Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2022]

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I have a 3080 and an oled tv -- I understand the appeal of sharpness, but incessant pursuit of it at the expense of absolutely everything else -- even being able to play a cutting edge, great looking game on a 7 inch screen -- is ridiculous.

For me, and again this is my experience and preferences, resolution much closer to my eyes is way more discernible than resolution 10 ft away. When you look where High DPI screens first appeared, it was phones and tablets. I don't think this is a coincidence.

Can you please just accept that I have different preferences to you? :???:
 
For me, and again this is my experience and preferences, resolution much closer to my eyes is way more discernible than resolution 10 ft away. When you look where High DPI screens first appeared, it was phones and tablets. I don't think this is a coincidence.

Can you please just accept that I have different preferences to you? :???:

This isn't to dispute your personal preferences just to note that the pixel density at typical viewing ranges (less than an arms length for the Steam Desk versus arms length or greater for a PC display) means that games on the Steam Deck are displayed with significantly higher pixel density and thus significantly higher sharpness than you would see on a typical PC display.

You'd have to greatly reduce the resolution of the game below native resolution on the Steam Deck before it degrades the sharpness of the game's presentation below what you would see on typical PC displays at native resolution.

That's why the majority of people don't notice significantly lower non-native resolutions on the Steam Deck and with any form of upscaling (FSR, TSR, etc.) it'll be almost indistinguishable from native resolutions and potentially look better than the same game on a typical PC display at native resolution with the same graphical IQ options (other than resolution, obviously :)).

Of course, UI scaling is certainly another thing entirely.

Regards,
SB
 
This isn't to dispute your personal preferences just to note that the pixel density at typical viewing ranges (less than an arms length for the Steam Desk versus arms length or greater for a PC display) means that games on the Steam Deck are displayed with significantly higher pixel density and thus significantly higher sharpness than you would see on a typical PC display.
A coupe of things to consider. First is the tech driving the game's visuals and art style. Second is whether people have a visual acuity of 20:20, or long vs short sighted, which makes a huge difference.

Again, people are different. Games are different. :yep2:
 
And who doesn't like 2005/2006 seventh-generation console resolutions in 2022? :runaway:

Seems you totally missed that this was about a handheld device. Even then, these resolutions are quite close to what the PS5 and XSX are doing whenever you want high performance like 60fps.
 
For me, and again this is my experience and preferences, resolution much closer to my eyes is way more discernible than resolution 10 ft away. When you look where High DPI screens first appeared, it was phones and tablets. I don't think this is a coincidence.

Can you please just accept that I have different preferences to you? :???:
Is that experience playing games at 720p on a handheld device? Or experience with web browsing/general use at low resolutions? Because I find my eyes are far more sensitive to the resolution of text than the resolution of computer graphics. (UI notwithstanding)

I suspect the push for higher resolutions in portable devices wouldn't have been as strong if these devices were only used for gaming.
 
I said in the steam deck thread but this just shows how viable a series s is at 5nm

Would be nice, but I think the CPU frequency, 8 cores, and the type of memory used in Series S would pose some significant challenges in a handheld. Series S guarantees performance levels that could be very detrimental to battery life and require less than ideal cooling (for a handheld!).

Also, some games attempt higher than 1080p final output resolution on Series S, and if you opted for, say a 1080p display this could again be a far less than optimal use of power (both electrical and processing).
 
For me, and again this is my experience and preferences, resolution much closer to my eyes is way more discernible than resolution 10 ft away. When you look where High DPI screens first appeared, it was phones and tablets. I don't think this is a coincidence.
One of the big reasons for that is cost though. Significantly less lost revenue if a 5" display has to be trashed if it has bad pixels on a new process, plus the economies of scale inherent to producing a billion+ phones per year compared to TV's, or the drastically smaller high-DPI PC monitor market.

Going by my own experience, the difference in clarity between a 720p screen and a 1080p+ screen on a ~6" phone is almost imperceptible - other screen elements stand out much more. I can't see any 'pixels' viewing my phone from a 3' distance as I hold it in my hand, but I can certainly see a significant difference in visible pixels on my 4K display at 10' distance when I go from say, 1440p to 4k.
 
