It’s definitely an odd fact that From Software used Sony’s internal PhyreEngine to develop Dark Souls on both the PS3 and Xbox 360 after using it for Demon’s Souls. This is particularly interesting when you consider that, at the time, both versions showcased nary a difference in frame rate and resolution with the game rendered at 1024×720 resolution. The step down from a 1280×720 resolution seen in Demon’s Souls was tantamount because it allowed Dark Souls to use MSAA 2x for its anti-aliasing.

Bloodborne Graphics Overview. Please select 1080p and 60fps for best possible video quality.

Bloodborne’s long loading times are no doubt frustrating.

Dark Souls 2 returned to the 1280×720 resolution, relying on a post-process edge filter this time around, but cracks began to appear in the overall visuals. An uncapped 30 FPS frame rate resulted in severe drops and screen-tearing on the Xbox 360 version of the game while level of detail scaling was dramatically increased leading to unnatural pop-in of enemies, shadows and objects.

And so we come to Bloodborne, From Software’s first PS4 exclusive. It’s only fitting that it continued the blunders of past games on more powerful hardware (which was still easier to develop for than the PS3) but we’ll get to that. Several different members of the GamingBolt team experienced Bloodborne, leading to an overall better impression of the game and more information. Here’s what we found.

Bloodborne runs at a native 1920×1080 resolution on the PS4 with an unlocked frame rate. Notice the lack of a number? That’s because not only is Bloodborne not running at 60 frames per second but its frame rate also isn’t locked at 30 frames per second. The lack of a 60 FPS option would be understandable if Bloodborne was an open world game but it’s not. To see the frame rate to drop as low as 24 frames per second in some instances is disappointing.

Along with drops in the frame rate, judders and stutters have also been seen which drag the experience down. We often witnessed drops while running through corners which resulted in sudden camera switches. This was troubling especially during boss battles and drags down what’s otherwise an immensely enjoyable game.

The material rendering of weapons in Bloodborne are top notch.

Physical based rendering per material such as the leather jacket below results into excellent per object light variations. Even the position of blood stains vary according to the angle of strike.

Global Illumination is present in some cases but its implementation is inconsistent.

By now, most players would have witnessed the horrific loading times in Bloodborne which can go more than 30 seconds when trying to re-enter the game. From Software has already confirmed a patch for the loading times and while there are no loading times between different sections in an area, it’s important to consider that this is a game where players will die. A lot. Taking so long to respawn into the fray only increases the aggravation.

Also, remember that MSAA 2x seen in the first Dark Souls? Despite a sequel and an upgrade in console technology, From Software hasn’t implemented any anti-aliasing into Bloodborne. Considering that Killzone: Shadow Fall, a PS4 launch title, managed a custom FXAA + TMAA solution, it’s amazing that From Software couldn’t even add FXAA. Even Dark Souls 2 had a post-process edge filter yet Bloodborne on the PS4 has no AA whatsoever. There’s a fair bit of chromatic aberration which gets affected by the number of jaggies owing to lack of AA which drags the visuals down by a bit.

The overall texture assets for character selection and customization screens come across poorly as well, especially when looking at the in-game models. The level of detail in Bloodborne is also problematic with many details being lost out upon viewing over a distance. The lack of AA only further degrades this.

Thankfully, Bloodborne has its positive points. Physical based rendering is in effect, allowing for various lighting effects on different materials like wood, metal and statues. Global illumination is present in some places but the lighting engine delivers softer shadows without much issue. The overall cloth simulation is excellent thanks to the texture modelling and PBR. This ensures that you see every little detail from blood stains to interwoven stiches in crisp detail.

Bloodborne employs an excellent anisotropic filtering solution resulting into detailed textures.

Screenspace Reflections, Dynamic Lighting, Enhanced Volumetric Effects, Parallax Occlusion are the highlights of Bloodborne.

Level of detail deterioration is observed and the draw distances are mediocre at best.

Overall destructibility has enhanced with even more objects to smash than before, though this is only limited to wooden objects. Draw distance is great and it’s a shame that the LOD scaling and lack of AA result in distant objects having very little detail. Volumetric effects like fire, fog, wind and dust are rendered amazingly well and From Software uses adaptive tessellation and parallax occlusion to give each environment its fair share of bumps. There’s an extensive use of screen space reflection, a heavy amount of fur and skin shaders, and some pretty impressive reflections and surface textures. If that wasn’t enough, Bloodborne can be credited for having the best anisotropic filtering seen in a PS4 title till date (yes, even better than The Order: 1886).

