Current Generation Games Analysis Technical Discussion [2020-2021] [XBSX|S, PS5, PC]

[Allandor]

imo good decision by Bloober to chose higher res over rt, rt was subtle on xsx and resolution drop even under 900p, no need to have even bigger res drops on ps5 (tough loading times show that Bloober is not a master of ps5 utilization )

This is more or less an carefully optimized port. I would also guess, that it uses the same packaging as PC and no decompression via hardware just brute-force CPU usage. They are a small team and according to their games legacy, they don't have the necessary knowledge/manpower to optimize a game for every platform. Using RT in that title was just overkill without further optimization. RT is always expensive, even if it is not visible in every scene. We've seen this in Battlefield 5 where there was absolut no reflection in some levels, but the performance was still much worse than without RT. And Dice has the manpower and knowledge to optimize for something like this.

I guess smaller teams, will start to implement RT in their games, once it is not much more than a flag in the engine and already runs well optimized. Their might be exceptions but all in all it is currently much more work than the traditional way (that must also get implemented).

 

[snc]

This is more or less an carefully optimized port. I would also guess, that it uses the same packaging as PC and no decompression via hardware just brute-force CPU usage. They are a small team and according to their games legacy, they don't have the necessary knowledge/manpower to optimize a game for every platform. Using RT in that title was just overkill without further optimization. RT is always expensive, even if it is not visible in every scene. We've seen this in Battlefield 5 where there was absolut no reflection in some levels, but the performance was still much worse than without RT. And Dice has the manpower and knowledge to optimize for something like this.

I guess smaller teams, will start to implement RT in their games, once it is not much more than a flag in the engine and already runs well optimized. Their might be exceptions but all in all it is currently much more work than the traditional way (that must also get implemented).

Agree with all but they are now not so small

 

[Proelite]

September 2, 2021

You can tell that Bloober didn't spend much resources on the PS5 port, considering that Observer redux already has RT on the PS5.

 

[mr magoo]

You can tell that Bloober didn't spend much resources on the PS5 port, considering that Observer redux already has RT on the PS5.

AFAIK medium is much more demanding title than redux, anyway i think its the opposite removing RT makes more sense tbh, on xsx it was only sporadic and tbh it didnt make that much difference. Imo taking out rt was a good choice, pS5 received nice res bump it was good decision that makes much more sense, RT was overkill even for pcs without dlss. So i think Bloober spend resources good on what was needed to be done to ensure optimal experience.

 

[snc]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1433803698245885953

https://twitter.com/x/status/1433816359553667073

so it wasn't intentional but still stay in statement that without rt its better with higher res

 

[Insight]

September 2, 2021

https://twitter.com/x/status/1435625232375627778

Maybe that's why we didn't see DF comparison video until now?

 

[snc]

- With the new patch, PS5 adds ray-tracing on reflections to the same materials as Series X, but not ambient occlusion. - Average resolution has dropped on PS5. Now PS5 / SeriesX have a very close resolution, but PS5 still has some advantage. Loading times have improved on PS5, but are still faster on Xbox.- Xbox versions have not changed their performance / quality with the latest patch. - PS5 continues to have stuttering problems in its framerate.

quite surprised that ps5 has res advantage with rt on

 

[Deleted member 11852]

quite surprised that ps5 has res advantage with rt on

Somebody didn't get the memo: PS5 framerate advantage. Xbox resolution advantage.

Amateurs.

 

[Dictator]

quite surprised that ps5 has res advantage with rt on

If it is not using RTAO like XSX - then that would indeed make the resolution higher.

 

[snc]

If it is not using RTAO like XSX - then that would indeed make the resolution higher.

Df planing to chceck medium ?

 

[Dictator]

Df planing to chceck medium ?

We were - but then Sony show and they released the patch at a pretty bad time - we are all working on other things. Maybe

 

[davis.anthony]

If it is not using RTAO like XSX - then that would indeed make the resolution higher.

