Splinter Cell: Blacklist Image Quality Video Card Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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Splinter Cell: Blacklist Image Quality Video Card Review - Splinter Cell: Blacklist is out, and we dive into this game and pay close attention to image quality and detail. NVIDIA and Ubisoft have implemented some first-time features ever seen in the Splinter Cell series, with DX11 Tessellation, HBAO+, and TXAA. We look at each of these technologies and see if it helps boost the quality of this game on the PC.
 
Love the game, the best in stealth IMO, but yeah textures are kinda meh and character models really need some work. I guess I can't blame them for maybe waiting for next-gen to be out before completely reworking their engine.
 
I initially had some issues with this game.......the new beta driver from NVidia wasn't working quite well and the game kept resetting the advanced graphics settings.

I finally got it all straightened out. Custom Ultra settings, smooth 60 FPS in Surround.

I like the look of the game, but the mechanics are clunky and the weapons are as well.

I like the review, good explanation of the new visual aspects.:D

I have to admit.....I thought the paragraph header said Thong Tessellation....:eek::eek: Sam Fisher in a thong.......yikes.....
 
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Since the game supports MSAA natively can we not use some of the custom AA modes provided by the nvidia control panel to combat alpha texture aliasing?
 
The biggest issue I have is...
1) Buy game.
2) Start game.
3) Configure graphics/sound/etc.
4) Play game and see in the customization there is already DLC to purchase?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Here's part of the game you just paid for now throw in more money for the 20+ DLCs we'll throw at you through the life of the game.
 
Since Ghost Recon Future Soldier, some of the UBI stuff has really gone down hill. Far Cry 3 was amazing but Assassin's Creed 3 was meh, this game hasn't impressed me at all.
 
Major_A said:
The biggest issue I have is...
1) Buy game.
2) Start game.
3) Configure graphics/sound/etc.
4) Play game and see in the customization there is already DLC to purchase?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Here's part of the game you just paid for now throw in more money for the 20+ DLCs we'll throw at you through the life of the game.
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LOL.....I know exactly what you mean.....it's like "we'll sell you half the game for full price".

Fortunately, one of the forum members gave me the game coupon he got from buying a new GPU, so I'm out nothing.

As I said before, the game looks good.....once you remove all the "moronograms" it's pretty immersive....I've enjoyed it so far....but it's heavily consolized.
 
Alphonze said:
I guess I can't blame them for maybe waiting for next-gen to be out before completely reworking their engine.
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Well you don't have to but I will. PC gamers can take advantage of newer graphical detail options and they should be used. To use the fact that the console gamers are still in last gen mode is no reason why we should suffer.

Well the game may not take advantage of high res textures or newer graphics engines but apparently it does make use of quad core CPUs and SLI setups well:

http://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/splinter-cell-blacklist-pc-performance-analysis/

Small victories.
 
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Well, because [H] did a review I looked at an ubi game.

Hmm good review, thanks.

Meh... for the game, not even on my $5 wait list.

Next...
 
Simmonz said:
Well you don't have to but I will. PC gamers can take advantage of newer graphical detail options and they should be used. To use the fact that the console gamers are still in last gen mode is no reason why we should suffer.

Well the game may not take advantage of high res textures or newer graphics engines but apparently it does make use of quad core CPUs and SLI setups well:

http://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performance-analyses/splinter-cell-blacklist-pc-performance-analysis/

Small victories.
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Well said, but you have to simply look at the numbers to know why this is so.
The console income overwhelms the PC game income.....so we will always be the red-haired stepchild.:eek:
 
magoo said:
Well said, but you have to simply look at the numbers to know why this is so.
The console income overwhelms the PC game income.....so we will always be the red-haired stepchild.:eek:
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I agree we are but we don't have to like it.
 
dnottis said:
Since Ghost Recon Future Soldier, some of the UBI stuff has really gone down hill. Far Cry 3 was amazing but Assassin's Creed 3 was meh, this game hasn't impressed me at all.
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In terms of the Tom Clancy franchises, I feel as if everything has been downhill since Rainbow Six Raven Shield. Basically the moment when Ubisoft took over.

