Current Generation Games Analysis Technical Discussion [2023] [XBSX|S, PS5, PC]

[Seanspeed]

According to reviews the game is more of a large first game patch with any DLC you had removed so you have to rebuy it over the coming years. Many would probably be better off forgetting this game exists.

Damn I miss Maxis and Will Wright.

You can find people being cynical idiots about anything online man. Especially if you cherry-pick only negative reviews and ignore all the positive ones...

Also, no, they aren't 'removing DLC', it's a new game. They've completely rebuilt the simulation, so yes, it isn't as fully featured at launch as the old game with 10 years of post-release support. But if you actually look up what's changed and what's included, it's still an extremely robust city builder, with all kinds of great improvements from the first game.

 

[troyan]

The vast majority of gamers need good-looking games, and this generation of consoles is perfectly suited for that.
RT would not help the game development of our time, but rather hold it back. In principle, it is brought into game development to simplify programming through the automation of dynamic lights, but in reality it requires more optimization than previous techniques, and that is precisely why RT is forcing game development to drag on.

RT is not a solution, because you can create great reflections and shadows with much less resource requirements
methods. RT is an effort and not a necessity for the gaming industry. What is necessary is to create development tools that facilitate the development times required for games in our time, so that more energy remains for the artistic part of graphics. the artistic part of graphics, the quality of assets and textures is much more important than such a resource-intensive feature that holds back game development.

Hopefully this generation of consoles will last a long time with the current hardware, the over-the-top developers will exercise self-control and make as many beautiful games as possible for these consoles. The audience of one hundred million players needs this.

This is complete nonsense. Seriously who has written something like that?! Raytracing is an engine feature. It gets implemented once and used multiple times. Otherwise nobody would have ever used SSAO, SSRs, dynamic shadows etc.

 

[DavidGraham]

Seems Spider Man 2 has cut some corners in regards to it's LOD, it's distant details are lower than Spider Man Remastered, some clutter objects feature lower poly count than Spider Man Remastered too.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1715124380525625829

 

[Aaron Elfassy]

Wow, how disingenuous of you.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Looks like it’s a bug <a href="https://t.co/yWetaPu0Th">https://t.co/yWetaPu0Th</a></p>&mdash; PC_Focus (@PC_Focus_) <a href="

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1715282575336378470

">October 20, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[pharma]

Wow, how disingenuous of you.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Looks like it’s a bug <a href="https://t.co/yWetaPu0Th">https://t.co/yWetaPu0Th</a></p>&mdash; PC_Focus (@PC_Focus_) <a href="

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1715282575336378470

">October 20, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Maybe not disingenious since "X" only displays only one tweet w/o any associated tweet responses for me.
With the new "X" I find displaying associated tweets problematic if you aren't a subscriber, something which never happen in the past.

 

[troyan]

Computerbase looked at Lords of the Fallen: https://www.computerbase.de/2023-10...hnitt_benchmarks_in_full_hd_wqhd_und_ultra_hd

Its only playable in 1080p on most GPUs. Computerbase is even using upscaling for the performance test. Most gamers need a form of upscaling to enjoy this game with the "ultra" preset. And this makes a bridge to other threads in which the importance of upscaling and upscaling quality gets ignored or even downplayed.

 

[metacore]

So very expensive, but very nice. On Nvidia, anyway. Now imagine the frame rate with RDNA2/3 HW Lumen, and image quality with FSR 2.1.

For about the last 20 years the gap between consoles (and PC GPUs) has mostly been fairly once dimensional where you're doing mostly the same stuff but at different levels of performance. But.....

