Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2019]

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"Our first look at Marvel's Avengers based on the trailer. Is it just a CG movie or is it running in real-time? And what platform might it be running on? Checkerboarding or native 4K? You have questions, we have answers..."

IMHO, the game looks quite gorgeous, even if the characters have a certain cosplay look to them.

While it's good they pointed out some of the perceptible visual artifacts common of real time rendering, that does not automatically mean the footage wasn't from a beefy PC, or thar it was necessarely real time.
Even if in a non-realtime situation, or a stronger PC, they have the oportunity to disable such IQ worsening optimizations such as quarter-res alphas, or increase the quality of MB and reflection sampling, making those changes does take time, and they might have prefered to avoid that. They could very well have those features in there because of their target HW (PS4/XBO) but they chose to render these theatricals on a highend PC gpu just to save themselves time because the game is still mid-development and the engine is probably quite messy still.
The only thing we can safely conclude is that that footage is in-engine, and it has many performance consideration built-in there. But that's all.
 
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Hey @Dictator, just had an idea for a cool and potentially quite long-running series of content. How about exploring the impact of software by comparing first-year and last-year titles on a platform? Look at what devs started with, and then look at how, with experience and new techniques, they were able to stretch the machines more. Maybe you could get some devs to talk about it too, explaining what they learned from their first title and how they improved things and came up with clever solutions?

You'd be able to look at all the consoles, and look at multiple titles for each, perhaps looking a genre like SNES racing games one article, then SNES platformers another; whatever gives good contrast and shows real improvements.

The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 would be a good start. :) 2015 to 2020. GTA V to RDR 2 might be interesting as well. Although GTA V is port of a PC version of a port of a last gen version. Did anyone (that is generally consider tops in graphics IQ) release something in 2013-2014 (that wasn't cross-gen or a port of last gen) that launched something in 2019-2020?

Too bad Crytek kind of disappeared from AAA game development. It would have been interested to compare something late gen to Ryse. Killzone to HZD would be a good one even if HZD is more mid gen.

Regards,
SB
 

"Does Control from Remedy have the best RTX ray traced visuals yet? And how is the game shaping up generally? John played it at E3 and he joins a very excited Alex for a closer look at the RT implementation."
 
Final Fantasy 7 Remake: yesterday's game looks stunning with today's tech
How 22 years and three console generations improve a genuine PS1 classic.

The biggest surprise about this E3's showing of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake? That it's matured into a gorgeous - and very much playable - game. Square Enix's new trailer made a real mark this year in showing how modern rendering methods transform a PlayStation classic into something palatable for the modern day. Gameplay systems are laid bare, and there's a much better idea of how the scale of Midgar is being expanded upon. From a technical perspective, it finally looks set to deliver as one of the company's most ambitious projects.

The latest showing also demonstrates how far we've come across four console generations. A caveat before we begin this: the pre-rendered backdrops, video sequences, and simple polygonal modeling of the 1997 original still carry a lot of charm. Arguably there's no way this remake can recreate the impact of playing it at a time when many of these techniques had never been seen before on consoles. Regardless, what's clear is that Epic's Unreal Engine 4 is more than up to the task of adding today's state of the art rendering tech. For Square Enix the overall goal is simplified: it's giving the big budget treatment to just an early portion of the original game in this first episode. A focus only on the initial area of Midgar narrows the scope, concentrating its focus, and letting its team ratchet up the micro-level detail.

In terms of the rendering set-up, Square Enix has so far shown the game running at a native 1920x1080, and bearing in mind UE4's track record and the wealth of detail on show here, we may well be looking at the PlayStation 4 Pro version of the game. Where we do have is confirmation is that Square-Enix plans to roll out the remake as a cross-gen title and it'll be fascinating to see how the developer plans to utilise the extra horsepower and revolutionary storage system.

...
Entire DF Article : https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...nal-fantasy-7-remake-modernises-a-ps1-classic
 
Spec Analysis: Can Project Scarlett truly deliver Xbox's biggest generational leap?
What if raw performance isn't the game-changer this time?

After a pitch-perfect, well choreographed introduction to Xbox One X way back in 2016, hopes were high that Microsoft could repeat the trick for the crucial reveal of Project Scarlett at this year's E3. New details were indeed unveiled, major claims were made - but Microsoft muddied the waters somewhat with messaging that still leaves us unclear about what the new box is actually about, how powerful it is and what the vision is that separates it from Sony's upcoming PlayStation 5, built from the same technological building blocks.

