quadomatic
DingooWiki Admin
I've always wondered, how is it that Payback looks so good and runs so well on the GP2X?
How Is It That Payback Looks So Good?
- Thread starter quadomatic
- Start date
Nova
Is that a Caanoo in your pocket or are you just ha
Magic.
quote
dwarf shortage
The type of magic known only as: lots of time, effort and skill 
christo930
Well-Known Member
TEAM of experienced coders working FULL TIME because they are being PAID. If the people who make the free games and emulators we get were doing it full time with the resources of a company with musicians and artists and such, I think we would see a lot of games showing what our little machine can do. The guys making our free games are usually doing it in THEIR spare time, not on some one else's dime.quadomatic said:
Chris
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Blah
Wanna Be Programmer
Actually Payback was coded by 1 guy on his own time. Get your facts right before spouting crap. <_<
Q
quasist
Guest
Payback is a port from GameBoy Advance (game engine runs on ~16.8mhz) with very improved graphics.
Takes advantages of second CPU.
Default overclock to 240 mhz
That was all
Takes advantages of second CPU.
Default overclock to 240 mhz
That was all
Game_over
Game Developer
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2006
- Messages
- 645
Yeah Payback was originally created for the Amiga computer and than remade for the GBA (at that time I think he got some attention for the games graphics even then) and then ported/remade again to the GP2x. I forgot weather or not he used the 2nd cpu, but may have in the update (someone correct me), but I know that he used HDRI (high dynamic range imaging) and I think that made it the first handheld game to take advantage of the technique. That alone made this version miles ahead of the on for GBA.
nubie
Recovering Jerk-A-Holic
A. it doesn't*
B. it uses lighting
C. it uses HDR
D. it has some full screen effects that look "wow" techdemo-ish
E. the textures are large (for a handheld), and pre-rendered to a very high level on dedicated workstations.
F. the textures are mostly viewed straight down
G. the screen has about 4 times as many pixels as a single DS screen.
Most of your answers are here:
http://www.apex-designs.net/payback_gp2x_report.html
It uses tricks to fool you into thinking it looks good. These tricks make your brain assume more than is there. In reality the person looks like a box, has maybe 20 polygons total (if that).
I don't think it looks all that great, although it seems on par with the DS, and worlds better than 3D on the GBA, these plain straight up suck, no two ways about it.
Of course there it is also a proper game put out by people who have written commercially for mainstream systems, this gives it a real polish compared to homebrew. (although some of the homebrew is really really good in this scene, maybe even better.)
B. it uses lighting
C. it uses HDR
D. it has some full screen effects that look "wow" techdemo-ish
E. the textures are large (for a handheld), and pre-rendered to a very high level on dedicated workstations.
F. the textures are mostly viewed straight down
G. the screen has about 4 times as many pixels as a single DS screen.
Most of your answers are here:
http://www.apex-designs.net/payback_gp2x_report.html
It uses tricks to fool you into thinking it looks good. These tricks make your brain assume more than is there. In reality the person looks like a box, has maybe 20 polygons total (if that).
I don't think it looks all that great, although it seems on par with the DS, and worlds better than 3D on the GBA, these plain straight up suck, no two ways about it.
Of course there it is also a proper game put out by people who have written commercially for mainstream systems, this gives it a real polish compared to homebrew. (although some of the homebrew is really really good in this scene, maybe even better.)
christo930
Well-Known Member
First, you don't have to be a dick about anything. Second, even if it was by 1 person, it's still a commercial project with someone trying to make money and willing to put all the time needed into it. It's also most likely that the graphics were done by an artist. And whether you want to see it or not, people devoting a full time job to a project are going to be able to do things that someone with much less time can accomplish (unless you have years to do it in your spare time).Blah said:
Chris
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Exophase
Nothing good will ever come of Exophase.
nubie; GP2X has only 1.56 times as many pixels as a single DS screen, not 4 times.
christo930; Naturally commercial games are usually better than homebrew ones, but it is my experience that the best emulators done for free are very often competitive with the best ones done commercially. It really isn't about the money.
christo930; Naturally commercial games are usually better than homebrew ones, but it is my experience that the best emulators done for free are very often competitive with the best ones done commercially. It really isn't about the money.
fusion_power
Advanced Member
Exactly this is the way, how good Devs made good games. ^^ High Art is to make a Thing "look" good with simple methods. If people have this Talent, maybe they can do everything. Many Games (2D or 3D - doesn't matter) using tricks for Graphic to impress the Player, very fascinating.nubie said:
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Q
quasist
Guest
You mean GTA 1 clone with non smooth gameplay and sandy-looking-graphics?fusion_power said:
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Gruntfuggly
Mostly Harmless
I never really got into payback because I found it really disappointing as a driving game. Considering that's what you do most of the time, I think it was a bit of a let down.
