Current Generation Games Analysis Technical Discussion [2020-2021] [XBSX|S, PS5, PC]

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No. The game still has obvious levels loaded in as needed with load screens.

Would the loading of levels necessarily prohibit some amount of DMA streaming though?

Given that you've pointed this out, I'm actually quite surprised by just how few games I've played of late aren't open world.

hmm. My thoughts on this are:
A) if it were just a streaming issue for instance, and speed was the issue, the bulb would eventually revert to what it should be moments following. Say 1-3 frames following. So that would be how PS5 should differentiate itself from a streaming speed I think.

True, and I am only going from the picture, not the actual video footage. I'm not even sure what video that picture's from.

My thinking is that quick camera cuts can often result in some amount of pop in. It happened a couple of times during cutscenes in The Evil Within 2. Given the enormous improvement of current generation IO, pop in to that extent is probably going to be nonexistent. But it might be existent to the extent that, in some circumstances, only "high quality" assets have time to be streamed in, rather than "very high quality" assets.

And in order to even see this, it's required a screenshot coupled with 12,000% magnification. No-one normal is ever going to notice it. No developer is going to spend time optimising such an unimportant part of a fleeting image.

But the improvement "comes for free" due to higher SSD bandwidth on the PS5.

B) if there is a memory size limitation for instance then it's possible that for the sake of making the xbox/PC, you'd make that memory limitation lower for instance. So perhaps there is some overlap in models/assets to accommodate for a lower memory size of say Series S, or lower graphical cards.

I don't think memory size is the culprit here, because the PS5 has the same amount of memory. Perhaps there's a small difference in available memory, given that we don't know how much of the PS5's is available to developers. But since that's a complete unknown, it's completely untestable.

And even the notion of lower quality assets for the Series S doesn't feel satisfactory here. At the very most, I'd expect only the Series S to have the more blocky bulb. But the Series X - with its greater amount of memory - is being effected, as is the PC with its much greater DDR->GPU bandwidth.

Neither A or B feels particularly good to be honest. UE5 managed it's streaming pool with 768MB of memory.
Ultra requirements for Outriders here is:
Ultra requirements (4K, ultra details, 60 fps)
  • OS: Windows 10
  • CPU: Intel Core i7-10700K or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
  • RAM: 16GB
  • GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (10GB) / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
  • Drive Space: 70GB
Which both consoles surpass fairly easily I think. So I don't think VRAM allocation is the challenge here for Xbox or PC. Game doesn't seem to require more than 10GB.
SSD streaming speeds can be mitigated with a larger streaming pool, so once again I don't think it's I/O related.

The game doesn't require more than 10GB of VRAM, true, but it requires 26GB of memory in total if we count DDR & GDDR. Of the DDR, how much is used as a streaming pool for the GDDR? Enough that the XBox Series consoles with their DMA'able SSD would have cause to swap out and stream some assets from the SSD?

It's a way in which current generation consoles are going to make it difficult for us to make comparisons with PC requirements.

If 10GB of VRAM are the requirement for Ultra, that fits within the Series X's higher bandwidth pool. So I think we can safely rule out any issue with VRAM.

It could very well just be a setting or something. I think if geometry was an issue hardware wise and they run PS5 specifically at higher settings for geometry and LOD, we'd see many instances of geometry deltas during comparisons. So I'm leaning on a bug as being the most probable. And as per Brit, the game uses loading scenes for every single cutscene, and every area change. So you can pretty much offload the entire level etc to fit in this very not detailed cutscenes in Outrider.

If we're staying on hardware limitations, Option C would be on tessellation/geometry bottleneck.
But along the same lines as before, this particular cutscene doesn't appear to be pushing geometrical boundaries. So it shouldn't really be an issue either.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is some absolute hardware limitation other than SSD bandwidth. I don't think the XBox Series consoles are cursed to suffer slightly more blocky lightbulbs for the entire generation. I don't think we've seen anything to indicate the PS5 has superior geometry processing capabilities or anything of the sort. I don't think any advantages of the consoles (and thusly their differing advantages/disadvantages) are really going to be tapped within their first 6 months.

