Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2021]

[Dictator]

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.

Indeed those are the words that I said. It would appear people cannot listen.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1431066801572618247

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.

For example, did you actually listen to what I said? I said I would not publish the list they gave me, but I never said "I will not compare PC to xbox bc MS said not to". Like seriously, did you even watch my flight sim coverage... I compared Xbox to PC in it lol.

WRT to what Asobo giving me settings for the game on PC - I asked them out of curiosity sake - honestly never expecting them to give it to me in a 1:1 form. And they did. My sharing that cool info with the DF audience is supposed to be a positive not a negative - only a loser console warrior would think otherwise.

Developers constantly tell us things in our channels facing them that we do not write or talk about publicly when they ask us not to. Sony devs, MS devs, whatever.

 

[pharma]

WRT to what Asobo giving me settings for the game on PC - I asked them out of curiosity sake - honestly never expecting them to give it to me in a 1:1 form. And they did. My sharing that cool info with the DF audience is supposed to be a positive not a negative - only a loser console warrior would think otherwise.

Going forward there might not be benefit to ask dev's for console game settings unless they have no issues to performing a "public " comparisons between PC and console.

 

[Dictator]

Going forward there might not be benefit to ask dev's for console game settings unless they have no issues to performing a "public " comparisons between PC and console.

I can still of course perform a "public" comparison between PC and console, but I just could not reproduce the list of settings as is. As an example - I could use that list of settings to say how say... a laptop 3070 performs next to the Xbox Series X version and put that in a video, but in that same video I would not say point for point what all those settings were.
In fact - we have that content coming in a video already...

 

[Deleted member 86764]

only a loser console warrior would think otherwise.

I can't begin to imagine how frustrating it must be having people constantly taking your comments out of context and putting words into your mouth, but I do think comments like this should be beneath you.

 

[Dictator]

I can't begin to imagine how frustrating it must be having people constantly taking your comments out of context and putting words into your mouth, but I do think comments like this should be beneath you.

As nice as it is to be nice, I do not ascribe to the idea that people that lie about me, my work, or what I say deserve coddling or any level of courtesy. Especially if you look at the words and motives of someone like "The Red Dragon" on twitter - who is obviously a console warrior.

 

[Seanspeed]

As nice as it is to be nice, I do not ascribe to the idea that people that lie about me, my work, or what I say deserve coddling or any level of courtesy. Especially if you look at the words and motives of someone like "The Red Dragon" on twitter - who is obviously a console warrior.

I get it. But given your position as a public face of a notable outlet, you *really* should learn to be able to defend yourself in a more....subdued manner. Even if you're not wrong about your judgements of them, lashing out at viewers looks bad.

Let us handle that sort of thing.

 

[Karamazov]

When you get insulted by tens of "viewers" each time you put your work online it must be hard to keep cool and stay nice 100% of the time.

 

[pjbliverpool]

I could use that list of settings to say how say... a laptop 3070 performs next to the Xbox Series X version and put that in a video

Can't wait for this! As nice as it is to know what settings produce an exact match to the console versions, seeing the performance comparisons at what we know to be exact settings matches (even if we don't know what those settings are) is more interesting to me.

 

[Dr. Nick]

 

[snc]

perf 60fps mode dynamic 4k, in one scene res drop on ps5 to 1684p, xsx to1890p, no fps drops on ps5, few small on xsx, rt only on ps5 (bug on xsx?)

 

[mr magoo]

Oh wow no rt on xsx that’s juicy! Let me grab a popcorn and see what “experts” have to say in video comments section.

 

[Karamazov]

they mock the XsX like XsX fanboys mocked the PS5 when RT was removed from the PS5 version of F1 2021.
And then the game will be patched.

 

[Nesh]

perf 60fps mode dynamic 4k, in one scene res drop on ps5 to 1684p, xsx to1890p, no fps drops on ps5, few small on xsx, rt only on ps5 (bug on xsx?)

Exmpox doesnt have da powuh of PiEsFaiv secret Cerny Sauce!
Jokes aside I am really curious why.
Bug? Omission? It has more than enough performance. But it is also curious why thye PS5 slightly outperforms the Series X in framerate. Maybe RT had a bigger performance impact and it they deliberately disabled it until they figured out why and patch it later

 

[snc]

Exmpox doesnt have da powuh of PiEsFaiv secret Cerny Sauce!
Jokes aside I am really curious why.
Bug? Omission? It has more than enough performance. But it is also curious why thye PS5 slightly outperforms the Series X in framerate. Maybe RT had a bigger performance impact and it they deliberately disabled it until they figured out why and patch it later

maybe this game xbox dev team wasn't as capable as the one working on ps5 version

 

[mr magoo]

maybe this game xbox dev team wasn't as capable as the one working on ps5 version

the XSX version was handled by janitor and he was forbidden to use google or stack oevrflow. You have 2 weeks Steve! Deal with it!

