I think There are a handful of these worth noting for later discussion
Coming to mind here:
almost all kickstarter titles, as well as BG3
Cyberpunk and Witcher 1 and 2
PUBG
Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2024]
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
- Start date
Coming to mind here:
almost all kickstarter titles, as well as BG3
Cyberpunk and Witcher 1 and 2
PUBG
most of them eastern europe games or central europe games where they mindset is PC first 'cos of their culture.
So Sony gets handed a monopoly in the AAA console space? Yea, that's not a good solution in the end. Even if you remained a Playstation user and never considered Xbox, you still benefited from Xbox pushing Playstation to be better.Ironically, Shawn Layden just did a recent interview and he basically said it was about time to put the console wars to an end and that there was a single console platform instead of having multiple console platforms to target which basically serve the exact same market. He says the technical differences between the PS5 and XSX are negligible.
Former PlayStation head says we need to "get this platform war thing out of the way" and "get down to one standard home console"
Shawn Layden believes the technical separations between PlayStation and Xbox are negligiblewww.gamesradar.com
I agree with him completely. I said MS should just make the Xbox a PC so that devs could simply make one SKU and support all the form-factors. Make the next console a partnership between the two, standardized hardware they could license out to 3rd parties to make their own versions. Ultimately a PC with targetable specs, and MS and Sony could both work on improving the OS, APIs, Tools, ect ect.. and devs could focus on a single codebase for the most part.
Yea, I'm dreaming here, maybe certain developers would hate it.. but I think it will eventually get there one way or another. It does not make sense to have vastly different architectures and limiting games which require massive budgets to just a single platform.
And a fixed device PC for the next Xbox, that's what the consoles essentially are already. It wouldn't change development for PC titles at all, cuz they'd still need to accommodate for all the rest of the PC market, including different CPU and GPU vendors and all that. It'd be a little less work for them on the console side, but....not worth the big picture cost to consumers.
Plus this is a space that Valve can compete in. I've said it before, if Xbox cannot win against Playstation in the console space, going up against Valve in the PC space would be even worse for them. Trying to position themselves to do both.....? lol
Anyways, y'all will likely get your wish of a Playstation monopoly sooner or later anyways. I dont foresee Xbox making any kind of turnaround, and they're already taking their first steps towards becoming a mere 'games publisher'.
competing with Valve..., they don't need to, I agree that's how trying to compete with Sony. Valve can't be beaten. Windows is a core business, you know what I mean.... And it needs to evolve instead of always being a monolithic OS jack of all trades master of none, so to say. It was about time they seem to be realising that.
0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:22 News 01: Starfield Series S high frame-rate mods tested!
0:09:26 News 02: PS2 and PSP emulation on PS5 analyzed
0:24:58 News 03: Snapdragon X Elite gaming performance disappoints
0:44:34 News 04: Still Wakes The Deep ships without FSR, DLSS, XeSS on Game Pass
0:54:17 News 05: LRG3 showcase features re-releases, remasters
1:05:04 Supporter Q1: How can I age as gracefully as the Switch?
1:13:55 Supporter Q2: Would you still recommend the Steam Deck over the new ROG Ally X?
1:16:46 Supporter Q3: Could the PS5 last 8 or 9 years as Sony’s flagship console platform?
1:23:25 Supporter Q4: Do you think a 1080p screen could be too much for a next-gen Switch?
1:28:46 Supporter Q5: Do you think any unannounced first party games will be released around launch for Switch 2?
Sony should swallow their pride and use pcsx2 and contribute to it. They already used pcsx on the ps classic mini anyway. I can get better PS2 emulation on my phone than on a PS5... Appreciated effort, bottom of the barrel quality.
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But they would potentially be competing with Valve, since if all this theoretical Xbox would be is a fixed spec PC, then Valve could absolutely produce something similar, and I wouldn't be surprised if they already have plans to at some point, basically reintroducing the Steam Machine(singular though, not plural). Valve has the ability to sell such a product at a fairly subsidized price point similar to Microsoft(and which is what they already do with Steam Deck), so could be price competitive and offer basically all the same advantages as the Xbox and probably more since Valve are very good at creating a gamer-friendly platform.
They can't since many popular open source reverse engineering projects like system emulation use a GPL license so if it were to be packaged w/ proprietary software, they'd (including game developers too) be forced to open source their games (no commercial incentive) since console gfx APIs are statically linked for applications (forced to ship a part of the emulation layer itself) and what exactly would they get out of contributing an ARM dynamic recompiler when nearly none of their products would use it ?
Also PS2 emulation is a really terrible fit for mobile graphics architectures since games over there are designed to constantly reset render passes and requires a high barrier count for accurate HW blending behaviour the latter of which isn't great on PC either ...
