Ahhh yes. Back in the day. 2020, when we were all such young lads and lasses.
Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2022]
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Back when this was all fields.Ahhh yes. Back in the day. 2020, when we were all such young lads and lasses.
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DF Article @ https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...77-next-gen-patch-the-digital-foundry-verdict
Cyberpunk 2077's next-gen patch tested on PS5 and Xbox Series consoles
The Digital Foundry verdict.
Welcome back to Cyberpunk 2077, a game transformed for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. The prior 'back-compat plus' versions of the game yield to a brand-new rendition based on current-gen SDKs, allowing CD Projekt RED to fully tap into the capabilities of the new wave of consoles. This is a game with a troubled history and this new 1.5 upgrade delivers both 30fps ray tracing and an enhanced 60fps performance mode, combined with other current-gen improvements such as improved loading times - but how much of an upgrade do users actually get?
First up, it's worth addressing the elephant in the room: Xbox Series S. There's no dressing this one up, the junior Xbox has no graphics toggle at all and is set to simply run at a dynamic 1440p, at 30 frames per second. In pixel counts that's actually a range of between 2304x1296, up to 2560x1440 based on my testing. Purely on a surface level here it's a shame to see it miss out on a 60fps mode (CDPR says it's investigating adding it) but equally, no ray tracing features are enabled either. Still, the overall quality of life improvements on patch 1.50 do make Cyberpunk more playable - just don't expect any revolutionary boosts to its visuals in this case. For that, we have to turn back to PS5 and Series X, where for the first time on console, ray traced shadows are enabled, working in combination with improved screen-space reflections.
Despite talk of 4K, our tests strongly suggest that the RT modes on both consoles render at a native 1440p. Dynamic resolution scaling may be in effect, but all results on all consoles deliver the same value in every scenario - which raises the question: what does RT actually do? Outdoors, the impact of RT shadows is fairly muted to the point where even in direct head-to-head comparisons, you may have trouble noticing the difference between the quality and performance modes. Indoors, it's a different ball game, where sharp directional lighting can really demonstrate the upgrade. RT produces more realistic shadows, following the real-world logic where the further an object is from the light source, the more diffuse the outline becomes. The same goes for vehicle barriers, small items around V's apartment and even the pillows on their bed. The effect is often subtle. In select spots though, shadows fully envelope a scene to create an obviously richer, deeper image.
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Cyberpunk 2077's next-gen patch tested on PS5 and Xbox Series consoles
The Digital Foundry verdict.
Welcome back to Cyberpunk 2077, a game transformed for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. The prior 'back-compat plus' versions of the game yield to a brand-new rendition based on current-gen SDKs, allowing CD Projekt RED to fully tap into the capabilities of the new wave of consoles. This is a game with a troubled history and this new 1.5 upgrade delivers both 30fps ray tracing and an enhanced 60fps performance mode, combined with other current-gen improvements such as improved loading times - but how much of an upgrade do users actually get?
First up, it's worth addressing the elephant in the room: Xbox Series S. There's no dressing this one up, the junior Xbox has no graphics toggle at all and is set to simply run at a dynamic 1440p, at 30 frames per second. In pixel counts that's actually a range of between 2304x1296, up to 2560x1440 based on my testing. Purely on a surface level here it's a shame to see it miss out on a 60fps mode (CDPR says it's investigating adding it) but equally, no ray tracing features are enabled either. Still, the overall quality of life improvements on patch 1.50 do make Cyberpunk more playable - just don't expect any revolutionary boosts to its visuals in this case. For that, we have to turn back to PS5 and Series X, where for the first time on console, ray traced shadows are enabled, working in combination with improved screen-space reflections.
Despite talk of 4K, our tests strongly suggest that the RT modes on both consoles render at a native 1440p. Dynamic resolution scaling may be in effect, but all results on all consoles deliver the same value in every scenario - which raises the question: what does RT actually do? Outdoors, the impact of RT shadows is fairly muted to the point where even in direct head-to-head comparisons, you may have trouble noticing the difference between the quality and performance modes. Indoors, it's a different ball game, where sharp directional lighting can really demonstrate the upgrade. RT produces more realistic shadows, following the real-world logic where the further an object is from the light source, the more diffuse the outline becomes. The same goes for vehicle barriers, small items around V's apartment and even the pillows on their bed. The effect is often subtle. In select spots though, shadows fully envelope a scene to create an obviously richer, deeper image.