This game has a ton of annoyances. It really sucks that every time you alt-tab, the game switches to a lower resolution windowed mode, and you have to go through settings and reset your resolution.

The game looks very dated for a $60 game. The 3D character models look horrible, and the animations are herky jerky and not very polished. Characters in cutscenes look like plastic mannequins with dead eyes and plastic skin. It was more fun to play The Last of Us on dated hardware running 720p @ 30fps than play this game at 2560x1600 @ 60fps.

I really hope that this isn't any indication of what The Division will be like.
 
May be when this game lands in the bargain bin. Stealth games like this one are where you actually have the time to relax in the shadows and observe the scenery, not to mention the contribution of the feeling of ambiance and context with a detailed scene. The lack of details and UE2.5 really kills this game.
 
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/Posted this in another thread, but Eyefinity works fine for me in the campaign missions. But in the 4E missions and multiplayer it doesn't. I guess they disabled eyefinity for multiplayer?
 
Boggins said:
This game has a ton of annoyances. It really sucks that every time you alt-tab, the game switches to a lower resolution windowed mode, and you have to go through settings and reset your resolution.
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That really pi*ses me off.
The same thing happens with Grid2, after answering a phone call, I have to arse about to get the game back to full screen. 3 settings have to be changed back, deep into a very slow menu system.
Splinter Cell is going on my bargain bin list, I'm not paying full price for old graphics and unnecessary annoyances.
 
smh at using unreal 2 for over a decade.oh well guess we'll have to wait till 2016 to get the next installment/reboot on UE4.
 
Nenu said:
That really pi*ses me off.
The same thing happens with Grid2, after answering a phone call, I have to arse about to get the game back to full screen. 3 settings have to be changed back, deep into a very slow menu system.
Splinter Cell is going on my bargain bin list, I'm not paying full price for old graphics and unnecessary annoyances.
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Click in the game window and hit Alt-Enter.
 
i don't know if the engine is not optimized, but even with my modern graphics card, the game still runs like crap, especially when using the sonar goggles
 
the graphics may be dated but I'm glad they stuck with ue2.5 tbh. ue3 may have more up to date native features but it's nowhere near as efficient, and frankly I can't stand the way it runs. so I could take it or leave it, it's a trade off to me that leans in favor of their own solution. they put alot of work into this branch of unreal and I get why they would rather stick with it than re-license ue3 for little gain. and yes, I consider the gains to be relatively minimal in comparison, when we look at the kind of detail they put into the few dx11 features it has.

if they had gone all out with the tesselation and particles, then it might have made more sense to upgrade. though as you can see they chose to focus on fine tuning the ambient lighting and shadows, which really came out great, making the upgrade kind of pointless. this isn't really the type of game that needs to be flashy, but I agree they could have done way more in the objects and tesselation department, seeing as they already had the methods in place.

dr.kevin said:
i don't know if the engine is not optimized, but even with my modern graphics card, the game still runs like crap, especially when using the sonar goggles
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I didn't have this problem at all, and I'm still on 560ti with an easy 60 fps on high graphics, maybe you should turn down some settings if your hardware clearly can't handle them.

Boggins said:
This game has a ton of annoyances. It really sucks that every time you alt-tab, the game switches to a lower resolution windowed mode, and you have to go through settings and reset your resolution.
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well are you running the latest version? there is a fix for this included in the first patch notes. I have mine set to borderless windowed and I can tab anytime with no problem.
 
The game doesn't look spectacular but IMO doesn't need to, it looks good enough to me. Probably why Ubisoft stuck with same engine. I'm a Splinter Cell guy and have been from the beginning. The biggest thing for me with this game is Sam Fisher. Still hard for me to get used to not hearing Michael Ironside's voice. And the looks, the dude now looks like the character in Mass Effect 3. Sam Fisher has gone very generic. Sam Fisher used to have character, this new one has none. The game itself plays fine, it's just not the same Splinter Cell.
 