I'm not sure how those licenses really work in detail, but on the PS1 classic console they used pcsx.
So they already did it? Or am I missing something? I don't think they open sourced the games included.
The developers of PCSX ReARMed gave Sony a commercial license to be able to use the source code in their discontinued product. Author's of their own contributions in open source projects have the right to derivative works which includes relicensing their own code as well for other purposes ...
There's no way Sony will rely on other open source emulation projects when they already have their own internally developed emulation systems for their current consoles especially considering that the reverse engineering scene for PS emulation is far smaller, lesser maintained, and they'd have to "reinvent the wheel" once way or another such as rewriting the dynamic recompiler to use the latest CPU ISA extensions or the graphics backend since they use a proprietary gfx API ...
Regarding Windows Store/PC Gamepass issues, I've had my fair share of them. At one point, games wouldn't download on my home internet unless I was using a VPN, which is strange. But I also find it strange that the DF crew say they've not seen issues with Steam or other storefronts. I tried for months to get the Forspoken demo to launch before giving up on it. I wanted to see if the game was as bad as people said it was, and then tried it again when they added FSR3FG. It never worked. A few years ago I bought a bunch of casual games (the Mumbo Jumbo collection). This was after Windows 10 came out. I just wanted to play Luxor, which you can still buy from Steam. Except that it doesn't launch on any Windows 10 (or 7 IIRC) PC I've tried it on. Should work fine on XP, but Steam doesn't work on XP anymore. According to one review, it works on Steam Deck, though, so I guess that's cool.
There have been other games that just didn't launch, though some of them have been fixed or rereleased. I feel like I had issues with some of the Terminal Reality games at one point, for example. And fairly recently there was a game that would only launch if I didn't launch it through steam. It's one of those games that doesn't rely on Steam for DRM, and when I found people saying to go in the folder and launch the .EXE, I assumed it was just a problem with Steam overlay or something. But nope, only launched via directly launching the .exe. Don't remember the game, though.
There have been other games that just didn't launch, though some of them have been fixed or rereleased. I feel like I had issues with some of the Terminal Reality games at one point, for example. And fairly recently there was a game that would only launch if I didn't launch it through steam. It's one of those games that doesn't rely on Steam for DRM, and when I found people saying to go in the folder and launch the .EXE, I assumed it was just a problem with Steam overlay or something. But nope, only launched via directly launching the .exe. Don't remember the game, though.
A part of this is likely familiarity and inertia. If you've been using Steam for so long you kind of just reflexly know all the typical fixes such as just checking integrity, disabling overlay, or even deleting the folder and re-downloading and etc. There's also a launch knowledge archive built up over the years to draw from as well.
There's also that benefits of the doubt factor. You're more likely to associate an issue with the game itself and the developer to fix, or a third party application.
There's also that benefits of the doubt factor. You're more likely to associate an issue with the game itself and the developer to fix, or a third party application.
Me too I got a free 3month trial with some amd hardware and about 50% of the games I tried wouldnt install I would get " Installation flailed Error code XXXX" and when I looked up what "XXXX" meant the answer was "Unexpected error"
I tried countless fixes including removing the windows store from my pc and re-installing it (not an easy process) and now I wont have anything to do with it
Luxor is a fun game. Regarding the PC Gamepass app, I had one problem as of recently; trying to install The Evil Within 2 always stopped at 10%, it never installed. Other than that the app has been improving, and I use it even more than Steam nowadays, which is odd... I am in the minority here.
the original Unreal was incredible, when I saw that intro, with the transparencies, the coronas of the lights, overall lighting, the "clean" textures.... My Voodoo Monster 3DFX showed its value.
Resident Evil. The graphics looked really good on an accelerated gpu.
I'd add Oblivion, when you could see the mountains and actually go there. I also gathered my siblings to show them.
Age of Empires, the original game, when you saw those landscapes, that made you feel there, in their simplicity, wishing you lived in that era, the freedom, the awe of discovery...
Skyrim, the volumetric cloud and super detailed mountains.
The original Quake, which art style has never been matched, not even by Quake itself. Probably Quake 2 is more popular, but imho, art style wise is not even close.
Need for Speed III Hot Pursuit. (PC) The graphics accelerated version and its reflections on the cars looked so amazing at the time.
Broken Sword 2. That 2D art was soooooo gorgeous.
Flight Simulator 2020. I loved to play it just to fly over my village in real life.
Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. MS-DOS version played under Windows 95. What can I say. My first fighting game, purchased in 1997 or so. A totally faithful port -graphics wise, there were slight gameplay changes- of the arcade but with CD music. Never beaten Akuma though.
