Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2021]

[Cyan]

No Alex. lol. That PSU.

seen this one a couple of days ago -haven't seen the new episode yet- aaaaaaaand...., I am in love with high framerates too.

On Bloodstained Ritual of the Night -gamepass PC- when I play the game at 165fps -max of my monitor- I can chain the special moves with the Kung Fu Shoes much easier than at 60 or 82 fps. I say 82 'cos for whatever reason if I set the screen to Full Screen it caps at that framerate.

But like in this news https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...-is-better-on-xbox-game-pass-pc-than-on-steam talking about the improvements of Nier Automata in the gp PC version compared to Steam version, the Borderless Window setting allows me to run the game at 165fps, huge improvement.

 

[iroboto]

But don't they kind of have DRS anyways when in "Quality Mode"? Should be able to leverage the work done there for the PS5 native, did different team(s) handle the Xbox/PC version than the PS5 version?

the alternative assuming that the port to DRS quality mode is trivial... is that CPU wise, avengers is too taxing at 60fps.
That heavy tax, if pulling significant resources will pull away from the GPU's ability to maintain it's 2.23Ghz. And thus CBR is the only way to keep that locked 60fps performance without significant re-writes to the pipeline.

It's generally something we don't have to think about for XSX. But it's a factor we need to keep in mind for PS5. Unfortunately we've never seen benchmarks that showcase a CPU factor that drags down performance, but we also can't rule it out just because we haven't found a way to measure that. (and we won't likely be able to)

 

[Rootax]

If Sony doesn't improve its BC tools, then having BC in PS5 was a waste of time and possibly wasted R&D ($) which could have gone towards a beefier GPU design. And if the thought process is "no one really cares for BC on PS5," then Sony should have really skipped on BC.

I'm glad I played Ghost of Tsushima @60fps...

 

[snc]

If Sony doesn't improve its BC tools, then having BC in PS5 was a waste of time and possibly wasted R&D ($) which could have gone towards a beefier GPU design. And if the thought process is "no one really cares for BC on PS5," then Sony should have really skipped on BC.

strongly disagree hehe, bc is imho surprisingly good on ps5 tough even better on xsx

 

[BoardBonobo]

I don't see what the fuss is about BC on the PS5. It works, I haven't encountered one PS4 game that hasn't worked. And in most cases they feel smoother anyway. And in the best cases they have small upgrades that make them more than they were originally. That's all the BC you need.

 

[Lurkmass]

If Sony doesn't improve its BC tools, then having BC in PS5 was a waste of time and possibly wasted R&D ($) which could have gone towards a beefier GPU design. And if the thought process is "no one really cares for BC on PS5," then Sony should have really skipped on BC.

BC isn't just only intended to improve performance for existing software but it's main outcome is to be compatible with current tools and artist pipelines. To Sony, their real end target with BC is so that developers can use their current art pipelines and be able to improve it quickly. Running older software is just a pure afterthought for them that just happened to work out ...

Even if you think that BC on PS5 doesn't provide much value to the end user, that doesn't mean it's necessarily true from a development perspective. They just have different priorities or expectations from the feature than you would desire. To them, BC is mostly important to achieving more powerful artist pipelines rather than being used to improve the performance of current games ...

 

[see colon]

BC isn't just only intended to improve performance for existing software but it's main outcome is to be compatible with current tools and artist pipelines. To Sony, their real end target with BC is so that developers can use their current art pipelines and be able to improve it quickly. Running older software is just a pure afterthought for them that just happened to work out ...

Even if you think that BC on PS5 doesn't provide much value to the end user, that doesn't mean it's necessarily true from a development perspective. They just have different priorities or expectations from the feature than you would desire. To them, BC is mostly important to achieving more powerful artist pipelines rather than being used to improve the performance of current games ...

While I agree with this, I think there is also the marketing that dictates that you don't want to have features missing that your competition has. Microsoft's push for BC really came from their lack of exclusives and sometimes slow releases during the Xbox One generation. Once they got it up and running, they ended up with a steady release schedule (weekly IIRC) of BC games, plus whatever new stuff they had coming out. And they announced/implied pretty early that Series would be backwards compatible out of the box. Sony wasn't going to let them have that without some sort of response, and the fact that they were sticking with AMD hardware that included the same feature sets and API compatibility as PS4, BC is a relatively easy feature to get working.

 

[Shortbread]

To them, BC is mostly important to achieving more powerful artist pipelines rather than being used to improve the performance of current games ...

This all sounds great for a developer, but not for a consumer. I'm not ragging on PS5 for having BC, I'm ragging on Sony's mediocre BC efforts in comparison to the competition as a consumer.

 

[London Geezer]

In my opinion, Sony's efforts are not mediocre per se, however they have elements which are so absolutely and needlessly complicated - such as the whole save transfer from PS4 thing - that it really makes you wonder. There is simply no reason I can think of for such a stupid and complicated system!

 

[see colon]

In my opinion, Sony's efforts are not mediocre per se, however they have elements which are so absolutely and needlessly complicated - such as the whole save transfer from PS4 thing - that it really makes you wonder. There is simply no reason I can think of for such a stupid and complicated system!

The whole Playstation ecosystem is like this. There are games that have separate trophies and save games if you play them from a disc or digital because the app id's are different.

 

[London Geezer]

The whole Playstation ecosystem is like this. There are games that have separate trophies and save games if you play them from a disc or digital because the app id's are different.

Well, ok, we knew that. It is now clear that this system creates situations which are just needlessly complicated.

