Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2024]

[Karamazov]

open the flood gates of Aloy mods !

 

[Cyan]

open the flood gates of Aloy mods !

much needed, she may really start to look pretty, finally!

I have the first game and I don't find her attractive.

 

[Cyan]

So Dragon's Dogma 2 is likely 30fps on consoles because of CPU bottlenecking:

Dragon's Dogma 2 performance analysis: It'll take everything your PC has and still want more

I hope you have a top-end CPU and GPU because you're really going to need them.

www.pcgamer.com

it's hard to understand what's so special about what the game does to require a CPU from the NASA, but this could be a solution.

AMD shows off DX12-related rendering advances that make game engines more efficient and less dependent on the CPU -- demo shows a 64% improvement

AMD shows off DX12-related rendering advances that make game engines more efficient and less dependent on the CPU -- demo shows a 64% improvement

The CPU is being used less and less for rendering, which should be good for performance.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[Seanspeed]

much needed, she may really start to look pretty, finally!

I have the first game and I don't find her attractive.

How do some of y'all still not get that the point of women's existence isn't just to look pretty for guys?

Not that Aloy was in any way some monstrous eyesore in the first place...

 

[davis.anthony]

I have the first game and I don't find her attractive.

And you were supposed too because???

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Looks like it's very good.

Grabbed it to test on my 3060/12400F, and impressions are...decidedly mixed atm.

1) "Waiting for shader compilation" on the first 5+ loads of the game, regardless if if was just resuming to the same area I was slowly walking around for 30 minutes prior. So getting back into the game was a ~2 minute endeavor for a good handful of reloads.

(Note though I don't think this is related to the performance I detail below, it doesn't appear to be a CPU limitation - the performance is dropping because of GPU.)

2) Medium detail, with perhaps screen space shadows added (disabled as part of preset) + very high textures + lod high (lod medium is brutal), seems to hold 60fps at DLSS performance 1440p as the output resolution...well enough, but it's close - there are a few drops below still, and this isn't even fighting anything. High is out of the question.

Overall in terms of image quality vs the PS5, I'd say DLSS 1440p performance (sharpening set at default 5) looks quite a bit softer compared to PS5 checkerboarding quality in performance mode, both static and in motion. There are elements where DLSS is better perhaps, but overall - nah. DLSS performance at 4k output looks significantly better, not quite PS5's Quality mode but it's prob closer to that than 1440p/performance is to PS5's performance mode.

3) The dynamic res is too fine grained wrt GPU occupancy, constant drops with it enabled as it's trying too hard to keep the GPU busy. Only forcing DLSS performance mode can reduce these.

4) Even with Nividia reflex + boost, seems to have worse controller latency than PS5 (playing with wired XSX). HZD also had this issue. Granted, even on PS5, HW's default controls always feel 'floaty', so perhaps different controllers could explain some of it, the response curve between them usually differs IME*. Without reflex it's of course worse.

*Nah, tested with a wired Dualsense. The latency sucks.

5) With motion blur enabled and fast movement, definitely noticeable shimmering with DLSS and vegetation at 1440p. Less noticeable at 4k output as you would expect, but it's still there. It's not just restricted to motion blur, there is generally just some level of shimmering to varying degrees depending upon the type of vegetation (stripped trees are especially problematic) when you're using DLSS performance, but mb makes it worse.

This is also the kind of thing you won't necessarily pick up on when you're comparing reconstruction methods with very slow pans or walking about. I want to see if artifacting stands out with fast movement, and occasionally it can.

6) The cardinal sin - microstutter. 60fps is not an entirely properly frame paced 60fps, or rather the camera animation isn't properly paced. Slowly pan the camera around and you'll get occasional small little camera skips and hitches at points. Nvidia reflex makes it far worse, but even without they can crop up (and input latency is pretty brutal without). Rivatuner cannot fix this either. Yikes.

This is not something you'll likely pick up on unless you're playing with a controller on a fixed refresh rate display, prob why Death Stranding's controller stutter was missed when the PC port dropped too. Like DS, there doesn't appear to be frame time jumps when these happen, it's a camera animation issue. But it's there.

So some patches are in order, as usual it seems. Yes, it's a low-end system by today's standards and I wasn't expecting performance parity using a 3060, I expected the requisite 'tax' for modern PS5 ports, but atm there's a bigger quality gap than I anticipated. Not as problematic as Spiderman was at launch, but that microstutter and lack of attention given to motion blur and DLSS (especially as it's enabled by default) are pretty big misses imo.

