DF/Eurogamer: The making of Gears 5: how the Coalition hit 60fps - and improved visual quality

Equanimity · Sep 14, 2019

Gestault said:
It varies by load, and they confirm in the interview (and I think in the separate DF analysis) that it's sometimes native, though I'd assume barely in the action sequences.

The pipeline is set up so post-effects and some other elements are still done natively after any geometry reconstruction, which is a smart way to keep IQ looking good for the output target, even when the engine is strained.

Keeping the post processing effects at native 4K and 1080p resolution is indeed a smart decision for motion clarity. Must have been costly though.

I was misinformed about the target ceiling, but it's hardly ever native because resolution is always adjusting according to DF.

Gestault · Sep 14, 2019

Equanimity said:
Keeping the post processing effects at native 4K and 1080p resolution is indeed a smart decision for motion clarity. Must have been costly though.

I was misinformed by the target resolution, but it's hardly ever native because it's always adjusting according to DF.

That's probably the case in the campaign. MP modes are likely to be running native more frequently, though. Even Gears 4 was 4K/60 in versus.

Equanimity · Sep 14, 2019

Gestault said:
That's probably the case in the campaign. MP modes are likely to be running native more frequently, though. Even Gears 4 was 4K/60 in versus.

Yeah, I played a few rounds of hivemind mode today and it looked crisp. If it isn't native than it must be locked with reconstruction.

Crossing Eden · Sep 14, 2019

It's genuinely such an impressive looking game. Getting the game to not only look better than Gears 4 while also pushing a higher frame rate is nothing short of insanely impressive technical wizardry.

Equanimity · Sep 14, 2019

Crossing Eden said:
It's genuinely such an impressive looking game. Getting the game to not only look better than Gears 4 while also pushing a higher frame rate is nothing short of insanely impressive technical wizardry.

Keeping the assets and effects quality identical across base and pro model is also rather impressive. Huge bump from Gears 4 on the base machine.

Deleted member 12635 · Sep 14, 2019

Equanimity said:
I was under the impression that Gears 5 uses reconstruction to hit 4K, it's never native.

It only uses reconstruction if the frame rate would otherwise drop below 60 fps. You can read it in the article. When it is possible the game renders in native 2160p on Xbox One X and PC (if you enable dynamic resolution there).

The dynamic resolution is not directly reduced to 1080p on Xbox One X, I don't know where you got that from. Then resolution is reduced in steps depending on the performance hit. The first layer it falls back to is about 1800p then around 1440p (on Xbox One X)

shark97 · Sep 14, 2019

nice next gen nod

Digital Foundry:

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

DirectX 12 supports ray tracing on PC now through DXR and the Project Scarlett has announced hardware ray tracing support, UE4 has also added support for various ray traced effects. Where do you see the usage of ray tracing in Gears 5 or in future titles from The Coalition?

The Coalition: On Gears 5 we are using GPU compute-based ray traced distance field shadows which works across all platforms and does not depend on DXR or dedicated ray tracing hardware. We are excited with the possibilities of DXR and Project Scarlett's native hardware support for accelerated ray tracing. At this point, we are not ready to talk about our future plans, however we are following closely the emerging techniques and innovations in this exciting space.

Deleted member 12635 · Sep 14, 2019

shark97 said:
nice next gen nod

There is another one in there about 8K, just if you did not notice ;)

space_nut · Sep 14, 2019

Equanimity said:
Keeping the assets and effects quality identical across base and pro model is also rather impressive. Huge bump from Gears 4 on the base machine.

X actually has better SSR, bokah depth of field, and other post processing effects

Septy · Sep 14, 2019

Great article. Love reading about this stuff

samred · Sep 14, 2019

I got to chat with Mike Rayner as part of a Gears 5 preview piece in August. The dude is among the most legit I've ever interviewed in terms of technical optimization details. His passion for crazy widescreen monitor ratios is something else.

Andromeda · Sep 14, 2019

Equanimity said:
I was under the impression that Gears 5 uses reconstruction to hit 4K, it's never native.

Reconstruction + dynamic res. From 1080p to 1800p reconstructed to 4K according to VG Tech. According to Nx gamer it's usually 1260p when there is heavy action.

bcatwilly · Sep 14, 2019

samred said:
I got to chat with Mike Rayner as part of a Gears 5 preview piece in August. The dude is among the most legit I've ever interviewed in terms of technical optimization details. His passion for crazy widescreen monitor ratios is something else.