...now there's a gulf opened up between [consoles + AMD PC] and Nvidia* where there are entire dimensions of rendering that are at best pale comparisons on AMD hardware and at worst practically impossible. Heavy use of RT is a no-go for AMD, and image reconstruction is a league behind DLSS any time you lean on it heavily. So I guess this leaves the question for developers of which range of solutions do they simultaneously support to solve the same basic issues (e.g. lighting, reflections), and how far do they try and push consoles. Or maybe they just say fuck it and gimp the RT features on PC. *shrug*

I think the rest of this console gen (and it's cross gen period) could be a bit of a bumpy time as consoles remain unable to deliver features that PC gamers increasingly demand. Hopefully this next cross gen period will be mercifully short so we can get onto strong RT hardware and better reconstruction tech.

*also Intel but we don't talk about 'em round 'ere.

PC gamers increasingly demand anything worth buying on gpu side. Regarding pathtracing, right now if you squint your eyes, forget about bounce count, forget whats still being cut form bvh, you could still, mercifully call it the pathtracing. Performance is already poor with cross gen games doing god know what with gpu cycles. Once titles built from the ground up to current consoles hit with few times more geometry it will be even worse but...

... Entire new dimension of this waits with the rumors of next gen nvidia chop midrange chip playing as highend next time. Few Remaining ambitious devs think they could do better if not for that black box regarding bvh, created probably for easier product segmentation. One thing for sure, sliders and buzzwords will be set up in such way that anything resembling comfortable experience will be reserved to top card, hopefully it will stay under 2000$

And here we are at the end of 2025. I would say, pc visual/performance/dolar proposition has never been poorer in last 20 years especially with pc only/native high games being extinct spiecimen. Hopfully, at least some good practicies regarding shader compilation will propagate throughout dev comunity by then.

 

[Seanspeed]

And this makes a bridge to other threads in which the importance of upscaling and upscaling quality gets ignored or even downplayed.

Nobody is saying that upscaling isn't important, just pushing back on the idea that devs are being lazy and just somehow going "Well we dont need to work on this, we can just tell people to use upscaling". I promise you none of these devs are happy with the level of performance in some of these games.

Reconstruction was always going to become the norm fairly quickly. There was gonna be no other way to get both high resolution image quality and next gen-type visuals/scope at the same time in most games this generation. The consoles are pretty good, but they're still limited. And so devs were gonna build games around that on consoles, and of course this would mean trying to play at native resolutions on PC would become more demanding as a result.

And again, games perceptually not having good 'bang for back' in terms of visuals versus performance is not new. Upscaling has just become an easy thing to point a finger at cuz people like easy answers to complex situations.

 

[troyan]

Nobody is saying that upscaling isn't important, just pushing back on the idea that devs are being lazy and just somehow going "Well we dont need to work on this, we can just tell people to use upscaling". I promise you none of these devs are happy with the level of performance in some of these games.

Nobody is forcing them to use UE5. So obviously these developers do not care about "performance" anymore.

 

[JPT]

Nobody is forcing them to use UE5. So obviously these developers do not care about "performance" anymore.

That is so bs, if its not UE5 then they would be chastised for using UE4 or that their own inhouse engine is not good enough etc etc.

Also its a moving goalpost game, people keep wanting everything in every game with no regards for reality. Especially looking at the cost of making a game vs what ypu pay for it. Every car in the world is not a ferrari and expecting a ferrari experience from a fiat is just weird.

 

[troyan]

Migrate the cost to gamers is not a solution. It's paying for a Ferrari and getting VW "quality".
Nobody has forced Epic to not use a modern GPU to the full potential. Metro Exodus EE runs with over 100 FPS on a 4090 in 4K. There are better solutions for problems which are faster and providing better quality.

Lords of the Fallen looks really bad with "low" quality: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/lords-of-the-fallen-performance-benchmark/4.html
UE5 has really bad scaling with image quality and on a modern GPU. Wenn a game with real time GI can run >100 FPS in 4K, only getting 100 FPS in 1080p is just bad.

 

[Seanspeed]

Nobody is forcing them to use UE5. So obviously these developers do not care about "performance" anymore.

