I think VRS will provide huge gains for raytracing too. It’s already in play on the shadow denoiser AMD presented. Basically they create a shadow map based on the rays, and use VRS (pixels in the shadow can be grouped easily) to reduce the amount of pixel per rays needed (in theory for shadows you need at least 1 ray per pixel, but with VRS they can reduce it to less than 1)
If it offers similar perf gains on those itermediate buffers in that picture (30-50%) it will be a huge win
Interesting stuff.
It is true for the start of every gen but it really is the case that developers have barely scratched the surface of what the Series consoles are capable of and there are exciting technical implementations to come.
Yep, while computational capacity has increased in line with the expected there’s too much paradigm shifts this time around that can push performance/visual quality a lot further.
Going to be a really good generation
It’s nice and all, but would it be utilised? Probably notl really.
This is my fear, there are many studios which still uses DX11 engines/tech only because pc gaming is still dominated by outdated cards and PS uses techs more similar to DX11 than DX12.
I agree. Last gen I can only really remember GPU compute being the paradigm shift compared to the previous generation, other than that it was just increases in computational power.
This gen you have stuff like ray tracing, VRS, Mesh Shaders, Machine Learning, SFS and Direct Storage all potentially being major shifts how developers make games and how the games appear on our screens.
Everyone is hyping up XSX but looming back at Ps4 pro vs XOX and the huge power difference meant nothing when comparing some games. TLOU2 looks better than any game on a PS4 pro than even any game now.
I hope studios do make the most of this stuff this gen though.
Well, that is a little exagerate, TLOU2 has leading facial animations, but for environments, audio, gunplay, etc…there are many games which are better. I’d argue that at 60fps Gears 5 is a even or superior match in many things.
I am with you with the Gears 5 mention, especially when you consider it is targeting a higher frame rate as well.
They had something to address that today. DX is being decoupled from the windows version so they can offer updates as soon as they are ready instead of waiting for the next os update.
This allows developers to target the new apis and features without requiring users to update windows. Though it does require a min win10 version so it will take a while until everyone is on the version that supports this.
We will see, obviously there will be always “rogue” devs who doesn’t like anything MS does, but I hope at least major pubs will update their tools, it’s unbelievable that certain big games still uses tech discontinued 10 years ago only to cut costs, when we speak about japan pubs, I think no games from them even uses DX12 aside from Crystal Dinamics Avengers, which is part of SE western division. DX 12 was announced at GDC 2014, so “slow implementation” is the understatement of the century, lmao.
Look better is subjective, but objectively speaking Gears 5 on 1x pushes assets at the same quality and higher, at a higher resolution and twice the framerate, while on top of that having some effects better implemented like motion blur and dynamic shadows.
Sure there are some areas Tlou2 is ahead, but hard to say overall 1x extra power was not put to good use.
That was because X1X was built to play X1 games at 4k, etc. Not bespoke new next gen games.
Its crazy to see just how open Microsoft are with informing people about the new Series consoles and the tech that has gone into it compared to what Sony have done. As an Xbox player its awesome to learn more about the box I have under my TV. On the other side of the fence, if you have nothing good to say, then don’t say anything at all.
VRS is already being used in first party games Gears Tactics and Gears 5 to great effect. And Metro Exodus will make use of hardware enabled VRS for it’s next gen update. I don’t think we’ll have to worry too much about devs not using these hardware features in the future.
Metro devs are among the few always into the cutting edge stuff, most major pubs are slow to adapt in order to cut costs. And even then, you must always take into consideration Sony influence, don’t be fooled, gaming industry is controlled by scummy people, you only need to see the three “caballeros” who reign over Acti-Bliz, EA and T2 to realize that. People like Phil Spencer are extremely rare.