Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2019]

[Boxercide]

Wish they someday raymaster one of the best games I've played in the last few years: Alien Isolation. That game with raytracing has to be even more gorgeous.

Aside from that, it's the only game I've ever decided to play using a good pair of headphones from start to finish. Dolby Atmos also helps. It gives me the creeps, but the experience is unique.

At 60 fps and with Alias Isolation -a tweak to improve the only graphics flaw of the game (default AA solutions of the game, FXAA, SMAA T1x and SMAA T2x, don't make the game justice, although decent looking).

Maybe we'll get a next gen sequel featuring rays. Not just light, sound rays, too. That would be cool, if the xeno reacted to actual realtime sound rays bouncing off different surfaces. And in a vacuum, of course you wouldn't have to worry about that.

 

[Cyan]

Maybe we'll get a next gen sequel featuring rays. Not just light, sound rays, too. That would be cool, if the xeno reacted to actual realtime sound rays bouncing off different surfaces. And in a vacuum, of course you wouldn't have to worry about that.

Do you mean sound ray tracing for propagation of sound? I mean effects like occlusion, diffusion, bouncing, etc? For a game like Alien Isolation that sounds like a great addition to have. Something different about the game is that it isn't just you listening to the sound, which is typical, "others" are listening to you! And that's a unique aspect of the game.

A couple of weeks ago I just completed Doom 2016 but I got slightly bored mid-way and wanted it to end -the story is a bit like Halo, too much technical mumbo jumbo-. It's Doom but I still prefer the classic.

However, with Alien Isolation, I enjoy every minute of it, in a way that I am memorizing the places without actually being my intention, just because I enjoy the game and going slow. And that silence....

Typically, when I play a new game and don't know the stages my mind goes like "darn, I gotta learn the stage". With Alien Isolation I just go with the flow and learn the levels in a natural manner.

I started Alien Isolation on the difficulty level recommended by the developers -hard, the way the game is meant to be played they say- and even in the most difficult parts, if I die I don't feel bad for having to restart a section.

What a difference when you are truly enjoying something. The voice acting is also really good in Alien Isolation, specially the protagonist, Ripley.

Day one for me if a second Alien Isolation game ever comes out, it's a truly creative work by Sega.

 

[Nesh]

Do you mean sound ray tracing for propagation of sound? I mean effects like occlusion, diffusion, bouncing, etc? For a game like Alien Isolation that sounds like a great addition to have. Something different about the game is that it isn't just you listening to the sound, which is typical, "others" are listening to you! And that's a unique aspect of the game.

A couple of weeks ago I just completed Doom 2016 but I got slightly bored mid-way and wanted it to end -the story is a bit like Halo, too much technical mumbo jumbo-. It's Doom but I still prefer the classic.

However, with Alien Isolation, I enjoy every minute of it, in a way that I am memorizing the places without actually being my intention, just because I enjoy the game and going slow. And that silence....

Typically, when I play a new game and don't know the stages my mind goes like "darn, I gotta learn the stage". With Alien Isolation I just go with the flow and learn the levels in a natural manner.

I started Alien Isolation on the difficulty level recommended by the developers -hard, the way the game is meant to be played they say- and even in the most difficult parts, if I die I don't feel bad for having to restart a section.

What a difference when you are truly enjoying something. The voice acting is also really good in Alien Isolation, specially the protagonist, Ripley.

Day one for me if a second Alien Isolation game ever comes out, it's a truly creative work by Sega.

Clearly the best Alien game ever produced and a superb game overall.
It is unfortunate that sales did not reflect the quality of the game.
It deserves so much more, plus we need a sequel to explain Ripley's story and connect it with the Alien 2 movie

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Read Entire Article: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ge-2-is-best-played-on-xbox-one-x-and-ps4-pro

Rage 2 tech analysis: is 1080p60 the best use for Xbox One X and PS4 Pro?
Performance vs image quality.

Rage 2 arrives on consoles slathered in hot pink highlights, mutant entrails and the fingerprints of a new development team. Avalanche Studios picks up the series' reigns, joining id Software to create something rather unique - a fast-paced first-person shooter combined with a large open world. From my perspective, it's a special experience and the dual-studio collaboration pays off handsomely - but the technical decisions behind the game are intriguing, not to mention controversial.

There's no escaping it: the difference in the gameplay experience between base and enhanced consoles is vast. The vanilla machines run the game at 30 frames per second, but the choices made for the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X versions have split user opinion, and it all comes down to this: what's best - a nigh-on flawless 60 frames per second, or higher resolution imagery at half that frame-rate?

