Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2021]

Consider some other graphics load (e.g. geometry) might be resolution agnostic.

 

Not watched video yet, but my guess is they didn't feel like doing 720-900p120

Personally I think can give the option, and leave it to people to decide if IQ drop is to much. Although you will get people who will complain and poke fun at the resolution of a current gen console.

 

I was rather expecting something like closer to 1440p (maybe dynamic 1296p-1440p) 60fps

 

4K/60 with enhanced details other last gen, nice upgrade.
But for the next one i hope they go dynamic res or reconstruction to boost graphics more.

 

Oh got ya, thought you meant why it didn't also have a 120 mode.

 

How come they didn't use the replay running at ~30fps to benchmark both consoles (even compared to PC)? It should have being very easy to do so and they have done a similar thing with Control (photo mode) and Hitman 3 (cutscene).

Using Monaco replay PS5 seems to outperforms XSX by a few frames. Interesting!

 

Not really the kind of content Tom does, but be worth mentioning in the discord or something.

 

would be interesting to know what the engine is doing in this replay mode for it to run at a much lower FPS.

 

So in one instance you're telling us to give it a rest because only the developers know and then you preceded to assume yourself?

 

It's likely that the Hitman developers chose - broadly speaking - the resolutions they did because of a fairly solid set of reasons (4K Summit Fever might have got them just a tad on the Xbox!). They're talented and they make polished, solid games and Hitman has been patched since with no changes to the resolution .... as far as I'm aware, anyhoo.

One idea to leave behind though is that the PS5 could definitely run the game at a significantly higher resolution than it does now, just because in one area it closes the gap with Series X significantly in terms of pixels x framerate.

If that area benefits from, say, higher alpha blend rate, but the other 99% of the game is normally limited by shader performance for calculating your various buffers and rendering stages etc, then the headroom you thought you had might not be there.

That's why effecting profiling is so important for deciding on the parameters for your final settings. Your bottleneck might be in all manner of places at different times, and on different playthroughs (games are dynamic after all).

I happen to think PS5 probably could run at a higher res, especially if you were prepared to have the odd drop, but it would be a big mistake to think one observed fps advantage would translate nicely across the whole game.

I think all the new-gen system consoles are great. Even Series S (though another 2GB of memory would probably have been good).

 

what? That's a ludicrous accusation. There's only a single possible reason to choose a performance profile for a game.

Do you think they profiled the game on both platforms for years, and then decided sony sucks xbox rules and cranked all the dials down?

Had they made that choice, hitman 3 would have been the console warrior game of choice for xbox fans. As is, it runs great and looks great on both platforms. IO is a small dev and for some reason couldn't get the kind of performance on ps5 many other studios have managed but they still delivered multiple great versions of the game, and nobody would know any different if not for comparison videos.

 

August 27, 2021

 

Another great video by Alex.

One thing though.. if DLSS was used primarily (or solely) to upscale games to higher resolutions when docked... couldn't they presumably increase the power budget when docked? Throw some active cooling in the dock and have the device detect when the dock is present, and raise power limits.

And like Alex even alluded to in the video... there's nothing that says they have to hit a 4K output resolution. They can create a very pleasing image targeting a much lower resolution. Nintendo games are already pleasing as it is... with DLSS anti-aliasing they will look spectacular IMO.

Even still, showing the improvements Alex did in the video... that image quality alone will easily satisfy any Nintendo gamer I suspect. Regardless of everything else.. expectations are different given the form factor of the device. And like Alex said... Nvidia isn't stopping work on this.. There are still improvements to be made.

 

what switch pro ? is that even a real project ?

 

the Doom comparison at internal 720p to 4k DLSS is sick. The debris around planet Earth made my jaw drop, astonishing how much detail they can get from such low detail -but today's standards-. Also the woman's clothes and hair in Metro Exodus , and so on and so forth

 

What? Ins't the point of comparisons to show the difference between different platforms? What's they point in comparing on the exact same settings without exploring watch each platform actually can offers you?
Alex is seeing that he (but maybe not DF as a whole?) will not compared the Boxes to the PC anymore as per Microsoft request.
Not sure what to think about this.

 

That wasn't what MS requested. They just said he couldn't disclose the settings, not that he couldn't compare them.

@Dictator view is that PC sometimes can't match console settings due to the fact that it's missing low enough settings so not a fair comparison and not worth his time doing those specifically.
But if can match them then it's a useful comparison in terms of performance and efficiency etc.
Doesn't mean he won't do PC optimized settings videos etc.

Anyway that was my take from what I remember.

 

If you listen to what he said.

MS asked him not to share the settings that Microsoft shared with him. They didn't ask him not to share settings he would have figured out on his own if Microsoft didn't share those settings with him. Microsoft is absolutely fine with the latter.

That's a key difference. Of course, once MS shared the exact console settings with him, it's not like now he can try to figure out what settings it's running and then share that, eh?

So, why would they do this? I can only guess that MS and/or Asobo wants to avoid the headache of a gamer on one platform or the other constantly asking why X setting isn't available on Y platform. Or even if they have the same setting options available on both platforms, constant questions about why X configuration was chosen for Y console instead of T configuration which some user on the internet thinks would be a better choice.

I wonder if Sony would also ask something like this? Then again, as secretive as Sony are about some things, I have a hard time imagining them sharing the EXACT settings that say HZD runs at on console compared to what is available on the PC version.

Personally, I think console games should just expose graphics configuration settings like PC games and let the gamer choose what graphics they want and what level of performance they want. But then, that goes against what many people consider as the console experience (just run it and let someone else determine what graphics level and performance you should play at).

Regards,
SB

 

I'm definitely an advocate for that.
But I don't think it's mutually exclusive.
I think you can have the current settings menu, and an advanced one behind a warning dialogue box.
Doesn't even need to expose everything, just a lot more.

Simple example is, until get good options for VRR either people complain its not locked or not making good use of it depending on what display is capable of.
Especially when you consider for xbox it's promoted right up there as a feature.