We'd be inclined to say that the Xbox 360 version is utilising Timothy Lottes' FXAA technology, while PS3 goes for MLAA. Take a look at the images above and see what you think. "Lighting and effects work has been taken to the next level with this new SoulCalibur title - one of the most gorgeous 60FPS titles we've seen on current-gen platforms." The effect is not as aggressive as we've seen in other implementations - perhaps because of the 60FPS frame-rate helping to blend the action, perhaps to lower processing cost. There's plenty of aliasing in SoulCalibur 5, but there is evidence of some kind of post-process edge-smoothing in effect on both platforms.
In truth, SoulCalibur 5 throws so many effects into the mix that sometimes it's difficult to follow exactly what's going on (particularly when on-screen 3D text can manifest with very obvious aliasing), but this area is one of the few points of differentiation.
Both games operate at native 720p utilising what we suspect are different forms post-process anti-aliasing. SoulCalibur 5 puts an end to the tinkering and shows us the final product after years of experimentation. As the blog post also revealed, the PS3 game was locked at 576p in both modes, but MSAA was introduced if motion blur was disabled. We speculated that by downsampling that back to 720p, Namco was attempting to reduce aliasing via super-sampling, but the effect was not exactly convincing.Īfter that, Namco's studios experimented still further with Tekken 6, where the developers utilised the same super-sampling approach on 360 while introducing a motion blur option that scaled down resolution while in operation, and redirecting graphical power into blending the characters and introducing better texture filtering - an intriguing example of a sub-HD game presenting more texture detail at 1024x576 than it did at 1365x768. Neither game possessed anti-aliasing, but the Xbox 360 game actually ran internally at 1365x768, compared to the native 720p of the PS3 version - an extra 13.8 per cent of resolution. There were also curious differences in the setup of the framebuffer itself. Previously, the Project Soul team had included a small batch of 360 enhancements that gave the Xbox version of SoulCalibur 4 a marginal visible improvement over its sibling: lens flare and bloom effects were omitted from the PS3 game. If there are any surprises in the comparison, it's that there's so little to tell these two games apart. "Aside from some insignificant effects differences, only varying anti-aliasing implementations can separate SoulCalibur 5 from an image quality perspective." As you'll see from the video below, and the SoulCalibur 5 720p comparison gallery, this game really is gorgeous - and it's equally impressive on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It feels as though things have moved on this time around, however. While it's fair to say that the core gameplay in both of these franchises never really changes substantially, the engine powering it definitely does: from a visual perspective, SoulCalibur 4 and Tekken 6 have each evolved in their own way with each new iteration, and it's clear that this new game sees yet another visual leap.īut can the Project Soul development team bring the same level of visual accomplishment to both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the SoulCalibur 5? In Namco's previous fighting games, there's always been a sense that the developers have been testing the graphical capabilities of both consoles, always handing in very close games overall, but often including some intriguing - and often bizarre - differences in the visual feature-set of each version. The main character is looking for a way to relieve her sister against «Soul Edge», because according to legend, anyone with a sword «Soul Calibur» undertakes to kill the owner of the sword «Soul Edge».Renowned for their intricate detail and heavy effects work, the SoulCalibur and Tekken games are a remarkable example of just how much processing and rendering Namco is able to cram into the tiny window afforded by a solid 60 frames-per-second update. Later Patroclus becomes the new owner of the legendary sword «Soul Calibur», respectively, and Pierre gets «Soul Edge».
The game takes place 17 years after the events of Soulcalibur IV.The son of the main character of previous games in the series of spotlights Patroclus hunts "infected" people gone mad from exposure to «Soul Edge», and is looking for his sister Pyrrhus.After the betrayal of the Lord Dumas (hereinafter - Nightmare), whom he served, he goes in search of his sister, who has become contaminated due to Tyre.