Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2025]

[hughJ]

Yea Q3A, once you go above 150 fps IIRC, you start glitching certain jumps you can't normally make without it. Your bunny hop acceleration I think was also tied to your frame rate, it was easier to get up to speed quicker with higher fps.

125fps was the magic number.

 

[iroboto]

125fps was the magic number.

thank you! wow, that yea!

 

[Scott_Arm]

Funnily enough, Marvel Rivals has a similar problem. Frame rate impacts movement for some(all?) abilities and even damage. Kind of funny to see such an old issue pop up. But the game is a smash hit and they've sold a ton of horny skins, so job well done.

 

[Cyan]

Funnily enough, Marvel Rivals has a similar problem. Frame rate impacts movement for some(all?) abilities and even damage. Kind of funny to see such an old issue pop up. But the game is a smash hit and they've sold a ton of horny skins, so job well done.

that's what I heard, that it is becoming a success, maybe another forever-game to add to the list. With games like that FG is a great thing to have for those who want a lot of frames while keeping the original physics.

This reminds me of RE2 Remake and the famous knife trick related to framerate, that killed bosses in a jiffy. That's a game I loved so much that I completed it performing a speedrun several times, something I rarely do....

 

[Scott_Arm]

that's what I heard, that it is becoming a success, maybe another forever-game to add to the list. With games like that FG is a great thing to have for those who want a lot of frames while keeping the original physics.

This reminds me of RE2 Remake and the famous knife trick related to framerate, that killed bosses in a jiffy. That's a game I loved so much that I completed it performing a speedrun several times, something I rarely do....

Well, they're going to fix it. They've acknowledged the issue and a fix will come eventually. Not sure how fast. Just funny to see what is essentially an almost 25-year-old problem pop up in a modern game.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, they're going to fix it. They've acknowledged the issue and a fix will come eventually. Not sure how fast.

It really shouldn't exist, which makes you wonder how much of the underlying codebase needs to change to accommodate the fix.

 

[Scott_Arm]

It really shouldn't exist, which makes you wonder how much of the underlying codebase needs to change to accommodate the fix.

Yah, I'm guessing that's why it hasn't been patched. Probably a significant mess up that's going to take some time.

 

[DavidGraham]

A very important video on the great tech shown at CES 25, with a healthy dose of technical explanation for all the crazy demos shown.

0:01:47 Nvidia CES demos - RTX Mega Geometry
0:14:25 RTX Neural Materials
0:21:24 RTX Neural Faces and RTX Hair
0:31:37 ReStir Path Tracing + Mega Geometry
0:36:49 Black State with DLSS 4
0:42:47 Alan Wake 2 with DLSS 4
0:46:01 Reflex 2 in The Finals
0:53:22 AMD at CES: AI denoiser demo, Lenovo Legion Go handhelds
1:03:51 Razer at CES: Laptop Cooling Pad, new Razer Blade
1:11:30 Asus and Intel at CES
1:17:29 CES displays: Mini-LED, Micro-LED, OLED + monitor sins!
1:30:07 Supporter Q1: Will Switch 2 support DLSS 4?
1:32:22 Supporter Q2: Did you see the Switch 2 mockups at CES?
1:33:56 Supporter Q3: Could you test DLSS against an ultra high-res “ground truth” image?
1:37:52 Supporter Q4: Why would a developer use Nvidia-developed rendering techniques over their UE5 equivalents?
1:40:38 Supporter Q5: Will multi frame gen solve game stutters?
1:42:05 Supporter Q6: Will multi frame gen make VRR obsolete?
1:44:27 Supporter Q7: Is Sony regretting sticking with AMD for their console business?
1:49:49 Supporter Q8: What do you think of the FF7 Rebirth PC specs?
1:52:37 Supporter Q9: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen on the show floor at CES?

 

[Scott_Arm]

RTX faces looks like absolute garbage. Even the improved one they show makes the character look like they're in a child beauty pageant with horrible makeup. Mega geometry and neural materials look amazing.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Rich guest stars on IGN and reiterates his views on framegen performance. He tries to make a distinction between “framerate” and “performance” but I don’t know if that’s something the industry can get behind. Too nuanced for the average buyer.

Finally got to watch this. This was a good discussion and summary from Rich. Regardless of what we think of the sophistication of reviews/the public, this is something people will notice one way or another, so I think it's good for DF/Rich to provide the caveats up front.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

RTX faces looks like absolute garbage. Even the improved one they show makes the character look like they're in a child beauty pageant with horrible makeup. Mega geometry and neural materials look amazing.