Sould Blade. My best childhood friend had that game on the PS1. When I saw that intro, with that music, and the epic music of almost every combat...., it was an incredible feeling playing that game.
Sega Worldwide Soccer. Got it in 1997 (PC) and I loved the graphics of that game. Not a perfect game but I liked how it looked.
Actua Soccer (PC). Lots of fun and the 3D cameras were super impressive at the time, the goals felt as if you scored them yourself at times.
Heroes of Might & Magic 2. The art style of the game is something forever pasted in the album of my memory xD. Also super fun.
Resident Evil 2 Remake. The characters looked almost real to me, like a movie. Claire will always be my favourite videogame character to date.
As for arcades: the original Fatal Fury -loved the art style-, Art of Fighting -probably the best graphics of a fighting game I've ever seen, AoF 2 also qualifies-, Soccer Brawl and Super Sidekicks -the Netherlands has two aces-, Hammerin' Harry -totally loved the art style-
I forget some games, but well....
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Flappy Pannus
Veteran
The long and the short of it: Same as it ever was.
Fuck em up Alex.
PC critique starts at 14:20, and it's harsh - deservedly so.I have played this game both on PS5 and PC, and it's incredible that they still haven't addressed some glaring issues.
On PC, the game wouldn't recognize my controller sometimes after install.
It would stutter sometime but not too frequently, but most of all, alt tabbing would make the game become a white screen.
On PS5, the grass pop in is worse than on PS4, even if the density is higher, and the colour changes while walking through it. It looks terrible.
The dynamic resolution is almost useless, since it's too slow to react to the screen filling particle effects.
And of course, the bottom res is 1512p in performance mode, which is higher than most resolutions modes today on console. That is pretty dumb.
How hard could it be to offer a performance+ mode that is straight 1080p on console without dyn res?
On PC, the game wouldn't recognize my controller sometimes after install.
It would stutter sometime but not too frequently, but most of all, alt tabbing would make the game become a white screen.
On PS5, the grass pop in is worse than on PS4, even if the density is higher, and the colour changes while walking through it. It looks terrible.
The dynamic resolution is almost useless, since it's too slow to react to the screen filling particle effects.
And of course, the bottom res is 1512p in performance mode, which is higher than most resolutions modes today on console. That is pretty dumb.
How hard could it be to offer a performance+ mode that is straight 1080p on console without dyn res?
But other than that, I really disagree with the notion that those games have a bad engine or that they are technically behind. Even in this video, Alex says that the game has the technical density and quality of a game from 2015. Elden ring is a really good looking game, and it's not just art style.
•The game has really good handling of distance geometry and Lod's.
•the armours, models and enemies are really detailed.
•the effects are some of the most convincing in the industry, with the particle system for magic and some attacks that is best in class. (As an example, radagon after 70% HP).
•it uses good per object motion blur and light shafts.
•cloth physics on armor, enemies, the environment, everywhere.
•it let's you move fast in the world almost completely without loading screens.
•the textures aren't incredible, but on PC we can see that the VRAM usage is low, you can play perfectly on a 4gb VRAM GPU.
•density of items and props in the open world and in the dungeons is pretty high.
•npc and enemies don't spawn in front of the camera (right dd2?) and move at full rate even very distant from the player.
•full time of day system with weather.
•actual fur on monsters.
All at a high resolution on console (the game doesn't ever feel blurry) and the framerate could be fixed with a simple lowering of the bottom bounds.
The engine is clearly well enough optimized, and raytraced global illumination and higher res textures would address some of the shortcomings of the presentation.
•The game has really good handling of distance geometry and Lod's.
•the armours, models and enemies are really detailed.
•the effects are some of the most convincing in the industry, with the particle system for magic and some attacks that is best in class. (As an example, radagon after 70% HP).
•it uses good per object motion blur and light shafts.
•cloth physics on armor, enemies, the environment, everywhere.
•it let's you move fast in the world almost completely without loading screens.
•the textures aren't incredible, but on PC we can see that the VRAM usage is low, you can play perfectly on a 4gb VRAM GPU.
•density of items and props in the open world and in the dungeons is pretty high.
•npc and enemies don't spawn in front of the camera (right dd2?) and move at full rate even very distant from the player.
•full time of day system with weather.
•actual fur on monsters.
All at a high resolution on console (the game doesn't ever feel blurry) and the framerate could be fixed with a simple lowering of the bottom bounds.
The engine is clearly well enough optimized, and raytraced global illumination and higher res textures would address some of the shortcomings of the presentation.
davis.anthony
Veteran
The issue with Elden Ring for me personally was never it's looks, it was the performance of those looks - It was/is too high for what they are.
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