But the game doesn't use RT in every scene? So in scenes with no RT at all XSX should have a higher res then PS5, but it doesn't.

 

[function]

But the game doesn't use RT in every scene? So in scenes with no RT at all XSX should have a higher res then PS5, but it doesn't.

RTAO wouldn't need to be constrained to the areas where RT reflections are being used. E.g. you could have a game that used RT reflections selectively, but used RTAO across all areas of the game.

 

[Allandor]

But the game doesn't use RT in every scene? So in scenes with no RT at all XSX should have a higher res then PS5, but it doesn't.

half a year more work went into the game. Parts had to be rewritten to get compatible with the API of the PS5. This way you automatically optimize a lot. Xbox has in these cases always the "disadvantage" of being compatible with the PC version. If something works well enough, it won't get it's own more optimal code-path. When porting the PC/xbox version over to the PS5, this is absolutely necessary so the game can run.
Beeing compatible with a windows PC has always it's advantages (e.g. easy ports) and disadvantages (not so well optimized, because it is not necessary to get the game working ok).

 

[davis.anthony]

RTAO wouldn't need to be constrained to the areas where RT reflections are being used. E.g. you could have a game that used RT reflections selectively, but used RTAO across all areas of the game.

I'm struggling to understand how your point is relevant? I know you can have various RT effects on while having others off.

My comment was aimed at Alex's comment as he confirmed in his PC analysis video of the Medium that RTAO isn't always turned on for XSX, which would mean in scenes with no RT at all XSX should hold a resolution over PS5.

 

[iroboto]

My comment was aimed at Alex's comment as he confirmed in his PC analysis video of the Medium that RTAO isn't always turned on for XSX, which would mean in scenes with no RT at all XSX should hold a resolution over PS5.

Not necessarily. Without understanding how dynamic resolution is determined by the system, you have no way to know how it would behave.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm struggling to understand how your point is relevant? I know you can have various RT effects on while having others off.

My comment was aimed at Alex's comment as he confirmed in his PC analysis video of the Medium that RTAO isn't always turned on for XSX, which would mean in scenes with no RT at all XSX should hold a resolution over PS5.

There's a reason to have reflections on or off because not every scene will have reflections. AO will exist in every scene, what would be the reason to turn off RT AO and instead use traditional rasterization AO tricks if you already have RT AO implemented?

As well, depending on the reflection and what angles it will be viewed from, screen space reflections can look virtually identical to RT reflections in certain situations. Whereas for AO, non-RT based AO almost always looks wrong. Hence why I have posts scattered around B3D mentioning how my #1 thing I was looking forward to with RT lighting was rasterization AO tricks going away because they are so bad I always disable them on PC.

Basically, with AO, you're in a situation where you either want it to all be RT AO or you want it to all be rasterization AO tricks. Otherwise mixing the two will make it look even worse than just going with AO tricks. That's because the non RT-AO will REALLY stick out.

Regards,
SB

 

[snc]

Stats: https://bit.ly/3EoduxN

 

[snc]

- The Smartphone version has been captured using a Samsung Galaxy S21. - The game for this platform is a 1: 1 port of the Switch version. All the graphic settings are the same. - The advantage we have in Smartphone is the resolution and performance. - The resolution will depend on the device we use, but any phone capable of running Pokémon Unity will have a higher resolution than Switch in portable mode (720p). - Loading times are faster on Smartphone. - Switch has some framerate issues in times of stress, dropping below 50FPS.

 

[Allandor]

The loading times are not especially surprising. The Galaxy S21 has a capable CPU that is not limited to 1.x GHz. It can got much higher instead for a short time.
Resolution on the other hand is a bit more surprising. The Switch has a small GPU but it should still be much faster than the GPUs in most smartphones. It does not have much bandwidth but it should also be higher than on a "normal" smartphone.
Framerate ... I guess this is again a CPU thing. The CPU in the switch is really underpowered and could do much more if Nintendo would allow a higher thermal budget for it.