Yeah, that type of passion for the tech and optimizing the heck out of it is definitely what you want out of guys like Mike in those roles. It really makes me excited to see what the Coalition can do with next generation hardware and what an almost certain Scarlett upgraded version of Gears 5 will look like.

Deleted member 12635 · Sep 14, 2019

Andromeda said:
Reconstruction + dynamic res. From 1080p to 1800p reconstructed to 4K according to VG Tech. According to Nx gamer it's usually 1260p when there is heavy action.

I wouldn't use VG Tech as a reference, but that is just me ...

Septy · Sep 14, 2019

Does Xbox one X have anisotropic filtering? Looking at the comparisons it looks like Xbox's textures get blurrier at tighter angles.

Equanimity · Sep 14, 2019

Colbert said:
It only uses reconstruction if the frame rate would otherwise drop below 60 fps. You can read it in the article. When it is possible the game renders in native 2160p on Xbox One X and PC (if you enable dynamic resolution there).

Gears 5 drops below 60fps in most skirmishes, it also tears on top part when under heavy load. The game is always adjusting between different resolutions to keep up with the target frame-rate on One X.

Colbert said:
Seen your other posts I think it is important not to post incorrect information! The dynamic resolution is not directly reduced to 1080p on Xbox One X, I don't know where you got that from. Then resolution is reduced in steps depending on the performance hit. The first layer it falls back to is about 1800p then around 1440p (on Xbox One X)

What incorrect information? I didn't mention the dynamic resolution reducing to 1080p, although I've heard that it does indeed go that low.

space_nut said:
X actually has better SSR, bokah depth of field, and other post processing effects

Here I thought the high quality bokeh depth of field was identical across all platforms, that's what I understood from the DF video at least. John even mentions that the two consoles by and large share the same effects.

Andromeda said:
Reconstruction + dynamic res. From 1080p to 1800p reconstructed to 4K according to VG Tech. According to Nx gamer it's usually 1260p when there is heavy action.

Thanks for the info. I haven't seen NX Gamers video just yet, although I was the one who made a thread about it, lol.

Deleted member 12635 · Sep 14, 2019

Equanimity said:
What incorrect information? I didn't mention the dynamic resolution reducing to 1080p, although I've heard that it does indeed go that low.

Indeed. I made a mistake! Uff.

Equanimity · Sep 14, 2019

Colbert said:
Indeed. I made a mistake! Uff.

It's all good.

Psychotron · Sep 14, 2019

They really did a great job, but performance on X needs work. In act 2 and especially in act 3 the game stutters a lot. I'm no expert but it looks like bad frame pacing. I showed John a video on twitter of me running down a hallway and it stuttered a bit, but running the opposite direction down the same hall resulted in major judder. It's really my only complaint about the game, because it's great in every other area. That stutter though....drives me nuts.

Andromeda · Sep 14, 2019

Colbert said:
I wouldn't use VG Tech as a reference, but that is just me ...

VG Tech is currently the most accurate source about those matters. He has being doing this for years. He is the only one who provides uncompressed screenshots about his resolution statements (you should check his video and screenshots as you seem to believe the game never hits 1080p and never runs for long at ~50fps, you could be surprised).

Maybe the game hits native 4K in very rare moments but VG Tech never found this moment. According to him the max is native 1800p then it can be reconstructed to 4K in some conditions.

And his framerate videos always show a good chunk of varied gameplay, while he can compare up to 4 different versions side by side with extremely similar conditions, which is really hard to do and must take tons of his free time.

I advise you to check his channel, it's always good to have different point of view on things. Knowing you I would have thought you'd like to broaden your horizons ;-)

space_nut · Sep 14, 2019

Equanimity said:
Gears 5 drops below 60fps in most skirmishes, it also tears on top part when under heavy load. The game is always adjusting between different resolutions to keep up with the target frame-rate on One X.

What incorrect information? I didn't mention the dynamic resolution reducing to 1080p, although I've heard that it does indeed go that low.

Here I thought the high quality bokeh depth of field was identical across all platforms, that's what I understood from the DF video at least. John even mentions that the two consoles by and large share the same effects.

