Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2023]

[Inuhanyou]

The thing I love most about PC gaming is that for the most part games are eternal. If I wanted to play a game from 2005 I still can. Console gaming has always felt generational to me. You can only play this game on this specific hardware with this specific controller and there's an expiration date on all of that. The other thing that's really important is the greater freedom to tweak and customize the experience though it seems console games are starting to get decent settings menus too.

Luckily that seems to be hopefully addressed with standardized hw and a straightforward upgrade path in most cases. Ps5 and series consoles have the best bc consoles have ever had.

Something usually traditionally reserved for needing to actually put the parts of the previous console inside just for it to work now works primarily in software with 95 percent of the library

I hope switch 2 also follows this path now that they have a formula they can iterate on

 

[pjbliverpool]

The thing I love most about PC gaming is that for the most part games are eternal. If I wanted to play a game from 2005 I still can. Console gaming has always felt generational to me. You can only play this game on this specific hardware with this specific controller and there's an expiration date on all of that.

Unless of course you have a PC in which case you can emulate most of those older systems beyond n-1 generations from a single box.

For me it's the breadth of PC gaming that I enjoy the most. That's made up a combo of older PC games remaining playable (and improving over time without the need for developer intervention), modern games from both Sony and MS along with all the mutliplats being available on the platform - usually in their definitive form, the ability to emulate older systems from across the spectrum of vendors, and the expansive VR library (albeit lacking in big AAA experiences at the moment).

 

[SmooTh]

 

[I'mDudditz!]

Meh, pretty lackluster but the PS5 continues to impress relative to it's peers.

 

[Dr. Nick]

 

[Remij]

Meh, pretty lackluster but the PS5 continues to impress relative to it's peers.

Not to take away from the supposedly great tools, APIs and development environment they've crafted... but the PS versions of games obviously get a bit more TLC from studios.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Interesting stuff! Beyond the generic "path tracing doesn't really work properly without PBR materials" take, smooth path-traced lighting on top of point filtered textures is kind of a weird place if you think about it. I understand why they did it, but it's sort of arbitrary what we decide is "staying true to the source material" vs updating technical limitations.

Like Portal RTX, I personally don't think it really improves the overall art direction or experience over the original, but it's another neat tech demo. Thanks for the analysis!

 

[Inuhanyou]

Not to take away from the supposedly great tools, APIs and development environment they've crafted... but the PS versions of games obviously get a bit more TLC from studios.

Supposedly?

Iirc, RE engine inherently plays nicer with PlayStation, and that went with PS4 as well. I don't really think devs intentionally give PS5 more love. If they do to some degree, maybe devs have to split their time in between series S and series x? Which still comes out as less time compared to just focusing on a single PS5 sku

 

[arandomguy]

PC gamers usually focused the advantages of a PC on how powerful they can be.

I think that's more of a sub demographic of PC gamers that do that which is the hardware/PC gamer sub demo, and if your discourse is primarily in that group (eg. tech forums) it might give that impression.

The interesting thing is for example if I look at other sub demographics I find those PC gamers prefer the PC due to essentially exclusives and user input/interface, which are advantages the hardware/PC gamer circle now ascribe to consoles. They also find PC gaming cheaper (it's interesting that PC gaming is actually relatively more popular against console gaming outside of what would be considered the wealthier G7 countries), which is also something ascribed to the consoles.

It's also interesting that hardware tech coverage/circles have a much stronger focus on the multiplatform games than what would be considered PC exclusives, which really have barely any coverage in those circles by comparison.

 

[Remij]

Supposedly?

Iirc, RE engine inherently plays nicer with PlayStation, and that went with PS4 as well. I don't really think devs intentionally give PS5 more love. If they do to some degree, maybe devs have to split their time in between series S and series x? Which still comes out as less time compared to just focusing on a single PS5 sku

Yes, supposedly.

I think it's pretty logical that the console platform with the largest install base and potential sales gets more priority during development. And yea.. like PC, having more Xbox configurations doesn't help. Getting the Series S version working decently likely takes away from resources to ensure the Series X version could be all that it can be.

That's absolutely on Microsoft.. I'm not making excuses for them.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Yes, supposedly.

I think it's pretty logical that the console platform with the largest install base and potential sales gets more priority during development. And yea.. like PC, having more Xbox configurations doesn't help. Getting the Series S version working decently likely takes away from resources to ensure the Series X version could be all that it can be.

That's absolutely on Microsoft.. I'm not making excuses for them.

It's a fair argument you make friend.

 

[Remij]

It's a fair argument you make friend.

Yea. Maybe sometimes I'm not clear when I'm going on tirades about PC versions of games.. but I'm not against developers having priorities and making business deals. All I ever advocate for is that things aren't broken or what I would deem as unacceptable at launch.

