Current Generation Games Analysis Technical Discussion [2022] [XBSX|S, PS5, PC]

[Globalisateur]

The RT mode is pointless and the XSS version is noticeably blurrier than the others 2 versions (at least in 2 scenes I have checked) even if the uploader states all versions run at a common 1440p.

EDIT: Also the PC version often runs at 30-40fps (or even less) in his video and he uses it to compare against console versions, even the one with very stable 60fps (which means it would probably run way higher if uncapped).

 

[Shortbread]

Information listed...

PS5:
Performance Mode: Dynamic 2160p at 60fps (common 1440p)
Ray-Tracing Mode: Dynamic 2160p at 30fps (common 1440p)
56,10GB

SeriesS:
Dynamic 1440p at 30fps (common 1440p)
63,1GB

SeriesX:
Performance Mode: Dynamic 2160p at 60fps (common 1440p)
Ray-Tracing Mode: Dynamic 2160p at 30fps (common 1440p)
63,1GB

- For the PC version, an RTX 3080 and 3050 have been used.
- According to the official note from CD Projekt, Cyberpunk runs at dynamic 4K on Series X and PS5. However, in all tested areas its resolution is 1440p.
- Xbox Series X featured a 1800p resolution mode. This mode is no longer available.
- Load times have been significantly reduced after this patch on all platforms.
- The most notable improvement is in the general shading and lighting.
- Ray-tracing mode adds contact shadows and enhances others. Xbox Series S does not have Ray-Tracing.
- Ray-tracing for reflections, shadows and global illumination remains exclusive to PC.
- SSR reflections increase their resolution on consoles in RT mode.
- CD Projekt has added DLSS version 2.3 to PC. Ghosting has been almost completely eliminated.
- The pop-in has improved considerably, but it is still present in certain elements (especially when we use a vehicle).
- There is a texturing improvement on certain elements.
- In general, a more solid game feels on all platforms.
- There is an increase in draw distance and anisotropic filtering on consoles.
- The framerate in both modes is practically perfect during gameplay (with occasional drops in some cinematics or loads). On PC, it will always depend on the equipment and the configuration.
- In general, the improvements applied with patch 1.5 on consoles are appreciable, but I think more could have been used. The PC version is still quite a cut above these Nextgen versions.

 

[see colon]

There will be always those people. But maybe, at some point they might understand that the gameplay without major bugs is more important than loading times and the developers don't have endless time to write optimal code on every occasion and for every situation.

To be fair to those people, "no loading" is the thing Sony was selling with the PS5. Lots of the pre-release marketing and tech talk was dedicated towards the SSD's speed and how it would eliminate loading.

I agree here but what I disagree is to say that GG or other game developers can't do better

Oh, sure. Things can often be done better, but that doesn't mean the solution that exists isn't fully leveraging the hardware. I'm not ever sure why people are so fixated on hardware utilization anyway. In a general sense, if you are fully tapping the capabilities of a piece of hardware, it's going to be the limiting factor and cause performance issues.

 

[chris1515]

To be fair to those people, "no loading" is the thing Sony was selling with the PS5. Lots of the pre-release marketing and tech talk was dedicated towards the SSD's speed and how it would eliminate loading.


Oh, sure. Things can often be done better, but that doesn't mean the solution that exists isn't fully leveraging the hardware. I'm not ever sure why people are so fixated on hardware utilization anyway. In a general sense, if you are fully tapping the capabilities of a piece of hardware, it's going to be the limiting factor and cause performance issues.

If things can be done better it means it doesn't fully leveraging the hardware because optimization exist. Fully pushing the hardware means use it cleverly too. After studios needs to release games but in the future I hope they will progress and push the hardware further.

 

[iroboto]

If things can be done better it means it doesn't fully leveraging the hardware because optimization exist. Fully pushing the hardware means use it cleverly too. After studios needs to release games but in the future I hope they will progress and push the hardware further.

takes time though. Getting something to work and work well is very different from getting something to work and work really fast too. The prior being important to shipping a game that works, the latter only important for arm chair engineers. If gamers feel the importance is absolutely 0 loading times and nothing else matters, then perhaps they will put more attention there. The amount of change one can do within a set timeframe is finite. There next title can solve this, but perhaps this title was too large for them to focus their efforts there.

I'm sure the data suggests at this moment that ultimately gamers still care more about the game itself than the initial loading time.
The developer should only be responsible for the game. They should not be responsible for upholding the marketing of Sony unless explicitly paid to do so. In this case 12 seconds is still very manageable. Try loading up Lost Ark on PC, even the best CPU won't get it done under 2 minutes.