Thanks for the info. I haven't seen NX Gamers video just yet, although I was the one who made a thread about it, lol.

VG Gamer found out per his video and shows X actually has textures higher than all presets except ultra pack on pc

Deleted member 12635 · Sep 14, 2019

Andromeda said:
I advise you to check his channel, it's always good to have different point of view on things. Knowing you I would have thought you'd like to broaden your horizons ;-)

I actually did with Zero Dawn ;)

Equanimity · Sep 14, 2019

space_nut said:
VG Gamer found out per his video and shows X actually has textures higher than all presets except ultra pack on pc

Ah I see. That's great for X owners.

Prine · Sep 14, 2019

Great read, The Coalition are some of the most talented tech houses in the industry, what they achieved with Gears 5 is simply staggering, can't wait to see what they'll do next gen they're going to melt everyones eyes with Gears 6.

icecold1983 · Sep 14, 2019

P40L0 said:
Native 4K most of the time + 60fps + Better graphics and fidelity compared to Gears 4, on X1X (even if 5 has also mild open-world sections).

It's almost unbelievable what The Coalition have achieved here.

Its rarely native 4k from the data ive seen

Mochi · Sep 14, 2019

Game looks phenomenal! Playing in 1440p on my PC so not quite as sharp as the One X I imagine, but really a beautiful package altogether. I spent way too much time tromping through the snow or sand, the best terrain deformation I've seen yet. Hopefully more destructability and more on-screen enemies in the next game!

On PC, only performance issue I ran in to was frequent hitching/freezing during cutscences, seemed to correlate with texture pop-in ... maybe something to do with the ultra high res texture pack? Running on a 1080ti so maybe my system isn't up to par for max settings.

Cassius Bright · Sep 14, 2019

It's hands down one of the most impressive technical accomplishments of this generation. Amazing stuff.

I've never played Gears before as I was always a Sony and Nintendo guy before this gen, but I now own an X and a decent gaming PC and this has been a blast to play so far. Will definitely be checking out the other games when I'm finished.

Betelgeuse · Sep 14, 2019

Psychotron said:
They really did a great job, but performance on X needs work. In act 2 and especially in act 3 the game stutters a lot. I'm no expert but it looks like bad frame pacing. I showed John a video on twitter of me running down a hallway and it stuttered a bit, but running the opposite direction down the same hall resulted in major judder. It's really my only complaint about the game, because it's great in every other area. That stutter though....drives me nuts.

I agree. Gears 5 is a terrific technical accomplishment, but I think it's getting a bit of an undue pass with performance with all the "60 fps" comments. It drops and tears very frequently, to a noticeable degree. Again, what TC accomplished is immense, and the higher performance target is appreciated, but tighter adherence to that target would have been nice.

Of course, it's highly possible there wasn't much more juice they could wring from the APU, particularly on the CPU side of things.

Deleted member 54292 · Sep 14, 2019

I was comparing it maxed out on my GTX 1080 to my X1X and they did a dang good job on the console version. It's a beautiful game.

Remo Williams · Sep 14, 2019

Betelgeuse said:
I agree. Gears 5 is a terrific technical accomplishment, but I think it's getting a bit of an undue pass with performance with all the "60 fps" comments. It drops and tears very frequently, to a noticeable degree. Again, what TC accomplished is immense, and the higher performance target is appreciated, but tighter adherence to that target would have been nice.

Of course, it's highly possible there wasn't much more juice they could wring from the APU, particularly on the CPU side of things.

The performance definitely does dip, but aside from momentary saving/loading drops that I am used to from other games, I'd say that I could count the occasions on which the frame rate dipped to a noticeable degree on fingers of both hands. Maybe I'm just not sensitive to it.

Psychotron · Sep 14, 2019

Remo Williams said:
The performance definitely does dip, but aside from momentary saving/loading drops that I am used to from other games, I'd say that I could count the occasions on which the frame rate dipped to a noticeable degree on fingers of both hands. Maybe I'm just not sensitive to it.

