Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2023]

[mrobotnic]

Can you exhibit any PS3 or PS4 era games that included that type of dynamic GI in an enclosed space? I don't recall anything even coming close to function's Starfield example.

I can specifically show games that used realtime gi on ps4 and xbone but not precisely the conditions youve specified meaning lots of objects in a confined space as that is particularly in starfield as a game mechanic feature or what have you, its not even in other current gen games that i know of so its very specific. Quantum break, the tomorrow children and shadow of the collosus used realtime gi if im not mistaken, not sure about shadow of the colossus but it was mentioned to use realtime gi.. as for ps3 a game called dust 514 used realtime gi aswell here

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op...ctions(Siggraph2012).pptx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK

and quantum break df take here

 

[mrobotnic]

I can specifically show games that used realtime gi on ps4 and xbone but not precisely the conditions youve specified meaning lots of objects in a confined space as that is particularly in starfield as a game mechanic feature or what have you, its not even in other current gen games that i know of so its very specific. Quantum break, the tomorrow children and shadow of the collosus used realtime gi if im not mistaken, not sure about shadow of the colossus but it was mentioned to use realtime gi.. as for ps3 a game called dust 514 used realtime gi aswell here

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2012/CCP/Malan-Dust_514_GI_reflections(Siggraph2012).pptx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK

and quantum break df take here

also crysis remasterd gi and raytraced reflections on ps4/xbone

 

[Below2D]

Is there a reason why Microsoft's biggest studio's biggest game isn't using DirectStorage and we're seeing load times of almost 40 seconds on Series X? That's unacceptable.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Is there a reason why Microsoft's biggest studio's biggest game isn't using DirectStorage and we're seeing load times of almost 40 seconds on Series X? That's unacceptable.

Can the xbox use anything other than DirectStorage?

Anyway it's probably nothing to do with SSD speed but rather a CPU setup bottleneck.

It'd be interesting to see load time scaling on PC with different drives and CPU's

 

[Below2D]

Can the xbox use anything other than DirectStorage?

Anyway it's probably nothing to do with SSD speed but rather a CPU setup bottleneck.

It'd be interesting to see load time scaling on PC with different drives and CPU's

It most likely is a CPU bottleneck but wasn’t that the entire point of the Series X’s decompressor? To take the load off the CPU in such scenarios?

 

[iroboto]

I can specifically show games that used realtime gi on ps4 and xbone but not precisely the conditions youve specified meaning lots of objects in a confined space as that is particularly in starfield as a game mechanic feature or what have you, its not even in other current gen games that i know of so its very specific. Quantum break, the tomorrow children and shadow of the collosus used realtime gi if im not mistaken, not sure about shadow of the colossus but it was mentioned to use realtime gi.. as for ps3 a game called dust 514 used realtime gi aswell here

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2012/CCP/Malan-Dust_514_GI_reflections(Siggraph2012).pptx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK

and quantum break df take here

With the exception of drive club and tomorrow children; most games with GI did it through probes. The others I think Voxel cones. And typically the GI would apply to all static items and some dynamic items, it was never usually applied universally everywhere. Halo Infinite suffers from this problem for instance and Starfield GI looks ahead of HI for this reason. Probably because it’s not probe based, but I digress.

It does seem neat stuff, most it looks fairly correct.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1699097165556068858

The game can be quite beautiful in the right conditions.

Performance is a separate discussion, I’m pretty confident we all feel it could do more. But we may just need to wait on that.

 

[iroboto]

It most likely is a CPU bottleneck but wasn’t that the entire point of the Series X’s decompressor? To take the load off the CPU in such scenarios?

The cpu isn’t fast enough to load the level, it’s not an asset issue.

 

[pjbliverpool]

It most likely is a CPU bottleneck but wasn’t that the entire point of the Series X’s decompressor? To take the load off the CPU in such scenarios?

There's tons more CPU work to do at game load than just decompression though. I imagine that's particularly true in a big persistent open world like this.

 

[mrobotnic]

Is there a reason why Microsoft's biggest studio's biggest game isn't using DirectStorage and we're seeing load times of almost 40 seconds on Series X? That's unacceptable.

Ive always wondered that i still havent seen a big xbox exclusive load in a second compared to ps5 games, my assumption is the velocity architecture as advertised is simply not on par to the ps5 solution which even troubles pc's, i dont really understand what direct storage solves on console since its a unified memory architecture so naturally data goes straight from storage to gpu ram where as on pc its beneficial since direct storage can skip main memory and go straight to video memory, its been 3 years and nothing special has been shown on xbox hardware so im skeptical here since they earlier claimed velocity architecture gives you 40gb plus of pseudo ram, its all fishy anyway and the sfs is also not really new or special, ill wait for hellbalde 2 and new titles to press judgement but so far i think its another microsoft lie on top of so many.

 

[davis.anthony]

It most likely is a CPU bottleneck but wasn’t that the entire point of the Series X’s decompressor? To take the load off the CPU in such scenarios?

Decompression isn't the only thing that takes place, there are other steps.

Sony has custom chips to handle all this where as Microsoft decide to do them on the CPU.

