Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2020]

[Shifty Geezer]

Richard mentioned you need a 2070-2080 to future proof but I think he's lowballing it by heaps...

I haven't seen/read his arguments, but I don't think any PC can be future roof at this point because software is going to change. Five years from now, the algorithms used on consoles with their dedicated fast storage might well chug on current PCs. I suppose if you invested heavily in PCIe 4 motherboards and the like, you might get somewhere. But in some terms, like powering on the console and carrying on from where you left off, and then swapping to another game, any PC designed now will likely forever lag.

In terms of drawing pretty pixels, a decent high end PC now will of course be able to play future games because they'll scale down.

TBH the whole notion of future-proof technology is a bit silly. Technology progresses so fast, it's really just a matter of doubling your hardware investment increases the reality lifespan of your hardware by another two years. It will become outdated at some point, and it's far more economical to buy HW now and then in four years than try to buy a machine that'll last 8 years!

 

[ultragpu]

There are quite a few concessions given with PS5's RT implementations.
Where I think they did great was that perhaps many people didn't notice where or what the limits are.

Where I think you're wrong, is where you believe their RT solutions are to do more for less. I'm pretty sure it's just doing less, much less. I think you'll find that BF5, Metro, Control and SOTR RT implementations are very thorough high varying levels of quality with very few compromises.

I don't want to put @Dictator on the spot, but I believe he will have something coming that will go over the individual games and speak about their RT implementations, you'll get a better idea then.

Wonder if he can nail down the kind of RT solutions went into all those RT PS5 games, be interested to see what Demon Souls did the most.

 

[iroboto]

Wonder if he can nail down the kind of RT solutions went into all those RT PS5 games, be interested to see what Demon Souls did the most.

I think DF is very good with trying to showcase technology and working with the developers to verify his findings or add additional context around it.
It should be great to watch, and i'm looking forward to it.

Where I think it would be unfair is that it's not released code, it's far from final, and I don't know where these titles will end up by release even when Alex goes through with a fine tooth comb to show you were things are and aren't working. Might be best to wait a long while after launch before we make general statements about RT performance in general across both consoles and PC gpus. (frankly, this is where the 3rd party comparison blowouts will be most interesting imo - as since Nvidia has been the only game in town, we have no real method of comparison of what any of their metrics around ray tracing hardware mean; right now they are the best game in town for RT, but I'm not really sure where the others fall once RDNA 2 is out. Very interesting times for the coming RT race)

 

[ultragpu]

As mentioned above, Minecraft RTX was a point of comparison of 30-60fps at 1080p compared to 2080Ti, which had a locked 60fps. Ergo, we might infer that SX simply has up to half the raw RT performance for really heavy scenes, which would then put it closer to a 2060-level of RT power.

Obviously, developers are still grappling with implementations for future (hybrid) use, but those are performance optimizations that should carry through to every platform.

Yeah I understand 2060 would comfortably outperform the PS5 too in this particular case. pjbliverpool was pointing out how XSX would comfortably outperform PS5 for the same test which I was having doubt about that's all.
Anyway Minecraft was hardly designed for either a PS5 or XSX now is it? Maybe natively console optimized RT games would fair much better on consoles just like those PS5 games with the right compromise/balance/optimization.

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

I'm not expecting miracles from the PS5 & XSX's ray tracing. They'll be competent enough for developers to get some experience of this new paradigm. And there'll be some jaw dropping uses.

I completely expect a PS5Pro & XSXOXOXO in 2024 with heavy focus on RT improvements.

 

[ultragpu]

I think DF is very good with trying to showcase technology and working with the developers to verify his findings or add additional context around it.
It should be great to watch, and i'm looking forward to it.

Where I think it would be unfair is that it's not released code, it's far from final, and I don't know where these titles will end up by release even when Alex goes through with a fine tooth comb to show you were things are and aren't working. Might be best to wait a long while after launch before we make general statements about RT performance in general across both consoles and PC gpus. (frankly, this is where the 3rd party comparison blowouts will be most interesting imo - as since Nvidia has been the only game in town, we have no real method of comparison of what any of their metrics around ray tracing hardware mean)

Agreed. Still too early to draw any concrete conclusion, I was just speculating anyhow.

 

[iroboto]

Agreed. Still too early to draw any concrete conclusion, I was just speculating anyhow.

I'd say, like when Sony put in hardware for reconstruction and everyone moved towards temporal reconstruction - the better the implementation the less we needed native. Native is still better, and I think people will notice if they have a good enough setup and experience to recognize the difference. But like temporal, if Sony studios are finding a way to get away with the look of RT but requiring much less hardware RT power, that should also be applauded. That just means you can use that hardware to implement more effects elsewhere. And that's what we should be aiming for. I think many people just thought it wasn't possible using the first set of bolt on RT PC games as a anchor point.

