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

Gaming
1366

I honestly have no idea just yet. I didn’t get far, but so far it hasn’t wowed me at all. After all that praise I expected more, maybe later in the game? Also I keep finding documents, I guess it’s for more backstory but I try to make sense of these…maybe it becomes clear later as well?

For now, too busy with other games.

1367

main problem is putting so much lore into documents.

1368

I love remedy games and control was a huge disappointment.

Even with lore presented in the documents, the central plot with the main Protagonist was not interesting at all and it doesnt really improve as the story progresses.

The setting does add some atmosphere and gameplay is solid but this is their weakest game to date.

IMO Quantum break was a pretty good game and I enjoyed the TV portions of it as well

1369

Why this constant conspiracy stuff? Control has a marketing deal with Sony and hence the early review code they provided DF was on PS5. Nothing more to this than that. Alex even said that in the video.

1370

Yeah there is nothing to see here and happens with a lot of games that have marketing deals because, let’s face it, DF’s analysis can be included in marketing at times.

1371

Anyway I fired up Control for a new play through last night. I’d played on the OG version but thought I’d get the UE to play through it as a next gen title when available.

The update IMO is really really good and I don’t really get anyone calling it underwhelming. What it does do is offer up an impossible choice. The difference RT makes is huge in this game - not just the obvious stuff either, it makes entire scenes look better, more real, materials behave properly. Its not like Watch Dogs where the reflections are absolutely stunning but if the lighting is different you don’t see much benefit - here the whole scene is better regardless. And noticeably so.

But the 60FPS feels just so so so good. Switching on the fly is a blessing and a curse. I will say the aiming in both modes feels more janky to me than it did playing on the One X. Not sure if that’s down to settings changes or extra latency for some reason - is it Vsync?

But yeah I’m very impressed with the game and update. Its truly stunning with RT on - the best RT implementation this gen on any system, and 60FPS feels like a different game.

Now it does bring me to a point about the use of RT going forwards. In Control on console we get a pretty slimmed down implementation of RT that in essence halves your framerate (it doesn’t quite halve it because 60FPS is not locked) but close to it. And we’re not close to full GI or anything like that. Now its early gen so things will mature - but the AMD GPU’s just clearly will not be as performant for RT as the NVIDIA chips and this does raise an issue. No matter what you do, the RT performance is not going to suddenly double.

Whilst a game like Control is a great example - I am wondering whether RT is going to be viable or more significantly worth it - this gen - given very obvious limitations. Perhaps we shouldn’t expect too much this generation in terms of major graphical leaps and instead focus squarely on hitting 60FPS consistently across the board?

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1372

Without giving too much away, it’s clear that Control in RT graphics mode has a significant amount of headroom beyond 30fps (but nowhere near 60 for the most part, it’s worth stressing), the upshot being that in standard gameplay, both Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 lock to their target frame-rate of 30. The only outlier here is the introduction of improper frame-pacing in very rare scenarios, but otherwise it’s nearly faultless. In terms of quality settings and visual features, Series X and PlayStation 5 look like a complete match - with just a small difference in gamma levels. Control on PS5 (and it seems other titles) appears to have crushed blacks and a generally darker presentation. System level screenshots show the same thing, ruling out a capture issue.

Beyond this, Series X exhibits some stutter not seen on PS5 - regardless of it being set to graphics or performance modes. It crops up with the arrival of UI elements on screen and in standard traversal, and can be distracting. Our understanding is that Remedy is looking to address this in a future patch, but it’s the only blemish in what is otherwise a very polished 30fps experience with some beautiful RT work.

So a possible bug causing stuttering then.

It’s also at this point that we can factor in Xbox Series S. It lacks the 30fps RT mode and targets performance only, delivering a 60fps experience at native 900p, with a temporal upscale to 1080p. You lose precision from the reduced resolution, but the gameplay is still golden and it compares favourably to Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.

Owing to the dynamic nature of play, ‘ranking’ the consoles here is not easy - it seems that in some scenarios, Series X can outperform PlayStation 5, while in others the opposite is true. Xbox Series S does seem to be the least consistent overall, but only by a very small margin.

This seems to be a legacy holdover from last-gen systems, but nonetheless, it’s strange that PlayStation 5 does not seem to have the issue, and we’d hope to see this sorted on Xbox consoles via a future title update.

TL:DR

Series X and PS5 run the same with the exception of a stutter issue on xbox due to (possibly) a legacy code bug. Both can outperform each other in certain situations.

Series S runs pretty good and is up to par.

1 Like
1373

So a wash?

1374

pretty much

Nothing to see here

1375

Hopefully the stutter can be addressed, then I might pick it up down the line.

1376

While it’s nice to see XSX not struggling anywhere else, shouldn’t XSX be at a higher resolution? Hitman 3 resolution wise had a edge on XSX. What Remedy did seems like parity. Overall isn’t 1440p/30fps a bit on the low side for these consoles? One X was 1440p as well if I’m not mistaken. Raytracing is that much of a resource hog then?

I mean Insomniac got MM at 60fps with raytracing and higher than 1080p (except the rf reflections) and that’s a big open world.

1377

This just a last cash-in with Control before moving onto something else. Great for people that havent played it but for me its a skip and I sadly wasted $20 on it.

4 Likes
1378

Yeah, that’s true.

Hopefully CrossfireX is next. I hope it’s not too long. At one point last year it seemed like a late 2020 game too.

1379

So was this the last major multiplat until April with Outriders?

1380

yikes that stutter is just… not it. Hope they fix that shit soon.

1381

This goes to the “no noticeable difference” group.

1382

Where’s that Poster with the receipts?

1384

I don’t know where to post this.

Control RT is insane. I’ve been tricked by a reflection on glass, thinking there was a desk on the other side. You can see yourself moving in every reflection even on coffee pots or the desk ringbell in the Motel (!!!). Hallways are full of reflections from walls to floor. Glass is everywhere so RT makes a world of difference. I’m really impressed. IQ is great too compared to Xbox One X.

1385

Pretty much, yeah. We have Werewolf tomorrow, published by Nacon, but that’s an AA title.

We also have the next-gen Samurai Shodown patch on March, but that’s exclusive to Xbox I think. There is also Balan Wonderworld by Square Enix on the end of next month, but that game seems to be a disappointment.

On the other side, we might be getting content from DF for the new patch for God of War that released yesterday. and the next-gen version of Nioh that will release on March.

February

March

1386

Played about 1 hr on the Series X using Ray Tracing mode and it felt really good. It may be 30FPS but felt smooth enough to be worth it for the Ray tracing. I’ve been holding off on playing this until next gen patch hits. Glad I waited

1 Like