Would be nice, but I think the CPU frequency, 8 cores, and the type of memory used in Series S would pose some significant challenges in a handheld. Series S guarantees performance levels that could be very detrimental to battery life and require less than ideal cooling (for a handheld!).

Also, some games attempt higher than 1080p final output resolution on Series S, and if you opted for, say a 1080p display this could again be a far less than optimal use of power (both electrical and processing).

I wonder what the trade off will be on a series s with a 128megs of infinity cache and lower over all bandwidth. Remember the Series S is just 224GB/s for its 10GB of memory. The steam decks 16 gigs of ram is 88GB/s
So I do think MS having 10GB of gddr at over 100GB/s of bandwidth with a 128megs of infinity cache could keep it competitive. Also the majority of games are already using variable resolutions on the series s. So I'd assume a portable s would just use the same code and stick to the lower end of the of the variable res.

edit thinking about it more the series s wouldn't even need a 128megs of cache , it could get away with 96 or 64 like some of the lower end rdna 2 chips. Esp if targeting 1080p or lower resolutions
 
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I wonder what the trade off will be on a series s with a 128megs of infinity cache and lower over all bandwidth. Remember the Series S is just 224GB/s for its 10GB of memory. The steam decks 16 gigs of ram is 88GB/s
So I do think MS having 10GB of gddr at over 100GB/s of bandwidth with a 128megs of infinity cache could keep it competitive. Also the majority of games are already using variable resolutions on the series s. So I'd assume a portable s would just use the same code and stick to the lower end of the of the variable res.

edit thinking about it more the series s wouldn't even need a 128megs of cache , it could get away with 96 or 64 like some of the lower end rdna 2 chips. Esp if targeting 1080p or lower resolutions
Where does the cpu come into your thinking on this?
Remembering it's the one thing they wanted to keep relatively the same specs wise between XSS & XSX.
(ssd performance was the other)
 
Where does the cpu come into your thinking on this?
Remembering it's the one thing they wanted to keep relatively the same specs wise between XSS & XSX.
(ssd performance was the other)

ssd performance shouldn't be an issue. other handhelds already have faster nvme drives.

As for the APU like I said either 5nm zen2 + rdna 2 or they can use zen 4 + rdna 2 refresh or rdna 3. Zen 4 is more efficent clock for clock than zen 2

AMD is already getting really close

https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-6800u

Zen 3+ 8 cores @ 2.7-4.7ghz
RDNA 2 12 cores @ 2200Mhz
Total wattage 15-28w.
I believe this is a 6nm design


Series S
Zen 2 8 cores @ 3.4- 3.6ghz
Rdna 2 20cu's at 1.565ghz.

So what I see here is that the zen 3+ has the same cores and can clocks at a base 2.7ghz. We have to wait to see people play with clocks but I think a stable 3.4-3.6ghz should be doable esp on a drop to 5nm.
The RDNA 2 gpu portion is only 12 cores but they are running at roughly 635mhz faster. Is that enough to make up for the lack of 8 cu? perhaps on 5nm clocks can come down but it will have8 more cus.

Really the biggest issue comes from the bandwidth. But like I said I think infinity cache could over come it. The rest will be possible with 5nm.

Before you say well the apu consumes more power , well remember there are other handhelds out there that use more than 15 watts for the apu and offer similar battery life to the steam deck. 5nm should allow them to fill in the gaps and move the power usage closer to 15w.

That is my take on the situation.
 
This isn't to dispute your personal preferences just to note that the pixel density at typical viewing ranges (less than an arms length for the Steam Desk versus arms length or greater for a PC display) means that games on the Steam Deck are displayed with significantly higher pixel density and thus significantly higher sharpness than you would see on a typical PC display.

You'd have to greatly reduce the resolution of the game below native resolution on the Steam Deck before it degrades the sharpness of the game's presentation below what you would see on typical PC displays at native resolution.

That's why the majority of people don't notice significantly lower non-native resolutions on the Steam Deck and with any form of upscaling (FSR, TSR, etc.) it'll be almost indistinguishable from native resolutions and potentially look better than the same game on a typical PC display at native resolution with the same graphical IQ options (other than resolution, obviously :)).

Of course, UI scaling is certainly another thing entirely.

Regards,
SB

Yes, pixel density matters.

