Screenshot comparisons are an ugly side of the platform battles, but Digital Foundry takes things a little further than most, with normally in-depth analysis of resolution differences, frame rate stutters and other performance issues. His latest, on Black Ops 2, confirms what we wrote earlier with regards to the gulf between the PS3 and the Xbox 360 versions of the game.
Essentially, whilst at least this time Treyarch have managed to get a reasonable resolution on the PS3 – probably 864×720 – the issue is the horrendous blur that’s on top of everything, making it look washed out and messy. “The intensity of the filter is so pronounced that, even after close study of numerous shots, it’s difficult to pinpoint whether any hardware MSAA is being applied on Sony’s platform,” says the article.
“A significant amount of detail is lost in the image overall, but on the plus side, edge detection and smoothing does work out better in some scenes.”
You can see the filter in the shot above – the PS3’s in the middle.
The trick, though, is that without the very latest patch, a lot of the blurriness isn’t there – it’s as if Treyarch wanted to make it more blurry, so added the filter after launch. If you remove the patch (you’ll need to delete the system data for the game) it’ll look better, but obviously you won’t be able to play online.
Not that this will help those affected by the PS3 version freezing. Let’s hope Treyarch are on the case and get this patched up as soon as possible.
HoboCastro
Still looks like someone has smeared Vaseline on the TV.
bunimomike
Looks like a PS2 game with regards to definition.
djdustb
It is so annoying that this many years down the line people still cannot produce the same quality on the PS3. I love my machine but I seriously need to consider a second system or going over to MS on the next generation.
Erroneus
Or simply don’t play shitty games like COD: Blops 2 with publishers who doesn’t give a shit about PS3, but are getting hand jobs from MS at every lunch break.
Don’t support publishers/devs who can’t deliver a proper product.
Joe
Well said!!
Awayze
Actually liking Blops2 but it is annoying that 6 years later and Treyarch with all that money they make of the PS3 isn’t being used to give us a better game.
Jones81
WOW….Just wow. That is huge difference, jits like night and day comparing those shots. I rarely notice any major difference with these screenshot comparisons but this time the difference is staggering.
not that it’ll stop me enjoying what is definately the best cod so far this generation
gaffers101
I’ve had nothing but trouble with the online multiplayer. I’m seriously considering taking it back!
Lymmusic
If people stop buying subpar ports then maybe they would do something about it… But then again, a large number of casual gamers still have sd tv’s or sit far enough from their tvs for it not to make much difference in the same way they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a high-end gastropub burger and a big mac… :)
Forrest_01
A Big Mac isn’t a high-end gastropub burger?? :O
I am shocked by this revelation.
Youles
Agreed, this is partly the problem. It still sells huge amounts on PS3 so sadly their is no incentive for them to make improvements. It’s quite shameful the visuals are so poor, but mainly that there is so little in the way of improvement since Blops1 two years ago – no other franchise would probably allow such little effort in the way of improvement.
Kennykazey
So casual gamers sit further away from their TVs than core gamers? I play my PS3 games on a 55″ HDTV, it’s optimal viewing distance puts me about 2m away. Do casual gamers with CRT TVs sit further away? As a person who’s done a lot of gaming on small CRT TVs, I think not.
I sort of agree with your message though.
Porcupine_I
it’s a shame, it looks like Treyarch are not even trying
Kennykazey
My 14″ laptop can probably run it better. It’s like they put seven layers of FXAA on top and no texture filtering. I’m not sure how they could manage to screw it up like that.
Bilbo_bobbins
Looks terrible, but then, the graphics looked terrible anyway in the opening credits. Online seems ok to me, same as normal.
hazelam
looks fine, is i look with my bad eye and take my glasses off, but then everything more than a few inches away is a blurry blob with my bad eye, without my glasses, and even with my good eye it’s only about a foot.
used to make getting the bus a pain before i got the glasses.
i’m drifting, anyway, how could they think that’s an improvement?
cue the conspiracy theories about them deliberately downgrading the ps3 version.
mind you, something like this can only give those kind of theories more weight.
RudeAwakening
Ha! I know where your coming from, i missed the bus so many times while at the stop because i couldn’t see the bus number in time!