Nobody is 'forcing' them to use UE5 no, but there is probably some expectation that they can get enough performance from it still. That is obviously proving difficult for many, and just restarting on a new engine is mostly a death sentence these days for any larger project.

 

[Pete]

Maybe not disingenious since "X" only displays only one tweet w/o any associated tweet responses for me.
With the new "X" I find displaying associated tweets problematic if you aren't a subscriber, something which never happen in the past.

Swap nitter.net in for x.com and you’ll get replies (and it works without JS).

 

[DavidGraham]

Alan Wake system requirements.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1715412623468970091

 

[Shortbread]

Beautiful!

Seeing how NYC transformed from one game to another, looks amazing.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Computerbase looked at Lords of the Fallen: https://www.computerbase.de/2023-10...hnitt_benchmarks_in_full_hd_wqhd_und_ultra_hd

Its only playable in 1080p on most GPUs. Computerbase is even using upscaling for the performance test. Most gamers need a form of upscaling to enjoy this game with the "ultra" preset. And this makes a bridge to other threads in which the importance of upscaling and upscaling quality gets ignored or even downplayed.

Hahahaha, most gamers and ultra preset? Medium preset should be what developers are calibrating for most systems. High should be what they are calibrating for the upper end cards and Ultra should be what they are calibrating for only the top end cards and/or future hardware.

That is, if you believe that PC developers should be pushing the envelope WRT game graphics.

God, PC gamers now a days are pathetic expecting to be able to have a fluid gaming experience at ultra presets on anything except the best of the best hardware. I can already imagine the crying and gnashing of teeth if today's PC gamers were around when the original Far Cry came out.

BTW - yes Lords of the Fallen is not a well performing game, but using Ultra not running well on "most" systems as justification is just laughable, IMO.

Alan Wake system requirements.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1715412623468970091

Speaking of which, it always makes me so incredibly sad at the state of PC game development that Ultra doesn't have system specs requiring the absolute top end hardware. But then again, most development is console first and then port to PC.

Regards,
SB

 

[pjbliverpool]

Speaking of which, it always makes me so incredibly sad at the state of PC game development that Ultra doesn't have system specs requiring the absolute top end hardware. But then again, most development is console first and then port to PC.

Regards,
SB

Ultra without RT is no longer Ultra.

 

[Shortbread]

God, PC gamers now a days are pathetic expecting to be able to have a fluid gaming experience at ultra presets on anything except the best of the best hardware.

Well, seeing how CP2077 is one of the most advanced PC titles out, with über amounts of path-tracing/ray-tracing to boot, I have a very fluid experience (90+ fps) playing with ultra settings. So, yes, to a certain extent I do expect developers (especially, PC developers) to push and optimize for high/ultra setting with fluid performance (i.e., high framerates).

It's the BS console ports being shoehorned on PC that's the problem.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Well, seeing how CP2077 is one of the most advanced PC titles out, with über amounts of path-tracing/ray-tracing to boot, I have a very fluid experience (90+ fps) playing with ultra settings. So, yes, to a certain extent I do expect developers (especially, PC developers) to push and optimize for high/ultra setting with fluid performance (i.e., high framerates).

It's the BS console ports being shoehorned on PC that's the problem.

Which is fine if you are willing to overlook the very last gen and low density world geometry. The lighting is fantastic, no doubt. The design is great. The world detail is sorely lacking, IMO. It's still a great looking game, but it is definitely one that straddles generations with next gen lighting combined with unfortunate last gen geometry.

It's like Ultra preset lighting with low to medium preset geometry.

So it should run well just because of that. Basically the last gen geometry makes that level of RT possible, but for someone like me that also drags down the overall graphical impact significantly.

I'm actually excited to see what CDPR does with UE5 and a much higher world geometry budget.

Regards,
SB

 

[trinibwoy]

Alan Wake system requirements.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1715412623468970091

60 fps at 4K DLSS performance is a bit better than CP2077 clocked on a 4080.

Why is path tracing not supported on AMD?