Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2021]

[troyan]

-They would prefer to roll their own upscaling solution but integrating DLSS was a good experience and it produced good results. I could be wrong but I got the feeling the engine team didn’t make this decision and it came down from above.

90%+ of the PC raytracing platform supports DLSS. Sometime management has to make the decision.

 

[Jay]

Yeah, I get the feeling that they only did DLSS because they "had" to. They would have preferred a solution that worked on all platforms and all GPUs. This would be consistent with their past behavior (using Vulkan instead of DX to allow easier implementation on other platforms such as Linux).

Maybe we'll see them roll their own upscaling solution for their next project?

Regards,
SB

I was hoping that he would've been asked if they plan to continue supporting Vulcan as there is really no need to now, and would possibly be better concentrating on DX for multiple reasons.

 

[DavidGraham]

Is there any reason why these hacks/optimizations can't be done on consoles. Has the dgpu really got these hacks in hardware but consoles don't?

Honestly I don't know, on PC the driver controls some of the optimizations deployed on texture filtering, both NVIDIA and AMD have 4 quality presets for that, the lower you go, the more the AF shimmers or becomes blurrier. While consoles lack GPU drivers, my guess is that they already deploy such optimizations by hand, which could explain why sometimes AF looks quite horrible in several console titles.

In other words, I think consoles still have bad AF performance despite using these optimizations due to the shared memory system.

 

[snc]

slight rare drops both on ps5 and xsx (in defferent scenes), xsx and xss has also unlocked fps mode

 

[iroboto]

slight rare drops both on ps5 and xsx (in defferent scenes), xsx and xss has also unlocked fps mode

need to see this one on Steam Deck

 

[snc]

need to see this one on Steam Deck

oh first heard, sad they put rdna2 and not some nvidia gpu, with dlss would be interesting machine

 

[cwjs]

Re: plague tale -
1- Love that object space motion blur, looks amazing. Great use of resources for an upgrade port.
2- unlocked fps over 60 is really cool for those of us with 120hz vrr tvs.
3- This game is seriously a sleeper hit, play it!
4- I feel like sometimes df emphasizes native resolution and sometimes it emphasizes reconstructed resolution. As somebody who watches most of their videos it feels totally arbitrary -- I wish there was a clear sense of why they choose what when or official statements about methodology on stuff like this.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Not watched the video yet, but Xbox allowing for >60hz might be the thing to persuade me to get a Series X.

 

[Jay]

4- I feel like sometimes df emphasizes native resolution and sometimes it emphasizes reconstructed resolution. As somebody who watches most of their videos it feels totally arbitrary -- I wish there was a clear sense of why they choose what when or official statements about methodology on stuff like this.

Probably worth emphasizing on a title by title basis as some titles are impacted by resolution much more than other.
Especially dependent on how well the reconstruction/upscaling works.

The 120fps mode is cool and a nice thing for VRR owners.

XSS also looks and performs really well, even if it's 900p.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

oh first heard, sad they put rdna2 and not some nvidia gpu, with dlss would be interesting machine

There is no reason to ever expect they would use anything else, if anything it's a surprise that it's RNDA and not an off the shelf mobile APU. It has to be an APU to make any power efficiency/economic sense, it has to be X86 to run existing games remotely well. Both of these requirements negate Nvidia being an option.

 

[snc]

There is no reason to ever expect they would use anything else, if anything it's a surprise that it's RNDA and not an off the shelf mobile APU. It has to be an APU to make any power efficiency/economic sense, it has to be X86 to run existing games remotely well. Both of these requirements negate Nvidia being an option.

good points, agree

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Re: plague tale -
4- I feel like sometimes df emphasizes native resolution and sometimes it emphasizes reconstructed resolution. As somebody who watches most of their videos it feels totally arbitrary -- I wish there was a clear sense of why they choose what when or official statements about methodology on stuff like this.

They have different contributors who will notice things over some others, and it also depends greatly on how a game is reconstructing the image.

Regardless in this case I think DF got it wrong, NxGamer also has a video on this game and he states there's no reconstruction going on, it's simple upscaling and going back and forth between the PS5 and PC version at 1440p, I'm inclined to agree with him. I think Tom here maybe just assumes since it's using TAA it will be 'reconstructing' to 4K since so many other games do it, but remember this is a wholly custom engine and not Unreal, perhaps the reason it also doesn't do dynamic res when it's a great candidate for it considering the highly variable load this game has depending on the environment.

I can't see any evidence of reconstruction, if anything the PC version at 1440p looks a little sharper as I think the TAA implementation is a little more aggressive on the PS5. There's a clear difference in other games using TAA reconstruction or checkerboarding vs. simply 1440p upscaled from my experience, this game doesn't look reconstructed at all.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

I can't see any evidence of reconstruction, if anything the PC version at 1440p looks a little sharper as I think the TAA implementation is a little more aggressive on the PS5. There's a clear difference in other games using TAA reconstruction or checkerboarding vs. simply 1440p upscaled from my experience, this game doesn't look reconstructed at all.

Hmm maybe check that, now I don't know - I notice that fine hair strands on your main character break up at 1440p on the PC vs. being completed on the PS5, albeit blurrier. Other aspects of the scene are hard to determine, so maybe there is some reconstruction going on, or they're just using a heavier TAA and/or sharpened it up for the PC crowd. Not sure.

 

[cwjs]

They have different contributors who will notice things over some others, and it also depends greatly on how a game is reconstructing the image.

Yeah I mean, even if so, I wish they had a unified style guide about this where every video took the same tack. Just my 2 cents though!

 

[chris1515]

 

[goonergaz]

I have no idea if my TV supports this, I believe it can do 1080p120 (LG E7) but o can’t see much difference and 60fps is night and day better.

 

[Globalisateur]

I won't buy a 120hz TV before Sony activate VRR on PS5. Knowing them you never know what kind of compatibility problems there will be. Notably with their TV business, they could try to restrict VRR to only some TVs because reasons.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

I wonder if 40 fps is gonna be new "cinematic" framerate.

 

[PSman1700]

I wonder if 40 fps is gonna be new "cinematic" framerate.

We go from 30 to 40fps, who expected that

 

[Arwin]

Be careful what you wish for …. I just realized that 120fps is also a multiple of 24 …