Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2020]

new DF video -posted in b3d forums elsewhere-:

 

It’s ”sponsored content”.

 

Bar a couple software examples, the RT story in games so far is RTX based. There's nothing egregious about the video.

 

Next-Gen graphics Impressive, nice job DF!
Streaming such big worlds, SSD tech should have come earlier.

 

this might well be the Crysis of the next generation.

Btw, the fastest desktop processor ever, the Threadripper 3990X (64 cores, 128 threads) has been launched and it's breaking every single record in the history of computers.

This processor is soooo fast that it can run Crysis at playable framerates without using the GPU at all, they just use the Software Render -the nVidia GPU does nothing!- as shown in at the 9:10 minutes mark in the video -linked the video there-.



DF guys recently played Crysis running on hardware of the time when the game was launched, and I'd say the game runs better on the Threadriper 3990X with no gpu.

 

@Cyan yeah that cpu is a monster, someone got it running at 5.5ghz

 

Just imagine how well it would run on that if Crysis was properly or even minimally multi-threaded. But the reality of the situation is that Crysis was a heavily dependent on single threaded CPU speed. Which at the time development started was completely reasonable to expect...assuming Moore's law didn't come to an end. After all, Intel infamously expected Netburst to scale up to 10 GHz. Crytek likely were expecting that the game would be run on a P4 running at around 6-10 GHz when it launched.

Unfortunate for Crytek and the game, that's when Moore's law basically came to an end for CPUs and CPU makers had to switch to multi-core (and Hyperthreading to an extent) in order to provide increased CPU performance. But that also meant that app and game developers had to go through a pretty painful period of trying to figure out how to make their products multi-threaded and performant.

Regards,
SB

 

Nice to see RT being revisited. I've no issue with it being sponsored content; it's not like nvidia went out of their way here to do much except to say; "hey, recap the RT work that is out there". And it's a good summary for those people that have been looking in; especially with the maturity of RT and its hardware.

And clearly, now that the consoles have confirmed it, it only makes sense for nvidia to emphasize that you can get their great tech now!
Don't have an issue with it. The guys at DF need to eat cake once in a while.

I hope people are starting to see the value of RT here. Glad to see it's coming to our next gen consoles.

 

That was a fantastic video showcasing how far Star Citizen has come. Even for people skeptical of Chris Roberts and his ambition being arguably much larger than what can be practically produced, should take a look at this.

How much the game has changed in the past year is just mind bogglingly impressive. Especially when compared to how much was accomplished in say the first 5 years.

And their rendering tech, I believe can't be touched by anyone else "as of this moment." But that's what happens when you have an almost unlimited budget.

At first the Star Citizen project was hampered by trying to figure out how to accomplish what Chris Roberts wanted (not easy). But now that they have not only more talented programers, but a wealth of experience and experimentation under their belt, what they are doing now is incredibly impressive.

There are obviously still areas that aren't nearly as impressive as their world building and ship building tech (character animations, for example).

In a way, you can see some of what might be coming with the next generation of consoles in this game.

As to the tired argument of Star Citizen not being a game and something that won't ever be finished? Well, Warframe is a really good game and isn't likely to ever be finished. It's also still in Beta, and not just Beta in name. Game systems, levels, character abilities, everything in Warframe is constantly being changed and updated. I have a feeling that Star Citizen will also always be a game that is in constant development.

People that might be interested just have to figure out at what point it has enough content that they want to jump in. Many people already have jumped in and are playing it and enjoying it, even with some systems still being rough. Heck, when I look at Start Citizen now, it has a lot more content than Warframe did when it was released to the public.

Regards,
SB

 

February 14, 2020

 

DF Direct: The Price of PS5 - Are We Looking At A $500 Console?

 

Nice take from DF, a 5x increase from PS4 to PS5 (9.2TF), without arch improvements accounted for.

 

The last bit of showing the performance of a 4 TF lockhart runnign control at 1080p was a good comparison for us to follow vs a 9.2TF running at 2160p.
Half the power, but 1/4 the pixels needed to render.
It does seem like it would work.

 

That will be an interesting video.
It's possible that was running it just at 1080p with same settings.
When you consider that you can lower some settings, and not see a big difference due to the lower resolution also, it would be nice to see a DF take on it.

Nice views on the PS5 price discussion, even if not many actual conclusions, which isn't really possible right now anyway. (unless they had more insider knowledge)

 

February 19, 2020

 

DF video on the remake of Vanquish. I purchased the X360 version back then, but never got into it. I found the game a bit grey and as if the screen was covered with a green filter, plus I found it jerky -30 fps-.

Talking of which, is it just me or DF considers 60 fps to be the súmmum of everything good in this world? How many times have they played at more than 60 fps? They have some PCs that are beasts...yet 60 fps is their most common word when talking about excellence and that's far from the truth once you play at 100fps or more.

Wish I had the steam version of the game, plus it has HDR... Can you believe it?? With high FPS the game might be an absolute blast. On teh X360 I never found out what was the big deal about the game.

 

In the console space 60fps is the best.
Up until recently how many tv's went above 60 even for example.

They do prefer higher, but that's currently the remit of pc.

 

that's what happens when you make console centric videos, that 60fps looks like the best thing ever invented. It's orders of magnitude better than 30 fps but not good enough when you get accustomed to higher framerates and start seeing lag, some uneven frames etc

 

another interesting fact shown in the video is that cutscenes look worse than the actual game. Had you said that years ago, nobody would believe you. But ingame graphics look better than cinematics nowadays, in most games.

Wolfenstein Youngblood is an example. The cinematics in between levels are okay, just jerky. But once you are playing the game, everything looks soooooooooo much better. The framerate goes from 30fps of the videos to 165Hz, the image is orders of magnitude cleaner, the details are crisper...

 

Maybe your right, I've seen enough of their vids to hear when they've talked about greater than 60 fps, so guess I don't see it the way you do.

The thing is it's just a fact that 60 is the best for console, and as you say they are more console centric, so unless you keep telling people to just go PC, not sure what the point would be when that's not your audience or you're remit.