Games Analysis |OT| Time To Argue About Pixels And Frames!

[Zappy5]

@Staffy

… That’s a very good point by them, because other games have this too. If you enter a train in RDR2 you get a animation of the train driving and the camera zoomed out. In Cyberpunk in one mission where you enter a big appartement complex you go into an elevator and this happens in real time, but it’s still loading. As for items persistence, I noticed to my surprise that RDR2 has this too, bodies of killed animals or people seem to stay, but to a certain extent. A pack of wolves I had killed and skinned were still there after I went from the other end of the map to back to that area. But yeah, a cool animation when entering something in Starfield would have definitely added more. Did DF also go into why we can’t fly to planets ourselves, did they speculate on that?

Not that I heard but I mean I’d guess that it is to avoid having to physically render 1000 planets (or even 6/7 planets in each system) at all times - people have to consider the stuff going on in starfield - no game has ever been able to do that in totality yet and I doubt we’ll see that for a fair old while…

[Staffy]

Stray - Xbox Series S/X vs PS5 - All Xbox Consoles Tested!

[KageMaru]

Inside DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction + Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty - AI Visuals Roundtable

Really good interview. I can’t wait to try out overdrive mode once the 2.0 update is out.

@Staffy

Really glad the ports were handled well. They should really cap the One X version though.

[REDDEADANDGTACLUB]

@Zappy5

…s - especially the amount of independently rendered interactive objects in the game - it dwarfs everything else- and on top of that you have item persistence…again most if not all similar games have nothing alike… If you were to make more of these spaces completely seamless and open you are adding massive complexity with things like radiant AI needing calculating - further pressuring the CPU. Its just choice. You could not make a bethesda game and have all these spaces wide open. Or have some brief loading screens but have a bethesda game, As DF says the only thing to really criticise is the lack of ‘disguise’ they’ve baked in . Opening a door could be an animation - the train could have something - lifts, sitting in the cockpit etc…all these loading screens could have been disguised better.

Exactly, Cydonia has a pressure lock entry that could have well-hidden a loading screen. Cydonia also has a stupid elevator in the same cell… like why?

Elevator rides could have also hidden many of the unnecessary loading screens like the elevator ride into core Neon.

The grav jumps could have had a longer animation. The same is true for the landing and taking-off loading screens.

The space docking animation (which should have been turned to a mini-game) could have hidden the loading screen.

There are so many ways to hide the loading screens with already created animations (just if they extend those animations a little bit).

[nrXic]

@REDDEADANDGTACLUB

There are so many ways to hide the loading screens with already created animations (just if they extend those animations a little bit).

I was thinking about this while playing the game. One thing you have to keep in mind is that once you introduce anything like that, you’re going to extend your loading times.

So I’m thinking that the game was incredibly optimized with its loading and that’s why they decided not to mask any loading.

A lot of times when we see loading masked in these big games we’re seeing streaming, but in SF it looks like they’re just going for a complete load of the new area with a bunch of data for object permanence.

[nrXic]

I wonder if Hellblade 2’s development was impacted by an ever evolving Unreal Engine. I’m not sure if it started in UE4, and then migrated to 5? But even if we assume it started in 5, Metahuman didn’t drop until a year after iirc. And yes I’m accounting for the fact that they were privy to early versions of all this well before either were even publicly announced.

I bring this up because we’re at a stage where Metahuman is clearly better than early versions. The live demo using the actress from Hellblade looks even better than what we are seeing in the game.

I really hope we can see something like the following in current gen games.

Behind the Scenes on MetaHuman Animator Showcase ‘Blue Dot’ | Spotlight | Unreal Engine

[Kals_Els]

@nrXic

…I wonder if Hellblade 2’s development was impacted by an ever evolving Unreal Engine. I’m not sure if it started in UE4, and then migrated to 5? But even if we assume it started in 5, Metahuman didn’t drop until a year after iirc. And yes I’m accounting for the fact that they were privy to early versions of all this well before either were even publicly announced. I bring this up because we’re at a stage where Metahuman is clearly better than early versions. The live demo using the actress from Hellblade looks even better than what we are seeing in the game. I really hope we can see something like the following in current gen games.

If anything, I would think Ninja Theory’s work is contributing to the development of meta humans, not being hindered by it. As they do a lot of work using motion capture to get so much of the actors details.

[nrXic]

@Kals_Els

If anything, I would think Ninja Theory’s work is contributing to the development of meta humans, not being hindered by it. As they do a lot of work using motion capture to get so much of the actors details.

Great point. Not even Fortnite, which definitely influences many aspects of the engine, could provide as much practical input into a product like Metahuman.

[cinste (Pete)]

@REDDEADANDGTACLUB

(which should have been turned to a mini-game)

No it absolutely should not have been and anyone who played the OG Elite will tell you the same thing.

That fiddly piss about got real old real quick.

[KageMaru]

@nrXic

…I wonder if Hellblade 2’s development was impacted by an ever evolving Unreal Engine. I’m not sure if it started in UE4, and then migrated to 5? But even if we assume it started in 5, Metahuman didn’t drop until a year after iirc. And yes I’m accounting for the fact that they were privy to early versions of all this well before either were even publicly announced. I bring this up because we’re at a stage where Metahuman is clearly better than early versions. The live demo using the actress from Hellblade looks even better than what we are seeing in the game. I really hope we can see something like the following in current gen games.

