Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2021]

[Silent_Buddha]

I don't have an answer unfortunately. It's just something I've been noticing. @Dictator might be able to chime in on this. I think he states in his Metro video that the RT is significantly more taxing on the CPU with the latest version versus the older 2019 RT variant.

I mean, perhaps it's because they don't trust async compute on PC? I'm not sure. It is quite slow to go back and forth between CPU/GPU.

They could do everything GPU side, I mean, that would make sense, but perhaps it's not trivial to do -- more time to bake this type of feature as there are more challenges to overcome.

It might be that instead of relying on NV's black box for all things BVH related, they are now building the BVH on the CPU for all platforms in order to have it be uniform for all platforms. Or something similar. That could explain why the CPU cost of RT has gone up.

It is theoretically possible if RT involves a hit to the CPU in such a scenario that this could be a potential double whammy that "might" lead to better RT performance on XBS-X (slightly faster CPU versus a non-throttled PS5, wider compute and more bandwidth) in the future. But it's still far too early to say, and I'm still uncertain we'll ever be able to pin any performance differences to better or worse handling of RT. Especially as other parts of the architecture will come into play during any rendering scene.

Regards,
SB

 

[Jay]

It might be that instead of relying on NV's black box for all things BVH related, they are now building the BVH on the CPU for all platforms in order to have it be uniform for all platforms. Or something similar. That could explain why the CPU cost of RT has gone up.

Probably less to do with being uniform, and more likely to be that particular implementation worked better so far.
We've known for a while that some BVH processing has been done on cpu in the past.
I'm probably mis remembering but I think it was because of the way leaf node data needs to be processed.

Things like that would help XSS more than XSX compared to PS5 overall I would say.

 

[Nesh]

PS5 seems to deep a bit more compares to Series X

 

[Karamazov]

and as expected, some dips to 45fps, like it's advertised. I imagine the meltdowns if anyone finds dips under 45fps.

 

[BRiT]

This is the DigitalFoundry Discussion thread. Anything not about their videos or articles directly will be purged going forward.

 

[BRiT]

Resident Evil Village: The Digital Foundry Tech Review + PS5, Xbox Series X|S Analysis!

Resident Evil Village gets the full Digital Foundry Tech Review treatment! Check out our thoughts on the game, the RE Engine, the quality of the art and design plus image quality comparisons and performance tests for PS5 and Xbox Series consoles.

 

[snc]

Performance advantage in rt mode in heavy scanes roughly around 10-15% for xsx, ps5 very fast loading times 1.5s, 8.5s on xsx

 

[Karamazov]

wonder if it could be locked if they dropped the res to 1440p CB.

 

[Jay]

ps5 very fast loading times 1.5s, 8.5s on xsx

That's a huge difference.
Do we know install sizes yet?

 

[snc]

wonder if it could be locked if they dropped the res to 1440p CB.

dynamic res would be even better

 

[snc]

That's a huge difference.
Do we know install sizes yet?

I don't

 

[mr magoo]

maybe finally a game that takes advantage of ps5 specialised ssd capabilities. This is what 5-6 times faster

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Performance advantage in rt mode in heavy scanes roughly around 10-15% for xsx, ps5 very fast loading times 1.5s, 8.5s on xsx

It's bonkers some people will be upset at having to wait 8.5 seconds. I mean, how the hell are you going to fill 8.5 whole seconds??? Clearly the agony of multi-minute load times from last gen are already fading in people's minds...

 

[Allandor]

That's a huge difference.
Do we know install sizes yet?

I would guess:
PS5 got a "real" port
Xbox got a package, that works with all xbox consoles. So no extra packaging process etc. The SSD is just used like a normal HDD.

It's bonkers some people will be upset at having to wait 8.5 seconds. I mean, how the hell are you going to fill 8.5 whole seconds??? Clearly the agony of multi-minute load times from last gen are already fading in people's minds...

everything below 10s is ok for me

 

[iroboto]

Performance advantage in rt mode in heavy scanes roughly around 10-15% for xsx, ps5 very fast loading times 1.5s, 8.5s on xsx

that's a nice lift.

 

[BRiT]

It's bonkers some people will be upset at having to wait 8.5 seconds. I mean, how the hell are you going to fill 8.5 whole seconds??? Clearly the agony of multi-minute load times from last gen are already fading in people's minds...

That's enough for me to fit in an entire singular yawn. Any longer and I just might fall asleep...

 

[Dictator]

I get the distinct feeling that load times are a bit not right or par for par in the implementation of loading across consoles. Obviously, the PS5's SSD is not that many times faster than a series S or Xs. Most likely a different loading implementation where Series console's are not being taken advantage of in comparison.

 

[cwjs]

Really impressed they got the loading times that low on ps5. maybe a patch will bring us a little closer on xbox, although 8 sec is certainly tolerable.

Great performance on both platorms! That series s version seems really nice, hope they offer a 30fps cap for rt someday though.

 

[Jay]

It's bonkers some people will be upset at having to wait 8.5 seconds. I mean, how the hell are you going to fill 8.5 whole seconds??? Clearly the agony of multi-minute load times from last gen are already fading in people's minds...

Not fading from my mind, one of the reasons I stopped gaming at all.

This is a technical discussion though, hence it is a big difference even though actual affect on gameplay is I would say only interesting not impact full.
Especially as there's no loading screens during actual gameplay.

 

[iroboto]

Great overall performance for all consoles. Series S oddly performing quite well at 1440p. Hopefully we'll see more of this going forward as we drop off last generation. RT definitely needed to come down in resolution however and get closer to holding a locked 30.