Surely there should be a way to AT LEAST automatically transfer save files. And if not that, SURELY the 'system' should allow you to transfer a PS4 save file (which is already in the cloud) to the PS5 version, without having to re-download the bloody PS4 version of the game first!

 

[Shortbread]

Well, ok, we knew that. It is now clear that this system creates situations which are just needlessly complicated.

Surely there should be a way to AT LEAST automatically transfer save files. And if not that, SURELY the 'system' should allow you to transfer a PS4 save file (which is already in the cloud) to the PS5 version, without having to re-download the bloody PS4 version of the game first!

Even after installing Spider-Man on PS5 (physical version) and updating it, it still requires me to go back to my PS4 (which is packed up now) and update the PS4 version for some odd reason, and then transfer my save. Then what's the point of having a cloud save... SMH.

 

[BRiT]

Well, ok, we knew that. It is now clear that this system creates situations which are just needlessly complicated.

Surely there should be a way to AT LEAST automatically transfer save files. And if not that, SURELY the 'system' should allow you to transfer a PS4 save file (which is already in the cloud) to the PS5 version, without having to re-download the bloody PS4 version of the game first!

Except that isn't really what's being done, if I had to guess. I assume the Sony Game Saves and Sony Cloud Saves are encrypted and only accessible via the game specific certificate and/or mix of Game SKU Id.

What's likely being done on the systems where PS5 game saves are "transferable" is actually more than just copying of a file:

1. Developer implements their own Cloud Storage system
2. Developer adds ability to save the game state to their Developer Cloud Storage system
3. Developer adds ability to load the game state from their Developer Cloud Storage system
4. User loads up old version of game that can load game state from the Sony Game Save on Console or Sony Cloud Storage
5. User kicks off new feature to save game state to Developer Cloud Storage
6. User loads up new version of game that can load from the Developer Cloud Storage

 

[London Geezer]

Except that isn't really what's being done, if I had to guess. I assume the Sony Game Saves and Sony Cloud Saves are encrypted and only accessible via the game specific certificate and/or mix of Game SKU Id.

What's likely being done on the systems where PS5 game saves are "transferable" is actually more than just copying of a file:

1. Developer implements their own Cloud Storage system
2. Developer adds ability to save the game state to their Developer Cloud Storage system
3. Developer adds ability to load the game state from their Developer Cloud Storage system
4. User loads up old version of game that can load game state from the Sony Game Save on Console or Sony Cloud Storage
5. User kicks off new feature to save game state to Developer Cloud Storage
6. User loads up new version of game that can load from the Developer Cloud Storage

It shouldn’t be this f’kin complicated! What happens to “it just works”?

 

[Nisaaru]

While I agree with this, I think there is also the marketing that dictates that you don't want to have features missing that your competition has. Microsoft's push for BC really came from their lack of exclusives and sometimes slow releases during the Xbox One generatio.

If you think their 360 emulation on the One was just a spur of moment response because they didn't have that many first party titles I have a bridge to sell you. It takes real time to get emulations right and I wouldn't be surprised if the team which started this wasn't even sure how well it would work out.

 

[BRiT]

It shouldn’t be this f’kin complicated! What happens to “it just works”?

That's on Xbox Network.

 

[Arwin]

My sons save for Spider-Man just worked though, thanks to the full system and User transfer I guess?

My own God of War save just worked also.

 

[Allandor]

It shouldn’t be this f’kin complicated! What happens to “it just works”?

Security reasons. An app has an ID and can only access data stored for the app. So if they make a new build of the game just of the PS5 it seems it needs a new ID so the PS4 knows that it can't use the "app".
If MS wouldn't use their "smartdelivery" names system, they would have the same problem. But as the games are more or less cross-compatible they can use the same IDs and therefore access the same storage.
Sony should really have a kind of "mapping" system for their app-IDs but the problem could be that the savegames are not really cross-compatible and therefore they would need to agree with every developer that make theirs saves cross-compatible.

 

[see colon]

If you think their 360 emulation on the One was just a spur of moment response because they didn't have that many first party titles I have a bridge to sell you. It takes real time to get emulations right and I wouldn't be surprised if the team which started this wasn't even sure how well it would work out.

BC wasn't publicly available for the first year and a half of the Xbox One's life. I'm not saying that no work had been done prior, because we know that's not true because of public statements. Actually, back then they hinted at using "the power of the cloud" to achieve BC on Xbox one. But I think for sure the rollout in preview a year and a half after launch and a full rollout at the two year mark were absolutely a response to the lack of content Xbox had. Go back and look at first party titles from 2014 for Xbox one. It was a pretty sad time for the brand, and they needed a win. This isn't to suggest that they woke up one day and thought, we can do this by tomorrow. But not long after launch, in that first year of tragedy and sadness for Xbox, yeah, I think they really decided to push forward and make it work. They could see the exclusives drying up. They knew they were at a hardware disadvantage. They lost the marketing deal for early COD content. If you don't think in 2013 Microsoft didn't look a year or two down the road and see a content problem, I have a bridge to sell you.

Also, it's not exactly emulation, and if you remember back to release, it wasn't perfect either. That took time to get right even after it was available to the masses.

 

[BRiT]

But I think for sure the rollout in preview a year and a half after launch and a full rollout at the two year mark were absolutely a response to the lack of content Xbox had.

The Xbox One has hardware features for Backwards Compatibility, thus BC is not and never was a reaction or a response. It was planned for before the SOC was even taped out.