Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2023]

[Flappy Pannus]

1080p reconstructed to 1440p and upscaling to 4k means blurrying the texture. The difference is huge.

Returnal PC Port Impressions – Hello Stutter My Old Friend​

Sigh.

As hinted in the headline, though, the actual experience is different and not in a good way. While the game compiles shaders the first time you launch it, stuttering is everpresent, despite not being picked up by the in-game metrics or benchmark. It's there not only in the thickest of combat, where it is most annoying but slightly more understandable due to all the particles flying around, but also when you're just moving throughout the environment on your own, with nothing else going on.

On the plus side, doesn't look like shader stutter - may be a frame pacing issue, albeit Nvidia frame view is picking up frame drops. It doesn't seem exorbitantly demanding, WCFTech has a 4090 and was playing at 4K with DLSS quality and keeping over 100 fps in the benchmark, and that's with everything maxxed, including RT. Considering the PS5 is rendering at native 1080p without RT and doesn't even hold 60fps, that's actually pretty good scaling.

The constant nature of the stutters that don't seem dependent on rendering load gives me hope this is a camera/frame pacing issue that can be rectified, whereas with Dead Space Remake I'm more skeptical with its kind of stutters being resolved as that's more of an asset loading issue that seems a more substantial fix, if possible.

Certainly many other aspects of this port look solid.

 

[davis.anthony]

I've just ordered a 32GB RAM kit because of Returnal and Hogwarts Legacy, expensive being a PC gamer

 

[oliemack]

I see somewhere else saying the game utilized 2xMSAA, and to my eyes it does look like there is antialiasing. However DF seems to disagree with it? I’m not particularly convinced by the argument on the video cuz MSAA can’t handle specular aliasing anyway so even msaa is on you‘ll still have that shimmer.

I did see a few people saying this, which seems to stem from one earlier video. Looking at a bunch of frames I couldn't spot any signs of edge treatment whatsoever - I think I counted about 25 frames for the review and any obvious geometric edges were perfectly raw.

The game does a good job of mitigating aliasing through baking out a ton of stuff, and a lot of environments are fairly low-contrast and lack specular so that helps as well.

 

[vjPiedPiper]

Well hopefully we won't ever get to that point as GPU's will have fixed function hardware for job by then and thus completely removing the burden from CPU's.

But that doesn't do much for the millions of console users this gen, or anyone with a GPU that doesn't support such a feature in the future.
Plus, continued research into improving data structures and processing algorithms, will likely inform any GPU based HW we get in the future.

I hope we get both massively increased CPU based performance, ( 5-6x scaling on 8x cores), AND massively improved scaling of BVH processing via dedicated GPU resources ( ie 10-100X )
And i think that with time, Both outcomes are possible.

 

[davis.anthony]

But that doesn't do much for the millions of console users this gen, or anyone with a GPU that doesn't support such a feature in the future.

I'm failing to see your point here? PC gaining ray tracing in 2018 didn't do much for the millions of console gamers or PC gamers will older GPU's either but yet everything was OK.

 

[Seanspeed]

I'm failing to see your point here? PC gaining ray tracing in 2018 didn't do much for the millions of console gamers or PC gamers will older GPU's either but yet everything was OK.

They are just saying that in the interim, until such hardware is normalized, there is still a great need for these sorts of improvements. They shouldn't be ignored just cuz one day there will be hardware that will do that job specifically.

 

[Globalisateur]

So we learn the important fact that native 4k (and 4K DLSS quality) have both better image quality than native 1080p crudely upscaled to 4K using archaic techniques. Wow I am shocked.

 

[snc]

 

[Deleted member 11852]

WTF. I only just beginning listening to the podcast where John and Richard mention DF could only talk about the quality of the cardboard box, and which LEDs were on the headset.

 

[Seanspeed]

No surprises or anything, it's all basically exactly as I expected, in a good way.

I'll also say that the problem of having a bunch of 'old games' is gonna mean a lot less to those who are newer to VR. PSVR1+PS4 as an early consumer VR platform was a bit lackluster for many, while PSVR2 will easily cross that threshold to good enough or even plain 'good' for plenty of people, meaning all that old VR content will still be quite new to them. I'm sure Sony is hoping PSVR2 goes a ways to convince earlier doubters who had problems with the fidelity, tracking and practical issues and all that.

Still think it's gonna be a hard sell with the pricepoint, though. I think it'll be a lot more appealing if they can manage to get it down to $400 or so. Thankfully, PSVR2 is coming earlier in the generation, so there's more time to convince people and work on the cost issues.

 

[davis.anthony]

I don't see the point of VR (And yes I've tried it) - Surely investing the money they spent on the PSVR2 R&D would have been better spent on just making PS5 faster by increasing it's cost budget.

 

[Karamazov]

i know people who tell me they don't see the point of videogames, so to each his own.
I'm personnally more excited for PSVR2 than i was for the PS5.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I don't see the point of VR (And yes I've tried it) - Surely investing the money they spent on the PSBR2 R&D would have been better spent on just making PS5 faster by increasing it's cost budget.

Not everything is aimed at everybody. VR isn't for you, but it is a lot of fun for a lot of people. It definitely feels like it's not had its breakthrough moment yet. If it first you don't succeed you give up, we would still be living in caves!

 

[davis.anthony]

Not everything is aimed at everybody. VR isn't for you, but it is a lot of fun for a lot of people. It definitely feels like it's not had its breakthrough moment yet. If it first you don't succeed you give up, we would still be living in caves!

When you say "breakthrough moment" what does that mean to you?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

When you say "breakthrough moment" what does that mean to you?

A VR games that once you play, makes you want a buy a VR headset right away. E.g. my PC breakthrough moment was seeing Half-Life. I bought a PC the next day.

 

[pjbliverpool]

A VR games that once you play, makes you want a buy a VR headset right away. E.g. my PC breakthrough moment was seeing Half-Life. I bought a PC the next day.

If Beat Sabre isn't that then I don't know what is.

 

[Karamazov]

anything that plays substancially better in VR than on a 2D screen has that effect.
Tennis, boxing, ping pong, golf, firing at things, even chess, etc...

 

[BRiT]

If Beat Sabre isn't that then I don't know what is.

"Web Browsing" ...

 

[Inuhanyou]

This is like a free TV on top of a new console. The idea of normal game mode being viable is amazing

 

[Karamazov]

and a free 120hz one with huge screen