Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2021]

[Silent_Buddha]

Impressive turnaround on outriders

Impressive indeed. I do wonder if the relatively massive improvements in performance on XBS systems is due to them dedicating more time to it, improvements in the MS development environment or more likely a combination of the two.

PS5 was obviously the lead console as it's virtually unchanged from the demo.

Regardless, the improvements on XBS-S are very impressive compared to the demo. And even with the graphical downgrades still presents a very nice looking locked 60 FPS experience.

Regards,
SB

 

[Allandor]

Impressive indeed. I do wonder if the relatively massive improvements in performance on XBS systems is due to them dedicating more time to it, improvements in the MS development environment or more likely a combination of the two.

PS5 was obviously the lead console as it's virtually unchanged from the demo.

Regardless, the improvements on XBS-S are very impressive compared to the demo. And even with the graphical downgrades still presents a very nice looking locked 60 FPS experience.

Regards,
SB

I guess it is a mix of all. When you have the Playstation (4/5) as lead platform you automatically optimize for their "api". There might be calls that are faster on the sony platforms because the equivalent call on the MS platform might just not be that effective. And as far as I know DirectX, the call is doing some extra stuff you might just not need. On PC this is most of the time not critical, as most sites just test high-end CPUs & GPUs. On console platforms this can lead to a bottleneck.
But the series S performance is really good. I really expected that more games fall back to 30fps on Series S when X has 60fps. Not because of the CPU or GPU, but because of the memory bandwidth that is quite low.

I had no real problems with outriders, as I played it through xbox streaming ^^ ... well the experience wasn't that great with high lag etc, but the gameplay is very forgiving (at least at lower difficulty settings) so it didn't really matter. But I really can't recommence streaming from a quality perspective. Still much detail is lost by streaming and the lag ...

 

[Globalisateur]

Yea, I don't think that's been in question here. I mean, for the sake of argument, it's taken for granted here that we assume there is no particular load that will cause PS5 to dip much below its maximum clockspeeds (and that is controlled by the OS), so in that sense it's okay for people to assume to treat that method the same here, since the OS is in control of the clockspeeds for native PS5 BC mode. The reality is somewhere in there, but I dunno where. There hasn't been any indication to me that PS5 BC modes by the OS will aggressively downclock, otherwise I have a hard time believing it's going toe to toe on this title 4K60 with XSX without it.

So TLDR; I think it's reasonable to be on the side to assume the clocks are fairly boosted.

This is not the same downclocking system in charge at all. With BC some games (allegedly many Ubisoft PS4 only games) run the clocks (CPU, GPU and even memory) in specific (and static) clocks that will allow the best compatible experience. Those clocks are based on BC tests (so are static), not instruction counts (but by downclocking sufficiency the GPU in BC mode the instruction count downclocking system should be rendered useless anyways).

DERIVING APPLICATION-SPECIFIC OPERATING PARAMETERS FOR BACKWARDS COMPATIBLITY

Performance of a legacy application may be characterized for subsequent adjustment of operating parameters when running the legacy application on a newer system...

The application may be run repeatedly on the new system while tuning its operating parameters to adjust the application-specific performance characteristics.

Examples of operating parameters may include, but are not limited to: clock frequencies, e.g., for CPU, GPU, or memory...

Inventors: David Simpson (Los Angeles, CA), Mark Evan Cerny (Burbank, MA)

https://patents.justia.com/patent/20210157610

The operating parameters for each games should be stored in the PS5 firmware and could be updated (theoretically).

Anyways for the game we were talking about I think now the main reason of the big drops was I/O so unrelated to GPU clocks.

 

[iroboto]

This is not the same downclocking system in charge at all. With BC some games (allegedly many Ubisoft PS4 only games) run the clocks (CPU, GPU and even memory) in specific (and static) clocks that will allow the best compatible experience. Those clocks are based on BC tests (so are static), not instruction counts (but by downclocking sufficiency the GPU in BC mode the instruction count downclocking system should be rendered useless anyways).







https://patents.justia.com/patent/20210157610

The operating parameters for each games should be stored in the PS5 firmware and could be updated (theoretically).

Anyways for the game we were talking about I think now the main reason of the big drops was I/O so unrelated to GPU clocks.

The fact that the game is pushing graphical capabilities well beyond PS4 Pro, is sufficient proof that there are clockspeed boosts here? I don't see how that is debatable when they both have 36CUs and 64 ROPs. PS5 has more bandwidth ... the list goes on.

How could it be I/O related with an SSD that is 100x faster than what is available on PS4. Code related sure, perhaps they are single threaded on I/O etc. Perhaps the pairing of I/O and higher resolutions is not good. But I/O (as in speed related) doesn't make a lot of sense. I have never heard of PS5 throttling I/O speeds to match PS4 HDD speeds.

 

[Globalisateur]

The fact that the game is pushing graphical capabilities well beyond PS4 Pro, is sufficient proof that there are clockspeed boosts here? I don't see how that is debatable when they both have 36CUs and 64 ROPs. PS5 has more bandwidth ... the list goes on.

How could it be I/O related with an SSD that is 100x faster than what is available on PS4. Code related sure, perhaps they are single threaded on I/O etc. Perhaps the pairing of I/O and higher resolutions is not good. But I/O (as in speed related) doesn't make a lot of sense. I have never heard of PS5 throttling I/O speeds to match PS4 HDD speeds.

