Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2020]

[iroboto]

I do think XSX will take a lead, but it might not be big enough. Tooling or no tooling, these consoles are relatively close. 20% more TF, but PS5 has 20% higher pixel fillrate. Geometry, cache, it all scales with higher clocks and it doesnt with more CUs and same amount of ROPs : )

I can’t speak for PS5 because I don’t know what’s happening there. I just know that the GDK limits both series consoles from achieving anywhere close to their maximum potential. And I mean from a functionality perspective, not even talking about making existing functions higher performance. They got a lot of stuff important stuff they need to actually provide to developers before they can even optimize.

I don’t know what it will mean for their performance; its just clear to me that the first release GDK shipped fairly bare bones so to speak.

we are just going to have to wait several months and that’s a huge ouch for MS. But that’s the reality of it. Keep the comparison videos coming and put pressure to fix shit up. DF uncovering a lot of details for everyone to see what’s wrong and ask questions.

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

Series S hits 540p-900p! Ouch!

Well its 120fps, dont see what people expected. In other two mods its 60fps 1080-1440p, thats not too bad at all.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Series S hits 540p-900p! Ouch!

Slipping into SD range there (UK SD is 720x576). I can't imagine that's gonna look very nice on a 4k HDMI 2.1 TV.

Sounds like PS5 and Series X are in the range of 900-1440p. Think I'll need to see how this looks in practice (120hz mode).

The setting drops at the high framerate mode on Xbox can surely only be a bug...

 

[Insight]

Slipping into SD range there (UK SD is 720x576). I can't imagine that's gonna look very nice on a 4k HDMI 2.1 TV.

Sounds like PS5 and Series X are in the range of 900-1440p. Think I'll need to see how this looks in practice.

The setting drops at the high framerate mode on Xbox can surely only be a bug...

Yeah, the 120 FPS assets look really rough on XSX

The difference between these two consoles can't be this massive!

 

[Globalisateur]

120fps mode:

Spoiler

Image quality 60fps mode:

Spoiler

The latter is basically 900p vs 1080p (relative perceptible resolution difference, the res is higher on both machines, from 1440p to 4K)

 

[snc]

120fps mode:

Spoiler

Image quality 60fps mode:

Spoiler

The latter is basically 900p vs 1080p (relative perceptible resolution difference, the res is higher on both machines, from 1440p to 4K)

the difference even in quality mode is quite big

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

Yeah, the 120 FPS assets look really rough on XSX

The difference between these two consoles can't be this massive!

Maybe LOD bug. That is PS2 level of detail right there.

 

[BRiT]

Yeah, the 120 FPS assets look really rough on XSX
The difference between these two consoles can't be this massive!

Thats an item DF discussed as likely being a bug, perhaps using some settings from Xbox One builds instead. Very bizzare.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Wow, recently Dirt 5 comparison between consoles looks insane. What is going with Xbox Series?

 

[Deleted member 86764]

120fps mode:

Spoiler

Image quality 60fps mode:

Spoiler

The latter is basically 900p vs 1080p (relative perceptible resolution difference, the res is higher on both machines, from 1440p to 4K)

Have you counted those resolutions on the last images, or are you saying that's the equivalent resolutions?

Edit: I see the answer. Sorry.

 

[iroboto]

Have you counted those resolutions on the last images, or are you saying that's the equivalent resolutions?

I think he's fairly close to calling it right here in terms of counts.

 

[PSman1700]

The difference between these two consoles can't be this massive!

Maybe LOD bug. That is PS2 level of detail right there.

Somethings very wrong indeed.

 

[Deleted member 7537]

I'm leaning toward the bug theory in relation to the 120hz issue on XBSX, but this seems like a thing you notice right away during the QA analysis. One wonders if they pushed too much to have this game so close to launch, a bit sad as I really feel this is Motorstorm spiritual successor and it had a rough launch.

edit: apparently IQ is better on PS5 on the fidelity mode as well.

 

[Karamazov]

seriously, must be some kind of bug or error that should be fixed as soon as they can.

 

[function]

Yup, well, both Series X|S are afflicted with the same issues in terms of what functionalities are available in the GDK. It's unfortunate that MS got blind sided by COVID here (perhaps their deadlines too ambitious and didn't see it the possibility of a massive slowdown) and didn't build their tools out enough to have a good launch. I think a proper fix would have been to eat the cost of just doubling the remaining memory to be symmetric and not deal with the tooling issues around controlling the split pools. There are other issues, but this isn't an ideal launch considering their marketing.

Do you have any more information about the tooling issues around split memory?

Maybe CDPR weren't unwise to stick with XDK. Optimise the crap out of the X1X version and then scale up from there, staying inside the optimal 10 GB.

Will be interesting to see how it fares.

 

[function]

Yeah, the 120 FPS assets look really rough on XSX

The difference between these two consoles can't be this massive!

Gotta admit, that make me laugh out loud.

That has to be a lod bug or settings mistake, surely.

 

[tuna]

It seems like DF has stopped creating H264 videos for most of their new videos. This is really bad for me since my computer has real problems with 4K 60 fps HEVC files. If they do not start uploading H264 files again I will stop my patreon (I can just use Youtube instead).

 

[iroboto]

It seems like DF has stopped creating H264 videos for most of their new videos. This is really bad for me since my computer has real problems with 4K 60 fps HEVC files. If they do not start uploading H264 files again I will stop my patreon (I can just use Youtube instead).

I'll ask Rich

 

[iroboto]

Do you have any more information about the tooling issues around split memory?

Maybe CDPR weren't unwise to stick with XDK. Optimise the crap out of the X1X version and then scale up from there, staying inside the optimal 10 GB.

Will be interesting to see how it fares.

I only know the memory commands seem incomplete or suboptimal. I have no idea what type of effect that has on the games. There seems to be some challenges for developers if they need to shuffle their memory around, and typically if all you're doing is working on Series X/S then, it's a non issue because you can lay out your memory from the get go. But not evreyone has that luxury except for 1P studios.
But if you're juggling building out multiple platforms, and you find you need to shuffle memory, you're SOL it seems like, and if you shuffle it's going to be really impactful, they will be working on methods to get around this issue in future releases.

This is just 1 aspect. But an important one to note.

 

[Shortbread]

Hum, I'm starting wonder about a certain developer who was attacked about his comments dealing with PS5 and XBSX. And other developers agreed with his comments, but of course console warriors and corporate shills ruined any honest discussions to be had.