Research by Digital Foundry suggests those who downloaded Grand Theft Auto V from the PSN have bagged themselves an inferior (and more expensive) version of the game.
They have discovered “major instances of geometry bursting into view” and “textures taking too long to fully resolve”, explaining that at one point a skyscraper slowly pops in to view.
Cutting rapidly across several areas, the digital version has ground textures popping in half a second late – plus delays in the drawing of shadow maps and objects like grass. For the disc release, these issues don’t manifest to nearly the same extent, with the odd delay in rendering a plant or chair being the worst we see during several retrials.
The Xbox 360 version of the game also suffers from pop in when the “play” disk is installed, hopefully Rockstar are working on a patch for both versions of the game.
Source: Digital Foundry
Stefan L
I feel for anyone who put forward more money than at retail, and has ended up with such issues, not to mention
There really needs to be an open refund policy for this kind of thing, from Sony. It’s just not on to pay over the odds and get such sub-standard service and product.
2ofclubs
The question is who is to blame for the PSN on? Sony for letting an inferior version through QA or Rockstar for submitting an inferior version? Should Sony refund on something like this when it may not be their fault?
Just a talking point btw, I have no major opinion either way, I’m getting mine form a store on Monday when I get paid.
Stefan L
Everyone involved. Sony’s infrastructure crumbled on day one, and that’s a big part of the issue here.
Rockstar designed their game specifically around the ability to read data from both the DVD/BD and the HDD, so that they could stream the world objects in as quickly as possible. That’s on their head, but for Sony to then admit that to the PS Store for digital distribution. I don’t believe it’s on Xbox Game Store, and this streaming issue, which also affects the 360 version when playing with both discs installed, could well be the core of why that’s the case.
As for a refund, I believe that’s generally at the discretion of the seller, for digital goods. Morally, Sony should step up and give the refunds.
TSBonyman
I think we should have a refund policy in place for ALL digital purchases.
2ofclubs
I guess Sony could always give refunds but then claim the money back through Rockstar somehow. I don’t know how it works for digital to be honest.
jimmy-google
Performance issues are a rockstar issue. Too many games are being released unfinished and not properly tested.
HunterGatherer
Of course to be fully balanced in inpartial, TSA needs to post a similar article pointing out that ALL Xbox360 versions suffer from this same problem (as a mandatory install of disk 2 is needed thanks it’s it’s 2001-era storage format).
So in summary: Either post the identical Xbox article, or rename this one: “PS3 Blu-Ray version is the best system to enjoy GTA V”.
TSBonyman
From what i’ve read, it helps if the ps3 or 360 can stream some assets from the bluray/dvd drive, while simu;taneously streaming other assets from the hdd. Neither system is able to stream everything smoothly from the hdd simultaneously. This is why Rockstar advise against installing the Play disk, although i have to wonder – shouldn’t the 360 digital version of the game be suffering the same issues if that’s the case?
Kovacs
There is no digital 360 version.
TSBonyman
Ah right i wasn’t sure.
Good to see you back btw :)
HunterGatherer
But all the disk 360 versions suffer this same problem, as there is a mandatory install for disk 2, thanks to the ancient DVD drive in the Xbox.
Nismo400R84
I have the 360 version and I had too get use to the graphics. I did think to myself “an sure sleeping dogs looks better than this”
DJ Judas
Simply not on and psn buyers could be refunded.
There’s almost certainly a next gen /PC version that loads everything into RAM that’s allowed this issue to sneak in, would be my guess.
quinkill
I saw GTA V running on xbox last night and it looks much better on my PS3 IMO.
Bilbo_bobbins
This is exactly the reason I will not download full retail games. You can’t trust digital downloads and you can’t go back to the store and get a refund and complain.
DirtyHabit
Is this not exactly the same video that was kicking about the other day for xbox, but now its got PS3 written in the corner?
I’m playing on 360 without installing the play disc. There is still some pop up but its not an unacceptable amount IMO.
AngryLink
You can install play disk to a 2.0 USB drive ( needs an upload speed of 15MB/s) and it seems to respond better
Wardy-77-
I really must have a magic PS3 as i’ve been playing my Digital version since monday night when so many have been supposedly struggling to even download and get it running,im nearly 25% in i’ve not seen any of these so called issues no blurry windows no walls or buildings just appearing,it looks a hell of a lot better than that video depicts im tempted to say bullshit.
DJ Judas
What model ps3 are you running? Older systems may have a hard drive that is beginning to slow down in them.
Wardy-77-
It’s a slim not the super slim and a 1tb hdd but still 5400rpm so don’t see how the hdd would matter though if there the same rpm.
