Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2024]

[Shifty Geezer]

Is Dragon's Dogma 2 finally fixed with patch 7 for PS5 and Series X/S?

Oliver Mackenzie tests Dragon's Dogma 2 after patch 7 - is the game finally fixed, and what differences remain between the PS5, Series X and Series S versions?

www.eurogamer.net

 

[Globalisateur]

Do we have any idea why PS5 Pro Dragon Dogma 2 has way better frame rate than the PS5 version? City Area is CPU limited but PS5 Pro has 25% better frame rate with 10 % faster CPU.

Because PS5 is not strictly limited by the CPU in the city. it's limited by CPU, GPU and bandwidth.

The big error many keep doing is to use a 4090 with its infinite bandwidth to assume PS5 will have the same bottlenecks as a PC. Absurd. Using a 2070 with a 2700x would be a much better way to determine what would be the true bottlenecks on PS5. We know on consoles CPU, GPU are constantly fighting for bandwidth and the more you use the CPU, the less bandwidth is available which would further slow down the CPU and even GPU.

Besides on consoles (at least on PS5 and even more now on Pro) RT is much cheaper on the CPU compared to PC. This is a fact. PS5 Apis are far much efficient in that area.

PS5 Pro has 10% more CPU, 45% more GPU and 29% more bandwith (and supposedly more relatively to PS5 according to Sony). In the city tested PS5 Pro is running like 35% better than PS5 while having RTAO enabled. It fits.

I have been repeating this for years. Using a 4090 to assume bottlenecks on a console is nonsense.

 

[Remij]

Jetpack released a new God of War patch, and it does indeed fix the volumetric fog!

Basically the only issue left I think is the tessellation issue in the Realm Between Realms.

 

[snc]

Because PS5 is not strictly limited by the CPU in the city. it's limited by CPU, GPU and bandwidth.

Exactly, thats why focusing on not much improvement on cpu wasnt best prediction

 

[Below2D]

Jetpack released a new God of War patch, and it does indeed fix the volumetric fog!

Basically the only issue left I think is the tessellation issue in the Realm Between Realms.

They need to add the cubemap ray traced reflections too.

 

[Dictator]

Let me Just say that I do not think measuring between PS5pro and PS5 in different content will evidence that it is showing unexpected gains in Performance. You need real 1:1s for that and that is not possible atm. We still have yet to see and measure performance in the City with PS5pro. That is pretty important to actually coming to conclusions. The outside area of the City shown in the Last Video is Not a CPU Limited area - so it has nothing to do with any conclusions about CPU Limited performance.

No reason to postulate about bandwidth limitations or anything until real Numbers can be shown.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Or, feel free to postulate with the caveat the data might be misleading, and be ready to change your mind when the new data comes in if it disproves a theory.

 

[Karamazov]

the worst performing PS5 game i've played is Teardown, I wonder if devs will bother with some Pro update.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

<endless sigh>

https://twitter.com/x/status/1842589274052681865

Looking at the early preview of the PS5 version through DF's Patreon*, some notes (PC review by Alex coming later):

up now:

Performance:

• Both Quality and Performance modes, 60fps/30fps...targets respectively.
• Both modes are dynamic res. Quality Mode is 2176x1224 up to 2688x512. Performance is 1538x864 up to 2048x1152.
• Performance mode unfortunately puts its worst foot forward as one of he heaviest sections of the game is the walk in the forest until you get to the town. This will result in sustained FPS in the mid 40's, often going outside the PS5's VRR window. However, as Tom notes, once you're past that section there are other sections that deliver near-locked 60fps gameplay, with occasional 1 frame drops. Still, it's nowhere near a locked 60fps looking at the footage - expect lurches into the 50's and even 40's at frequent points.
• Quality mode can also struggle with maintaining a locked 30fps, with drops into the high 20's (and even mid 20's in a brief period). 30fps frame pacing at least appears normal.
• Tom notes however that part of this may be due to just having too aggressive a dynamic res ceiling - you can get drops looking up at the sky then panning down to a scene that eventually goes back to its frame rate target. So potentially Blooper could improve this by just lowing the upper bounds of that dynamic res.

Visual Quality:

• As is usual with UE5 and performance modes, lumen reflections and GI bounces can take a significant hit. Reflections can at times, be pixelated messes, and some areas are unnaturally dark due to fewer GI bounces. These are much improved in Quality mode.
• Temporal artifacts exists in both modes, there's noticeable ghosting trails on the main character at times even in Quality mode. The heavy fog and contrast though likely obscures a good deal of this though.
• I even spotted that old UE4 standby, the occlusion issue where you'll get a flash of white - this occurred when the camera was panning between two buildings. However that was the only time I noticed it, so it's probably rare.

All that being said, even in Performance mode, watching this on a 55" TV, it can still look spectacular at points. It's an ideal environment for UE5, both in highlighting its pros and the art direction perhaps hiding a bit of its flaws (at least with respect to its demands on current hardware). It's clear though that the performance mode, at least at this point, seems really shoehorned in - the large visual boost from the more stable Lumen RT in the Quality mode and the performance mode's shakiness makes it clear that 30fps was likely the target from the beginning. Still, it should be more stable even at that - we'll see with patches to maybe ease up on the dynamic res. Overall Tom was generally positive.

