Modern Warfare 2: Texture Streaming

[JoMaMaz]

Fourzerotwo, (IW's Community Manager) has updated his site with news about the new "texture streaming" that will be implemented into MW2. Read below for more info:

How important are graphics to you? Regardless of who wins in the endless ‘Graphics VS Gameplay’ argument, when you buy a new game, especially a direct sequel to a previous game, you have certain expectations of what that game should offer.

Innovation in gameplay, new features, new weapons, new maps, and of course, a leap in visual fidelity.

I’ve shown you some of the new innovations in gameplay (like the Customizable Killstreak Rewards video) and of course new weapons, perks, and levels within those videos; with more to come as we get closer to launch. Right now though, I wanted to take a look at the visual enhancements we’ve made to Modern Warfare 2.

A major component in the new engine tech that has the greatest impact on these enhancements is our new hi-res Texture Streaming functionality. Texture streaming allows our designers the freedom to make much larger environments, like the scene below, while also increasing the amount of detail on the characters, and environments in the vicinity of the player.

Take this screenshot that we released at GamesCom this week for example. Enlarge the screenshots to really see what I’m talking about here.

(ENLARGE - Before & After Texture Streaming Comparison)

Notice the major difference on the character model in this shot, specifically the head of “Soap” MacTavish and the fabric texture of his uniform.

You can tell even more in this full version of the screenshot:

BELOW: View Full Screenshot with Hi-res Texture Streaming (Enabled)

BELOW: Compared to Full Screenshot without Hi-res Texture Streaming (Disabled)

You can see how this new feature allows to us to further push the amount of detail we can add to our characters, their gear, and especially the environment thanks to the memory allotment improvements it provides. Allowing more space for weather effects, dynamic destructible objects, and other details that are just as crucial to the total immersion of the game.

Well, this definitely does make a difference. Some of the clothes and accessories still look blurry, but obviously an improvement. The hair got 10x better.

As with most games, the graphics are impressive in the beginning, and then people get numb to it. Hopefully, the gameplay can back this up. Glad to see they have at least updated the graphics somewhat even though it's a sequel on the same game engine.

Source

[[GCA]Tim270]

Re: Modern Warfare 2: Texture Streaming

.... yeah, lets compare a low resolution texture vs a much higher one and see how amazing it looks Its not exactly new tech nor is it really anything new? they optimized memory allotment and increased the texture resolutions which just looks like optimized texture 'lods' not really pushing any boundaries imo...

With that said, the CoD engines can produce beautiful sights :)

[Shellshock_1918]

Re: Modern Warfare 2: Texture Streaming

more propaganda from 402....probably trying to erode the bad press they got from announcing that there would be no beta or demo.

[Torchwood]

Re: Modern Warfare 2: Texture Streaming

Oh great lol, so thats probably another GB of my hard drive a Call of Duty game is going to consume.

[U83R_1337]

Re: Modern Warfare 2: Texture Streaming

Looks nice! will it be in DX10? or will it be optimized for 64bit like older games far cry etc. and in multiplayer most people turn there graphics down to play matchs etc so is it really worth it?
Personaly i would like the best graphics computers could make, as i have the hardware to display them.

[Mavrik347]

Re: Modern Warfare 2: Texture Streaming

No BETA, ok it's a privilege anyway I guess as long as they have good testers (a bizarrly rare thing these days). No Demo = BAD.

I don't buy games without a demo and the likes of MW2, as high as my hopes are. Is no exception.

[The_Eliminator]

Re: Modern Warfare 2: Texture Streaming

I agree with Tim, firstly i dont ever remember looking at captain price close up and thinking the textures looked as bad as they do in that first SS. All they have done is gone from a low resolution display to a higher one and passed it off as some "new fantastic idea" they have come up with.

[Greasy_Mullet]

Re: Modern Warfare 2: Texture Streaming

While those graphics look great, so do the other ones. Is it worth the resources and time to go to that level of detail? We keep hearing about how much more games cost to make these days and how the teams have gone from small 20-30 person teams to 150 people teams. A large part of that cost is directly tied to pushing the graphics and using more and more of developers time for such small details.

The graphics jumps have become the focus of games time, resources, and funding while less and less resources on the actual gameplay. When you max out your graphics like that the system has to give in other areas or else PC's lag.

What I would really like to see is some sort of projection of costs for how much they had to spend for such a small jump in graphics. Meaning time to develope that tech, time the devs spent adding more details to the models and textures, how many days it pushed back production, what other resources had to be scaled back, and finally how much of that cost is going into our cost for the game. Meaning if the game is $60 for PC, are we paying $10 of that to fund the extra small graphics boost?

Games need to get back to a focus in gameplay period.

[imported_Gunny]

Re: Modern Warfare 2: Texture Streaming

I don't think the system req are going to be that much higher then CoD:4, I think Im going to be fine?

Win XP.
Intel duo core 2 extreme X6800 3.2GHz.
4GB RAM.
Geforce GTX 280 1GB.