I'm particularly wary of the microstutter issue being fixed, as it's very subtle and I think many, especially m&k players on VRR displays, will miss it.

 

[Cyan]

How do some of y'all still not get that the point of women's existence isn't just to look pretty for guys?

Not that Aloy was in any way some monstrous eyesore in the first place...

And you were supposed too because???

she lived a rough life, that I can understand, but I have the first game on steam and she is unattractive and doesn't represent the ideal version of a hero.

You both have a distorted version of beauty, imho. I.e. I am in love with Amicia from A Plague Tale, she is a hero that fails but that makes her even better, and she is a "normal" gorgeous french girl trying to survive the pest.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

You both have a distorted version of beauty, imho. I.e. I am in love with Amicia from A Plague Tale, she is a hero that fails but that makes her even better, and she is a "normal" gorgeous french girl trying to survive the pest.

Extremely weird stuff my man. Take it to another forum.

 

[davis.anthony]

she lived a rough life, that I can understand, but I have the first game on steam and she is unattractive and doesn't represent the ideal version of a hero.

And you are supposed to find her attractive because???

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Alright folks, back on topic please...

 

[techuse]

Grabbed it to test on my 3060/12400F, and impressions are...decidedly mixed atm.

1) "Waiting for shader compilation" on the first 5+ loads of the game, regardless if if was just resuming to the same area I was slowly walking around for 30 minutes prior. So getting back into the game was a ~2 minute endeavor for a good handful of reloads.

(Note though I don't think this is related to the performance I detail below, it doesn't appear to be a CPU limitation - the performance is dropping because of GPU.)

2) Medium detail, with perhaps screen space shadows added (disabled as part of preset) + very high textures + lod high (lod medium is brutal), seems to hold 60fps at DLSS performance 1440p as the output resolution...well enough, but it's close - there are a few drops below still, and this isn't even fighting anything. High is out of the question.

Overall in terms of image quality vs the PS5, I'd say DLSS 1440p performance (sharpening set at default 5) looks quite a bit softer compared to PS5 checkerboarding quality in performance mode, both static and in motion. There are elements where DLSS is better perhaps, but overall - nah. DLSS performance at 4k output looks significantly better, not quite PS5's Quality mode but it's prob closer to that than 1440p/performance is to PS5's performance mode.

3) The dynamic res is too fine grained wrt GPU occupancy, constant drops with it enabled as it's trying too hard to keep the GPU busy. Only forcing DLSS performance mode can reduce these.

4) Even with Nividia reflex + boost, seems to have worse controller latency than PS5 (playing with wired XSX). HZD also had this issue. Granted, even on PS5, HW's default controls always feel 'floaty', so perhaps different controllers could explain some of it, the response curve between them usually differs IME*. Without reflex it's of course worse.

*Nah, tested with a wired Dualsense. The latency sucks.

5) With motion blur enabled and fast movement, definitely noticeable shimmering with DLSS and vegetation at 1440p. Less noticeable at 4k output as you would expect, but it's still there. It's not just restricted to motion blur, there is generally just some level of shimmering to varying degrees depending upon the type of vegetation (stripped trees are especially problematic) when you're using DLSS performance, but mb makes it worse.

This is also the kind of thing you won't necessarily pick up on when you're comparing reconstruction methods with very slow pans or walking about. I want to see if artifacting stands out with fast movement, and occasionally it can.

6) The cardinal sin - microstutter. 60fps is not an entirely properly frame paced 60fps, or rather the camera animation isn't properly paced. Slowly pan the camera around and you'll get occasional small little camera skips and hitches at points. Nvidia reflex makes it far worse, but even without they can crop up (and input latency is pretty brutal without). Rivatuner cannot fix this either. Yikes.

This is not something you'll likely pick up on unless you're playing with a controller on a fixed refresh rate display, prob why Death Stranding's controller stutter was missed when the PC port dropped too. Like DS, there doesn't appear to be frame time jumps when these happen, it's a camera animation issue. But it's there.

So some patches are in order, as usual it seems. Yes, it's a low-end system by today's standards and I wasn't expecting performance parity using a 3060, I expected the requisite 'tax' for modern PS5 ports, but atm there's a bigger quality gap than I anticipated. Not as problematic as Spiderman was at launch, but that microstutter and lack of attention given to motion blur and DLSS (especially as it's enabled by default) are pretty big misses imo.

I'm particularly wary of the microstutter issue being fixed, as it's very subtle and I think many, especially m&k players on VRR displays, will miss it.

Does the PC version have the option to use the PS5's checkerboard reconstruction?