Hellblade 2 was started on UE4 and is being converted to UE5. The gameplay we saw a year or so ago was running on UE4.27 I think. I would guess they may be piggy backing and collaborating with the Coalition and Epic on utilizing UE5. At least that would make the most sense to me.

[REDDEADANDGTACLUB]

@nrXic

I was thinking about this while playing the game. One thing you have to keep in mind is that once you introduce anything like that, you’re going to extend your loading times.

So I’m thinking that the game was incredibly optimized with its loading and that’s why they decided not to mask any loading.

A lot of times when we see loading masked in these big games we’re seeing streaming, but in SF it looks like they’re just going for a complete load of the new area with a bunch of data for object permanence.

This is the part that irks me, In Cydonia, you don’t have the ability to affect the lower level from entrance (by throwing a bomb, etc.), why are the objects there being calculated? They could open up Cydonia before it ends up loading that section.

[KageMaru]

Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 - PC Tech Review - DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction Deep Dive

Nice look at ray reconstruction. I love that I don’t need the latest card to use this feature and Cyberpunk with this enabled in path tracing mode looks amazing!

[SheepDip]

The Switch version reminds me a lot of Dragon Age Inquisition on Xbox 360. Taking assets designed for a more powerful system and cutting the geometric and texture detail to the bone, is always going to be a much worse result than designing assets for the target system in the first place.

Mortal Kombat 1: 'Too Big' For Switch... But Stunning on PS5/Xbox Series X/S

[Staffy]

A TLDW would be nice, I can’t watch, I gotta split in a second.

Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty - DF Tech Review - PS5/Xbox Series Tests + 2.0 Upgrade Breakdown

[Zappy5]

@Staffy

A TLDW would be nice, I can’t watch, I gotta split in a second.

TLDR:

Patch 2.0 has slightly reduced resolution so looks a little worse. And the new area has significant frame drops in performance mode on all consoles. Even the 30FPS mode has some drops.

New area of dog town has enhanced geometry and detail compared to rest of night city probably due to the current gen only restriction allowing the devs to push it more.

Performance mode is clearly much better than the Ray tracing mode which adds nothing that compensates for the 30FPS drop (I can vouch for that).

Xbox consoles have worse image quality due to their use of hardware based VRS and FSR2 breakup issues neither of which are present on PS5.

Performance seems similar across high end consoles but series s drops more frames in performance mode than others. But all consoles struggle with driving and see consistent frame drops.

[Zappy5]

I see there are some musings from Digital Foundry as to why some developers aren’t extracting more from the series x, and some commentators have suggested the fact the series x isn’t always or consistently outperforming the PS5 might be why Xbox will look to lower powered arm solution with cloud integration and abandon high powered consoles.

Now I don’t buy the last part I suspect they looked or are looking at arm due to the fact that apple can now run full blown games on an iPhone and presumably the future of console games could eventually be in that tech.

But I think the tension here is a decision….do you go down the PC route of console development or the mobile one……one will be the right bet but I don’t know which yet. DF are screaming for Xbox and Sony to go with Nvidia but that has a huge cost implication. And Xbox are already losing over 200 dollars on average per unit, which is insane.

I do think they need a design review cos their losses coupled to their hardwares relative performance is pretty bad. They can’t afford to do that again.

[Resist]

@Zappy5

… lower powered arm solution with cloud integration and abandon high powered consoles. Now I don’t buy the last part I suspect they looked or are looking at arm due to the fact that apple can now run full blown games on an iPhone and presumably the future of console games could eventually be in that tech. But I think the tension here is a decision….do you go down the PC route of console development or the mobile one……one will be the right bet but I don’t know which yet. DF are screaming for Xbox and Sony to go with Nvidia but that has a huge cost implication. And Xbox are already losing over 200 dollars on average per unit, which is insane. I do think they need a design review cos their losses coupled to their hardwares relative performance is pretty bad. They can’t afford to do that again.

… it’s because it’s in third place and the xbox versions get less attention. :shrug: i don’t see how it’s some big mystery. and xbox already knows this.

[Kals_Els]

@Zappy5

VRS and FSR2

Are they using them together? That seems like a poor choice considering how I think they both work.

[Vivir]

@Zappy5

We got our answers in the FTC leaks.

Xbox just simply doesn’t have enough clout and market share to make their hardware platform a priority for these AAA third party developers.

[Zappy5]

@Resist

… it’s because it’s in third place and the xbox versions get less attention. :shrug: i don’t see how it’s some big mystery. and xbox already knows this.

Yeah I agree. But I don’t entirely buy that as the reason in all cases. We’ve seen powerful last place consoles outperform technically the dominant selling one. Developers can get more out of it as some have. And whilst I agree about priority the fact they maybe have to work harder than they’d like to get more out perhaps is another issue.

I’ve heard anecdotally from a developer in the U.K. that the PS5 is easier to optimise games for.