There are still a fair amount of glitches though such as the rag doll physics causing enemies to be dragged along as the player moves. Without question, it looks weird and not something you’d expect from a game implementing Havok physics.

At least Yebis 3 – used for various depth of field, camera and lighting effects – delivers excellent post-processing effects. You’ll notice it best when using weapons and fighting enemies and bosses. The per object motion blur and depth of field are applied unevenly, the former heavily utilized while the latter sparingly so. Oddly enough, the HDR system – exemplified best in Final Fantasy 15 – of Yebis 3 isn’t used in Bloodborne.

Bosses have complex fur simulation and animations.

The game has no AA. Chromatic Aberration is used but the lack of AA deteriorates its effect.

At the end of the day, it’s amazing to consider the technology backing From Software’s Bloodborne. Yebis 3, Havok, FMOD Sound System, separable subsurface scattering (which is used to render realistic skin), Simplygon (a 3D optimization middleware which creates simplified LOD models at a distance) and Shader X5/X6 (which are two advanced rendering technique manuals by former RAGE Engine lead graphics programmer Wolfgang Engel) are several of the technologies in use here…and yet, the sum feels somewhat underwhelming. We loved the gothic aesthetics of Yharnam and while Bloodborne is the reason to own a PS4 right now, it’s not a showcase for the console’s graphical power.

Actually, it feels like Bloodborne was trapped in the transition from previous to current gen hardware. That still doesn’t explain the horribly long loading times and hopefully, the upcoming patch will address them (look forward to a future article comparing the differences in loading times post-patch).

From Software doesn’t have to prove anything in terms of gameplay and while the studio has never been about premium visuals, it’s a different generation. You can deliver fantastic levels and aesthetics, great animations and post-processing effects along with stellar anisotropic filtering. However, if the end performance suffers – as seen with the lack of AA, frame rate stutters and drops, and long loading times – then it only taints what the good work that the studio has put forth. And that’s disappointing when you consider how much better the visual experience could be with a few optimizations and additions.

GamingBolt’s Bill Smith did the primary analysis of this game. Additional assets were provided by Rashid Sayed and Senior Editor Ravi Sinha came up with additional pointers.

GamingBolt got in touch with lead architect of Yebis 2, Masaki Kawase (whose answers were transcribed by GM and R&D engineer Colin Magne) from Silicon Studios. to know all about Yebis 2, its implementation in the new consoles and the next iteration of Yebis 2 i.e. Yebis 3. Check out his response below.

Rashid Sayed: Tell us a bit about yourself and Silicon Studio?

Silicon Studio is a global minded company located in Tokyo, Japan. It was established in year 2000 with the mission to deliver innovation in the digital entertainment technology and contents industry. We aim to provide the highest standard in areas including rendering technology, research and development methods, game content development and online game solutions. To achieve highest productivity, we created four studios working in synergy: MiddlewareStudio, ContentsStudio, SolutionStudio and AgentStudio.

"YEBIS can be applied to any type of rendering engines .We talked about Ray tracing before. Again in the case of cloud computing where the power of the cloud can render very realistic worlds, it does make sense to use YEBIS. The more you get close to realism, the more seeing this world through a physically simulated camera becomes needed."

Rashid Sayed: Tell us about the different features in Yebis 2 that have been specifically implemented to cater the new consoles [PS4, Xbox One]?

With PS4 and Xbox One came great power. Yebis’ performance on those platforms is close to 10 times their respective previous generations. So users can now use quality settings that were not possible before for many of our effects, the end result is a truly new world of visual expression.

Rashid Sayed: I was going through your preview for the rendering capabilities of Yebis 2 and I must say it has one of the best Bokeh Effects I have seen. Can you tell us about it?

We have spent a lot of time studying about the physics of real camera lenses. We made models to reproduce as physically plausible as we can use those bokeh effects while keeping high performance.

Rashid Sayed: What kind of improvements have you made to blur motion in order to avoid choppy frames?

We have two types of motions blurs that are optimized for different situations. One specialized for fast camera rotation movement, and one for translation and scene objects movement. We can also use both together for fast and good looking motion blur.

Rashid Sayed: Tell us about how Yebis 2 handles AA. Are you guys implementing a custom solution for AA for the engine? I read that you guys are using post anti-aliasing as well?

We use the now infamous FXAA based technique. We actually have plans of new techniques under development right now, but we can’t tell you details yet at this moment.

Rashid Sayed: YEBIS 2 supports three types of HDR rendering architecture. Which one suits the best for a. PS4 b. Xbox One and c. high end PC?