 

[chris1515]

takes time though. Getting something to work and work well is very different from getting something to work and work really fast too. The prior being important to shipping a game that works, the latter only important for arm chair engineers. If gamers feel the importance is absolutely 0 loading times and nothing else matters, then perhaps they will put more attention there. The amount of change one can do within a set timeframe is finite. There next title can solve this, but perhaps this title was too large for them to focus their efforts there.

I'm sure the data suggests at this moment that ultimately gamers still care more about the game itself than the initial loading time.
The developer should only be responsible for the game. They should not be responsible for upholding the marketing of Sony unless explicitly paid to do so. In this case 12 seconds is still very manageable. Try loading up Lost Ark on PC, even the best CPU won't get it done under 2 minutes.

They release a title more buggy than all title they released and with a very difficult problem with pandemics and on multiple platform. And the priority is to continue to correct bug not improve loading time post launch. I never said that they did not make the right choice but I hope they will do better next time not only with loading time but push the hardware further with usage of primitive/compute shader on geometry, better system for geometry LOD, better shadow solution, some raytracing usage for rendering and on game design side improve a lot the exploration side of the game. I saw three videos review and the main complaint is on the exploration side. The game gives too much indication to the player and the sense of discovery is not there. They need to let the player explore the world like in BOTW or Elden Ring and traversal is better but they need to do like AC or BOTW with full traversal it will help with exploration.

Like on a website, ideally if it is technically possible a single player game should load in 4 seconds or less from a save or after the menu of the game. For mp games or MMO like Lost Ark this is different because of the server side but the faster the better if they have enough time to release a game loading faster this is better. If HFW load in less than 4 second the game would be better than now. At least it is not a From Software game where the player die very often. Basically when you interact with something on a screen and you need to wait some event after 4 seconds you begin to be bored.

And another thing, Christophe Balestra comes to a French IGDA event when he was co director of Naughty Dog during PS3 era and he said first party studios are paid to do good games and make the hardware shine but between the pandemics and the new multiplatform reality they have done a very good job.

https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/your-website-design-should-load-in-4-seconds/

1. In short, your website should load as fast as possible!
2. The ideal website load time for mobile sites is 1-2 seconds.
3. 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load.
4. A 2-second delay in load time resulted in abandonment rates of up to 87%.
5. People would not return to websites that took longer than four seconds to load and formed a “negative perception” of a company with a badly put-together site or would tell their family and friends about their experiences.

 

[iroboto]

They release a title more buggy than all title they released and with a very difficult problem with pandemics and on multiple platform. And the priority is to continue to correct bug not improve loading time post launch. I never said that they did not make the right choice but I hope they will do better next time not only with loading time but push the hardware further with usage of primitive/compute shader on geometry, better system for geometry LOD, better shadow solution, some raytracing usage for rendering and on game design side improve a lot the exploration side of the game. I saw three videos review and the main complaint is on the exploration side. The game gives too much indication to the player and the sense of discovery is not there. They need to let the player explore the world like in BOTW or Elden Ring and traversal is better but they need to do like AC or BOTW with full traversal it will help with exploration.

Like on a website, ideally if it is technically possible a single player game should load in 4 seconds or less from a save or after the menu of the game. For mp games or MMO like Lost Ark this is different because of the server side but the faster the better if they have enough time to release a game loading faster this is better. If HFW load in less than 4 second the game would be better than now. At least it is not a From Software game where the player die very often. Basically when you interact with something on a screen and you need to wait some event after 4 seconds you begin to be bored.

And another thing, Christophe Balestra comes to a French IGDA event when he was co director of Naughty Dog during PS3 era and he said first party studios are paid to do good games and make the hardware shine but between the pandemics and the new multiplatform reality they have done a very good job.

https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/your-website-design-should-load-in-4-seconds/

Definitely. I think it will all come together for the next iteration. I just want to give these guys some slack; most developers have failed to push boundaries here during the pandemic. Perhaps expectations are higher but the challenges with covid effected everyone all the same.
Future patches could arrive as well to clean up some things. But I don’t expect a sufficient usage of console hardware until wave 3/4 titles.

 

[chris1515]

Definitely. I think it will all come together for the next iteration. I just want to give these guys some slack; most developers have failed to push boundaries here during the pandemic. Perhaps expectations are higher but the challenges with covid effected everyone all the same.
Future patches could arrive as well to clean up some things. But I don’t expect a sufficient usage of console hardware until wave 3/4 titles.

I don't expect title pushing hardware before second part of 2023 and 2024 between pandemics and cross gen reality. Epic gave us a window to the future with the Matrix demo. And for loading this is not only for PS5 but Xbox Series X and S, I expect if it is technically possible to be under 4 seconds from a save or after game menu on this consoles too.

And it will go faster than PS5 and Xbox Series X with the right SSD on PC after Direct Storage release and when games will be build around the API.


