davis.anthony
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Or it would force them to do better....
Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2023]
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Or it would force them to do better....
Doubtful. I think they would just find a platform that allows them publish games like they already do.
arandomguy
Regular
Platforms already actively court developers to release games and platform specific content including with direct monetary incentives. They aren't going to actively turn around and push away developers and their content.
There's also the negative optics if their competing platforms get said games, content or faster support patches.
I'm just going to be a bit blunt here as you see this all time in that people who have an issue with something often fall into a rather myopic approach in dealing with that issue without considering all other parties and aspects. There might need to be a realization that a large amount of gamers (likely majority) are not as bothered (if at all) by the issues you are and would not prefer the solutions as they in turn may create issues that they care about (eg. faster access to games/content with no delays).
For example with the PC issues have you considered that in terms of importance most PC gamers would rather have the games on the PC as opposed to not at all, and without delays and/or cut content?
There's also the negative optics if their competing platforms get said games, content or faster support patches.
I'm just going to be a bit blunt here as you see this all time in that people who have an issue with something often fall into a rather myopic approach in dealing with that issue without considering all other parties and aspects. There might need to be a realization that a large amount of gamers (likely majority) are not as bothered (if at all) by the issues you are and would not prefer the solutions as they in turn may create issues that they care about (eg. faster access to games/content with no delays).
For example with the PC issues have you considered that in terms of importance most PC gamers would rather have the games on the PC as opposed to not at all, and without delays and/or cut content?
davis.anthony
Veteran
Didn't hurt PS5 all that much when Sony pulled CP2077 from sale and from memory they were actually applauded for doing it.
In the long run having a platform that has games that release slightly later but fully functional and complete might be a benefit over your competitor in the long run.
Nintendo have a reputation of releasing quality software with very little issues and is a large reason why people buy their games.
After all, a lot of gamers have already started to wait for a few months before buying new releases to get the patches out the way (Myself included)
I've said this many times.
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D
Deleted member 11852
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Ah interesting. So you would have to chose 4K or 120Hz in the system, then if you want different settings in different games, for example 120Hz/1080p in a racing game but 60Hz/4K in an action-RPG you have to manually change the system settings when switching games. Interesting design choice.
Correct. It does have its own pros and cons:
+ You can force an output resolution. In turn possibly prevent unwanted/multiple scaling actions and ensure that it only scales once to the correct/desired resolution.
+ You can force a refresh frequency (which "can" help with framestutters/-pacing and increase VRR windows)
+ Games are not allowed to attach render modes to output settings. Which you sometimes see on Playstation, but luckily this is pretty rare and isn't as common as the PS3 days.
+ All modes are always available to the user, the system will downscale at a system level if the output settings are lower. Similar to how the 4K supersample mode on PS4 Pro works.
- If you have a HDMI 2.0 display and you want 120Hz in game X but 30fps with a high resolution in game Y then you'll need to change the system settings.
- If you use BFI then forced 120Hz can be unwanted because you'll get multiple black frames between actual game/rendered frames. But that'll happen for all 30fps games/content as well when viewed at 60Hz.
Personally I like it but then again I have an HDMI 2.1 4K@120Hz capable display
Although I would prefer it if Xbox allowed games to enable/disable HDR ingame like you can with many Playstation games. At the moment I just have HDR disabled.
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Riddlewire
Regular
It's a life-saver in certain instances.
For example, any game that caps its output to 24hz, like the cutscene in Callisto Protocol, Matrix Awakens, and a couple of backwards compatible games, will run smoothly on Xbox consoles.
Games with poor performance in the 20s, like Cyberpunk on Xbox One S, are improved by having a further subdivision inside its framerate range. Uncapped games that run from the high 20s into the high 30s, like Elden Ring, are smoother. Games with insane framerate caps, like Kingdom Come Deliverance (31fps) and Max Payne 3 (33fps) are slightly improved. They still have an irregular frame cadence, but the delta between frame durations is shorter.
davis.anthony
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Why is it that when anyone asks DF why PS5 outperforms XSX in some games/scenario's they always blame the devs/time/tools/API and fail to tell people that in some situations PS5 will just perform faster due to its higher clock rates and it's a hardware advantage of PS5. And it's not always because of a software issue on XSX.
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Probably because of what they've heard from various developers.
davis.anthony
Veteran
The reports of XSX's API still not being perfect is likely still a thing but so is PS5's hardware having some small advantages.
