Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2023]

[chris1515]

As much as I still do think it's best looking game I've ever seen I did hope they would have gone for RTGI in the game rather than shadows.

It is much more taxing RTGI.

 

[davis.anthony]

It is much more taxing RTGI.

Metro Exodus EE disagrees with that one, it just needs to be done right.

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Oh no, I hope the owners of that 'dark side of gaming' site where they personally approve every single white supremacist reply to their articles aren't offended!!!

 

[chris1515]

 

[Inuhanyou]

Oh no, I hope the owners of that 'dark side of gaming' site where they personally approve every single white supremacist reply to their articles aren't offended!!!

Oh that site is one of those? Damn

 

[trinibwoy]

we've been accustomed for years with fake lighting and effects, things that are physically incorrectly lit now seem more pleasing to the gamers eyes. as real lighting/shadowing can look dull just like in reality.

The SSAO images are certainly more contrasty and I could see how at a glance they seem more pleasing. Most people aren't pixel peeping when they play games. The RT version does seem a little flat in some areas and it's less aesthetically pleasing. If you take a second to actually look at the image though the raster artifacts are really obvious.

Here's an example of raster vs rt shadows from the DSO screenshots. The raster shadows seem "fine" at first until you see what they're supposed to look like. Then it becomes clear how hilariously wrong the raster version is.

 

[Seanspeed]

we've been accustomed for years with fake lighting and effects, things that are physically incorrectly lit now seem more pleasing to the gamers eyes. as real lighting/shadowing can look dull just like in reality.

Which is a valid criticism, if you ask me.

We tend to prefer high contrast imagery as it looks more striking. And since the point of video games isn't to strictly simulate 'realism' in every way possible, preferring 'less realistic' lighting/AO solutions that appeal more to people's eyes is entirely reasonable if you ask me. The goal should be to make the game as good looking as possible, not most realistic. If realism is what helps this endeavor, that's great, but it wont always be the case.

I've long argued that photorealism is not the end game of game graphics. Hyperrealism, and the ability to fix all the 'flaws' of real life visuals grants us an extra dimension of graphics to explore. I mean hell, y'all dont think movies filming real life scenes aren't already doing a bunch of tricks to 'enhance' the visuals beyond how they would naturally look in real life, right? Why should we not expect the same in games?

 

[Flappy Pannus]

Oh that site is one of those? Damn

Yeah, like I don't blame people for occasionally checking out the site and clipping some story that they found interesting on a technical level as the owner/contributors don't make their political leanings that obvious in their written pieces. But just peruse the replies to a few articles and it's abundantly clear what their fanbase consists of, they literally hold an online vote every year if racist/sexist posts should be allowed and of course they overwhelmingly vote yes because that's who the site attracts, so their hands-off policy stays. Hell, saying "hands off" is somewhat generous too, as every reply has to be approved first. So keep that in mind when you see those Strormfront-level responses, a moderator had to say "Yep, looks good" - and approve that, by the hundreds/thousands, year after year.

That alone, but on technical level they're pretty wanting from what I've seen, and when I've visited it half of the stories are usually just filling up space by announcing the worst mods you've ever seen. Just a shit site.

 

[Cyan]

nice video. Other than that, I'd love to see Elden Ring running on the Deck and see how it struggles to keep 60fps or maybe 30fps. It's not a super demanding game but it has a bit of a erratic behaviour. The engine is kinda special, it's the first engine I've seen in a game where the caves and interiors are seamlessly integrated with the rest of the open world. My hats off to From Software.

 

[Seanspeed]

Yeah, like I don't blame people for occasionally checking out the site and clipping some story that they found interesting on a technical level as the owner/contributors don't make their political leanings that obvious in their written pieces. But just peruse the replies to a few articles and it's abundantly clear what their fanbase consists of, they literally hold an online vote every year if racist/sexist posts should be allowed and of course they overwhelmingly vote yes because that's who the site attracts, so their hands-off policy stays. Hell, saying "hands off" is somewhat generous too, as every reply has to be approved first. So keep that in mind when you see those Strormfront-level responses, a moderator had to say "Yep, looks good" - and approve that, by the hundreds/thousands, year after year.

Good lord.

Though I'm not super surprised. I've seen a lot of this in many more hardcore PC gaming circles.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Which is a valid criticism, if you ask me.

We tend to prefer high contrast imagery as it looks more striking. And since the point of video games isn't to strictly simulate 'realism' in every way possible, preferring 'less realistic' lighting/AO solutions that appeal more to people's eyes is entirely reasonable if you ask me. The goal should be to make the game as good looking as possible, not most realistic. If realism is what helps this endeavor, that's great, but it wont always be the case.

