RAGE vs UE3

Just finished Max Payne's Story mode, and I've got to say, this game is top notch. One of the many things that stuck out was the fact that I was constantly unaware of when a cutscene was ending and control over Max began. The seamless transition between cutscene and gameplay is astonishing. The fact that the lighting, texturing and poly count in the in-game seems to be just as high as the cutscenes got me thinking about how much we've grown accustomed to games created in Unreal Engine. Don't get me wrong, UE has been a boon to game developers and has enhanced the level of detail on the current generation of consoles, but it disappoints me that RAGE has taken a back seat despite many advantages.

While I would also like to laud Crytek's engine, it seems to only approach a RAGE/UE3 level of polish when used on high-end PC's.

In closing, when Max first enters the favella, I hadn't felt that immersed in a living world in quite a while. I guess I can be classified as an "environment whore". While graphics whores care for nothing but graphics, environment whores relish being in a fully-realized world. And while the current generation of hardware doesn't have the ability to render such lavish worlds at the sandbox scale, I have my fingers crossed that this is something the next-generation experience will provide.

There's a lot more to having a game look pretty then just the engine. I would be willing to bet that RAGE and UE3 are on similar ground when it comes to technical ability.

Also Rockstar can put a lot more effort into their games then most developers using UE3/UDK.

By RAGE, do you mean the engine used in the game Rage? I thought that was called "id Tech 5"?

@believer258 said:

By RAGE, do you mean the engine used in the game Rage? I thought that was called "id Tech 5"?

'tis

EU3 is the best game.

@believer258: Rockstar's engine is called RAGE, and has nothing to do with the game. RAGE stands for Rockstar Advanced Graphics Engine or something.

RAGE is pretty awesome in some ways, but pretty shitty in others, so I've always been on the fence about it.

CryEngine 2 on the other hand. Now that is an engine.

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@believer258: Rockstar's engine is called RAGE, and has nothing to do with the game. RAGE stands for Rockstar Advanced Graphics Engine or something.

RAGE is pretty awesome in some ways, but pretty shitty in others, so I've always been on the fence about it.

CryEngine 2 on the other hand. Now that is an engine.

I didn't know that. I'm not really a big Rockstar fan.

Anyway, the best engine is (drum roll).....

GAMEBRYO!

*runs fast*

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@believer258: Rockstar's engine is called RAGE, and has nothing to do with the game. RAGE stands for Rockstar Advanced Graphics Engine or something.

RAGE is pretty awesome in some ways, but pretty shitty in others, so I've always been on the fence about it.

CryEngine 2 on the other hand. Now that is an engine.

I didn't know that. I'm not really a big Rockstar fan.

Anyway, the best engine is (drum roll).....

GAMEBRYO!

*runs fast*

SpeedTree?

@believer258: It's a commmmmmmmon mistake. Everyone's all like "Wait they use the same engine as Rage, what?"

@Demoskinos: But, it doesn't use speed tree any more!

They gotta change the name of that engine. All I can think of when I see that is megatextures.

Rockstar doesn't license RAGE, as far as I know. That, I guess, gives them a much deeper understanding of their own engine than what a third party may have using Unreal Engine 3. That being said, it's pretty damn impressive what people have managed to do with UE3. I'm partial to UE3 myself. The impression most RAGE games have made on me has been lukewarm at best (I liked Red Dead Redemption, but never managed to finish it...), while I still get my mind blown by many UE3 games. But that's just me.

@believer258: Best game engine is Game Maker, duh. <---- Sarcasm for clarification. Oh, and here's a lollipop!

I read "The game play looks just as good as the cut scenes!" as "The cut scenes look just as bad as the game play." I know that game play engines have made a huge leap in how good they look, but I still prefer my cut scenes to be jarringly better. Some Final Fantasy: Spirits Within shit.

I have the feeling most of the top engines nowadays are all capable of bringing quality that are equal to one another, maybe you or any of us haven't seen it yet, but I'm confident that one isn't better than the other, or at least not by much, whether it be CryEngine, Unreal Engine, Frostbite, IdTech, Naughty Dog Engine, and etc. I'm really quite exited to see the upcoming Fox Engine. Also, yes, as others had said, you got the whole engine thing wrong.

@killr0y: Max Payne 3 uses the Euphoria engine not either the UE3 or Id Tech 5 engine. I think the Euphoria Engine might have more tools for physics then either of the other engines, but I could be wrong on this. Its also the engine that GTA4 and Red Dead used.

For Max Payne 3's visuals yes this game really did come out top notch, everything from the color design to the end layer of drunk they put onto the render really made the game.

Also open world games will always be less amazing looking to linear environment games just because less work is used and usually less is going on in the smaller environments.

@agentboolen said:

@killr0y: Max Payne 3 uses the Euphoria engine not either the UE3 or Id Tech 5 engine.

Euphoria is the Rockstar animation system. RAGE is the Rockstar game engine. Id Tech 5 is not a part of this thread, no one talked about the game called RAGE. Id just had to name their game RAGE like the R* engine and cause this confusion didn't they?...

Rockstar Advanced Game Engine = RAGE

Also, yeah the environments in Max Payne 3 are crazily detailed even on consoles.

@agentboolen said:

@killr0y: Max Payne 3 uses the Euphoria engine not either the UE3 or Id Tech 5 engine. I think the Euphoria Engine might have more tools for physics then either of the other engines, but I could be wrong on this. Its also the engine that GTA4 and Red Dead used.

Nope.

Look at the RAGE and Euphoria wiki pages. Euphoria is an animation and AI engine that can be implemented onto an actual graphic engine, much like SpeedTree. Equating Euphoria to UE3 or id Tech 5 is like saying that Direct X 11 is a game engine. The main engine behind most of Rockstar's recent titles is RAGE.

Actually, if I thought about it long enough, I would have made this a UE3 vs RAGE vs iDTech 5 three-way battle. iDTech 5 is also an extremely impressive engine. In fact, i'd say its probably the most impressive of the three with regard to framerate and flexibility (I've never seen a smoother racing game than the one INSIDE of Rage the game). If next get brings to open world the level of detail in Rage or Max Payne, it will be a very good next gen, indeed, and I won't see a compelling reason for next gen to be a longer-lasting generation because of diminishing returns.

@JoeyRavn said:

@agentboolen said:

@killr0y: Max Payne 3 uses the Euphoria engine not either the UE3 or Id Tech 5 engine. I think the Euphoria Engine might have more tools for physics then either of the other engines, but I could be wrong on this. Its also the engine that GTA4 and Red Dead used.

Nope.

Look at the RAGE and Euphoria wiki pages. Euphoria is an animation and AI engine that can be implemented onto an actual graphic engine, much like SpeedTree. Equating Euphoria to UE3 or id Tech 5 is like saying that Direct X 11 is a game engine. The main engine behind most of Rockstar's recent titles is RAGE.

O.k. I see were the confusion is, I never heard the name Rage engine and accidentally thought you were talking about the id Tech 5 engine that is used in the game Rage. Yes you are correct here, Rockstar does have a very impressive engine, playing Max Payne 3 right now and have been blown away by the details in this game.