Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2023]

[Karamazov]

Yep, but I was hoping for a "RT quality" mode, where resolution was sacrificed at 30fps for RT reflections. Personally, I find it jarring when a game looks this good but SSR occlusion / disocclusion artefacts kick in, when things that your brain knows are reflective aren't, or when a mirror has to be grainy and blurry to hide the stretchy smeary none reflection that's there instead.

I think the absence of RT reflections - at least as a lower res option - is a bit of a loss even if it's understandable.

But what's the point of adding RT reflections on consoles if you have to put a resolution so low that there are more artifacts on the whole screen than just SSR ?

 

[GhostofWar]

Here, Alex will probably highlight this better but in the mean time lets all get on the same page about image quality. Stills left to temporal stablise are not showing what some people are talking about. The video is linked to the part to watch.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Here, Alex will probably highlight this better but in the mean time lets all get on the same page about image quality. Stills left to temporal stablise are not showing what some people are talking about. The video is linked to the part to watch.

Wow, that's ghastly! Should run a salt-and-pepper filter on the output!

 

[Allandor]

I totally agree with Oliver that PS5 version looks very nice in comparison to PC max settings. To be honest its ridiculous how much more powerfull 4090 is (almost 100TF) vs PS5 (10) ! And for the most part the game looks pretty much the same. RT adds some extra fine details but the cost of it is gigantic. "Hey look darker shadows under table! Nice 90TF well spend! "
It is what it is, at least AW2 is one of those games that has great art style and great tech so the final product comes very nicely together.

That's a general problem of RT. You can "fake" those things so they are almost as good with much, much less power. But I guess all the tf of the 4090 are not even used as RT is bottlenecked through other parts so most of the GPU might not even do that much.

But the resolution is really a bit low. The current "big" console below 1080p really hurts image quality. That is also why I don't like DLSS scaling to 1440p, it is just to unstable if the base resolution goes below 1080p.

 

[cwjs]

Started playing AW2 last night -- stunning game. Opted to play on PC, and my 3080 is definitely struggling with dlss ultra performance and path tracing medium on foliage heavy scenes. The image quality isn't perfect (with dlss, most artifacts seem to come from the PT denoising?) but hollistically this is probably the best looking game I've ever played. They are attempting very different things but switching from spiderman 2 to this has been stark, remedy has really nailed the PC target here.

 

[pjbliverpool]

The image quality isn't perfect (with dlss, most artifacts seem to come from the PT denoising?)

Is that with Ray Reconstruction?

 

[Scott_Arm]

Is that with Ray Reconstruction?

RTX 3080 doesn't support it. It would be using different denoisers

 

[DavidGraham]

RTX 3080 doesn't support it. It would be using different denoisers

All RTX 20/30/40 GPUs support Ray Reconstruction.

 

[Scott_Arm]

All RTX 20/30/40 GPUs support Ray Reconstruction.

Oh right. My mistake. I don't know why I suddenly thought that was a 40 series feature. I guess those dlss features are confusing after all.

 

[Below2D]

Wouldn't bother with path tracing on anything below a 4080 to be honest.

 

[pharma]

Fortunately Ray Reconstruction in Alan Wake 2 can be used either with path tracing or ray tracing.

 

[Below2D]

Might be the best looking game of all time. Nice way to cap off an amazing year. I hear it's fantastic too.

 

[Nesh]

If people want to do a proper price comparison between PC and consoles, can they please list both prices and performance numbers within the same posts. eg. 2060 cost $399, total system cost $n hundred, framerate at PS5 settings is x fps. Otherwise we just get lots of one-liners pointing out the issues with every partial one-liner and no obvious way to just look at compare costs and benefits!

Yes exactly. I asked to see how well it runs on a 2060 Super vs on console for the sake of the conversation but such information has not been provided.

 

[tuna]

SMW was my first memory of recognizing that a game/franchise was beginning to skew to a different/younger demographic via incorporating layers and layers of assists and lacking anything that felt punitive. SMW kind of felt like playing SM3 with a Game Genie given things like item stowing, Yoshi (basically a retrievable power-up), mid-level preemption, the cape pretty much being a p-wing. I have a hard time reconciling with a platformer game that you merely "complete" rather than "beat".

Beating SMW means finding all 96 exits.

 

[Dampf]

Fortunately Ray Reconstruction in Alan Wake 2 can be used either with path tracing or ray tracing.

I've heard from a buddy ray reconstruction forces post processing to high. That's pretty lame...

 

[mr magoo]

Might be the best looking game of all time. Nice way to cap off an amazing year. I hear it's fantastic too.

Great video. Amazing looking game and such an interesting case study for mesh shaders. We have been talking about that on so many occasions and for the first time we can see it in action.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Might be the best looking game of all time. Nice way to cap off an amazing year. I hear it's fantastic too.

Loved that video. Absolutely smashed it with the settings alignment there and cut through all the fud like a hot knife through butter.

Remember kids, if you want to truly understand how console and PC performance align, wait for the DF video!

I wasn't planning to pick this up but looking at those graphics and hearing how awesome the game is.... how can I refuse?

 

[Globalisateur]

If people want to do a proper price comparison between PC and consoles, can they please list both prices and performance numbers within the same posts. eg. 2060 cost $399, total system cost $n hundred, framerate at PS5 settings is x fps. Otherwise we just get lots of one-liners pointing out the issues with every partial one-liner and no obvious way to just look at compare costs and benefits!

Which is part of DF's reason d'etre, to create 'optimised settings' for people to plug in, those people being moderate enthusiasts who care to research but don't care to fiddle around themselves. On the bottom end of the scale, most will push a button and run with it. TBH I doubt we have any measure of how typical PC gamers operate; best we have is anecdotal evidence from enthusiasts who post on fora.

And please do the same thing with others games better optimized on consoles like Death Stranding, Ratchet or Spider-man.

 

[pjbliverpool]

And please do the same thing with others games better optimized on consoles like Death Stranding, Ratchet or Spider-man.

And since all those games support DLSS, be sure to factor that into the comparisons too

 

[Jupiter]

I rather prefer when the high end graphics are showcased and explained. However, considering the many clueless commenters in the internet it makes more sense to create this type of video.

Unlike in Cyberpunk 2077 the lighting on the consoles can keep up relatively well. While the difference is still tremendous the scenario and the pre-baked GI make it easier to still get a similar visual impression.
With it's day and night changes, large world, lots of verticality and lots of light sources/illuminated signs, puddles, interiors with windows or area lights, lots of dynamic and moving objects Cyberpunk 2077 is an absolute nightmare scenario for raster graphics.