The move to a new developer represents a major shift for the franchise, with Rage 2 leaving id Tech behind in favour of Avalanche's own Apex engine. The studio was selected a development partner based on the strength of its technology. The engine supports large scale open worlds with complex physics simulation and dynamic lights - perfect for Rage. After all, the original Rage was designed to offer a Mad Max-like experience with a wide-open wasteland to explore but id Tech 5 wasn't well suited to a large-scale project, so the environments were constrained, and every mission was divided by loading screens killing the pace.

The Apex engine, however, has already delivered a decent Mad Max game and it allows Avalanche to deliver on the original vision with a massive open world to explore, filled with towns, settlements and gorgeous vistas. It supports a fully real-time time of day system with variable cloud cover plus real shadows and lighting.

That gives me some hope for console gaming. I'm glad that Avalanche studios opted for a 60 FPS experience on the Pro and X versus a crippled 30 FPS experience as is the case with the base systems. An option for higher resolution at 30 FPS for those that prefer graphics over gameplay wouldn't be out of place as well, but if development only had time for one or the other, 60 FPS is definitely the way to go, IMO.

I hope more developers choose to offer a 60 FPS experience on the next generation of consoles. It's one of many features they would need to truly entice me to go back to consoles.

Regards,
SB

 

[AzBat]

Red Dead Redemption 2 patch 1.09 tested: has HDR been fixed?
Plus: graphics 'downgrade' addressed - but was it broken in the first place?
By Thomas Morgan. 22/05/2019

Red Dead Redemption patch 1.09 arrived last week, delivering a huge update that took the online component out of its beta period and addressed the game's somewhat disappointing HDR support. On top of this, the patch notes discuss improving ambient occlusion, giving weight to stories circulating for months that the effect was somehow downgraded after the game launched. Were there actually reductions in visual quality? Is HDR now 'fixed'? We took a look at the new update and the news is positive: Red Dead Redemption 2 has never looked better with the new patch installed.

https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/digitalfoundry-2019-red-dead-redemption-2-patch-109-adds-excellent-hdr

Tommy McClain

 

[Ike Turner]

https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/digitalfoundry-2019-red-dead-redemption-2-patch-109-adds-excellent-hdr

Tommy McClain

The SDR footage in that video is literally fucked up and not representative at all of what the game actually looks like in SDR...

 

[Cyan]

The SDR footage in that video is literally fucked up and not representative at all of what the game actually looks like in SDR...

true that. How is it so over saturated?

 

[Cynicalking]

The video is in HDR so youtube probably tonemaps the SDR bits wrong.

 

[Cyan]

having watched some recent DF videos featuring games with Raytracing and my own experience.... I wonder....

Haven't videogames killed the video star?

I mean, don't games look better than videos? (never ever I thought I'd said this, I come from a generation where things were vastly different)

I recently got Gears of War 4 (Windows 10 version), which my laptop runs at 1080p 60fps. The game takes up 134GB of HD space, and I blame it on the fact there are videos. The reality is that it looks better ingame and much more fluid than the videos!

In fact there are times when my HD can't follow the streaming quality of the videos and there are some interrupts. Then you get back ingame and...... Oh wonder, ultra textures, 60 fps, 1080p....!

I guess it reads texture data and so on for ingame stuff while they play the videos but....they can't compare with ingame visuals.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Resident Evil 4, Remake and Zero on Nintendo Switch are competent ports of brilliant games
And handheld play makes all the difference.

Ultimately, I do feel that the quality of the conversion work here is unremarkable, and at the very least I'd hope for a performance optimisation push on RE4 along with gyro and IR controls. The Origins titles are fine, but really need their loading time issues addressed. However, certainly in the case of RE4 and RE Remake, the ports are competent enough that the quality of those genuinely brilliant games still shines through, while the opportunity to play in handheld mode is not only unique to Switch, but also serves to disguise the age of the art to a certain extent. Hopefully we'll see improvements over time, but for now, I still enjoyed revisiting these truly excellent games.

 

[Cyan]

That gives me some hope for console gaming. I'm glad that Avalanche studios opted for a 60 FPS experience on the Pro and X versus a crippled 30 FPS experience as is the case with the base systems. An option for higher resolution at 30 FPS for those that prefer graphics over gameplay wouldn't be out of place as well, but if development only had time for one or the other, 60 FPS is definitely the way to go, IMO.

I hope more developers choose to offer a 60 FPS experience on the next generation of consoles. It's one of many features they would need to truly entice me to go back to consoles.

Regards,
SB

anything less than that is really a pita. When you play a game at constant 60 fps and you increase the resolution by quite a lot and if looks good but you see frames stuttering and "jumping" around, it is quite annoying. All console games ran at 60 fps back in the day.

 

[milk]

All console games ran at 60 fps back in the day.

And with beautiful flicker and disapearing sprites.