 

[Dr. Nick]

 

[Jay]

Xess doesn't need to use Nvidia tensor cores, it just needs to be performant enough to compete well enough to make it the default go to as it runs on broader range of cards.

Using SM6.4(think it is) dp4a should be ok so doesn't matter if its not using direct ml.

I would expect Intel reference dp4a implementation to also just work on XS consoles which may also help take up.

If xess overheard is only determined by output resolution like dlss then on XSS would be better to aim for 1080p-1440p(preferably upper end)

 

[Dr. Nick]

Quote from video

I don't quite get my head around the strategy of getting 74 titles out on day one. Because it meant that a lot of good games didn't get the coverage they deserved.

When it comes to BC related enhancements, I hope they get as many titles done and ready to go as possible in enormous batches. I believe they released two FPS boost updates before the the 74 titles update. How much of your Xbox One library did those two initial updates cover? My guess very little if any. That FPS Boost of 74 titles did very little for me because out of those 74 titles the only one that I own is Tomb Raider Definitive Edition and I only bought that one after because FPS update. I have little to no intention of buying the vast majority of the other titles on that list but I'm sure hitting so many titles all at the same time made that update very meaningful to great deal of Xbox owners and had some impact on their games library one way or another.

So I am all for it if they dropped a new list containing, Auto HDR, FPS boost, Res boost, or 360/OG Xbox BC updates of 200 games tomorrow because it would likely include at least one or two of the games that are in my library or something that I might be willing purchase. Something that large it would be hard to say it had no impact on you at all as an Xbox owner. I think that is what these updates are all about providing something meaningful to as many Xbox owners/Game Pass Subscribers as possible.

The lower the core resolution that you are AI upscaling from the kind of more computationally expensive your AI upscaling solution needs to be to make it look good. Because fundamentally the lower the internal pixel count the more limited your scaling possibilities are.

If it can do 900p to 1440p and 720p to 1080 they might be set. Better yet, if the AI upscaler can take whatever odd internal resolution the developer gives it so that a game can hit a stable 60 or 30fps it would be the best way to go, right? Many of the internal resolutions they are talking about are standard res but from what we see with consoles, the internal resolutions can vary drastically from game to game. So if they came up with something that would take whatever resolution the developer gives it and AI upscales it I think devs could find the prefect balance between performance and quality if Microsoft ever comes out with a solution.

 

[Seanspeed]

The thing with the Series S vs Series X when talking about AI upsampling is that the hardware differences still need to be considered in relative terms. This is why I'm not fully onboard with the whole "Oh the Series S will be fine as soon as 'x' feature(SFS, AI upsampling, whatever) starts getting taken advantage of" argument.

For instance, if a game is using AI upsampling on the Series X to go from 1080p to 4k, it means the base performance profile is based around 1080p. So it doesn't make sense to say that the Series S would then just do 720p to 1440p, because the hardware gap between the S and X is bigger than just 720p vs 1080p. Series S would need to go lower in terms of the base resolution and then probably output resolution. Which sure, can work, but obviously you're dealing with noticeably worse results.

Similar situation with memory and sampler feedback streaming. Especially with memory, cuz memory doesn't necessarily just scale as nicely with resolution as performance does. If a game is built to push the Series X and its 16GB of RAM while utilizing SFS, then the same discrepancy exists between it and the Series S as a game that isn't using SFS. SFS doesn't save the Series S unless it's a tool that's primarily used to help the Series S instead of pushing what the Series X can do. Which I think we all know isn't gonna be the case, especially farther down the line.

 

[Dr. Nick]

Similar situation with memory and sampler feedback streaming. Especially with memory, cuz memory doesn't necessarily just scale as nicely with resolution as performance does. If a game is built to push the Series X and its 16GB of RAM while utilizing SFS, then the same discrepancy exists between it and the Series S as a game that isn't using SFS. SFS doesn't save the Series S unless it's a tool that's primarily used to help the Series S instead of pushing what the Series X can do. Which I think we all know isn't gonna be the case, especially farther down the line.

While this might be controversial to say, I believe many of these features were added with S in mind. The Series X can pretty much brute force it but the Series S is where these features are supposed to shine and in the end help the Series X down the road. Currently this generation I find the series S to be the most interesting console because I think Microsoft gambled that all of the efficiency features would help it hold it's own throughout the entirety this generation.