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Does the PC version have the option to use the PS5's checkerboard reconstruction?

No, never expected it would.

 

[Remij]

I'm not seeing any microstuttering. Gotta keep fps over refresh-rate though.

Game loads extremely fast for me. I watched the intro video and when I started the game, I saw the "compiling shaders" prompt for basically 3 seconds, and then I was in the game.

Very happy with the port so far, and I'm sure Nixxes will polish up any rough edges people are having. I know there's an issue when using a Dualsense controller wirelessly.. which they're working on fixing.

It's a shame this game will go on the backburner as Dragon's Dogma 2 will take priority for me. But looking forward to playing more of this in the near future.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

I'm not seeing any microstuttering. Gotta keep fps over refresh-rate though.

Like I said, it's not a performance issue - there's no corresponding frame time spikes. It's on a fixed refresh rate display.

Game loads extremely fast for me. I watched the intro video and when I started the game, I saw the "compiling shaders" prompt for basically 3 seconds, and then I was in the game.

Yes, same as it's loading when its playing that unskippable intro. I'm talking about subsequent loads from the menu after reloading the game.

 

[Remij]

Like I said, it's not a performance issue - there's no corresponding frame time spikes. It's on a fixed refresh rate display.



Yes, same as it's loading when its playing that unskippable intro. I'm talking about subsequent loads from the menu after reloading the game.

I'm not looking for performance issues.. I'm looking for visible microstuttering while panning. I'm not seeing it. Like I said, my fps have been over my refresh-rate at all times. I'm sure what you're saying is accurate to your experience.

Yea I know. I haven't seen any compiling shaders on subsequent loads either when loading up my game. Core count issue, or do you think it's a bug?

 

[Globalisateur]

Grabbed it to test on my 3060/12400F, and impressions are...decidedly mixed atm.

1) "Waiting for shader compilation" on the first 5+ loads of the game, regardless if if was just resuming to the same area I was slowly walking around for 30 minutes prior. So getting back into the game was a ~2 minute endeavor for a good handful of reloads.

(Note though I don't think this is related to the performance I detail below, it doesn't appear to be a CPU limitation - the performance is dropping because of GPU.)

2) Medium detail, with perhaps screen space shadows added (disabled as part of preset) + very high textures + lod high (lod medium is brutal), seems to hold 60fps at DLSS performance 1440p as the output resolution...well enough, but it's close - there are a few drops below still, and this isn't even fighting anything. High is out of the question.

Overall in terms of image quality vs the PS5, I'd say DLSS 1440p performance (sharpening set at default 5) looks quite a bit softer compared to PS5 checkerboarding quality in performance mode, both static and in motion. There are elements where DLSS is better perhaps, but overall - nah. DLSS performance at 4k output looks significantly better, not quite PS5's Quality mode but it's prob closer to that than 1440p/performance is to PS5's performance mode.

3) The dynamic res is too fine grained wrt GPU occupancy, constant drops with it enabled as it's trying too hard to keep the GPU busy. Only forcing DLSS performance mode can reduce these.

4) Even with Nividia reflex + boost, seems to have worse controller latency than PS5 (playing with wired XSX). HZD also had this issue. Granted, even on PS5, HW's default controls always feel 'floaty', so perhaps different controllers could explain some of it, the response curve between them usually differs IME*. Without reflex it's of course worse.

*Nah, tested with a wired Dualsense. The latency sucks.

5) With motion blur enabled and fast movement, definitely noticeable shimmering with DLSS and vegetation at 1440p. Less noticeable at 4k output as you would expect, but it's still there. It's not just restricted to motion blur, there is generally just some level of shimmering to varying degrees depending upon the type of vegetation (stripped trees are especially problematic) when you're using DLSS performance, but mb makes it worse.

This is also the kind of thing you won't necessarily pick up on when you're comparing reconstruction methods with very slow pans or walking about. I want to see if artifacting stands out with fast movement, and occasionally it can.

6) The cardinal sin - microstutter. 60fps is not an entirely properly frame paced 60fps, or rather the camera animation isn't properly paced. Slowly pan the camera around and you'll get occasional small little camera skips and hitches at points. Nvidia reflex makes it far worse, but even without they can crop up (and input latency is pretty brutal without). Rivatuner cannot fix this either. Yikes.

This is not something you'll likely pick up on unless you're playing with a controller on a fixed refresh rate display, prob why Death Stranding's controller stutter was missed when the PC port dropped too. Like DS, there doesn't appear to be frame time jumps when these happen, it's a camera animation issue. But it's there.