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There could be plenty of reasons. My guess is because of maybe lower CPU latencies on PS5 as it was designed with a focus on lower latencies (CPU and GPU) for PSVR2. We know the ex-software engineer Matt specifically talked about that when people were theorizing XSX CPU would be better only based on very slight (~5%) higher clocks.
We know Zen 2 latencies on PS5 are actually decent as the Zen 2 here is based on a quite recent mobile Zen 2 kind (based on those latencies), but we do know nothing about XSX Zen 2 latencies. But it's not the first time some CPU bound game / scene perform a better on PS5 for instance in DMC5.
PS5 CPU latencies:
If I remember correctly, which was later patched to resolve the issues. There were quite a few titles that DF looked at that were resolved with patches.
Maybe you rember AC Valhala which made a patch that improved the Series X but the PS5 performed worse in comparison after the update.
I know there was a Remedy title which was made nearly perfect after a few patches and some others, I just don't recall the specifics. It was mentioned during a DF Weekly.
I dont think the differences between Zen2 on XSX/PS5 are large enough for anyone enduser to notice it.
There are no 'recent' Zen2 laptop CPU's as i know about. Zen2 is quite aging now, all (gaming, as i think the subject is) laptops are Zen3+ parts since along time now.
I cant thinkoff any other reason then code/optimizations for the XSX fairing worse in any CPU related things.
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Platform priorities, perhaps?
CDPR still shellshocked by Sony yanking the game from the store. As well as the much larger install base of PS5 over XSX.
Just speculation.
PS5 CPU latencies:
Those latencies are higher than for the full fat Zen 2 APU arrangement as seen in the likes of the 4800U, probably because of clock speed. Broadly, those "PS5" figures seem to be scaling in line with clock speed as you would expect - the charts show ns not cycles. Here are the figures for the 4800U from Anand:
The 4800U boost to 4.2 ghz, which is likely where it was when testing inter core latencies.
There's nothing to suggest that PS5 inter core latencies are particularly different than regular Zen 2, which is almost certainly what XSX is using.
If anything, those 4700S figures indicate an absence of secret latency sauce for PS5 wrt to this particular characteristic.
Didn't Microsoft have a marketing deal with CDPR / CP2077 for Xbox series consoles? Anyhow, I think the performance edge on PS5 just boils down to XBSX resolution (bounds) not scaling back far enough in these more stressful areas.
Would love to see Digital Foundry take a stab at this:
My guess is some kind of temporal light accumulation causing tonemapping issues when the camera moves. But that's just purely a guess. The fact that the issue is less present at 60fps would kind of fit that because at 60fps you would accumulate faster. Haven't looked at the engine tech at all.
My guess is some kind of temporal light accumulation causing tonemapping issues when the camera moves. But that's just purely a guess. The fact that the issue is less present at 60fps would kind of fit that because at 60fps you would accumulate faster. Haven't looked at the engine tech at all.
I'm having a ton of issues with HFW loading in the scene well after a camera cut. Watch the geometry and textures loading in noticeably late. Or am entire field of grass loading several seconds into a scene during the opening cinematic.
I have Digital Foundry criticism for the Elden Ring performance agreement and refusal to tell us what performance is for the on disc version even after launch.
I have Digital Foundry criticism for the Elden Ring performance agreement and refusal to tell us what performance is for the on disc version even after launch.
Yeah this is a frustrating move by both ER's publisher and DF. I get wanting the game to get covered with the day 1 patch, but I wish there was more of a review-in-progress or preview model for this content. 5 minute video showing the game when the embargo is up with clear disclaimers about coming content in the patch, then the full video a few days later patched. An organized/responsible publisher should be able to provide a list of upcoming fixes and coverage guidelines without having to delay coverage altogether.
Regarding horizon: Yeah I think the resolution loss from checkerboard and the various temporal effects are very noticable throughout this game. I'd honestly rather play it at an even lower resolution just to get less temporal effects piled on one after another.
I understand both sides of this discussion, where there is sort of an expectation that the day 1 patch version of the game is the actual experience people are going to get, so that's what should be reviewed. But also, what you get on disc is also what you are buying in the box, so that should be reviewed as well. I personally think I side more with the day 1 patch side of that, but do find it somewhat inconsistent that a place like DF not cover the physical release version, being that many there seam to be big proponents of physical media. Part of the reason why I'm not a physical media person now is because the physical version required an update to work properly now anyway.
There are other considerations, though. Putting out a less favorable technical review when the actual released version (meaning the one with a day 1 patch) resolves such issues isn't the best thing to do if you rely on your relationship with publishers/developers for early access to the games to begin with. You don't want to burn bridges that don't need burning, and it would be sort of an unfriendly gesture.
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