2 or similar), but at the same time looks better than Trials 2 SE on highest graphics settings. I think it's the first console game with a deferred renderer and vsynched constant 60 fps rendering.

    For some odd reason Trials 2 SE with high graphics mode lagged always a bit, even at 100 fps. I analyzed it a bit, and seems that some frames take a lot more time to render compared to others, and human brain does not like this (feels like there is a repeating small lag spikes all the time). It's likely a load balancing issue really, but it was very hard to track, as the game ran very smoothly on my old work computer. On Xbox 360 we have been able to optimize everything much better as the performance analysis tools are excellent and there is only one hardware configuration. We could optimize everything to the limit.
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  4. #4

    Re: Trials HD graphics engine feature list

    Originally Posted by sebbbi
    Yes the framerate in Trials HD is always constant 60 fps in all levels. And it's vsynched, so there is no tearing at all. The game feels ultra smooth. It's exactly as smooth as Trials 2 SE with low graphics mode on a high end computer (8800 Geforce + Core 2 or similar). I think it's the first console game with a deferred renderer and vsynched constant 60 fps rendering.

    For some odd reason Trials 2 SE with high graphics mode lagged always a bit, even at 100 fps. I analyzed it a bit, and seems that some frames take a lot more time to render compared to others, and human brain does not like this (feels like there is a repeating small lag spikes all the time). It's likely a load balancing issue really, but it was very hard to track, as the game ran very smoothly on my old work computer.
    well i did notice that on my old rig (7800gtx), but just got a new one now, with an i7 processor and a gts 250, bt must admit, i haven't played trials on it yet, might play it tonight.
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  5. #5

    Re: Trials HD graphics engine feature list

    I couldn't find this answered, but what is the base resolution this game is rendered in?

    It's extremely rare to actually find xbox360 games that don't look like a blurry mess on my tv being that most of them render in 1280x720 and I play it on a 1920x1080 50" LCD panel so it's stretched. And as far as I know, the console uses a base resolution to render the frames, then upscales, or downscales the output to fit your display. I assume it's 720p standard since you guys say it's running 60fps locked and I've yet to see an xbox360 game that achieves that.

    Won't stop me from buying it though, just wondering whether I can expect a sharp image, or the standard stretched/blury image like the other 99% of xbox360 games.
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  6. #6

    Re: Trials HD graphics engine feature list

    unknown555525: Strange that you feel that it's blurred out. Since a lot of games are supporting full HD (1920x1080). I haven't had the slightest problem with that on my full hd projector. Maybe you have wrong cables. Because you need hdmi or Component cable. And even sometimes thats not all. You may have to turn it up in the system settings.
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  7. #7

    Re: Trials HD graphics engine feature list

    Originally Posted by 2k3
    unknown555525: Strange that you feel that it's blurred out. Since a lot of games are supporting full HD (1920x1080). I haven't had the slightest problem with that on my full hd projector. Maybe you have wrong cables. Because you need hdmi or Component cable. And even sometimes thats not all. You may have to turn it up in the system settings.
    I have both my PC, and my Xbox360 hooked up to the HDTV through HDMI, and the console is set up to use 1080P, which some XBL arcade games do infact run in, but most, and most disk games do not. Of course on the PC, everything, including Trials 2SE runs in full 1920x1080 and looks pixel perfect and crisp. But on the Xbox360, even the dashboard screen renders in ONLY 720P even while the display will show it's running in 1080P mode due to the fact that it's upscaled. There's a HUGE difference between the two, especially when your using an LCD.

    Some look alot better than others though because while they still run in 1280x720, they use anti aliasing which greatly helps, but still looks pretty blotted.

    On a projector, you can't notice the difference because projectors, and DLP based displays do not stretch the image and blot pixels to compensate like LCD and plasma displays do.
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  8. #8

    Re: Trials HD graphics engine feature list

    Okey. Didn't know that last part. So guess thats why it looks so smooth at home. Lets just hope they render the game in full HD then!
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  9. #9
    sebastianaalton's Avatar Trials Developer
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    Re: Trials HD graphics engine feature list

    Current generation consoles are not capable of running real games in Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) resolution fast enough. Only a couple of games with really simple graphics (card games such as Texas Hold 'Em) are released supporting it. Most games on PS3 and XBox 360 are rendering on standard HD 720p (1280x720) resolution at 30 fps and some games are using even smaller resolutions. 1080p requires 2.25 times more pixel shader performance compared to 720p to run at same frame rate.

    Trials HD is rendering 60 fps at 720p (1280x720). We experimented 30 fps rendering also during the development, but that felt too choppy for a fast paced game that needed very good response time and user input timing. Xbox 360 video scaler is pretty good. It's much better than scalers in PC monitors at least (bicubic/lanczos vs simple bilinear). For best quality you should select the monitor/TV resolution you are using from the Xbox console settings. This way the Xbox 360 scaler does the scaling the and the monitor/TV just outputs the image pixel perfect without any additional scaling.
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  10. #10

    Re: Trials HD graphics engine feature list

    Originally Posted by sebbbi
    Current generation consoles are not capable of running real games in Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) resolution fast enough. Only a couple of games with really simple graphics (card games such as Texas Hold 'Em) are released supporting it. Most games on PS3 and XBox 360 are rendering on standard HD 720p (1280x720) resolution at 30 fps and some games are using even smaller resolutions. 1080p requires 2.25 times more pixel shader performance compared to 720p to run at same frame rate.

    Trials HD is rendering 60 fps at 720p (1280x720). We experimented 30 fps rendering also during the development, but that felt too choppy for a fast paced game that needed very good response time and user input timing. Xbox 360 video scaler is pretty good. It's much better than scalers in PC monitors at least (bicubic/lanczos vs simple bilinear). For best quality you should select the monitor/TV resolution you are using from the Xbox console settings. This way the Xbox 360 scaler does the scaling the and the monitor/TV just outputs the image pixel perfect without any additional scaling.
    Yeah, it really wouldn't be good to play trials at 30fps, that would just take so much away from the game.
    i have trouble with my monitor when im playing xbox, i change the resolution in the console settings, but it doesn't go up to my monitors native resolution, so it always looks a bit funny
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