I like to look at it like this. An iPhone 13 is roughly 5.78" X 2.78" while a 65 inch TV panel is typically 57" X 32". So if 100 iPhone 13 displays(2532X1170) were cut from a panel with the same dimensions as a 65" TV panel that panel would have roughly 300 million pixels and would be around half the pixels of a 32K TV panel.

Or if you took a 65" 4K panel and cut out 100 iPhone panels those panels would have a resolution of 384X216 or a pixel count of just ~82,944.

Given that most people hold their handhelds 16-20 inches from their eyes and the best viewing distance for a 4K 65" TV is around 60 inches, handheld displays have a huge amount of leeway in terms of operating at sub 4K or 1080p resolutions.

My math may be off (I didn't check for errors) but the pixel density difference between high end phones and TVs are so great that it would matter very little in the overall context. LOL
 
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ssd performance shouldn't be an issue. other handhelds already have faster nvme drives.
Yeah, I just added that for fullness, not because I felt it would be a problem.

As someone who always felt they should make a handheld, I've given up on the idea they will. Especially one that would cost that much.

I even thought that they could realease one that only played XO games locally not even 1X (but depending on cost possibly I guess), and stream XS.
Maybe 15% or so more performance and/or VRR to make it a solid experience.
Giving it decent battery life, size, price, hdmi out.
Also could be used like streaming stick.
 
Fortnite does not use nanite nor lumen though.
And it even has a 120fps mode.

Fortnite uses ue5 as this is the game epic experiments with new features (well currently it is the only live running example they have and it is more there to experiment with network features ... and to get all the money they need for almost everything ☺️). But still this is a very comic like game with really low detail. But it has ray tracing reflections on current gen consoles in the 60 fps mode.
Even if it would use nanite it is so low poly that it wouldn't matter.
Isn't this the point I was making, though? People act as if every UE5 game is going to be a full tilt every feature on graphical show piece. That doesn't have to be the case, and if UE4's catalog of games has shown, it probably isn't going to be. Games will be tuned for their performance targets, and if that means turning off certain engine features, then so be it.
 
Is that experience playing games at 720p on a handheld device? Or experience with web browsing/general use at low resolutions? Because I find my eyes are far more sensitive to the resolution of text than the resolution of computer graphics. (UI notwithstanding)
Games., which is all I'd use the SteamDeck for. I like open big world games and lower resolutions really limit the definition of distant objects. E.g., what is that enemy at 50 yards carrying? No idea, the screen lacks the definition to render a rocket launcher from an assault rifle from a baseball bat (Fallout).

I imagine text could be a problem although a lot of games do include scaleable text options and many even gave a decent font that works well at different sizes, although I don't think I'd like to play games like Stellaris, Civ or Total War on a device that small.
 
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I've heard it many times that FSR 2 (and others) are a bigger deal for pc than consoles.
My question is, why wasn't it implemented on pc in the first place if the engine had a console implementation.
If it's xbox then should pretty much be the same.

If it wasn't implemented then only reason I can think of is due to quality of reconstruction.

Which would also be the case for XSS (and steam deck) in particular. I believe there's many games that use TAAU on XSX and native on XSS, one that springs to mind is flight sim.

So could be a very big deal for XSS performance & quality, and quality improvement on PS5 & XSX.
 
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I've heard it many times that FSR 2 (and others) are a bigger deal for pc than consoles.
My question is, why wasn't it implemented on pc in the first place if the engine had a console implementation.
If it's xbox then should pretty much be the same.

If it wasn't implemented then only reason I can think of is due to quality of reconstruction.

Which would also be the case for XSS (and steam deck) in particular. I believe there's many games that use TAAU on XSX and native on XSS, one that springs to mind is flight sim.

So could be a very big deal for XSS performance & quality, and quality improvement on PS5 & XSX.

FSR 2.0 has only recently been introduced with only a few key development partners (Square-Enix was one of them) having access to it while it was in development. Prior to the announcement most developers didn't have access to it.

Regards,
SB
 
FSR 2.0 has only recently been introduced with only a few key development partners (Square-Enix was one of them) having access to it while it was in development. Prior to the announcement most developers didn't have access to it.

Regards,
SB
FSR 2 was just example of a specific image reconstruction TAAU implementation.
The reason I specifically said FSR was due to the fact most of the discussion has been around it.
 
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