1/ I just wrote I was agreeing with this. I made my first point before watching the different performance videos, It was a general comment.
2/ you are mixing things with the I/O throttling. Being a I/O problem is most likey due to specific code problem with how PS5 BC works. There could be hundreds of different reasons (and the game already had notorious I/O problems). Nothing to do with I/O throttling, which I never claimed. For instance we know Fallout 4 has specific I/O problems only on Xbox Apis.

 

[iroboto]

1/ I just wrote I was agreeing with this. I made my first point before watching the different performance videos, It was a general comment.
2/ you are mixing things with the I/O throttling. Being a I/O problem is most likey due to specific code problem with how PS5 BC works. There could be hundreds of different reasons (and the game already had notorious I/O problems). Nothing to do with I/O throttling, which I never claimed. For instance we know Fallout 4 has specific I/O problems only on Xbox Apis.

wrt (1): Sure, there leaves some possibility there for alternate clockspeeds to be used, but frankly speaking, it's hard to imagine recent BC titles being unable to utilize the full clockspeeds of PS5. The latest devkits are used by all companies, so there should have been some expectation that PS4 enchanced BC would support faster clock speeds. As Sony announces it expected PS4 to be around for a total of 3 years before it's gone, this SDK kit should ideally maximize PS5 clockspeeds even in BC mode. Older kits, I get the reason to allow for this and I have no issues with agreeing that older BC titles may not get the full boost.

(2) is likely just a memory problem.

 

[PSman1700]

 

[iroboto]

As to whether ML can be plumbed in, in the very end as an add-on. Technically if you could hijack the final output buffer to screen you could apply it there, but may not necessarily be performant or of desirable quality.

 

[PSman1700]

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Review: Big Performance, Extreme Price Tag

 

[PSman1700]

 

[snc]

 

[LiveGamer]

Finally someone calling Sony out for the bait and switch on some cross gen games. I will never understand why Sony (with their huge market share) feels the need to be so sneaky with this stuff.

 

[iroboto]

lol these face selections

 

[snc]

Finally someone calling Sony out for the bait and switch on some cross gen games. I will never understand why Sony (with their huge market share) feels the need to be so sneaky with this stuff.

as df said, just disappointing

 

[AzBat]

I didn't see any calling out. Buncha "aww shucks" maybe.

Tommy McClain

 

[Remij]

Sony always gets a pass. Maybe it's because their games are generally on another level visually and production-wise compared to the competition.. but I feel like John kinda just brushed it off compared to what he was like when Xbox announced that games would be cross gen for a couple years.

Fair enough... the reality is as they said.. game budgets, and the sheer amount of time that it takes to release these games changes things a bit. It may be disappointing, but it's understandable.

 

[PSman1700]

Sony always gets a pass. Maybe it's because their games are generally on another level visually and production-wise compared to the competition.. but I feel like John kinda just brushed it off compared to what he was like when Xbox announced that games would be cross gen for a couple years.

Fair enough... the reality is as they said.. game budgets, and the sheer amount of time that it takes to release these games changes things a bit. It may be disappointing, but it's understandable.

Thats only John though. DF team doesnt consist of only him

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Finally someone calling Sony out for the bait and switch on some cross gen games. I will never understand why Sony (with their huge market share) feels the need to be so sneaky with this stuff.

As I said in another thread, it depends whether this was always the intention, in which case it's lies. If this was a pivot as a reaction to the silicon shortage and their inability to get more PS5s out there to negate the need to support PS4, they should simply say so. The latter isn't something anybody predicted would potentially go on so long - but the comms have been shitty regardless.

It seems clears that some games, like Horizon which has been in development since 2017, was always intended to be on PS4.

"We believe in generations" =/= "we will drop PS4 like a stone". There is a middle ground of "we will not compromise on game design just to support PS4" which I guess is Ratchet & Clank. Not everything has to be a polarising extreme. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Globalisateur]

I always thought the statement "We believe in generations" had nothing to with cross-gen games. It was always about having a much more powerful hardware than Pro in all important areas: I/O, CPU, ram and GPU. I think it was a PR response to MS with their XSS having a less powerful GPU and less available ram than the XBX.

MS did their own PR response with fixed clocks, 12tf and better BC.

 

[Allandor]

As I said in another thread, it depends whether this was always the intention, in which case it's lies. If this was a pivot as a reaction to the silicon shortage and their inability to get more PS5s out there to negate the need to support PS4, they should simply say so. The latter isn't something anybody predicted would potentially go on so long - but the comms have been shitty regardless.

It seems clears that some games, like Horizon which has been in development since 2017, was always intended to be on PS4.

"We believe in generations" =/= "we will drop PS4 like a stone". There is a middle ground of "we will not compromise on game design just to support PS4" which I guess is Ratchet & Clank. Not everything has to be a polarising extreme. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well according to the history of Polyphony the development of GT7 must also have started .... years ago (if not a generation ago). But in their trailer they had the clear message, this is PS5 exclusive. So it must have been a decision in the last months (or year) they made. So I guess only a quick-port is more or less possible. E.g. reducing the framerate to 30 on PS4 is not that nice for such a racer, but this would greatly decrease the CPU requirements.
And didn't they tease a 120fps mode at some point. This would also indicate that the game itself wouldn't be that CPU demanding at 60fps.

But DF is right about that. MS got big backlash for their honest communication that they will still support xb1 at least 2 years. So, now after it has become quieter around that topic, they tell the people, they do more or less the same. This is really not a fine move. I welcome the decision Sony made, the way they said it, however, has a sour aftertaste.