DJ Judas
Regardless of platter speed, hard drives can degrade over time. You’d be hard pushed to find a hard drive used daily for 6 years that didn’t have degrading read/write speeds.
Wardy-77-
Well if Df are using really old hdd’s its hardly a fair test,and its not the game thats at fault if thats the case all i know is mine is nothing like that video.
colmshan1990
Same as myself.
I see no such problems.
stonyk
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. MS get critisized for having a closed system (as do apple) that force people to go through a heavily QA’d system (which is costly) then Sony are damned for not doing so much and letting low quality code through.
I guess what people want is the moon on a stick…….
xdarkmagician
nice anti download propaganda. Theres alot of stuff that can cause some pop up, and reduced draw. You can’t measure/compare these things in an open world game because you can’t predict what the game engine is doing, maybe one version is loading a freak mission or spawning something the other isn’t. To say the digital version has issues while only showing the parts that have issues to back that statement isn’t proof. Show the whole game, I’m sure there are times when the disc version lags more. I bet if you compared the entire games to each other you’d find theres no faster version, only different instances where one game was slower at unspecified times because of what the engine is doing. They say the disc version has the same issues, but label the digital version issues as “major”, while saying the disc version issues are “odd”. Those “major” issues being a 1/2 of a second… but the disc isn’t nearly that bad? So what the disc is a 1/4 of a second? That’s an amount of time the human eye can’t measure. Like, you’re going to be driving and think- hum, that shadow is a 1/4 of a second too late. There isn’t an open world game that doesn’t have pop up and draw.
This is just a case of digital foundry cashing in on the GTA craze while stoking the anti-digital fire. on a side note- its funny how nobody complains about downloading a PSN game like Journey, but as soon as you digitize a AAA disc game everybody wants to find something wrong with it.
I bought the digital version and it downloaded fine at normal PSN speed, it installed fine, and it plays fine, hell it plays awesome. I don’t have a GTAV disc to compare it to, but it looks and performs better than my GTAIV disc game. Plus the digital version WAS cheaper because I didn’t have to pay sales tax and I was able to gift a copy to a friend, who also had no issues, who now gets to buy the digital version of BF4 and gift to me in return.
stonyk
You sound like an tester :-)
Tuffcub
Right.. *sigh*
“You can’t measure/compare these things in an open world game because you can’t predict what the game engine is doing,” – If you watch the video the majority of the capture is from the introduction sequence, which is scripted, so identical every time you run it.
“So what the disc is a 1/4 of a second? That’s an amount of time the human eye can’t measure.” – Incorrect, if that was the case we wouldnt argue about 30FPS vs 60 FPS.
“its funny how nobody complains about downloading a PSN game like Journey, but as soon as you digitize a AAA disc game everybody wants to find something wrong with it.” – That’s because Journey worked. Also most other AAA games work fine as a digital download.
“Plus the digital version WAS cheaper because I didn’t have to pay sales tax and I was able to gift a copy to a friend, who also had no issues, who now gets to buy the digital version of BF4 and gift to me in return.”
Its not “gifting”, it’s stealing. Stealing stuff always makes it cheaper.
Wardy-77-
I’ve just played the game from the beginning to watch the intro on my digital copy to compare with the video above,and none of that stuff happens the writing of Lifeguard is there as normal and dosn’t just pop in,the stuff that pops in behind and around michael as he walks along in the vid is all present and correct no pop in,and the ferris wheel is 100% there from the off and not a triangular piece of scaffold like in this video,as i say i haven’t encountered any of these issues the video is saying are present.
xdarkmagician
how the fuck is it stealing when the licensing agreement says I can install it on 2 PS3??
while your playing the game theres no way your going to notice the difference of a 1/4 of a second of incredibly small details like a shadow. It’s not the difference of actual fps. The eye doesn’t have a fps rate, it doesn’t work like a camera taking still photos every second. Saying the eye sees the difference between 30 and 60 fps is incorrect because the human eye can’t see the difference, its the brain that notices the smoothness of motion. So you can’t notice backgound if your focused on the foreground because the eye cant focus at two different spots at the same time, so unless your actually specifically looking for the delay you wont see it.
Last I checked this game works. Just because some website says its inferior doesn’t mean it is. And their claim isn’t the game I see. Their (modified?) video looks nothing like my copy.
HunterGatherer
Indeed, whoever is manipulating the media quite clearly has an agenda here. I suspect Microsoft behind the scenes on this one, but not sure where they are going with it. Perhaps desperate to find any scraps of propaganda at this point.