Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2016 - 2017]

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Controller usually the a beating. Getting dropped etc.

From my experience with metal (iPhone, iPod, macbook), they easily dent, scratches, and shows age.

While plastic works fine even after lots of beating. As long as it hits smooth surface like ceramic floor (not concrete floor), it won't dent won't scratch won't scuff. It will also still looking the same after aging (except white plastic like those on SNES).
 
What's wrong with them?
If you're asking the DS4, the pins of the shoulder buttons that go into the hinge broke way too easily. I've been playing much less this gen and mine broke, which results in a "limb" shoulder button. My brother's broke too (though he plays 10x as much as me, though he didn't have this specific problem on the DS3), replaced both buttons. They may have changed that part to be metal with newer DS4's, IIRC.
 
It's more usual to use a magnesium alloy for lightweight electronics. Steel is cheap though, and not massively heavy if used in smaller parts. As per the review, the controller feels heavier, so it's not 'light weight', and that weight is the substance afforded by the metal aspects. It's not a 100% metal design! AFAICS it's only sticks, pads and triggers that are metal, adding some grams. If the weight is much more, it's likely a more substantial plastic body.
 
The gamepad use steel? I wonder how they make it lightweight.
It depends on the steel and like Shifty says, it's only select parts that are using steel. Steel comes in hundreds of grades which cover many densitites. Higher density steel is heavier than lower density steel. We have a spectrometer for NDT so if somebody wants to send me a Elite controller and doesn't mind me taking it apart we can settle this ;-)
 
Digital Foundry vs Ratchet and Clank on PS4

The decision to target 30fps allows Insomniac to give the game a CGI-style look that wouldn't be possible otherwise on PS4 hardware. A native 1080p framebuffer is in place, showing off the game's colourful worlds and wacky characters with vastly superior sharpness and clarity over the 720p image of the PS3 HD remaster and the 480i PS2 original.

Insomniac's visual push for CGI like qualities is impressive, but this is only possible due to the studio targeting 30fps. This provides double the render time per-frame compared to running at 60fps, allowing for a complex blend of lighting, effects, and geometry detail that helps to recreate the movie-like aesthetic. However, there is a tangible difference in how the remake plays compared to previous titles that run at 60fps. The controls feel weightier and less precise, and initially it feels like a real step down. For those used to this series playing at 60fps it takes a while to adjust, but after a few hours' gameplay starts to feel more effortless and the increase in controller latency is less of an issue.
 
It depends on the steel and like Shifty says, it's only select parts that are using steel. Steel comes in hundreds of grades which cover many densitites.
The density variations between different steels is almost always tiny. Same with stiffness. Even most stainless steels aren't that far off from a typical high-tensile or whatever.

Most of the weight difference in parts made from different steels (or made in different ways) is due to the amount used.
 
Indeed. The core component is iron in significant proportion (otherwise it wouldn't be a steel!). Ergo it has to have very similar density. The internet says ~7.5 to 8 g/cm^3.
 
It's more usual to use a magnesium alloy for lightweight electronics. Steel is cheap though, and not massively heavy if used in smaller parts. As per the review, the controller feels heavier, so it's not 'light weight', and that weight is the substance afforded by the metal aspects. It's not a 100% metal design! AFAICS it's only sticks, pads and triggers that are metal, adding some grams. If the weight is much more, it's likely a more substantial plastic body.

Also note there are a number of magnets in the design as well that introduce added weight. It allows the sticks, D-pad, and paddles to be delightfully easy to swap out. Just pull them off and the new ones get sucked right into place. It's a weight compromise that I really like, more than I initially thought I would when a review mentioned them.

Also, I hope trigger stops eventually make it into standard controllers. Having played DS3 with the Elite now, I don't know if I'd ever be able to play an action game that relied on binary (on/off) trigger output with the standard analog trigger throw distance without some distaste. It's another feature that I thought sounded nice, but would prove to be almost indistinguishable from standard when in use. Pleasantly surprised on that one.

Regards,
SB
 
The density variations between different steels is almost always tiny. Same with stiffness. Even most stainless steels aren't that far off from a typical high-tensile or whatever.

It's not the actual steel content which results in the material properties, it's whatever is mixed in. It's why more expensive grades of steel are heated traded in an atmosphere controlled vacuum furnace. Material production is invariably compromised by impurities during production and steel is no difference. Think it doesn't matter? Think again. The purity difference between cheap steel and more expensive steel may be a few percent in terms of impurities but this is sufficient to create a differential of 25-50% in ultimate tensile strength.

Former aerospace engineer here from when steel was being replaced by alloys and super composites :yep2:
 
It's not the actual steel content which results in the material properties, it's whatever is mixed in. It's why more expensive grades of steel are heated traded in an atmosphere controlled vacuum furnace. Material production is invariably compromised by impurities during production and steel is no difference. Think it doesn't matter? Think again. The purity difference between cheap steel and more expensive steel may be a few percent in terms of impurities but this is sufficient to create a differential of 25-50% in ultimate tensile strength.
I agree with all of this.

Earlier you implied that changes in steel density make for significant weight differences, which I disagreed with because different steels barely vary at all in density. When the use of cheaper steels causes items to weigh more, it's because more steel is being used to achieve the desired strength.
 
Performance Analysis: Doom beta on PS4 and Xbox One
UPDATE: id Software confirms dynamic resolution scaling on both console versions.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-doom-open-beta-performance-analysis

Everybody but DF saw that it was using Dynamic res (VGTech, NXGamer etc) even Bethesda officially announced a few months ago that both consoles would reach 1080p/60fps...but lets hurry for the clicks and claim fixed 1080p for PS4 and 900p for Xbox before bothering contacting idSoftware...Quantum Break redux....

Anyway...DOOM's AA solution is awesome.
 
VG Tech also state that the XB1 version can drop as low as 1344x756 and PS4 drops as low as 1600x1080. NX Gamer says that the PS4 version holds 1080p for most of the time, and the fact that DF thought that the XB1 version was 900p and the PS4 version was 1080p, they probably hold to those resolutions for the majority of the time. So in the end, DF was mostly right, except that both the PS4 and XB1 versions will seldom drop below what DF originally claimed, and that the XB1 version will sometimes reach 1080p (probably when nothing is happening).
 
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