 

[mrobotnic]

With the exception of drive club and tomorrow children; most games with GI did it through probes. The others I think Voxel cones. And typically the GI would apply to all static items and some dynamic items, it was never usually applied universally everywhere. Halo Infinite suffers from this problem for instance and Starfield GI looks ahead of HI for this reason. Probably because it’s not probe based, but I digress.

It does seem neat stuff, most it looks fairly correct.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1699097165556068858

The game can be quite beautiful in the right conditions.

Performance is a separate discussion, I’m pretty confident we all feel it could do more. But we may just need to wait on that.

Granted starfield uses a more advanced solution but visually its not really overwhelming compared to what we had last gen, with more horsepower in new consoles its obviously improved but i still cant see how it cant be possible on lastgen consoles in a confined room, probe based or not to any average gamer it just doesnt add up

 

[cwjs]

It most likely is a CPU bottleneck but wasn’t that the entire point of the Series X’s decompressor? To take the load off the CPU in such scenarios?

The point is to take load off of the cpu for asset loading. Both the ps5, the xsx, and every other computer that came before or will come after still needs to do other work to set a game up -- initializing ai routines, running procedural generation algorithms, initializing the physics state, etc.

 

[davis.anthony]

on pc its beneficial since direct storage can skip main memory and go straight to video memory.

That's not how it works.

 

[digitalwanderer]

also crysis remasterd gi and raytraced reflections on ps4/xbone

Piece of free advice, when you start quoting your own posts it's generally a good idea to take a step back for a bit and reexamine how to get your point across.

 

[mrobotnic]

That's not how it works.

how does it work then, i thought direct storage removes latency issues by skipping main memory and going straight to vram with gpu decompression wasnt cpu to main memory to vram the issue?

 

[mrobotnic]

Piece of free advice, when you start quoting your own posts it's generally a good idea to take a step back for a bit and reexamine how to get your point across.

i missed puting crysis on my original post thats why i had to mention it later as i couldnt edit my post

 

[davis.anthony]

how does it work then, i thought direct storage removes latency issues by skipping main memory and going straight to vram with gpu decompression wasnt cpu to main memory to vram the issue?

In Ratchet and Clank all data still goes to system RAM.

Then instead of the CPU decompressing the bulk of the data and then sending it to the GPU, it's sent over compressed and the GPU does the decompression.

 

[mrobotnic]

In Ratchet and Clank all data still goes to system RAM.

Then instead of the CPU decompressing the bulk of the data and then sending it to the GPU, it's sent over compressed and the GPU does the decompression.

yes that aswell but wasnt it a specific workaround from nixxes to speed up the process similar to miles morales where even without direct storage a large pool of ram also works, anyhow what importance is it to xbox cause i can see the benefit on pc but i dont understand what importance is it to a unified memory architecture like on console since ps4 and xbox one also had decompression hardware isnt what microsoft did here was only to add a nvme ssd only cause without the other stuff that sony put on ps5 i cant see much difference here.

 

[iroboto]

yes that aswell but wasnt it a specific workaround from nixxes to speed up the process similar to miles morales where even without direct storage a large pool of ram also works, anyhow what importance is it to xbox cause i can see the benefit on pc but i dont understand what importance is it to a unified memory architecture like on console since ps4 and xbox one also had decompression hardware isnt what microsoft did here was only to add a nvme ssd only cause without the other stuff that sony put on ps5 i cant see much difference here.

Direct storage removes a large portion of overhead that the OS applies typically on drive access. But there’s no current method of going from SSD directly to VRAM. Technically consoles are the same, they removed the driver and OS overhead for maximum IO speed, the only difference is that they have a shared pool Of memory.

outside of cache scrubbers Xbox and PS5 io solutions are fairly interchangeable, the difference owing to PS5 choosing kraken and Xbox staying with LZ. Both have access to additional texture encoding to make texture smaller, PS5 supports licensing for Oodle, and Xbox supports licensing for BCPack. Whether engines use them seems is up to the engine it seems. Both platforms offer them free of charge but that doesn’t mean developers will use them.

 

[iroboto]

Granted starfield uses a more advanced solution but visually its not really overwhelming compared to what we had last gen, with more horsepower in new consoles its obviously improved but i still cant see how it cant be possible on lastgen consoles in a confined room, probe based or not to any average gamer it just doesnt add up

It’s important to separate art from technology. With baked lighting, you have lighting artists go in and create dramatic lighting for each area they know a player will visit. They can add lighting in there that doesn’t visibly exist for artistic effect.

For all purposes, baked lighting that a whole team works on will look better than real time lighting and run better too. The only problem is that things don’t change, which is fine if you make a game where nothing changes, but not fine if you make a game where things do. See movie lighting: real lamp posts versus movie lighting

https://www.reddit.com/r/Moviesinthemaking/comments/eskexd

Dynamic lighting, shadows and reflections opens up game design to support changes in the world, and it also means being able to support lighting for procedurally generated content as well.

That’s the trade off. Eventually we will get to the point where things look fairly realistic, but the reality is most things like photography and cinema seldom are. They are very controlled and that’s what artistry is supposed to be about.