EDIT: I forget another problem the shortage of component for consoles and the PC GPU price is a problem to design games only around current gen consoles, Turing and Ampere GPU and Navi2 GPU.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Try loading up Lost Ark on PC, even the best CPU won't get it done under 2 minutes.

It does take a REALLY long time, but your post made me curious, so I just timed it. It takes my system approximately 1 minute 30 seconds to load. A large chunk of that is instantiating the anti-cheat system. But for sure a big part is the game itself. It's loading and instantiating quite a bit of stuff at the start. Most of it is stuff done on CPU and GPU side, however, as it isn't loading an exorbitant amount of stuff (from what I can see) into memory at startup.

It's pretty impressive how quickly level changes happen in the game (when not hampered by networking issues), especially with how diverse the environments are between maps of the world combined with how many uniquely geared (and thus textured) player characters have to also be loaded in some maps.

Regards,
SB

 

[pjbliverpool]

EDIT: Also the PC version often runs at 30-40fps (or even less) in his video and he uses it to compare against console versions, even the one with very stable 60fps (which means it would probably run way higher if uncapped).

Because he's showing the graphical differences rather than a performance comparison. If it were a performance comparison then he wouldn't be running at max RT/ultra settings on the PC. I expect its very likely at matched settings that PC would double the consoles quality mode frame rate for example.

 

[dobwal]

The RT mode is pointless and the XSS version is noticeably blurrier than the others 2 versions (at least in 2 scenes I have checked) even if the uploader states all versions run at a common 1440p.

EDIT: Also the PC version often runs at 30-40fps (or even less) in his video and he uses it to compare against console versions, even the one with very stable 60fps (which means it would probably run way higher if uncapped).

LOL. 2 min in. There is not a 2 second difference between load times for the XSX and PS5. He basically stops when the progress bar is full but the actual level doesn't pop in until a moment later. The difference is just a fraction of a second. He actually does stop the clock correctly for the XSS because it doesn't have a progress bar. So the difference between the 5/SX and S isn't as large as depicted.

Whats with the weird AO for the NPCs on the consoles? It is like they are walking through black smoke. I didn't know AO ghosting was a thing. I only paid attention because on a 2070 super with RT on, NPCs wouldn't cast shadows in indirect lightning which broke immersion for me.

 

[see colon]

If things can be done better it means it doesn't fully leveraging the hardware because optimization exist. Fully pushing the hardware means use it cleverly too. After studios needs to release games but in the future I hope they will progress and push the hardware further.

To clarify, "the hardware" in my statement was in reference to IO within PS5, not necessarily the system as a whole. There are certainly ways that optimizations could happen that decrease loading times without leveraging the IO system any more, and perhaps using it even less.

 

[techuse]

LOL. 2 min in. There is not a 2 second difference between load times for the XSX and PS5. He basically stops when the progress bar is full but the actual level doesn't pop in until a moment later. The difference is just a fraction of a second. He actually does stop the clock correctly for the XSS because it doesn't have a progress bar. So the difference between the 5/SX and S isn't as large as depicted.

Whats with the weird AO for the NPCs on the consoles? It is like they are walking through black smoke. I didn't know AO ghosting was a thing. I only paid attention because on a 2070 super with RT on, NPCs wouldn't cast shadows in indirect lightning which broke immersion for me.

Those halos are part of the new RT shadows i think.

 

[chris1515]

https://www.engadget.com/horizon-forbidden-west-guerrilla-games-developer-interview-143036984.html

Interview about multiplatform on visual side and they talk about loading time.

It was important than the assets are better on PS5 than PS4.

The most immediately obvious difference between the two versions is visual fidelity, with the PS5 targeting 4K resolution (reduced to a checkerboard-upscaled 1800p when running in 60 fps “performance” mode). “From the start, we targeted having higher-fidelity characters, high-fidelity environments, higher-fidelity vegetation, everything, just for the PS5,” van der Leeuw said. “So you'll just see different models for the PS4 version, but with the same sort of atmosphere throughout the game.”

While the team was conscious of making things work for the PS4 throughout the game’s development, they also were painstaking about having the PS5 version stand out visually. “We’d look at screenshots for every single thing on-screen, whether it was the grass, the sky, the leaves, the cloth, the hair – everything should have something where if you look at the screenshots, you'd feel like this is definitely the PS5 version,” van der Leeuw said.

For loading, they slow down the loading a bit for gamer to be able to read the tips but it is possible to use x to go faster and turn off the pause in game setting, it seems the goal is to load in 4/5 seconds.

Like most games specifically built for the PS5, Horizon Forbidden West loads quickly, thanks to the console’s built-in SSD. With such a massive map to explore, near-instantaneous loading (like when you fast travel) is a huge quality of life improvement. But van de Leeuw said these optimizations are more than just having a fast drive. “You don’t realize how easily games are bottlenecked,” he said. “If you run a PC game on a very fast SSD, it doesn't automatically load in like seven seconds. There's so much work we had to do.”