I kinda agree, but it is a work in progress. As a proof of concept I think it shows something ML can bring to future gamers in that notion of providing a quality pass over a cheaper render. That said, what level of ML is in effect? How much is the GPU (or even RAM system) being taxed? Will there be enough ML power/RAM/bandwidth to drive this one 30 people plus enhance the whole scene and lighting? Plus upscaling? Plus framegen?

 

[arandomguy]

Clearly when I'm talking about 120hz monitors/displays, I also mean 144hz monitors. Sorry I didn't clarify, but it should be obvious they are very much in the same, quite small ballpark here. 144hz isn't some different 'super high refresh rate' category than a 120hz display so I have no idea why you're treating it like one in the context of my argument here. They're for all intents and purposes the same thing.

So no, the vast majority of PC gamers who will be buying 50 series parts in general are NOT going to have displays that are above 120/144hz. Not even remotely close. I'd be very surprised if they make up even 10% of the total market for such buyers(remember most people who want super high refresh rate monitors are doing it for low demand competitive games and who want "real" frames for the input lag benefits). Dont make the mistake of living in a super enthusiast bubble online where such people are vastly overrepresented compared to the real world.

And yes, we've had a 'debate' on this tiny forum of like 10 people, but overall, it's still more widely accepted that 60fps is what people should be aiming for to achieve optimal frame generation quality, and Nvidia and AMD are on that side saying this as well.

I feel you're misrepresenting what I've wrote.

I implied anything to say that the vast majority of 50 series buyers would have >144hz displays. I specifically focused on greater 120hz but we can save that distinction for later. In terms of numbers high refresh display gaming shipments in 2023 was roughly 20m units vs roughly 30m units for discrete GPU shipments. People have brought up Steam survey numbers before in terms of 1080p being still prevalent, while an interpreation could be that people simply aren't buying new displays at all it could also be that people are eskewing higher resolutions for higher refresh. 240hz 1080p monitors by the way have fallen to <$200 dollars (really $150 if not lower) and are cheaper than <240hz high refresh 1440p displays.

As for the bubble comment I'm just going to say I'm very aware of people in their bubbles, and that this can apply two ways with that 60 fps assumption. If you look outside of SP enthuasist focused bubble you might find people aren't targeting 60 fps per say. This idea that people just play specific game types in itself is a bubble. What's going to happen is people are buying high refresh rate monitors for say their esports game fix but they also play the occasional SP game as well. Now they can frame gen x3/x4 those to match their monitors they bought for their esports games.

An issue it seems is lookin at some of these technologies as some sort of all or nothing proposition. I don't feel we should be dismissive of trying to drive above 120fps or trying to frame gen below 60fps. The supposedly more discerning crowd on here even has members that seem fine frame gen from FPS down to 40.

As for the 144 vs 120 distinction, one thing 144 does open more enough divisibility down to 40 fps. But yes we can say it's not very different at all at 20% more frames, which similarly why I don't feel just putting in even less of a difference at say 10% more via traditional performance is a difference maker either.

 

[arandomguy]

I'm only part way through the DF direct and they brought up the issue of preserving the artists/developers intention with the introduction of AI into the pipeline. This certainly isn't the first time it's been brought up but I do find this issue interesting from the perspective of if that is actually for the better or worse?

Especially from a PC persperctive modding has always been rather popular and accepted. If anything developers that tend to intentionally lock out their games from modding (outside of MP integrity) is generally looked down upon. With that said hypothetically if we get to a future is it better or worse if there is this increased maliability on the client side in terms of the visual output of the game?

 

[see colon]

I'm only part way through the DF direct and they brought up the issue of preserving the artists/developers intention with the introduction of AI into the pipeline. This certainly isn't the first time it's been brought up but I do find this issue interesting from the perspective of if that is actually for the better or worse?

Different GPUs have always rendered things a little different. In the early days, there were huge differences depending on hardware, or even the API used. It's a lot more standardized now, but there are still differences. Plus, driver options can change the way a game presents anyway. I think the people bringing up artist intention are those who have mode up their mind about AI and are fishing for reasons to hate it.

 

[Cyan]

Digital Foundry staff are my heroes and always will be.

 

[Cyan]

The Internet is attacking the wrong problem. They are attacking nVidia, and In fact, and I say this now after playing with Frame Generation so much via LS, FG is the future for resolution and clarity nerds.

I say this for something as simple as motion clarity. The key is there. Games look much sharper at higher framerates.

There are super important things like Optical Flow (maths thing) or the Phantom Array Effect.

The day that 360Hz, 480Hz, or higher Hz screens are standardized, people will not want anything else.

For image purists, image clarity is the summum of everything.

