Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli has been tweeting since Friday regarding resolution, performance and quality considerations for upcoming Xbox One game Ryse: Son Of Rome. While there may be some confusion regarding Cevat’s statements, he has made it clear without a shadow of the doubt that the game is 900p, or that it has a 1600 x 900 resolution.
Let’s unpack each tweet one by one.
#Ryse Hero Marius 85k polys? It was choice: 150k polys w LODs vs 85K + better shading + no LODs (stable). The latter wo at better quality!
— Cevat Yerli (@RealtimeCevat) September 27, 2013
In this one, he explains Ryse character Marius is at 85,000 polycount. They chose to have Marius at 85,000 polycount so that he would have better shading and no LODs. If he was at 150,000 polycount, there would be LODs.
Polycount is the number of polygons in a 3D model. LODs refers to level of detail. In plain English, Cevat is saying they deliberately used a lower polycount to get a better quality image for Marius.
#Ryse looks better than at E3! Shader deeper, more real.Marius features additionally also realtime physical dangling pieces.Plus much more!
— Cevat Yerli (@RealtimeCevat) September 28, 2013
In an immediate followup, he clarifies that Marius actually looks better now that he did at E3, with better shaders, and realtime physical dangling pieces. Marius looks more real than he did at that demo.
#Ryse there is not one single downgrade compared to E3, promised! Only UPGRADES in the final push towards finalling phase! Its FULL HD XP!
— Cevat Yerli (@RealtimeCevat) September 28, 2013
In his next tweet, he boasts that nothing has been downgraded since E3, and in fact, they are only upgrading the game into its final phase. He says it is full HD, which does not really tell us anything since HD could mean several resolutions.
#Ryse Tons of Diff.Zero downscale.Vast improves and optimizations.Poly optimizations are in invisible parts.All good! pic.twitter.com/leFgmRKueF
— Cevat Yerli (@RealtimeCevat) September 29, 2013
With this image, Cevat demonstrates the differences between the E3 demo and the more recent one. Again, he clarifies there has been no downscaling, and only improvement and optimizations have been made, with optimizations invisible. I suspect he means the optimizations are imperceptible to the untrained eye.
#Ryse runs at 1600×900 for best perf&res,we apply our upscaler for AA, framebuffer native 1080p.SAME as E3 XboxOne! No change,No compromise!
— Cevat Yerli (@RealtimeCevat) September 29, 2013
Finally, Cevat explains that Ryse runs at 1600 x 900 resolution, to achieve the best performance. When Crytek applies their upscaler, it framebuffers into native 1080p, which was the same in E3 when running on the Xbox One.
@Harami_Larka Yes as choice wasnt based on a hurdle. Its for efficiency as no perceived visual difference, as final output is 1080p.
— Cevat Yerli (@RealtimeCevat) September 29, 2013
In a brief follow up he tells a fan they did not choose to do it this way out of technical hurdles, but just to be more efficient. Visually speaking, gamers can’t perceive the visual differences, as the final output is 1080p.
To sum things up briefly and with no jargon, it turns out Ryse was always at 900p, upscaled to 1080p. Cevat explains that the optimizations they have made should make it out so that most gamers won’t even notice the difference if it actually was 1080p, but based on how this game was initially marketed and explained to consumers, it is no surprise that many are disappointed.
In the end, I would like to say that all this talk of performance benchmarks and graphical detail has nothing to do with the merits of the game itself. While this could be a sign that Xbox One is not as graphically capable as we assumed, I would personally reserve judgement on the game itself until we finally know how well – or badly – it plays.