So some patches are in order, as usual it seems. Yes, it's a low-end system by today's standards and I wasn't expecting performance parity using a 3060, I expected the requisite 'tax' for modern PS5 ports, but atm there's a bigger quality gap than I anticipated. Not as problematic as Spiderman was at launch, but that microstutter and lack of attention given to motion blur and DLSS (especially as it's enabled by default) are pretty big misses imo.

I'm particularly wary of the microstutter issue being fixed, as it's very subtle and I think many, especially m&k players on VRR displays, will miss it.

Interesting comparison. So you'd say PS5 version still better better overall than your 3060 using DLSS performance mode + 12400F for now? Is the framerate stable 60fps like on PS5? The custom CBR being sharper than DLSS (notably in motion) is surprising considering on what hardware it runs.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Interesting comparison. So you'd say PS5 version still better better overall than your 3060 using DLSS performance mode + 12400F for now? Is the framerate stable 60fps like on PS5? The custom CBR being sharper than DLSS (notably in motion) is surprising considering on what hardware it runs.

Framerate can be right on the edge of 60 with 1440p performance DLSS, even dropping below at points (such as cutscenes) with my mostly medium + vh textures/screen space shadow settings (albeit mostly medium looks quite good and very close to high). If dynamic res was working properly though it might be another matter, but it doesn't increase my fps when I'm bottomed out at 1440p performance, it only increases resolution (and stuttering) when I have the headroom over 60. So likely bugged, at least on my setup. Their dynamic res works exceptionally well in Spiderman so I have the expectation it will be fixed, different engine though.

CBR at 1800p is definitely superior overall vs my rig, esp with motion blur enabled. There are elements where you could likely zoom in and DLSS would be completing some fine detail better sure, but the overall picture, especially in motion, gives CBR a noticeable edge - it just comes across as more more '4k like' than dlss with my setup. I mean with a top res of 1440p I wouldn't expect DLSS to resemble 4k of course, but the point is I can't increase my screen res above 1440p if I want to have a hope in hell of reaching 60fps, whereas the PS5 currently can, and does.

When you get into 4k with DLSS performance and disable motion blur though is where it really starts to strut its stuff*, PS5 Quality Mode is still better but as long as you keep motion blur disabled, 4K DLSS performance can definitely at least compete (CBR isn't affected by motion blur at all, it stays at the same level of stability). That would likely require a 4060ti at least to maintain 60 with my settings though, again though dynamic res could give you that hump if it worked as well as it did in Alex's video so who knows where the issue is there atm.

Oh btw, despite my misgivings on the controller latency, one positive aspect on controller support - trigger rumble on the SX pad! Love when games include that, very rare. Gives a nice tickle in your finger when pulling back the bow.

* Bear in mind 4k DLSS performance, with a native input res of 1080p, is still quite a bit below 1800p CBR in native pixel count (2,073,600 vs 2,880,000 [1600x1800 cbr native]), and motion blur handling aside, when jumping back and forth between the two, no contest - DLSS is far superior at that res/setting.1440p DLSS performance with a native res of 720p has around a third of the native pixels of 1800p CBR, so no wonder. DLSS is very good, but it's not magic.

 

[techuse]

Does anyone remember what resolution ranges PS5 uses in its modes?

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Does anyone remember what resolution ranges PS5 uses in its modes?

From my recollection, performance is dynamic CBR and tops out at 1800p, so max CBR native res of 1,600x1800 in performance mode I believe. Quality can top out at at native 4k, dynamic as well.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

I'm not looking for performance issues.. I'm looking for visible microstuttering while panning. I'm not seeing it. Like I said, my fps have been over my refresh-rate at all times. I'm sure what you're saying is accurate to your experience.

Oh believe me, it's the micro in microstutter. Not anything as egregious as the hitch you get with a full frame drop on a 60hz display for example, but slowly panning I see these very minute little camera jumps. Not constant, anywhere from 2-4 per 360 revolution. Possibly just my system too.

Yea I know. I haven't seen any compiling shaders on subsequent loads either when loading up my game. Core count issue, or do you think it's a bug?

Could likely be a bug. It's fast now, because I've prob been in-game for ~2 hours with the testing. When I was getting those constantly compiling messages I was exiting out after being in-game for 20 minutes or so, so who knows - maybe exiting with alt-F4 corrupted the cache somehow. Definitely not how Zero Dawn worked, you would only get longer loads with compiling if you were loading directly into an area for the first time after a new driver install, if you quit and reloaded that same area it would be as fast as expected, then the game would churn away at the shaders in background threads for the rest of the map while you played.