A PS5 Pro patch with PSSR would probably do wonders. You could at the very least likely get a sustained 40fps Quality mode with potentially improved quality with PSSR, and Performance mode could likely at least maintain closer to that VRR window. Not exactly enticing to pay nearly $1k CAD to get a 'solid' console version of this of course, but at least here you potentially have the option to brute force your way to solid, sustained performance. If the PC version has a lot of stutter, then we're at the mercy of Blooper with patches...yikes.

 

[DavidGraham]

Silent Hill 2 Remake on PS5. Both modes uses software Lumen.

 

[davis.anthony]

I agree with Tom in the video, the game looks too clean to be a Silent Hill game.

And why use Lumen on a game with no dynamic time of day?

TLOU has awesome lighting without the performance hit of Lumen.

 

[Charlietus]

Is there a single game on console that uses hardware lumen? Aside from the matrix demo.

When they say that they are optimizing hardware lumen for 60 fps on console, I take it as 30 fps at this point.

 

[Dictator]

I agree with Tom in the video, the game looks too clean to be a Silent Hill game.

And why use Lumen on a game with no dynamic time of day?

TLOU has awesome lighting without the performance hit of Lumen.

The characters and moving objects in areas of indirect lighting (aka out of direct shadows like from the sun) in any Naught Dog game look disembodied from their environment. Most of silent hill 2 remake like in the town is 100% indirectly lit with zero sun shadows (overcast lighting). I imagine Bloober did not want that Tom and Jerry look to the characters or moving objects sticking out like sore thumbs.

Also, specularity does not work in any plausible way with baked lighting. There are a hell of a lot of puddles and reflective objects in Silent Hill 2, something which once again would look poor without some form of tracing.

 

[davis.anthony]

The characters and moving objects in areas of indirect lighting (aka out of direct shadows like from the sun) in any Naught Dog game look disembodied from their environment. Most of silent hill 2 remake like in the town is 100% indirectly lit with zero sun shadows (overcast lighting). I imagine Bloober did not want that Tom and Jerry look to the characters or moving objects sticking out like sore thumbs.

Also, specularity does not work in any plausible way with baked lighting. There are a hell of a lot of puddles and reflective objects in Silent Hill 2, something which once again would look poor without some form of tracing.

I'm sure that with today's tech they could have avoided that look.

And while the issue sticks out to people in this forum, is it something the average gamer cares about or notices to justify the performance drops?

 

[Dictator]

I'm sure that with today's tech they could have avoided that look.

And while the issue sticks out to people in this forum, is it something the average gamer cares about or notices to justify the performance drops?

How do you avoid the common accepted pitfalls of lightmaps exactly? I do not think that is something one can handwave away. There is a reason why Games use Real-Time lighting and why Ray Tracing is seen as a superior holistic solution.

 

[Charlietus]

I imagine Bloober did not want that Tom and Jerry look to the characters or moving objects sticking out like sore thumbs.

"As we can see, The last of us on the right exhibits the same rendering pitfalls as Tom and Jerry (1940)."

I just love that comparison

 

[Boss]

I'm sure that with today's tech they could have avoided that look.

And while the issue sticks out to people in this forum, is it something the average gamer cares about or notices to justify the performance drops?

Pretty much this.... Sometimes people get too caught up in the tech leading to subpar performance. The Tom and Jerry references to TLOU is a bit funny to me seeing as both companies are struggling getting people to upgrade from last gen to current gen. Most people can tell you if a game feels excessively stutter or juddery, they can tell you if a game is excessively shimmering, maybe a bit blurry. I'm not even sure 1 in 10 people can tell you that a game's characters are incorrectly lit nor would they care. We saw and still see the complaints about raytracing with many branding it as the "FPS off" feature. Anyway, I'd love to give bloober team the benefit of the doubt but that's 2 games this gen with inconsistent performance. They got a pass with the medium but they don't get a pass here.

Now this is not to say that we shouldn't care or try to push tech forward.... However, you have to pick and choose features wisely with the limited resources in these consoles. When picking, you should keep the audience in mind and determine whether it will be a big win for the audience. In this case, I don't know that bloober team chose wisely especially with how far it strays from the looks of the original..

 

[Charlietus]

I have seen that silent hill 2 on PC has some traversal stutters, and I was wondering if PS5 has them too. From the DF review Tom didn't mention stutters, just GPU drops.

I'm trying to decide if I want to buy it now on PS5 or wait when I have a new PC and get it then.

 

[Cyan]

Silent Hill 2 Remake on PS5. Both modes uses software Lumen.

the game is receiving Overwhelmingly Positive reviews on Steam. A youtuber I follow and trust 'cos he makes fair reviews has played it for a few hours and the guy is loving the game. He defines it as a "audiovisual feat" and defining the fog as "volumetric creme".

SILENT HILL 2 on Steam

Investigating a letter from his late wife, James returns to where they made so many memories - Silent Hill. What he finds is a ghost town, prowled by disturbing monsters and cloaked in deep fog. Confront the monsters, solve puzzles, and search for traces of your wife in this remake of SILENT HILL 2.

store.steampowered.com

He is a darn neurotic guy observing each little detail.

 

[Karamazov]

I have seen that silent hill 2 on PC has some traversal stutters, and I was wondering if PS5 has them too. From the DF review Tom didn't mention stutters, just GPU drops.

I'm trying to decide if I want to buy it now on PS5 or wait when I have a new PC and get it then.

i can confirm that PS5 has often camera stutter, i don't mind 30fps in that kind of games, but the stutter is annoying.