 

[pjbliverpool]

I haven't seen/read his arguments, but I don't think any PC can be future roof at this point because software is going to change. Five years from now, the algorithms used on consoles with their dedicated fast storage might well chug on current PCs. I suppose if you invested heavily in PCIe 4 motherboards and the like, you might get somewhere. But in some terms, like powering on the console and carrying on from where you left off, and then swapping to another game, any PC designed now will likely forever lag.

In terms of drawing pretty pixels, a decent high end PC now will of course be able to play future games because they'll scale down.

TBH the whole notion of future-proof technology is a bit silly. Technology progresses so fast, it's really just a matter of doubling your hardware investment increases the reality lifespan of your hardware by another two years. It will become outdated at some point, and it's far more economical to buy HW now and then in four years than try to buy a machine that'll last 8 years!

It's an interesting video, well worth a watch. He does address a lot of what you raise here. The video isn't so much about building a PC now that would see you through the rest of this console generation without compromises, but rather what you should be looking to buy now (if you have to) that will see you through the next couple of years and give you a good upgrade path in the future without having to replace everything. For example he states that PCIe 4.0 is basically a requirement for future proofing but doesn't mention a specific drive speed. Similarly he talks about getting a platform that supports 8+ core CPU's and ensuring that you have a couple of DIMM slots free for future RAM expansion.

 

[London Geezer]

I'm not expecting miracles from the PS5 & XSX's ray tracing. They'll be competent enough for developers to get some experience of this new paradigm. And there'll be some jaw dropping uses.

I completely expect a PS5Pro & XSXOXOXO in 2024 with heavy focus on RT improvements.

And that will be absolutely fine, for now. The biggest difference is that reflections won't break down in a million pieces like they do now, and that will be OK. R&C showed that some objects were not reflected, and yet those reflections looked as real as we should expect, only because SSR just break down so easily and annoyingly so.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

For example he states that PCIe 4.0 is basically a requirement for future proofing but doesn't mention a specific drive speed. Similarly he talks about getting a platform that supports 8+ core CPU's and ensuring that you have a couple of DIMM slots free for future RAM expansion.

So the bleeding edge insight is...buy the latest, greatest technology right now. Who'd have thought!

I guess if it gets views, it's a useful contribution to DF's operations. The only real advice I can think of is stay away from Intel right now because they don't support PCIe 4, and that'll be an easy upgrade path in a few years when PCIe 4 M2's are cheap and notably faster than 3's.

 

[mpg1]

I'm not expecting miracles from the PS5 & XSX's ray tracing. They'll be competent enough for developers to get some experience of this new paradigm. And there'll be some jaw dropping uses.

I completely expect a PS5Pro & XSXOXOXO in 2024 with heavy focus on RT improvements.

A bit presumptuous considering we don't how much utilization and prioritization RT ends up getting.

 

[AlNom]

Speaking of RT...

 

[London Geezer]

Quite impressive, considering I was one of the people going "RT in consoles in 2020?? NEVER!"

 

[BRiT]

Quite impressive, considering I was one of the people going "RT in consoles in 2020?? NEVER!"

You're not the only one. In our defense, we still haven't seen the price tag for all the greatness we're going to get.

 

[Karamazov]

would it be possible to use a mix of SSR for what's in view, and use only RT for out of view reflections ? And would it free some ressources ?

 

[AlNom]

would it be possible to use a mix of SSR for what's in view, and use only RT for out of view reflections ? And would it free some ressources ?

Yup. I believe BF5 already does this.

 

[iroboto]

Speaking of RT...

very good video, Alex putting in the work here.

 

[AlNom]

very good video, Alex putting in the work here.

"as eye see it." (at the end)

:V

 

[iroboto]

"as eye see it." (at the end)

:V

I am still a puniwan, Master Pun Kenobi

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I think DF is very good with trying to showcase technology and working with the developers to verify his findings or add additional context around it. ... ... ... ... Where I think it would be unfair is that it's not released code, it's far from final, and I don't know where these titles will end up by release even when Alex goes through with a fine tooth comb to show you were things are and aren't working.

Yup, we're seen a lot of games have to wind back their visual aspirations as the project continues, and this includes AAA teams with reputations for technical excellence, like CDPR with Witcher 3 and Naughty Dog with 60fps Uncharted 4. There are just too many to count.

Quite impressive, considering I was one of the people going "RT in consoles in 2020?? NEVER!"

I was wholly dismissive of an SSD being in the consoles until Mark Cerny's April 2019 Wired interview. It just didn't seem possible. Fast SSDs, 10+ teraflop systems, 16Gb GDDR6, ray tracing. I keep expecting to wake up at some point.

On the insanity of the tech that is in nextgen consoles, has anybody rewatched any of the Cyberpunk 2077 footage and had a real "meh" moment? Because I remember thinking those graphics would even be a stretch even for nextgen consoles but from what we've seen recently, it is not going to a great-looking game - not unless CDPR have a ton of tech that they've been holding back on showing. I don't play games for pretty graphics but I am a little anxious about Cyberpunk.

I'd love a DF analysis on what we've seen from Cyberpunk and how the game's visuals may compare with what we expect to be playing this holiday on our new consoles.