Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2022]

[Flappy Pannus]

Jesus. I hate this. It makes RT on older cards completely unplayable.

See my review here. It's basically just one of those tacked-on settings that ups the precision to a ridiculous level so it can say "Ultra" in the settings, the next-lower tier of raytracred reflections doubles performance, and RT ambient occlusion/additional shadows barely has any effect on framerate. Really RT in this game is somewhat superfluous imo, but in general the game is actually very well optimized - it's only issue is really the initial shader stutter.

I usually don't get that excited on additional features that are advertised for PC ports that weren't in the originals, precisely because there's no optimization - they're slapped in with minimal effort and can often just serve as appeasement to have 'Ultra' settings. Hence we have so many videos on why 'Ultra settings are stupid'. This is kind of the case here, but Sackboy is also extremely scalable, so this isn't actually restricting the game to most buyers. Of all the Sony ports this probably is one of the best performing.

 

[PSman1700]

 

[Cyan]

does anyone here disable screen space reflections and AO in games that feature native raytracing? After playing a few games with raytracing on, 4K 60fps with classic lighting (which is very easy to achieve with GPUs like RTX 3000, A770, Radeon 6700 etc) doesn't look as appealing to me.

The difference RT can make is staggering in some games. Like here (I set the video to start at 1:15)

There's also this video:

A couple of things to point out.

- The RE2 Remake outcry regarding the performance of RE2 Remake RT DX12 was imho unjustified. The pre-patch DX12 version of RE2R, which is the one that I always played on my PC, was significantly (12 to 15fps) slower than the DX11 version on my GTX 1080. But it was more than good enough to achieve constant 1440p 60fps.

I didn't play the DX11 version 'cos I used to play Claire's campaign and in the DX11 version there was a bug -never heard of it from other people, but happened to me like 2 or 3 times- where the screen would go completely black (which was impossible to fix) during the scene where Claire uses the computer where she sees in the cam how the police is shooting a zombie who wants to eat him-.

Also people complained about the fact that without DX11 support the mods of the game -which were meant for the DX11 version- didn't work.

- Nowadays there is no slowdown at all on the A770 during the scene of the vampire girl surrounded by thousands of bats. (maybe they fixed that with a patch?)

 

[Remij]

- Nowadays there is no slowdown at all on the A770 during the scene of the vampire girl surrounded by thousands of bats. (maybe they fixed that with a patch?)

They did fix that. It was apparently related to their anti-piracy implementation. Same with the stutter that would happen when you shot/killed enemies.

I played the Gold Edition demo and it's incredibly smooth and polished now. I did not see a single blip on the frametimes throughout the entire thing. Hopefully they learned their lesson after the RE8 debacle and RE4 Remake will be great!

 

[Cyan]

They did fix that. It was apparently related to their anti-piracy implementation. Same with the stutter that would happen when you shot/killed enemies.

I played the Gold Edition demo and it's incredibly smooth and polished now. I did not see a single blip on the frametimes throughout the entire thing. Hopefully they learned their lesson after the RE8 debacle and RE4 Remake will be great!

the Gold Edition is the one with the new DLC, right? I preordered it some time ago although I haven't completed the game until today. Winter's Expansion shall be next.

That being said, I followed DF advice on recommended settings. I was torn in two over having to decide whether to use Interlaced or Normal, but for whatever reason I can't stand the blocky graphics of some objects and effects in interlaced mode. It reminds me of the noses of people in Skyrim console version, which looked like they were made of squares.

edit: just watched this.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

the Gold Edition is the one with the new DLC, right? I preordered it some time ago although I haven't completed the game until today. Winter's Expansion shall be next.

That being said, I followed DF advice on recommended settings. I was torn in two over having to decide whether to use Interlaced or Normal, but for whatever reason I can't stand the blocky graphics of some objects and effects in interlaced mode. It reminds me of the noses of people in Skyrim console version, which looked like they were made of squares.

Interlaced mode should be a lot better, it works very well on consoles. The problem as the DF video illustrates, is that it's working from their flawed TAA implementation on the PC.

In RE2/3, the updated interlaced mode works well enough even with these detriments, in Village however there are particular areas where the poor implementation really breaks down, specifically with the specular reflections on all the brasswork in the mansion. Interlaced mode produces very noticeable shimmering with those materials, in Village if you're going for more performance, then FSR - even though it's just 1.0 - actually ends up working a lot better, at least with Ultra Quality which gives me similar performance to interlaced.

 

[Cyan]

Interlaced mode should be a lot better, it works very well on consoles. The problem as the DF video illustrates, is that it's working from their flawed TAA implementation on the PC.

In RE2/3, the updated interlaced mode works well enough even with these detriments, in Village however there are particular areas where the poor implementation really breaks down, specifically with the specular reflections on all the brasswork in the mansion. Interlaced mode produces very noticeable shimmering with those materials, in Village if you're going for more performance, then FSR - even though it's just 1.0 - actually ends up working a lot better, at least with Ultra Quality which gives me similar performance to interlaced.

now that you mention it, Capcom published a small patch for Resident Evil 2 Remake, and they mention some tweak related to TAA, for a different reason I guess. They could also tweak Village. RE2R is one of my favourite games ever, and I want to complete it once again with RT on.

