Face-Off: Shadow Warrior (PC/XB1/PS4)

[kidhero99]

Shadow Warrior is built on a unique, in-house graphics technology known as the Road Hog Engine, first used in Hard Reset on PC. For Shadow Warrior, the team introduced a host of improvements, including completely dynamic lighting, parallax occlusion mapping (POM), and screen-space ambient occlusion (SSAO). 

All of these elements have been successfully translated onto console with minimal loss in quality

 

The PS4 and Xbox One versions of Shadow Warrior 

operate at 1080p and 900p respectively

. Image quality is crisp on PS4 and although a bit blurrier, it's still relatively clean on Xbox One. Post-process anti-aliasing along the lines of FXAA does a decent job of smoothing out edges without overly blurring the image. Considering the target frame-rate, image quality is acceptable in both cases, 

though clearly PS4 has the advantage. However, last year's PC version still has the real edge in this regard with support for arbitrary resolutions and additional hardware MSAA.

One of the most demanding visual features present in the PC version is its reflection technology, 

which many users were forced to disable in order to reach a stable 60fps

. While many games these days utilise screen-space reflections, which are limited to reflecting only objects immediately visible on-screen, Flying Wild Hog instead opted for planar reflections that prove quite demanding for both the GPU and CPU. 

Surprisingly, the team has managed to implement these on consoles, but there are some sacrifices made on the way

Then we come to texture quality. At first glance, you may get the impression that the consoles are a match for the PC's pared-back high preset, rather than the full-fat ultra. However, close examination reveals assets that appear to be a match for the PC's ultra setting, with just texture filtering letting the side down on console, blurring detail. 

That said, texture filtering is superior on PS4 compared to its Xbox One equivalent

. It's not on par with the PC version at its best, but it's still very acceptable and helps produce sharp, clean surfaces

The performance profile does feel rather different than the PC version, however. As it stands, Shadow Warrior is a tremendously demanding PC game, 

with our GTX 780 failing to deliver a solid 60fps on ultra settings

. We did find that simply disabling mirrors provided enough of a boost to hit our target far more regularly but there were still odd frame-pacing issues cropping up at certain points. I

t definitely doesn't feel fully optimised - and this is after a number of patches. We also encountered situations where frame-times became unsteady despite a reported 60fps, resulting in additional judder that couldn't be ironed out, even with the RivaTuner Statistics Server frame-rate limiter

.

There is hope for PC players, however. T

he overhaul made to the engine to support the consoles should bear fruit on the PC as well in the form of an updated 64-bit, DX11-compatible version of the game. This patch is not live at the time of writing

, but we're hoping that these new optimisations will significantly improve the PC experience. Considering how solid the console versions are at this point, we're optimistic this will be the case.

Additionally, Flying Wild Hog deserves credit for implementing a number of options we rarely see on console. It has included full field-of-view adjustment, the ability to disable and customise the HUD, the option to disable motion blur, control over weapon inertia and bobbing, and more. For the plasma faithful, providing the option to disable or alter HUD elements is a great feature, while customising FOV is almost unheard of these days. What's more, due to the nature of the game's performance issues, the wider FOV really has little to no impact on frame-rate, so feel free to modify it to suit your needs. We absolutely love it when developers allow for this sort of customisation on consoles and feel they deserve a lot of credit for taking the time to implement these features.

 

 

 

 

 

Much more - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-shadow-warrior-face-off

Edited October 28, 2014 by kidhero99

[Xxleonardo97xX]

I don't understand how can you pay so much atention to ALL sorts of gaming news (the ones you post here).

 

I couldn't care less about graphic comparision between console rivals, that's so 2010.

[ChickenExotic]

I don't understand how can you pay so much atention to ALL sorts of gaming news (the ones you post here).

 

I couldn't care less about graphic comparision between console rivals, that's so 2010.

 

AMEN good sir

[devourerplease]

tl;dr:  Shadow Warrior is still demanding on PC, but was ported to consoles with little problems.

[Tomato]

tl;dr:  Shadow Warrior is still demanding on PC, but was ported to consoles with little problems.

meh I have gtx 760 which is mid tier now a days and it runs on ultra at 70-100fps, I think the devs did a great job especially considering 60fps games on console lately have been a rariety.

[devourerplease]

meh I have gtx 760 which is mid tier now a days and it runs on ultra at 70-100fps, I think the devs did a great job especially considering 60fps games on console lately have been a rariety.

 

This directly conflicts with the article, which says that they had problems getting 60fps on Ultra with a 780.  I have a 760 myself and can vouch for the card, but I don't have Shadow Warrior to test it myself.

[Tomato]

This directly conflicts with the article, which says that they had problems getting 60fps on Ultra with a 780.  I have a 760 myself and can vouch for the card, but I don't have Shadow Warrior to test it myself.

nvm just double checked and its a mixture of ultra/high.

[WuTangJase-]

I don't understand how can you pay so much atention to ALL sorts of gaming news (the ones you post here).

 

I couldn't care less about graphic comparision between console rivals, that's so 2010.

 

 

AMEN good sir

 

lol