Let's confirm what is definitely on the table - spec points that with one exception are point-for-point the same as Sony's recent next-gen announcement. For starters, both boxes use AMD's new Zen 2 CPU core - the basis of the Ryzen 3000 products arriving for PC users next month. Meanwhile, Microsoft also revealed that AMD's next-gen RDNA-powered Navi technology delivers the graphics muscle for Scarlett - just as it does for the next PlayStation. The platform holder also announced ray tracing support for its new machine, a feature that's also found in PS5 - though Sony has been reticent to explicitly confirm actual hardware acceleration for the job (our money is on the affirmative though).

Then there's the SSD - another hardware point that Sony revealed first, with Microsoft following suit. Another aspect that ties together both platform holders' next-gen announcements is a lack of information on the graphics core. On top of that, there are some curious factoids in Microsoft's reveal that do need some clarification. Scarlett was defined as the biggest generational leap in console technology that the firm has delivered - but I do think it hard to see the computational leap from OG Xbox to the Xbox 360 being bettered. Meanwhile, the 16x increase in RAM allocation seen moving from Xbox 360 to Xbox One is highly unlikely to be surpassed. Then there's the notion of Scarlett delivering a 4x leap in 'processing performance' over Xbox One X. On the CPU side, this does seem likely but the idea of the machine delivering an equivalent of 24 teraflops of GPU compute is unlikely.

Based on our own information, along with teasing reveals within the Scarlett announcement trailer, here are my thoughts on the set-up of the box - well, one of them at least. Curiously, Microsoft is using very strange PR-speak to avoid the question of the leaked lower-end box, codenamed Lockhart. Another interesting aspect is that while the Xbox One X reveal effectively told us the RAM allocation, SoC size, teraflop count and even clued us in on the cooler, Microsoft is being a lot more coy this time around and there may even be some red herrings in the assets this time around.


Read Full Article: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-project-scarlett-spec-analysis
 
I dont get Richard's idea about 8 chips with two 128bit bus and 12GB of RAM. For me, its more likely 16GB + DDR4 or full 20GB, 14Gbps 10 chips (3-4-3)
 
Can't believe they missed the 10 chip layout..
Two buses makes no sense. :/

Otherwise DF did a good job as usual. 44 CUs for a 380mm SOC is a bit conservative, there is more than enough die space for an additional shader engine with 20 CUs and 32 ROPs.
 
Can't believe they missed the 10 chip layout..
Two buses makes no sense. :/

Otherwise DF did a good job as usual. 44 CUs for a 380mm SOC is a bit conservative, there is more than enough die space for an additional shader engine with 20 CUs and 32 ROPs.
I think they meant 44 active CUs (so 48 on die) and honestly, if there is RT hardware there (even CU enhancement) and 320bit bus + Zen2 I cant see more fitting inside 360mm²-380m² die.
 
Lets do it :) This would result in same amount of RAM and less BW then Xbox One X if I am not mistaken.
like Richard would say, this is curious, and fascinating. You are not bad for a beginner. Let's see what happens, but yes numbers don't compute if that were the case.
 
Hey @Dictator, just had an idea for a cool and potentially quite long-running series of content. How about exploring the impact of software by comparing first-year and last-year titles on a platform? Look at what devs started with, and then look at how, with experience and new techniques, they were able to stretch the machines more. Maybe you could get some devs to talk about it too, explaining what they learned from their first title and how they improved things and came up with clever solutions?

Cool idea, ID software would be a great one. Doom all the way to Doom 3.
 
Can't believe they missed the 10 chip layout..
Two buses makes no sense. :/

Otherwise DF did a good job as usual. 44 CUs for a 380mm SOC is a bit conservative, there is more than enough die space for an additional shader engine with 20 CUs and 32 ROPs.
I'm really hoping for 64 ROPs or more. Also, anyone read the comments on that youtube video? People are commenting on the lack of per object motion blur on Richards hands.
 
"Running on the same engine as the recent Yakuza games, Judgement presents a beautiful, densely packed world to explore with loads of visual details around every corner. John checks out the game running on both PS4 and PS4 Pro to see how it holds up and determine whether it has improved over the most recent Yakuza titles. Enjoy this relaxed presentation with a nice cold beverage of your choice!"
 
Polymega, a all-in-one console that plays retro games from retro consoles, and even has a CD player.

I ve been following the news on this one and I am interested. The only problem is very expensive to import to my country which is a shame.
I didnt watch DF video but these guys are doing a great job. I requested a long time ago to add Saturn Support and they said they will look into it. I was amazed when they achieved it with 100% emulation.
And recently they even announced alight gun support that can work on modern TVs.
This is amazing. My only gripe is that you cant add your own roms. So for example if you dont own a game that is super expensive to buy there is no way to play it unless you have the money or hope that the owner of the IP will add it in the future in a digital store that will be supported by the retro console
 
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