My thinking is just that the developers got the image to a satisfactory point, and ensured there weren't any appreciable differences between platforms as pertains to the parts of the game people actually look at, such as character models. But an extra few GB/s of SSD bandwidth may still inadvertently bring benefits to parts of the image that are (rightfully) deemed low priority by the engine.
 
The game is also released on last gen consoles, where it only has 4.5GB/5 GB memory available. The load screens are at the same locations. It just goes insanely quick by comparison if you're on current-gen consoles.
 
And in order to even see this, it's required a screenshot coupled with 12,000% magnification. No-one normal is ever going to notice it. No developer is going to spend time optimising such an unimportant part of a fleeting image.

But the improvement "comes for free" due to higher SSD bandwidth on the PS5.
Comes from here:
One of the many few introduction cutscenes to the game.
As she turns the wheel, the lightbulb goes on.
High Geometry LOD

XSX

It never pops to high geometry; it keeps its Cyber Truck styling through the whole cutscene
 
Comes from here:
One of the many few introduction cutscenes to the game.
As she turns the wheel, the lightbulb goes on.
High Geometry LOD

XSX

It never pops to high geometry; it keeps its Cyber Truck styling through the whole cutscene

That looks like a bug. It’s not just the bulb. The bottom half of the fixture looks like it’s missing because it isn’t being illuminated by the light from the bulb. The whole fixture is much closer in the XSX version.

5U5eTSG.png


8839-E1-FA-909-A-4-C1-D-8193-EA52419-A17-A6.png

2nhMqXK
 
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That looks like a bug. It’s not just the bulb. The bottom half of the fixture looks like it’s missing because it isn’t being illuminated by the light from the bulb. The whole fixture is much closer in the XSX version.

5U5eTSG.png


8839-E1-FA-909-A-4-C1-D-8193-EA52419-A17-A6.png

2nhMqXK
yea interesting, could be a different build of the game, where at first they had the bulb close, decided later that's not what they wanted and moved it back. And forgot to fix the geometry on the old one.
 
I think the most likely thing here is just configuration error or variation in the builds.

However, I actually wouldn't be blown away if they just used better LODs on ps5 because it has better rasterization -- similar to having much better AF turned on in the ps5 version. Don't think thats really the case, but fun to think about.
 
I think the most likely thing here is just configuration error or variation in the builds.

However, I actually wouldn't be blown away if they just used better LODs on ps5 because it has better rasterization -- similar to having much better AF turned on in the ps5 version. Don't think thats really the case, but fun to think about.
These are geometry LODs that are different, though. I have a feeling it has more to do with the Xbox Series version sharing settings from the previous generation while the PS5 version is more of a custom version built for the hardware.
 
These are geometry LODs that are different, though. I have a feeling it has more to do with the Xbox Series version sharing settings from the previous generation while the PS5 version is more of a custom version built for the hardware.
I have a feeling it's just an LOD bug..

Nothing to do with hardware
Nothing to do with tools
Nothing to do with I/O
Nothing to do with platform fanboyism

Nothing. Just a bug.. which will be fixed.
 
If the game is made using Gamecore, it's very possible that 1s/1x and X/S shared settings and this was missed when fine tuning.
Yeah, I don't think that's 'sharing code' vs 'being totally new' though -- just a good guess as to why something like picking the wrong option could slip by. Games are complicated, it's really easy for a superficial difference to slip through qa passes when like 90 things are changing every build.
 
not connected to analysis but found 5700xt benchmark not far away from 60fps avarage in 4k and only 1440p on ps5
 
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I'm not a fan of posting someone else's work in Cliffs Notes form. Please watch the video.
In this case, I'm not sure the high frame rate is worth the compromised image quality. The game looks much better at 4K, and already hits 60hz in that mode.
 
Another game where the PS5 version has better shadows. It's a strange trend. That framerate on PS5, though...
 

I'm not a fan of posting someone else's work in Cliffs Notes form. Please watch the video.
In this case, I'm not sure the high frame rate is worth the compromised image quality. The game looks much better at 4K, and already hits 60hz in that mode.
Beware the way this user makes his comparisons. It's often not really like for like.
 
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