 

[function]

And with beautiful flicker and disapearing sprites.

Not the good ones!

Flicker was due to overloading sprites on a scanline. If you designed carefully you could avoid that. Slowdown was due to too much load on the CPU (one reason why the SNES despite it's awesome palette choked when the MD persevered).

There's something magical about shitty scanline sprite engines. Latency of effectively 0 ms is one part; performing effects in a fraction of a ms is another. I like to pull out my old consoles from time to time. Feels like I'm closer to some kind of universal truth.

But maybe that's just because I'm an asshole.

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

Not the good ones!

Flicker was due to overloading sprites on a scanline. If you designed carefully you could avoid that. Slowdown was due to too much load on the CPU (one reason why the SNES despite it's awesome palette choked when the MD persevered).

There's something magical about shitty scanline sprite engines. Latency of effectively 0 ms is one part; performing effects in a fraction of a ms is another. I like to pull out my old consoles from time to time. Feels like I'm closer to some kind of universal truth.

But maybe that's just because I'm an asshole.

Best signature ever.

 

[dogen]

And with beautiful flicker and disapearing sprites.

that's how you could tell the game was serious business

but really though, lots of flicker is mostly an issue on 8-bit systems.

 

[function]

Best signature ever.

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”

that's how you could tell the game was serious business

but really though, lots of flicker is mostly an issue on 8-bit systems.

Something you could do on those systems was, especially if running at 60 fps, alternate selected sprites between showing and not showing. E.g. explosion / flame effects. This meant you could swap sprites in and out to effectively double the number of sprites the player (thought they) could see at once, with the caveat that they flickered on and off at every other field (50 or 60 hz depending on region). Not to be confused with overloading a scanline so sprites simply didn't appear at all - the phantom killer in some shoot em ups (as you seem to demonstrate in your first video)!

 

[dogen]

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”



Something you could do on those systems was, especially if running at 60 fps, alternate selected sprites between showing and not showing. E.g. explosion / flame effects. This meant you could swap sprites in and out to effectively double the number of sprites the player (thought they) could see at once, with the caveat that they flickered on and off at every other field (50 or 60 hz depending on region). Not to be confused with overloading a scanline so sprites simply didn't appear at all - the phantom killer in some shoot em ups (as you seem to demonstrate in your first video)!

recca does that... but zanki mode is too much lol

 

[BRiT]

A Plague Tale: Innocence - a fascinating game powered by stunning tech
A bespoke engine from a smaller developer delivers triple-A level visuals.

Asobo Studio deserves kudos for the scale of the achievement delivered in the recently released A Plague Tale: Innocence. Where many smaller studios tap into established engines like Unreal Engine 4 or Unity for their technological needs, this outfit did things the old-fashioned way, developing its own proprietary engine technology. The end result is an absolutely beautiful game and one that scales remarkably well as we climb the console ladder and beyond to the heights of PC's most powerful graphics hardware.

I think what makes A Plague Tale really work from a visual perspective is more than just the core engine technology - though its accomplishments are significant. Combining a linear, story-driven experience with a striking art style and design running on this tech sees all components deliver something greater than the sum of their parts.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is a wonderful-looking game from its environments, to its characters, and its effects work. Just the first scene is an absolute treat, revealing a rich post-process pipeline that's reminiscent of Unreal Engine 4 at its most resplendent. There's an embarrassment of riches here, with a beautifully soft volumetric lighting solution, which looks good on all platforms but absolutely shines on PC at its highest settings. Volumetrics don't just come from the sun: lighting piercing fog, suggesting that colour and shadow are drawn from smaller point lights, such as lanterns or torches. It's also impressive to see volumetrics beam through stained glass windows, with the varying colours of the glass illuminating light shards and - impressively - the ground too. It's just one example of an attention to detail that is much appreciated and sometimes overlooked.

Read the full Digital Foundry Article here: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-a-plague-tale-innocence-tech-analysis

 

[Shortbread]

"Set for release on November 4th this year, Death Stranding returned with a brand new extended trailer last week. Based on Guerrilla Games' Decima Engine, Alex takes a very early look at the technology, noting how the engine has adapted compared to Guerrilla's prior titles"

 

[Mobius1aic]

"Set for release on November 4th this year, Death Stranding returned with a brand new extended trailer last week. Based on Guerrilla Games' Decima Engine, Alex takes a very early look at the technology, noting how the engine has adapted compared to Guerrilla's prior titles"

I want to know if the game goes beyond Horizon's GPGPU use for world composition. The huge amounts of ground level detail would be a good fit since the landscape is so devoid of megaflora.

Also, seeing the Death Stranding baby is kind of eerie when I have a two week old baby at home. I hope he's customizable to have the same dark blue eyes as my son