Small is a relative term. In numbers, IIRC PS5 can have a 20% clock speed advantage for the GPU but also has twice as many ROPS. Series X's ROPS are the newer design that can perform twice as many of some operations per clock, mitigating the disadvantage somewhat, but some operations are not double pumped like that. So depending on what you are doing and the variable clocks, PS5 can have a 240% advantage. Still, just a 20% advantage is still pretty substantial. What that all translates to in a real world situation is variable, of course. But video game performance is like a chain. It's only as fast as it's weakest link.
From what I heard the PS5 was in a deep 9 Tflops hole end of 2018 when the platform holder began to present the specs to third party. They did a good job to go out of the hole. MS leaked spec in february 2019 were spot on too with a 1 GB/s SSD. They improved the SSD too and all the software around it seeing what Sony has done.
I am impressed by what Sony and MS did to improve the situation.
I am impressed by what Sony and MS did to improve the situation.
It takes many passes to render a single frame though and the weakest link can be different in each pass.
That aside, it’s very feasible that more effective tools and a streamlined developer experience can produce better results on inferior hardware.
100% yes. But there is this narrative that PS5 has no hardware advantages over Series X going around, and that just not the case. There are other considerations besides tools for optimization. Say, for example, you have a result that can be generated faster on PS5 because of clock speed or fill rate, and you can get an identical result using compute on Series X. Assuming you don't use a specific optimization on each platform, you may have different performance than what some people expect when comparing those 2 versions.
From a perspective the challenge lies 2 fold:
One is hardware optimization
The second is api optimization
Xbox requires both, and likely it’s not getting the attention it deserves which is why we often see post launch patches that are significantly smoothing out performance there.
Yes PS5 has certain advantages, as mentioned here. If a developer decides to make a game burst fill rates beyond what XSX can handle it will suffer. Or it can turn some of those calls into computer shader calls and bypass rops entirely. That particular change would then optimize for Xbox and leave performance on the table for ps5. And so with ps5 being the lead console, and if the burst isn’t that impactful, it makes sense to go with ps5s code base.
That’s hardware.
Software is something Xbox needs to contend with PC. How much of their code base is shared with PC, is it optimal for console, Nvidia and AMD? Not likely.
So once again if you’re bound for time, just make once and optimize that as opposed yo making calls specifically for Xbox.
And that’s why I think you see DF point to tools and APIs. I don’t think this is a sleight to ps5, but there may be performance left on the floor for Xbox in exchange for reaching delivery dates.
The path that Xbox is taking is a harder path, it’s a multi platform api, those challenges are going to exist. But over time, developers and api and drivers will come together to iron this out. And if they ever get to this perfect idea than performance can be good for Xbox and PC with a single code base.
That makes for an interesting future for them, to be able to release hardware with faster cadence knowing your hardware will run these games well.
the usual xbox advantage that ive seen is extra resolutions on the expense of framerates and most of the time the extra resolution is minor and beats the purpose of the extra power since you cant tell the difference by eye unless df zoom 100x and the ps5 has a smoother experience due to higher fps and thats a few games like frostbite engine, then you have developers saying the api and memory configuration on xbox is a challenge, its why people are questioning?
microsoft went big with power and the full rdna 2 feature set but up until now none of that has been useful the extra resolutions cause frame drops compared to ps5 , vrs isnt that likeable or that useful because it blurrs the image depends on the use case + some devs just skip it and use their own software implementations, mesh shaders are just similar to primitive shaders, and the bit slower ssd io needs a bit of cpu cycles, i think people expected series x to outperform ps5 in both resolution and fps but it turned up to be more complicated than that n i think the big mistake was comparing console hardware to how pc hardware runs without considering consoles have more modifications on the hardware than the pc equivalent, for instance sony not adopting full rdna2 feature set and modifying their own like adding cache scrubbers and a different type of smart shift.. Id wait and see how ue5 games fare though.
davis.anthony
Veteran
That's the not the issue I've raised.
The issue is why over the last 2+ years have DF flat out ignored and failed to acknowledge that PS5's hardware is better at certain things which could be a reason it outperforms XSX.
It's not just fill rate PS5 is better at, geometry set-up and culling plus many other things should also be 17% faster on PS5 due to the clock speed advantage but DF have constantly failed to acknowledge this.
What's the reason they're not being open and fair when discussing PS5's hardware strengths over XSX?
I don’t think they are ignoring it. It’s just really hard to prove anything without running it through analyzers. If developers are coming back with “lack of time”, even @Andrew Lauritzen will attest to the challenges of shipping under tight deadlines, then until things are perfectly optimized you can’t really compare.
The realities are pretty clear that PS5 is likely much easier to code for. But I’m not sure an official outlet can say much more than that.
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