Definitely true HDR for all of them for maximum realism. The other modes were designed for platforms with lower performance and are good at imitating true HDR.

Rashid Sayed: Do you think there is potential for Ray Tracing on the PS4 and Xbox One using Yebis 2?

You mean if a rendering engine was a ray-tracer, can we apply YEBIS on it? The answer is yes. Actually Otoy has been using YEBIS in their real-time path-tracing engine on PC. Moreover, YEBIS includes algorithms based on ray tracing when it comes to close simulation on camera lenses. But they are optimized so ray tracing is not needed for every pixel.

"We have two types of motions blurs that are optimized for different situation. One specialized for fast camera rotation movement, and one for translation and scene objects movement. We can also use both together for fast and good looking motion blur."

Rashid Sayed: Yebis 2 supports DirectX 11 which obviously means that it will support DirectX 12 next year. What kind of benefits will it bring, especially on post anti-aliasing and HDR, when DX 12 will be used in conjunction with Yebis 2?

DX12 is helping gain CPU performance while sending commands to the GPU. YEBIS is actually very fast on the CPU even with DX11. DX12 will accelerate that even more.

Rashid Sayed: I am sure you guys must have seen Microsoft demonstrating the cloud technology at the recent Build 2014 event [link here]. What are your thoughts on this and do you think there is potential for improving visuals and other parameters through cloud? Furthermore do you think Yebis 2 could greatly benefit from something like this?

YEBIS can be applied to any type of rendering engines .We talked about Ray tracing before. Again in the case of cloud computing where the power of the cloud can render very realistic worlds, it does make sense to use YEBIS. The more you get close to realism, the more seeing this world through a physically simulated camera becomes needed.

Rashid Sayed: Tell us how Yebis 2 will accordingly scale for each of the new consoles? Two sub questions related to this are: a. How does it use Xbox One’s eSRAM’s high bandwidth of 204 GB/s and b. How does it use PS4’s unified memory architecture?

We started develop YEBIS 10 years ago. For each new platform (18 as of today) we ported it to, we have always been keen on extracting highest performance by taking advantages of the specificities of the platforms. So again for Xbox One, of course we use ESRAM for internal calculation and internal buffers. The unified memory architecture is less of need for us since everything happens in the GPU.

Rashid Sayed: I am intrigued to know how Yebis 2 scales down to mobile and tablets. What kind of advancements have you done there?

Yebis run in OpenGLES 2.0. We have a benchmark application available here if you want to see it in action. More recently we made an OpenGLES 3.0 port that you can try here. The OpenGLES 3.0 adds a lot of quality taking advantages of the half float buffers.

Rashid Sayed: Yebis 2 is being used in Final Fantasy 15. Can you talk a bit about how Yebis 2 is being used in the title?

You must have made a mistake. There was no announcement that YEBIS will be used for FF15. Yebis was however used in the FINAL FANTASY XV 2013 E3 Trailer from Square Enix. There is nothing more we can say for now 🙂

"For Xbox One, of course we use ESRAM for internal calculation and internal buffers. The unified memory architecture is less of need for us since everything happens in the GPU."

Rashid Sayed: What kind of requirements does a game studio comes up with when they approach you guys for Yebis 2? What is their number one demand?

Actually there are 2 big types of demands that are both important:

• People with a very realistic render engine (with for example physically based material shader and such) for whom the power of the optics simulation in YEBIS will just put the final touch, the emotion in the picture that is necessary to have a dramatic impact on the audience.
• People with a “old style” or less advanced game engine and who wants to give a fresh boost in terms of looks to their rendering. YEBIS can transform a very bleach picture into a very organic or emotional picture. Not only toward realism, but also toward non-realistic artistic renderings.

Rashid Sayed: What is the potential of Yebis 2 when used with AMD’s Mantle?

Very similar thoughts as with DX12.

Rashid Sayed: Last question, what kind of new features are you working on the next update for Yebis 2?

We are developing very attractive features and will release several of them this year. Don’t miss our future announcements. 🙂

Rashid Sayed: What are the features that developers will only find in Yebis 3 but not in Yebis 2? 

• Depth of Field.
• Greatly improved quality.
• More precise physical simulation of the internal lense optical compnenents and diaphragm by taking in account bokeh chromatic aberration, color frindging, and apperture shape.
• Camera animations and focus point animations are now much smoother and also taking in account diapragm movements.
• In addition we can now simulate full range of bokeh size , from extremely small to basically fullscreen.
• SSAO is a new addition to our feature set.
• Added Color Space such as AdobeRGB to be able to display the right colors on special displays.