I've long argued that photorealism is not the end game of game graphics. Hyperrealism, and the ability to fix all the 'flaws' of real life visuals grants us an extra dimension of graphics to explore. I mean hell, y'all dont think movies filming real life scenes aren't already doing a bunch of tricks to 'enhance' the visuals beyond how they would naturally look in real life, right? Why should we not expect the same in games?

How many modern animated/cgi movies do not use accurate/RT based lighting?

The idea that realistic lighting does not allow for "hypereal" environments is ridiculous. How many hypereal environments have you seen in movies? How many of those used console level rasterised lighting?

 

[trinibwoy]

Which is a valid criticism, if you ask me.

We tend to prefer high contrast imagery as it looks more striking. And since the point of video games isn't to strictly simulate 'realism' in every way possible, preferring 'less realistic' lighting/AO solutions that appeal more to people's eyes is entirely reasonable if you ask me. The goal should be to make the game as good looking as possible, not most realistic. If realism is what helps this endeavor, that's great, but it wont always be the case.

All true but it’s highly unlikely that an artist’s vision includes SSAO artifacts. Splotchy blobs of shadow in random places isn’t really a graphic effect. If a game designer is aiming for a particular art style they would likely do so intentionally and not rely on renderer inaccuracies to achieve the desired effect. You can still render unrealistic graphics with an accurate render if you want to.

 

[Inuhanyou]

All true but it’s highly unlikely that an artist’s vision includes SSAO artifacts. Splotchy blobs of shadow in random places isn’t really a graphic effect. If a game designer is aiming for a particular art style they would likely do so intentionally and not rely on renderer inaccuracies to achieve the desired effect. You can still render unrealistic graphics with an accurate render if you want to.

Well you say that, but there was a time devs intentionally designed assets in a way to take advantage of the idea that no one would be able to see certain things below a certain resolution/iq threshold

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Well you say that, but there was a time devs intentionally designed assets in a way to take advantage of the idea that no one would be able to see certain things below a certain resolution/iq threshold

Absolutely, in games where darkness is a key part of the experience (Metro, Dead Space, The Callisto Protocol etc), you want to control the lighting. But oft in the world, lighting is just poor because the lighting is simply bad; structures blocking natural light, natural light itself being obscured (clouds, fog, nighttime), and the absence of natural light to compensate. Light often looks flat in the real world but do you really want that in every game?

 

[Below2D]

Yeah, like I don't blame people for occasionally checking out the site and clipping some story that they found interesting on a technical level as the owner/contributors don't make their political leanings that obvious in their written pieces. But just peruse the replies to a few articles and it's abundantly clear what their fanbase consists of, they literally hold an online vote every year if racist/sexist posts should be allowed and of course they overwhelmingly vote yes because that's who the site attracts, so their hands-off policy stays. Hell, saying "hands off" is somewhat generous too, as every reply has to be approved first. So keep that in mind when you see those Strormfront-level responses, a moderator had to say "Yep, looks good" - and approve that, by the hundreds/thousands, year after year.

That alone, but on technical level they're pretty wanting from what I've seen, and when I've visited it half of the stories are usually just filling up space by announcing the worst mods you've ever seen. Just a shit site.

So that article I stumbled across wasn’t just a one-off incident. I was looking for Miles Morales performance figures and the comment section looked like it belonged on Stormfront. I even wondered if it hadn’t mistakenly been linked to this article or that the site had glitched.

 

[Dr. Nick]

 

[Inuhanyou]

This shows just how much power PS5 and the series consoles have on tap compared to switch it seems.

2700p and still locked 60fps? Crazy

Although it is weird that series s res doesn't change for graphics mode. Maybe default mode is 1080p and the graphics mode is 1440p?

Also i appreciate in this game they use the fact that this is a switch game to give people more fine grained options. It shouldent be a trend but it's a nice treat for waiting 2 years.

I'm very interested in how the last gen consoles perform with this game especially the base machines. Does every machine have these options or just current gen?

 

[Jay]

Nice to see a game on console with the type of menu options I would like to see.
Hopefully more will come, although I'll not hold my breath.

 

[davis.anthony]

I would imagine being a Switch game means it isn't doing many things via compute which is why it's performing better on PS5?

 

[davis.anthony]

This shows just how much power PS5 and the series consoles have on tap compared to switch it seems.

2700p and still locked 60fps? Crazy

The game doesn't lock to 60fps at 2700p.