Microsoft has considerations and challenges that Sony doesn't really have to take into account when developing their hardware and development platform. They added to the complexity when they decided to release a cheaper cut down console and basically force support onto developers. Whether it was the right idea for them or not, we may never know what could have been.. but it's on them to continue to improve things and make it as easy as possible for developers to do the best job possible.

I ask though, in the future... when does it start to make sense to just put together a low cost small form factor PC and throw an Xbox logo on the case and just consider it a tailored spec developers can target? Could even create specific shader packs specifically for the hardware too.

I'd argue that's the route I'd go from here on out.. but I'm sure there's lots of things I'm not fully considering.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Personally, although it may not make best use of Xbox series x, I think it was a good move. I want to cheaply play a lot of Xbox exclusives that will come up. On top of the games in the 8th gen I missed out on, 7th gen enhanced games and a few 6th gen games I'd love to have with a new coat of paint.

That is only possible with a series S that's properly low cost and easily accessible. And so I've decided for that to be my ticket into Xbox again after a generation.

They would not have a returning customer if not for that system. Id never make it my main system but as a side system like the Switch to a PS5, its perfect. And I think I'm not alone in thinking that. Iirc. Series S is still the higher seller compared to the X even without a disc drive

 

[Cyan]

It's also interesting that hardware tech coverage/circles have a much stronger focus on the multiplatform games than what would be considered PC exclusives, which really have barely any coverage in those circles by comparison.

actuallly, there are many marvels on PC that are very efficient performance wise and could be covered, but maybe it's just that people prefer the tech comparisons or as you say, "developed" countries buy lots of consoles. If we lived in China maybe we'd see lots of articles focused on PC hardware and performance.

Cheaper prices is also huge, free online and better chat services like Discord, or things like playing "local" multiplayer using Parsec, joy2key, etc etc. Consoles on the other hand have the advantage that games are guaranteed to work.

 

[davis.anthony]

I've nearly completed this now, I appreciate what it's doing technically and the work the modder did but graphically it's not all that and definitely not worth the performance drop compared to normal raster.

 

[pjbliverpool]

I've nearly completed this now, I appreciate what it's doing technically and the work the modder did but graphically it's not all that and definitely not worth the performance drop compared to normal raster.

Amazing video by Alex. As ever it's incredibly information dense while covering a huge aspect range. I particularly appreciated the way he set the scene early on for that air duct that was uniformly lit, an d then dropped in later on how the path tracing change that and required the modders to add in an emissive material. Very cleverly done!

As to the game, naturally it doesn't look on par with modern games, but IMO it does make the original HL playable from a graphical perspective with some scenes looking genuinely impressive like that zombie scene with the heavy fog. Given it's comfortably playable at 60fps/4K DLSS Q on mine (and yours) 4070Ti's, I'd say the vastly improved graphics are definitely worth the performance hit if you have the hardware.

EDIT: Now implement it in HL2 VR and I'll be in heaven!

 

[davis.anthony]

As to the game, naturally it doesn't look on par with modern games, but IMO it does make the original HL playable from a graphical perspective with some scenes looking genuinely impressive like that zombie scene with the heavy fog.

There's not been a single scene that's made me go 'wow' so far

 

[Jupiter]

At least the lighting isn't medicore like in raster games. I also like the New water, bloom and the volumetric mist. This is much more atmospheric than the original. Without the modification I would never touch the game again.

 

[cwjs]

Looking forward to the first batch of games which take these same constraints -- low tri count, low res texture, csg levels -- but author everything with path traced rendering in mind.

 

[trinibwoy]

Amazing video by Alex. As ever it's incredibly information dense while covering a huge aspect range. I particularly appreciated the way he set the scene early on for that air duct that was uniformly lit, an d then dropped in later on how the path tracing change that and required the modders to add in an emissive material. Very cleverly done!

As to the game, naturally it doesn't look on par with modern games, but IMO it does make the original HL playable from a graphical perspective with some scenes looking genuinely impressive like that zombie scene with the heavy fog. Given it's comfortably playable at 60fps/4K DLSS Q on mine (and yours) 4070Ti's, I'd say the vastly improved graphics are definitely worth the performance hit if you have the hardware.

EDIT: Now implement it in HL2 VR and I'll be in heaven!

Yep, great video. I got into Half-Life with HL2 so it was really interesting to get a glimpse at the original. The OG assets are laughably outdated of course and no amount of lighting can fix that. Some of the changes are quite nice though. The GI in outdoor scenes and water refractions stood out for me.

Are there any details on the path tracing implementation - rays per pixel, bounces per ray, denoiser etc? I’m guessing SER is off the table as I don’t think Nvidia has released the Vulkan extension yet.