Some people don't notice stuttering at all. When Dark1x first mentioned how much bad frame pacing bothered him forever ago, I nearly jumped out of my seat from happiness. Before that I never saw anyone talk about it, but it drove me crazy. The moments of slowdown in Gears 5 aren't that bad at all, but the judder in act 2 and 3 is really annoying to me. On the skiff in Act 3 and even on foot with no action on screen during some side missions, it just stutters so bad.

Check out the last 50 seconds of this video. It was one of the worst spots I encountered in the campaign when indoors with no action. As I run back and forth down the hall, it should be obvious.

Minor spoilers

Gitaroo · Sep 14, 2019

The temporal reconstruction technique is amazing, at least on pc. Hard to tell whenbits not native 4k on my 2080. Haven't tried xbx version yet.

leng jai · Sep 14, 2019

It's impressive but people need to stop talking like it's native 4K and locked 60fps. It's really not in either respect. I've tried it on my 1X and the performance is not consistent at all during fights or even walking around at times.

Remo Williams · Sep 14, 2019

Psychotron said:
Some people don't notice stuttering at all. When Dark1x first mentioned how much bad frame pacing bothered him forever ago, I nearly jumped out of my seat from happiness. Before that I never saw anyone talk about it, but it drove me crazy. The moments of slowdown in Gears 5 aren't that bad at all, but the judder in act 2 and 3 is really annoying to me. On the skiff in Act 3 and even on foot with no action on screen during some side missions, it just stutters so bad.

Check out the last 50 seconds of this video. It was one of the worst spots I encountered in the campaign when indoors with no action. As I run back and forth down the hall, it should be obvious.

Minor spoilers

Nothing here that would annoy me, sorry. Back in my PC days I got used to playing games with frame rates in their teens (I got my first PC just before the advent of 3D acceleration, and I couldn't upgrade for several years), so that might explain why I'm not bothered by performance issues that some other people might find unacceptable.

Psychotron · Sep 14, 2019

Remo Williams said:
Nothing here that would annoy me, sorry. Back in my PC days I got used to playing games with frame rates in their teens (I got my first PC just before the advent of 3D acceleration, and I couldn't upgrade for several years), so that might explain why I'm not bothered by performance issues that some other people might find unacceptable.

I wish I didn't notice it either.

Detail · Sep 14, 2019

Personally think it's pointless to target 8k next gen, 4K has barley been adopted yet and you simply cannot see any difference between 4k and 8k unless you have a ridiculously large TV to play on.

Surely it makes more sense to keep games at 4k for the next gen and just push out better visuals/framerate at native res?

ArchedThunder · Sep 14, 2019

I'm pretty sure there is at least one prerendered scene in Act II, but it cuts between real time and prerendered.

statham · Sep 14, 2019

leng jai said:
It's impressive but people need to stop talking like it's native 4K and locked 60fps. It's really not in either respect. I've tried it on my 1X and the performance is not consistent at all during fights or even walking around at times.

I beat the game, it has some stumbles, but IMO the gameplay almost always at 60 FPS is fantastic, yes stumbles, but for the most part 60 fps, and The game is lovely, I couldn't tell when it dropped resolution. Like use this tech for next gen, seriouely. Peeps using 4k native doesn't surprise me because it looks amazing.

eso76 · Sep 14, 2019

I was under the impression DF already had a preliminary chat with the guys and girls at Coalition for their Xbox one X analysis.
They went into even more detail than usual, with very specific information about the various technologies at play

Deleted member 12635 · Sep 14, 2019

eso76 said:
I was under the impression DF already had a preliminary chat with the guys and girls at Coalition for their Xbox one X analysis.
They went into even more detail than usual, with very specific information about the various technologies at play

I think the detail comes from the fact that The Coalition is really proud of what they achieved and they are thrilled to talk about

Governergrimm · Sep 14, 2019

dan2026 said:
I wish more developers (and players) would see the immense value in 60fps.
Sadly too many people are wowed by bells and whistles with a 'gud enuf' 30fps.

Yup. It's always funny to see reviews ding a console game that looks worse on a still frame then completely dismiss that game for running at double the frame rate. The public then sees it and agrees that still frame X looks better because it's higher res than another game. Then we get the why do we need 8k TV's???

Well we are unintentionally telling them we want 8k and bleeding edge graphics at the expense of IQ and fluidity.

