Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2022]

[Cyan]

a guy found a "fix", but he mentions that it might not work for everyone. He has a RTX 2080.

The fix is:

- Use DirectX11 instead of DX12 (he mentions that visually wise, there is no difference)
- Don't enable RT
- Use FSR2, not DLSS even if you have a nVidia card!
- Fullscreen (NO borderless window)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

not at all how it works at all for any big game, even one that’s basically running stock ue4, and this game has looks like it has a ton of rendering changes.

Devs are rewriting large parts of the engine to suit their game? and in doing so they can introduce platform specific optimisations? But even then, what are they doing with PS5 that is stumbling on XBSX? Is the API forcing subtle but important variances?

 

[pjbliverpool]

a guy found a "fix", but he mentions that it might not work for everyone. He has a RTX 2080.

The fix is:

- Use DirectX11 instead of DX12 (he mentions that visually wise, there is no difference)
- Don't enable RT
- Use FSR2, not DLSS even if you have a nVidia card!
- Fullscreen (NO borderless window)

I thought there was no DLSS in this game in the first place? And I definitely wouldn't consider turning off RT as a fix, the difference is huge.

 

[cwjs]

Devs are rewriting large parts of the engine to suit their game? and in doing so they can introduce platform specific optimisations? But even then, what are they doing with PS5 that is stumbling on XBSX? Is the API forcing subtle but important variances?

Yes, to some extent they’re surely editing the engine — but also the engine can’t magically resolve every situation, and there’s a massive amount of “game code” that has to do with loading assets, rendering assets, streaming content, etc, which can and will introduce platform specific bugs, including performance bugs.

Any large game codebase will have tons of little platform specific bugs in the game code which can have significant performance impacts.

sometimes it’s “I’m doing this wrong, but it’s harmless on one platform but breaks the engines platform specific optimizations on another”, sometimes it’s “I need to branch per platform and write my own platform specific optimizations for this case”

Not to mention that the platforms in question have pretty different rendering software and hardware — it’s easy for even a small game to make art assets and shaders that run super fast on ps5 and super slow on Xbox.

 

[Cyan]

I thought there was no DLSS in this game in the first place? And I definitely wouldn't consider turning off RT as a fix, the difference is huge.

you might be right, I don't have the game tbh and I took that guy's words as if he was talking about DLSS. Anyways, he mentions to just use FSR2 whatever the other options are. Still, I wonder why they use RT and no DLSS, it makes no sense to me. The game might favour AMD hardware, fine. But they could consider that DLSS is nowadays the most advanced reconstruction technique, without taking anything from other techniques.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Still, I wonder why they use RT and no DLSS, it makes no sense to me.

The game is sponsored by AMD.

 

[Inuhanyou]

That motion capture execution is superb! Amazing detail in the virtual performances. Confused by the scope of differences between PS5 and XBS though. Like, put in UE4, press build, it runs. What are the optimisations a dev can do that means a game running on Zen2 & RDNA2+ can perform so differently? It's not like there's a hardware advantage on PS5 that is being lent on here like faster storage. Save faster CPU clocks.

I don't think it's a hw related issue. Just that they were more comfortable as smaller studio focusing on one platform at a time. It also helped they were being assisted by Sony in making the game directly.

Methinks the game would have been better served getting another team to port the game and not have them have to work on all skus at once, or had a staggered launch where they launched on PS first and Xbox and PC later. Altho that could also have been taken badly. But it's not the first time studios stagger releases because they can't focus on multiple at a time

 

[Inuhanyou]

The game is sponsored by AMD.

Same reason games sponsored by Nvidia will not have FSR. I think all these companies need to get over themselves and allow uniformity of technology across all PC hardware.

Withholding others tech is not some kind of marketing gimmick that shows yours is better. These days it just makes you look worse

 

[snc]

I am sure someone is going to think it was Sony's fault. They offer their studio in exchange to release broken versions on Microsoft platforms

150 sony emolyees working on Calisto, Im sure they were mostly helping with optimisation playstation version not creating memory leaks, stutters etc on other platforms :d

 

[chris1515]

150 sony emolyees working on Calisto, Im sure they were mostly helping with optimisation playstation version not creating memory leaks, stutters etc on other platforms :d

This is Sony VASG Malaysia is a support studio for art. Sony VASG helped on Jedi Fallen Order and there is no problem on Xbox Machine and here it is the same art and performance capture.