I think this game looks downright nasty, and the only thing hiding it is ambient occlusion. It's also freaking me out how most of the characters' eyes look like they're bulging out of their skulls.

It's funny how they made a big deal about the motion capture (I think that's part of the reason why they dropped Ironside), and nothing about the animations even stand out.
 
Megalith said:
I think this game looks downright nasty, and the only thing hiding it is ambient occlusion. It's also freaking me out how most of the characters' eyes look like they're bulging out of their skulls.

It's funny how they made a big deal about the motion capture (I think that's part of the reason why they dropped Ironside), and nothing about the animations even stand out.
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The lack of Ironside is a big loss, for me anyway. I have played every game at least 3 times in the series except for the latest one before the current - Conviction. Ironside's voice acting is highly memorable and part of Fisher's traits.

As for the eyes bulging, you should see SC: Double Agent. Fisher's eyes look like they are made of 3 dimensional anime eyes.
 
... maybe they just imported crayon drawings from their kids day school for the textures
 
I have an i3-2100 and this game does not make use of Hyperthreading. Consequently, the two cores are constantly pegged at 100% in DX11 mode, no matter the graphic settings. There is terrible stuttering that doesn't show up in frames-per-second analysis, indicative of long frametimes. Some less-CPU-intensive levels are playable, but most are not, and the worst stuttering occurs when looking at the SMI area of the plane (easily testable area). Switching to DX9 solves the issue (not a bad compromise - the game looks almost the same), but blocks access to Ultra shadows, HBAO, Tessellation, TXAA and MSAA.

Maybe another patch is forthcoming...

I like this review, though I see a difference between FXAA texture-blur and TXAA texture-blur. FXAA is not as bad - and there's a ton of specular aliasing in this game, so I combine SMAA with FXAA and it looks acceptable. Also, I find it strange that there's so much complaining about blurring the textures, but then complaining about some of the textures being low-quality. You're rarely close enough to any surfaces to see the shoddiness anyways, since it's a third-person game. I find that FXAA blurs the textures just enough to hide the sometimes stark contrast of a low-res texture right beside a high-res one. There are some good textures in this game, along with some great usage of POM (used instead of tess in most places), and I don't think they should be overlooked.

PS - Ironside is definitely missed. Their BS excuse for wanting the same actor doing the face and body capture as the voice is stupid - have Ironside do the face animations and voice, and someone else do the mo-cap.
 
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Patch for what, making your CPU faster?
If your CPU is running 100%, its not quick enough or hasnt got enough real cores to spread the load.
Consider that HT uses the same core, if its already running at 100%, you cant get much more out of it.
 
Nenu said:
Patch for what, making your CPU faster?
If your CPU is running 100%, its not quick enough or hasnt got enough real cores to spread the load.
Consider that HT uses the same core, if its already running at 100%, you cant get much more out of it.
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you're missing the point, this game has no business pinning a sandy bridge class cpu. the results of testing something totally gpu dependant like swapping between dx9 and 11 should be proof enough.
 
maybe somebody can mod in some high res textures at some point
 
jessterman21 said:
I have an i3-2100 and this game does not make use of Hyperthreading. Consequently, the two cores are constantly pegged at 100% in DX11 mode, no matter the graphic settings. There is terrible stuttering that doesn't show up in frames-per-second analysis, indicative of long frametimes. Some less-CPU-intensive levels are playable, but most are not, and the worst stuttering occurs when looking at the SMI area of the plane (easily testable area). Switching to DX9 solves the issue (not a bad compromise - the game looks almost the same), but blocks access to Ultra shadows, HBAO, Tessellation, TXAA and MSAA.

Maybe another patch is forthcoming...

I like this review, though I see a difference between FXAA texture-blur and TXAA texture-blur. FXAA is not as bad - and there's a ton of specular aliasing in this game, so I combine SMAA with FXAA and it looks acceptable. Also, I find it strange that there's so much complaining about blurring the textures, but then complaining about some of the textures being low-quality. You're rarely close enough to any surfaces to see the shoddiness anyways, since it's a third-person game. I find that FXAA blurs the textures just enough to hide the sometimes stark contrast of a low-res texture right beside a high-res one. There are some good textures in this game, along with some great usage of POM (used instead of tess in most places), and I don't think they should be overlooked.