The following updates have been made for Resident Evil 2.
- Correction of typos in the porting credits.
- Fixed a bug in which the 'TAA' anti-aliasing graphics option was not functioning properly.
- Fixed a bug in which the 'Image Quality' graphics option was not functioning properly.

p.s. wish we could see a Alien Isolation game with RT on.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

now that you mention it, Capcom published a small patch for Resident Evil 2 Remake, and they mention some tweak related to TAA, for a different reason I guess.

Yeah I covered that here, no change in quality so not sure what those patch notes were referring to.

 

[Cyan]

Yeah I covered that here, no change in quality so not sure what those patch notes were referring to.

btw, maybe it is just that RE Village Interlace mode is just lower quality? I mean, I am playing RE2 Remake while writing this post and something I noticed is that the GPU runs RE Village with Interlace mode as silent as a tomb (4K, RT on). However at the same graphics settings in RE2 Remake (4K, RT on too), the IQ not only looks much cleaner but the GPU fans certainly make some noise -it's not noisy, but the difference is day and night compared to when you play RE Village using Interlace mode-.

 

[SmooTh]

 

[Flappy Pannus]

btw, maybe it is just that RE Village Interlace mode is just lower quality? I mean, I am playing RE2 Remake while writing this post and something I noticed is that the GPU runs RE Village with Interlace mode as silent as a tomb (4K, RT on). However at the same graphics settings in RE2 Remake (4K, RT on too), the IQ not only looks much cleaner but the GPU fans certainly make some noise -it's not noisy, but the difference is day and night compared to when you play RE Village using Interlace mode-.

I think it's more that Village just has much higher quality textures and materials that expose the weaknesses of their TAA implementation on PC. All of them have the same issue, it's just that certain art assets will make this more visible - such as Mia's hair and some specular surfaces in RE7 which look awful with interlaced mode, while other areas look almost identical to native.

 

[Cyan]

I think it's more that Village just has much higher quality textures and materials that expose the weaknesses of their TAA implementation on PC. All of them have the same issue, it's just that certain art assets will make this more visible - such as Mia's hair and some specular surfaces in RE7 which look awful with interlaced mode, while other areas look almost identical to native.

shrug, it could be a cause. What puzzles me though is that in Interlace mod in RE Village the GPU is resting in its laurels -not the faintest sound from the GPU fans-. FSR Quality and Ultra Quality modes are more demanding, fans start to spin, quietly but there is a difference. And Interlace mode in RE2 Remake is quite demanding, judging by how the GPU fans spin at a moderate speed and GPU's performance stats.

 

[Riddlewire]

At the risk of running afoul of the current narrative, I don't think it was of critical importance that this game possessed a 60hz mode.
Spend twice as much time building the frames and deliver something remarkable at 30fps.
It's certainly nice-looking, but perhaps falling into the "jaw dropping" category would have served it better.

 

[Cyan]

can't wait for DF video on CoD Modern Warfare 2. I got the game to play the campaign and the quality level of the lighting is....

 

[Flappy Pannus]

At the risk of running afoul of the current narrative, I don't think it was of critical importance that this game possessed a 60hz mode.
Spend twice as much time building the frames and deliver something remarkable at 30fps.
It's certainly nice-looking, but perhaps falling into the "jaw dropping" category would have served it better.

It had nearly 8 years of development. Don't think massively expanding the art budget was really feasible, and regardless the aesthetics are really the least of its problems.

 

[Nesh]

At the risk of running afoul of the current narrative, I don't think it was of critical importance that this game possessed a 60hz mode.
Spend twice as much time building the frames and deliver something remarkable at 30fps.
It's certainly nice-looking, but perhaps falling into the "jaw dropping" category would have served it better.

Honestly now I have no idea what else they could have added to the visuals. Its a small studio to my understanding and a lot of crazy work has been put into designing such complex biomechanical environments.
I am sure the technical and design challenge was over the roof for the artists.

 

[Jay]

Honestly now I have no idea what else they could have added to the visuals. Its a small studio to my understanding and a lot of crazy work has been put into designing such complex biomechanical environments.
I am sure the technical and design challenge was over the roof for the artists.

Agree, art and asset overall is very well done.
They could work on XSX framerate though. With bigger budget gun play mechanic stuff.

I really think that xbox needs their own internal DF team that gives any GP day 1 (exclusive) game a look over couple months out from release, they could've helped polish framerate.

 

[davis.anthony]

Honestly now I have no idea what else they could have added to the visuals. Its a small studio to my understanding and a lot of crazy work has been put into designing such complex biomechanical environments.
I am sure the technical and design challenge was over the roof for the artists.

RTGI would have gone down a treat.

 

[Dampf]

RTGI would have gone down a treat.

How so? There are nearly no dynamic light sources in the game and there is no day night cycle either. In that kind of game, I don't think RTGI makes sense.

 

[davis.anthony]

How so? There are nearly no dynamic light sources in the game and there is no day night cycle either. In that kind of game, I don't think RTGI makes sense.

There are still light sources in the game to use for RTGI, it would likely make the game darker but more atmospheric at the same time.

There's area's in the game where the lighting and brightness of a scene just doesn't make sense given the low amount of light sources so RTGI would make perfect sense as it would in every game.