That's how I see it anyways

XboxCowdry · Sep 15, 2019

RedStep said:
Playing Borderlands directly after Gears 5 was like a glass of ice water to the face. All the beautiful dynamic range and directionality (my favorite demo is the Escape intro) gone, replaced with what sounds like somebody just stretched a bad Stereo engine over surround speakers.

So true :)

leng jai · Sep 15, 2019

statham said:
I beat the game, it has some stumbles, but IMO the gameplay almost always at 60 FPS is fantastic, yes stumbles, but for the most part 60 fps, and The game is lovely, I couldn't tell when it dropped resolution. Like use this tech for next gen, seriouely. Peeps using 4k native doesn't surprise me because it looks amazing.

Yep it's definitely impressive a solid solution for consoles. Still drops too much and too often during heavy fights for my liking but you can't really complain given the hardware.

Leveean · Sep 15, 2019

I feel like they're culling the scene a little too aggressively. When simply spinning the camera you can often see flashes of white or black like you're seeing into the void before the geometry pops in. It also happens when something passes close to camera, even in a couple cutscenes.

Equanimity · Sep 15, 2019

Leveean said:
I feel like they're culling the scene a little too aggressively. When simply spinning the camera you can often see flashes of white or black like you're seeing into the void before the geometry pops in. It also happens when something passes close to camera, even in a couple cutscenes.

Yeah, I noticed his too. But, it doesn't happen in most scenes though.

Mars People · Sep 15, 2019

Governergrimm said:
Yup. It's always funny to see reviews ding a console game that looks worse on a still frame then completely dismiss that game for running at double the frame rate. The public then sees it and agrees that still frame X looks better because it's higher res than another game. Then we get the why do we need 8k TV's???

Well we are unintentionally telling them we want 8k and bleeding edge graphics at the expense of IQ and fluidity.

That's how I see it anyways

You see it perfectly.
Read half the comments on any Digital Foundry thread and you'll see how litlle people value framerate.
Hell. just look in that Link Awakening remake thread. Yikes.

Velocity:Design:Comfort · Sep 15, 2019

Thinkdifferent said:
Personally think it's pointless to target 8k next gen, 4K has barley been adopted yet and you simply cannot see any difference between 4k and 8k unless you have a ridiculously large TV to play on.

Surely it makes more sense to keep games at 4k for the next gen and just push out better visuals/framerate at native res?

bingo...I just got this fucking 4k tv.

dan2026 said:
You see it perfectly.
Read half the comments on any Digital Foundry thread and you'll see how litlle people value framerate.
Hell. just look in that Link Awakening remake thread. Yikes.

This is a really weird way to frame the fact that LA's problems are minor and that the vast majority of fans on ERA understand its not nearly bad enough to nitpick. But you're not wrong in general.

YukiroCTX · Sep 15, 2019

The game is a stunner given the performance and also the variety of different environments with different effects. Can't wait to see what Coalition can do with next gen. There's great questions being asked and well written article overall. On the 4k/8k discussion. From what I've read, there's barely any 8k content out there that most TV's just use their image processors to upscale the content. In that regard, it's pretty pointless to even aim for 8K. 4K 60 FPS I think will be standard. They won't want to regress back and keep consistency.

Masterz1337 · Sep 15, 2019

bcatwilly said:
Thanks for sharing, a good read for tech geeks to be sure. Gears 5 really is a technical masterpiece in how the visuals look when still running at a solid 60 FPS, and I suspect that some of the techniques that they used will definitely be shared with other Xbox Game Studios for future development. I thought that this was quote was interesting as you wouldn't expect Rare to necessarily have such a contribution to a Gears game, lol: "We made a big push for GPU based particles on Gears 5, so we integrated some GPU spawning technology from Rare which helped ease the particle burden on the CPU and helped us achieve 60fps on Xbox One X."

Weird thing is a lot of explosions and blood is less intense than in the last game. The snatchers and pouncers when they explode are really subdued compared to 4, at least on the 1X

Soviet · Sep 15, 2019

But how is this done - and are we nearing the end of the pixel-counting era in terms of using a set figure (or range of figures) to get some idea of overall image quality?

This is a very ironic qustion coming from DF, since pixel-counting is at least 75% of what they do.

DF/Eurogamer: The making of Gears 5: how the Coalition hit 60fps - and improved visual quality

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