PS - Ironside is definitely missed. Their BS excuse for wanting the same actor doing the face and body capture as the voice is stupid - have Ironside do the face animations and voice, and someone else do the mo-cap.
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Interesting thread - great to see a bit of banter, without any name-calling etc. Critiquing the game is a different matter, you can say how you feel, especially a 2013 game built with a - how old engine? ~12yrs, O M fkn G...Adding new wheels to a 12yr old car doesn't make it any more desirable - this has the same feel to it...From what I have heard this game can be a lot of fun, if you can ignore the textures and lack of world content...but if you are a [H]er, chances are you WILL be the type who can't handle this type of presentation..


BTW, what GPU are you using with that i3-2100 ? My 12 yoGF3 plays this just fine!!;);););)
 
mas said:
you're missing the point, this game has no business pinning a sandy bridge class cpu. the results of testing something totally gpu dependant like swapping between dx9 and 11 should be proof enough.
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Huh?
Its got 2 cores.
 
I remember when the first splinter cell game came out,i didnt't had internet and was watching it tv-shows showing off the game,it looked absolutely amazing and real for that time.The first games looked phenomenal and it helped with the realisim of the game(no aliens in this game).Guess they forgot to move on and still use the same graphics :)) I like it when they use 10 year old engine but add directx 11?Thats like spraying garbage with perfum to smell better,its still garbage...
 
The i3 series has 2 physical cores, but they appear as 4 cores to software. The reason I say the game doesn't use hyperthreading is because there's no activity whatsoever on the 2 virtual cores, even with core parking disabled - inconsistent with every other game I own, including SC:Conviction. I have not heard of an i3 or i7 not using any virtual cores because the physical cores are maxed - this game is supposed to take advantage of 3-4 core CPUs, so I assumed it doesn't recognize HT, given my testing.

I have a GTX 660 driving a 1440x900 monitor, but I often use downsampling for better image quality (1680x1050 and 1920x1200). I've tested every set of settings in this game, and the only way I can get it smooth is to switch to DX9. Even selecting Vsync with Triple Buffering in the Nvidia Control Panel doesn't smooth it out. Threading Optimization doesn't help, either.
 
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jessterman21 said:
The i3 series has 2 physical cores, but they appear as 4 cores to software. The reason I say the game doesn't use hyperthreading is because there's no activity whatsoever on the 2 virtual cores, even with core parking disabled - inconsistent with every other game I own, including SC:Conviction. I have not heard of an i3 or i7 not using any virtual cores because the physical cores are maxed - this game is supposed to take advantage of 3-4 core CPUs, so I assumed it doesn't recognize HT, given my testing.

I have a GTX 660 driving a 1440x900 monitor, but I often use downsampling for better image quality (1680x1050 and 1920x1200). I've tested every set of settings in this game, and the only way I can get it smooth is to switch to DX9. Even selecting Vsync with Triple Buffering in the Nvidia Control Panel doesn't smooth it out. Threading Optimization doesn't help, either.
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thats odd that it does not use HT at all on your i3 2100. and btw triple buffering from the control panel has no impact on DX games and only applies to opengl games.
 
cannondale06 said:
thats odd that it does not use HT at all on your i3 2100. and btw triple buffering from the control panel has no impact on DX games and only applies to opengl games.
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this is a decades outdated trope, d3d does have its own form of triple buffering.
 
cannondale06 said:
thats odd that it does not use HT at all on your i3 2100.
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Found the issue. For some reason the game .exe defaults to Processor Affinity for only Core 0 and 2, not all cores. I can't figure out why, and I have to change it in TM every time I launch the game, but it's smooth now - using all 4 "cores" at 80-90%.

Noticed some other bugs in the game interface, too - hope a polished patch is coming.
 
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