It preserves the clarity and maximum brightness of your TV, without resorting to framebuffers or strange blurring effects to keep the graphics supposedly at full capacity that only damage the image by reducing brightness and so on.

In fact, the opposite effect is achieved, low framerate = worse looking game.

Now when you have a 240-360-480Hz+ TV or monitor and play all your games at that framerate you won't want anything else. Either way you get it, via FG or via hardware capability.

 

[Cyan]

talking about motion clarity. Even 240Hz when you have a 480Hz monitor looks less sharp, but you can already see a huge difference with 60Hz, not to mention compared to 30Hz....

The UFO Blur Busters test is the best in this regard.

I took this image from a low-resolution YouTube video, but you can still see what I mean.

This is the Phantom Array Effect.

And finally. My favorite youtuber when it comes to lossless scaling reviews, who seems like a really great guy, when reviewing LS looks for all the faults and so on, thinks like many graphic whores, but....

He's a nerd with an amazing screen. And yes, he tries to get everything on his screen to run at the perfect framerate, no matter the sacrifice. It has a super 144Hz QD OLED screen.

He's looking for the any flaw on LS or FG he can find. And he says the same thing about motion clarity...

Because Frame Generation for him, who is going to buy the RTX 5090, is important. And he would like his screen to be 360Hz or more.

In this video he understands where FG fits.

Spoiler: some extra stuff of this guy

Another video of him has become my favourite review of Lossless Scaling:, 'cos he is constantly looking for flaws and he is so surprised.

LosslessScaling UPDATE is so good that it makes no sense. From 48 to 144fps! (MFG without RTX 5090)

 

[DavidGraham]

Digital Foundry's deep dive on every thing related to Blackwell.

0:01:08 Blackwell architecture: Blackwell SM design
0:03:39 Updated Tensor Core and RT Core
0:09:37 AI Management Processor and Max Q power management
0:15:13 Display Engine and video encode/decode
0:18:32 Hardware specs: RTX 5080 and 5090
0:29:16 RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti
0:34:23 RTX 50 Series laptops
0:40:14 RTX Software: Neural Shaders
0:44:24 SER 2.0
0:47:06 RTX Mega Geometry
0:50:15 RTX Hair
0:53:13 Neural Radiance Cache
0:55:58 RTX Skin
0:58:01 DLSS 4: Super Resolution, Ray Reconstruction, Frame Generation
1:06:18 Generative AI demos
1:10:03 Wrap up discussion: RTX 50 series price and performance
1:17:36 Nvidia’s software package and features
1:22:38 How should we review graphics hardware?

 

[Scott_Arm]

I like the small section about reviewing. I hope the different review sites give it a lot of thought. You almost need to take an approach like rtings and score or evaluate a product across multiple use cases, like Alex's car analogy:

LG 32GS95UE-B Review

The LG 32GS95UE-B is a flat 32-inch, 4k gaming monitor with a 240Hz refresh rate. As a part of LG's UltraGear gaming lineup, it sits alongside other OLED monitor...

www.rtings.com

If you have a 4k 120Hz monitor multi-frame gen is not going to be useful for you. For a 1440p480 monitor, it's far more interesting. I think monitors are actually a good match, because monitors cater to very different use cases and reviews have to reflect that. Some monitors are really just for esports. Some are for photo editing. Some are for video/HDR and some can't do HDR at all. You may or may not need hardware calibration. You might have a different viewing environment, so panel technology becomes a factor.

Really interested in seeing how Digital Foundry approaches this. They don't really give scores, which I like, but a bullet point style pros and cons of uses cases could be useful. I'm also not suggesting that all sites need to cover all use cases. I think Digital Foundry will always favour cutting-edge graphics, not esports settings, and they don't review things in terms of how good they are for using Blender or something. They have a specific focus that's valuable.

Nice breakdown of all the features here. Really excited to see if Alan Wake 2 update is part of launch reviews, or coverage comes soon after. I'm curious to see if we see a performance improvement, or if we get much better ray tracing quality at a similar performance etc. That's basically the game I'm thinking of getting a 50 series for.

 

[DavidGraham]

Really excited to see if Alan Wake 2 update is part of launch reviews, or coverage comes soon after. I'm curious to see if we see a performance improvement, or if we get much better ray tracing quality at a similar performance

We are getting both ... RTX Geometry to accelerate fps on all RTX GPUs, and also a new Ultra Quality mode for ray tracing, adding fully ray traced refractions, and fully ray traced transparent reflections, It will also improve the quality of the fully ray traced indirect lighting.

Alan Wake 2 will be the first game to support RTX Mega Geometry

According to the green team, Alan Wake 2 will be the first game that will support one of its latest features, the RTX Mega Geometry.

www.dsogaming.com