 

[chris1515]

How PlayStation Studios Malaysia is Playing a Growing Role in Sony's Most Important Franchises - IGN

Founded in 2020, PlayStation Malaysia is Sony's newest studio, but its role in the PlayStation ecosystem has largely been a mystery... until now.

www.ign.com

They aren't programmer but help on art creation, animation and motion capture maybe cleaning mocap data. There isn't a performance capture studio in Malaysia.

The new Malaysia studio was founded in Kuala Lumpur as a support studio, working closely with PlayStation’s Creative Arts team based in San Diego, and more specifically the Visual Arts team within it. The studio has 77 employees working on creating character models and other visual assets as well as motion capture and more.

 

[snc]

This is Sony VASG Malaysia is a support studio for art. Sony VASG helped on Jedi Fallen Order and there is no problem on Xbox Machine and here it is the same art and performance capture.

True, if they are art studio they couldn't help much in performance tweaks.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Good to at least own up to it. Certainly better than Capcom's usual radio silence for months when a patch is needed.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1598800318627983360

 

[Remij]

Good to at least own up to it. Certainly better than Capcom's usual radio silence for months when a patch is needed.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1598800318627983360

I really love Glen, and I honestly feel bad for him. I know he's not the tech guy... but this is his game.

I'm not happy. I want to hear exactly how this happened in the first place. How is it possible that nobody could have known it was like that?

QA goes right to the damn top. It's not just some testers in a room somewhere. They signed off on this by pushing it out.

 

[trinibwoy]

Strange, this isn't on their man page and has been uploaded 5 hours ago.

YouTube’s encoding really is atrocious. Lots of artifacting in dark areas which makes it impossible to appreciate the supposedly great graphics.

 

[Inuhanyou]

YouTube’s encoding really is atrocious. Lots of artifacting in dark areas which makes it impossible to appreciate the supposedly great graphics.

I dunno. I'm on a phone and I can see how great and detailed the environments and character modeling is

 

[trinibwoy]

I dunno. I'm on a phone and I can see how great and detailed the environments and character modeling is

The artifacts are a lot less apparent on a small phone screen. I watched the video on a 38” monitor and while the environment detail is visible the overall presentation is degraded considerably.

 

[Cyan]

Same reason games sponsored by Nvidia will not have FSR. I think all these companies need to get over themselves and allow uniformity of technology across all PC hardware.

Withholding others tech is not some kind of marketing gimmick that shows yours is better. These days it just makes you look worse

true that! Ideally all games would have FSR 2, XeSS and DLSS, without having to resort to wrappers. I could even understand that new technologies like XeSS have lesser coverage for now, but forbidding the user to play a game using another technology is a new low. As fine as FSR 2 is, DLSS has the edge.

Tbh I am curious about this game, to check how it runs. The GPU of my PC is slow at most DX11 games so I don't bother with DX 11 -nor 10 nor 9- and just use DXVK -Vulkan- in most DX11 -10,9,8,7- games, or DGVoodoo2.

The Callisto Protocol is a game where I'd use DXVK on every GPU to see what happens -this has proven beneficial in some games even for AMD and nVidia hardware-.

 

[iroboto]

YouTube’s encoding really is atrocious. Lots of artifacting in dark areas which makes it impossible to appreciate the supposedly great graphics.

Ah. The DF subscriber special. That’s what it’s for!

 

[Below2D]

Same reason games sponsored by Nvidia will not have FSR. I think all these companies need to get over themselves and allow uniformity of technology across all PC hardware.

Withholding others tech is not some kind of marketing gimmick that shows yours is better. These days it just makes you look worse

They might implement it at a later date. Spider-Man and Uncharted are both sponsored by NVIDIA and they have FSR/DLSS. FSR was even in Uncharted at launch.