The end result is a game so quick that the development team had to revamp the tips that appear on loading screens. “In Horizon Zero Dawn, we called it fast travel, but it could take maybe a minute to actually load,” de Jonge said. “With the PS5, it’s maybe four or five seconds, it loads so quickly that players can’t even read the hints.” But from testing, Guerrilla knew that players came to rely on these hints, so they decided to slow things down just a bit. “We had to add a very simple feature where it hangs on the loading screen for enough time so you can actually read at least one hint while it loads.” Of course, people who want to speed through things can just mash X or turn off the pause in settings so that the game loads up as fast as possible.

 

[OlegSH]

Those halos are part of the new RT shadows i think.

Those halos have nothing to do with RT shadows, that's a byproduct of screen space AO (it's view dependent, doesn't take into accound backface geometry, etc) and it has been here since the very introduction of SSAO.
The obvious stuff to remove this halo is to add depth threshold for AO, but this will aid only haloing and partially so.

 

[dobwal]

Those halos have nothing to do with RT shadows, that's a byproduct of screen space AO (it's view dependent, doesn't take into accound backface geometry, etc) and it has been here since the very introduction of SSAO.
The obvious stuff to remove this halo is to add depth threshold for AO, but this will aid only haloing and partially so.

Well, I am not sure if its a SSAO halo artifact because the google examples don't mirror the artifact on consoles. I would more likely describe it as an AO black smoke streak. LOL

The green box is the area where the effect is seen. Below and beyond doesn't readily produce the effect. The red box is the effect produce by NPC within the box. It looks way worse in motion. It looks like ghosting but instead of an after-image, its more like a trail of black smoke that emanates from the back of the NPCs lower leg.

Also, its way more pronounced on the RT mode on the consoles. The PC version does not produce the effect.

 

[OlegSH]

I would more likely describe it as an AO black smoke streak.

That's still SSAO, doesn't look properly here at all due to overdarkenning (comes down to number of samples, weighing math and coefficients for AO darkening) and for many other reasons. Trails are obviously caused by accumulation across frames.

Also, its way more pronounced on the RT mode on the consoles

Makes sense given that RT mode is 30 FPS, so having less frames to accumulate AO samples and larger difference between the frames (equals more ghosting when rejection algorithms fail).

The PC version does not produce the effect.

It does without RT AO.

 

[snc]

 

[dobwal]

They release a title more buggy than all title they released and with a very difficult problem with pandemics and on multiple platform. And the priority is to continue to correct bug not improve loading time post launch. I never said that they did not make the right choice but I hope they will do better next time not only with loading time but push the hardware further with usage of primitive/compute shader on geometry, better system for geometry LOD, better shadow solution, some raytracing usage for rendering and on game design side improve a lot the exploration side of the game. I saw three videos review and the main complaint is on the exploration side. The game gives too much indication to the player and the sense of discovery is not there. They need to let the player explore the world like in BOTW or Elden Ring and traversal is better but they need to do like AC or BOTW with full traversal it will help with exploration.

Like on a website, ideally if it is technically possible a single player game should load in 4 seconds or less from a save or after the menu of the game. For mp games or MMO like Lost Ark this is different because of the server side but the faster the better if they have enough time to release a game loading faster this is better. If HFW load in less than 4 second the game would be better than now. At least it is not a From Software game where the player die very often. Basically when you interact with something on a screen and you need to wait some event after 4 seconds you begin to be bored.

And another thing, Christophe Balestra comes to a French IGDA event when he was co director of Naughty Dog during PS3 era and he said first party studios are paid to do good games and make the hardware shine but between the pandemics and the new multiplatform reality they have done a very good job.

https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/your-website-design-should-load-in-4-seconds/

You can’t use web site usage data and thinks it’s applicable to games.

Website users expectation and behavior is being driven by past experience. If you are use to a 1 second load across the websites you use generally, 3 or 4 seconds loads might bother you.

4 sec or less loads aren’t common for AAA console or PC titles. Just because a handful of games provide that level of load quality doesn’t mean that all games that take longer become intolerable to play.

On top of that you often have to burrow down into websites to get the content you want, so 3 or 4 second load times after every click can be bothersome. Especially if you have to click through 3 or more links (all while scrolling too) to get to your destination.

Regardless, we have no ideal what the average load times will be once devs become familiar and remove the other bottlenecks that will be exposed by the io systems.

Even then easily abandoning titles because of load times will be probably limited to sub services. Not many gamers are going to readily abandon a title they just purchased over load times.

 

[Jofan]

Cyberpunk 2077 Version 1.0 vs Patch 1.5 AI & Physics Video Comparison (via DSoGaming)