But it does *look* nice...
But it does *look* nice...
fusion_power
Advanced Member
quasist said:You mean GTA 1 clone with non smooth gameplay and sandy-looking-graphics?fusion_power said:
no, they can make a game LOOK good.
Well there is no other 3D Game for GP2X with such good graphics so I think the Devs have Talent. And Payback sows us, what's inside of the GP2X.
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Hahaha.. Wow. I love how you said it "tricks" your brain into thinking it looks good. What the hell. Are you trying to say now, there is some sort of standard for games, that has a requirement to if it looks good or not?
So if a game doesn't meet a certain amount of polygons or something, it looks bad, technically speaking? It doesn't matter what is actually "there" or not, if you can't even tell the difference. If it looks good to you visually, then who cares what is under the hood?
Reminds me of something about the PS3 running some games at 120 FPS and the human eye not even being able to see beyond a certain FPS or something. Its like, why even bother if you can't see the difference?
Of course, that whole eye thing could just be a old urban legend or something, but the point still remains.
So if a game doesn't meet a certain amount of polygons or something, it looks bad, technically speaking? It doesn't matter what is actually "there" or not, if you can't even tell the difference. If it looks good to you visually, then who cares what is under the hood?
Reminds me of something about the PS3 running some games at 120 FPS and the human eye not even being able to see beyond a certain FPS or something. Its like, why even bother if you can't see the difference?
Of course, that whole eye thing could just be a old urban legend or something, but the point still remains.
gruso
thunderbox
QUOTE
Hahaha.. Wow. I love how you said it "tricks" your brain into thinking it looks good. What the hell. Are you trying to say now, there is some sort of standard for games, that has a requirement to if it looks good or not?
So if a game doesn't meet a certain amount of polygons or something, it looks bad, technically speaking? It doesn't matter what is actually "there" or not, if you can't even tell the difference. If it looks good to you visually, then who cares what is under the hood?
lol, way to read into things too far. The topic is about eye candy making things look more impressive. No one is saying that other games are crap because they don't have Payback graphics. Why so defensive anyway?
QUOTE
Reminds me of something about the PS3 running some games at 120 FPS and the human eye not even being able to see beyond a certain FPS or something. Its like, why even bother if you can't see the difference?
Of course, that whole eye thing could just be a old urban legend or something, but the point still remains.
The human eye can see the difference. High frame rate is also important for responsiveness in fast paced games. Have a read here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/98124-13...ramerates-games ...there is a really good article around on this but I can't remember where to find it right now.
Hahaha.. Wow. I love how you said it "tricks" your brain into thinking it looks good. What the hell. Are you trying to say now, there is some sort of standard for games, that has a requirement to if it looks good or not?
So if a game doesn't meet a certain amount of polygons or something, it looks bad, technically speaking? It doesn't matter what is actually "there" or not, if you can't even tell the difference. If it looks good to you visually, then who cares what is under the hood?
lol, way to read into things too far. The topic is about eye candy making things look more impressive. No one is saying that other games are crap because they don't have Payback graphics. Why so defensive anyway?
QUOTE
Reminds me of something about the PS3 running some games at 120 FPS and the human eye not even being able to see beyond a certain FPS or something. Its like, why even bother if you can't see the difference?
Of course, that whole eye thing could just be a old urban legend or something, but the point still remains.
The human eye can see the difference. High frame rate is also important for responsiveness in fast paced games. Have a read here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/98124-13...ramerates-games ...there is a really good article around on this but I can't remember where to find it right now.
fishybawb
Hired Geek
I reread your entire post a few times, and still couldn't figure out what the point was :blink:kuehnau said:
All he said was that the game employs tricks to make it appear more graphically impressive than it technically is. Which is true. And quite clever.
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christo930
Well-Known Member
There is some incredible homebrewn software, especially non-art based, like emulators and operating systems and utilities. I wasn't trying to put down the efforts of home brewers at all. Almost all of the software available for the gp32 and gp2x is homebrewn. I just think that when it comes to games, usually you need someone who is a talented artist for the graphics and a musician for the music for a commercial quality game. There are exceptions to this however. I've seen some really good stuff made from 1 person. A lot of times the graphics and sounds are ripped from other projects though. I also don't think it's about the money, so much as it is about the time. Someone who is developing in their spare time has only so munch time to devote to the project. THere are usually time constraints to a commercial project as well, but that can be at least helped by increasing manpower (to a degree).Exophase said:
There is some talk in the thread about tricking the eye and I wanted to comment on that too. Your brain will fill in detail that doesn't exist. Painters use this trick all the time. You see leaves on a tree, or people on a street and when you get up close to the painting you only see blobs of paint.
Chris
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