Sounds like whoever made that list cherry picked those games. While there are games that run at higher resolutions on the X, it’s not all that common.
Sounds like performance fixes, but no real changes for the VRS issues. Haven’t seen it myself but going by comments here it doesn’t sound like it’s super noticeable, so that’s good.
Doesn’t count. 
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Not all games are made equal nor utilize the same technology to come to the same result. I don’t understand holding onto a grudge over a video game for years.
Which game is this?
The question was: Why is nobody talking about Cocoon?
Its the usual problem of indie games getting almost zero recognition even if they do innovative new stuff 
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That’s where Game Pass comes in.
I completely agree that indie games should get more recognition outside of the surprise hits.
I’m just saying that assuming the methods used in Cocoon are the same in R&C is likely not accurate. I also don’t think it’s constructive to hold onto grudges over coverage of a game for years. It wouldn’t surprise me if cocoon was using more traditional methods of portal tech that we’ve seen, reserving a chunk of the memory to pre-load assets of the next area, where R&C could not have been done on the Switch or last gen consoles, which is one of the reasons that game got so much coverage. Indies usually innovate on the gameplay side, not the tech. So while I do think it should get more coverage in general (assuming it’s good, I’ve been dealing with health issues so I haven’t kept up on gaming news the last week or so) but I don’t think it’s a game that fits tech coverage.
A lot of this issue boils down to developers not using the unique hardware features of the Series consoles, rooted in RDNA 2.
The PS5 is essentially a PS4 Pro-Pro, graphics wise, with some effort made towards audio, RT, memory, and storage. More of what developers were used to, but faster. This could result in multi-generational game development because you’re often not doing anything to make your game incompatible with older hardware.
The Series consoles have mesh shaders. A feature that DX11 cards do not support, that all of the older consoles don’t support, and something that can result in something like Nanite but done in hardware. So when you use mesh shaders in your game you are restricting who can play your game to those with series consoles or DX12 supporting video cards. Which is bad business because you want as many people playing your game as possible.
This has hurt PlayStation as well because few will design games that leverage their extremely fast storage as a core part of their game because it will discount anyone who doesn’t have an SSD with its incredibly high read and write speeds, nevermind anyone with an SSD to begin with.
Now that PlayStation is releasing PC games you’re probably not going to see a game that loads and unloads objects in the same room as your character (something that would be amazing in regards to achieving high fidelity) because you can’t guarantee the same performance on most PCs.
In the past the whole point of a console was a highly specialized gaming machine but all of these features that the console manufacturers have come out with are not being utilized because creating a game to fundamentally adopt those features would discount porting that game to so many other machines.
The features of DX12U that were exclusive to the Xbox machines could have resulted in individuals that have far surpassed anything else, but it would be exclusive to any DX12U hardware. which is a huge financial risk. So you would figure that Xbox themselves would make games that take advantage of it but while it would have blown everybody’s minds it doesn’t make good financial sense. Halo Infinite had to be not only compatible with Xbox One consoles but as an FTP game it really needed to be able to be played on all sorts of PC setups, including old and antiquated ones.
Enter Epic with Unreal Engine 5 that can achieve the sort of stuff that DX12U promised but entirely in software. This would make it compatible on all sorts of hardware setups. This removes financial risk. I think most people would agree the visuals of UE5 games are a step above anything previously.
So I think the lesson here is that many of these extra hardware features are not worth going after. A focus on pure processing speed with a focus on co-processing similar to Tensor cores makes way more sense.
RDNA 2 introduced cool features that next to no one has adopted. It could be argued that Tensor cores have been far more revolutionary in the gaming space than anything else simply because of adoption.
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I don’t agree. The dimension swapping stuff in Cocoon is tech.
I never said it wasn’t but what’s the likelihood that it’s doing something new in the tech field that isn’t using a method that has been done for generations now? Rather low considering it’s doing what it’s doing on the Switch.
We can boil anything any game does as tech. When time to break down and cover the tech in these games are limited, I don’t think it’s fair to expect the few tech enthusiasts to cover every game, especially if it’s unlikely to do something new. Does that mean I don’t think there should be coverage of cocoon? No of course not, assuming it’s a great game, I hope it finds all the success and coverage it deserves. I just don’t think it’s fair to hold it against DF, Enalistabits, Nick930, or any other channel for not covering it for the tech alone.
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Ok, so now we are at the point that a game is probably not doing something new because its on Switch.
Digital Foundry is covering Switch a lot. One of their latest is about even an update of games on Switch. Maybe their time would have been better invested in another video about DriveClub?
There is new tech found even now for stuff on the C64! Thats over 40 year old hardware.
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It should have been clear that I was talking about the method to implement portals in the game. Please don’t misconstrue my words when I think there are many reasons to cover the Switch.
I think it’s entirely fair to wish or hope they cover it. I love all tech in gaming and have defended the output of games on the Switch many times to people who don’t keep the hardware in mind. It just the insinuation of an agenda I don’t agree with.
For sure though that is software tech rather than hardware tech. And definitely there’s a lot of new software tech that impacts visuals greatly. Nanite and Lumen are a great examples. And I think that software tech is definitely worth covering for a channel like DF because of the impact on visuals.
But in this case I think it’s safe to say that this sort of tech impacts gameplay more than anything else. Much like how the portals in Portal represents amazing software tech that is are definitely a visual marvel but has more of an impact on gameplay. You could almost make the exact same statement verbatim for Cocoon.
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Name the games where on DF where Series X is the clear winner. The system had wins with games early in now the PS5 tends to win out in the frame rate advantage and has complete parity in graphics and if the Xbox got a screen res advantage it is so low it’s meaningless
Like DF said apples to apples but the Series X advantage has not materialised and most can see that in DF comparisons. If it’s true about the PS5 Pro the Xbox games will be at the bottom of the list and developers will focus on the PS5 Pro. I sure hope XBox has its own Pro in the works as well
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Damn great work, 30/40 has some frametime issues(probably will skip that) but no dropped frames on all 3 consoles. 60fps mode has no drops on all 3 and uses the same settings as Series S, on XSX and PS5 with higher resolution than XSS, they aimed for parity between the 2. But DF didn’t go into the whole how often does this game spend on a lower resolution during like for like scenes on this console than the other, which good because either way it was going to cause some trolling and salt.
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I’m not misconstructing your words or have any ‘agenda’.
You wrote this “rather low considering it’s doing what it’s doing on the Switch” not me
I can’t follow. I’m not trying to make a distinction between hardware and software. We are talking about closed systems here, these things go hand in hand.
To get portals working with consistent graphics, animation and physics is a tremendous achievement in engineering imo. Only a handful of games in the last 15 years got it working but arguably not that good.
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Sorry I should have been more clear, my point is that the C64 stuff has to do with graphics whether it is hardware or software technology. DF is mainly focused on graphics and they’ll cover both technologies. But that isn’t the issue here.
What we’re seeing in Cocoon is mainly a presentation thing that impacts gameplay. It looks very cool, and it takes some smart design to make it happen, but it isn’t a new graphics technology and at best it’s a new visual effect, something I don’t think DF would make an entire video for.
The main talking point at the start of the new console gen were not graphics effects but ultra fast bandwidth to storage which would enable new gameplay experiences.
Btw Digital Foundry regularly makes videos about games without any new graphics features. Their content often is just consumer information. Which i think is a good thing.
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