Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2024]

[Cyan]

Does the "tax" affect Vulkan games too?
On Linux too?

aren't iDTech 7 games running on Vulkan? It is the default API of the engine so what @davis.anthony mentioned has nothing to do with DirectX, unless Vulkan creates a different overhead.

I believe we had a few games were a 8 GB card was the minimum requirements, yet still ran fine on 6 GB VRAM.

do you have any example of a previous game requiring a minimum of 8GB or VRAM? 'Cos this is a first for me iirc

 

[Potato Head]

Yes, it does, because the tax is higher when requiring DXR.

The DXR API overhead is actually pretty light (no pun intended). That doesn’t mean that generating the output is light on the hardware.

 

[Remij]

The DXR API overhead is actually pretty light (no pun intended). That doesn’t mean that generating the output is light on the hardware.

Well obviously I'm referring to the game and what it's doing with the APIs.. not only the API overhead by itself. There's still "tax" none the less.. compared to consoles.

 

[Cyan]

It might still run on a stock 2060, followed closely by a Hardware Unboxed article explaining it doesn't really run because neener neener they told you so

it's going to be interesting to know how good is the optimisation of this game.

Playing at native 4K at 60 FPS on ultra settings with "normal" RT on a 4080 indicates solid optimization. The real resource drain comes with full ray tracing, especially when path tracing is enabled, making it more appropriate to compare Indiana's game performance to titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Alan Wake 2. That's going to be a test about how optimised the game actually is.

 

[Cyan]

The multiplayer is UE4 with additional RT-Reflections. And it looks like a UE4 game...

there is also Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 coming, and the first game was very demanding. The developers have published the hardware requirements and they seem more palatable.

https://www.kingdomcomerpg.com/en/news/getting-your-system-ready-for-kingdom-come-deliverance-ii

It seems like 16GB of RAM aren't a thing anymore, 8GB of RAM is out of the cards already, and they are pushing towards 32GB of RAM.

 

[Man from Atlantis]

Includes a quick comparison with PC RT settings at the end.

 

[Charlietus]

1800p native resolution + 60 fps with DDGI? That puts any game I can remember on those consoles to shame.

There aren't any noise problems as well, which is pretty impressive.

 

[mr magoo]

Good stuff, but holy batman those shadows .... i am sorry but this is so annoing that i wouldnt be able to focus on game.

 

[Cyan]

Includes a quick comparison with PC RT settings at the end.

The video is outstanding. It might be the best-performing game I've seen on consoles this generation. It maintains a steady 60fps on Xbox Series S, with ray tracing enabled, reaching 1800p on the XSX and 1080p on the XSS. When it comes to performance, IdTech is exceptionally hard to surpass.

The XSS version has lower quality textures, which you can use in the PC version too if you don't install the HD textures pack -I installed it but the game weighs almost 130GB with them, 80GB without them-

 

[Charlietus]

I wonder if they could make a graphics mode that enables the low ray tracing setting from the PC and increases the shadow cascade distance. It would probably drop more often to 1440p but I think it would be worth it.

 

[iroboto]

Damn impressive

 

[QPlayer]

This and Flight Simulator 2024 are a graphical marvel on Xbox SX. Good times!

 

[Below2D]

In a vacuum, I think it looks decent. If you consider the fact that it targets 60fps and holds it, it's impressive.

 

[Cyan]

Do we have any media of full RT in Indiana Jones yet?

dunno, Full RT isn't available for those who paid 100€ to play the early access version, which I find reprehensible.

 

[Below2D]

dunno, Full RT isn't available for those who paid 100€ to play the early access version, which I find reprehensible.

It's called Early Access for a reason.

 

[Cyan]

Ultimately, the hardware requirements on PC seem quite reasonable. For instance, one of my favourite youTubers is running the game smoothly on an RTX 2080 8GB and an old Intel i7-4790K with 4C 8T, a 10 years old CPU which is well below the minimum recommended specs of an Intel 10700K.

 

[iroboto]

where are we with DirectStorage on this title?
Game looks heavily VRAM limited on PC.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think Indiana Jones at times looks a little flat, like there's either not enough shadows, not enough contrast, or not enough variance in materials. Geometry also doesn't look next-gen, but overall I'd say it looks very good, very clean at 60 fps. And having ray-traced GI at 60 fps on console is very impressive. They didn't have to go the bio-luminescence route that every game uses as a hack to add lighting to natural environments that shouldn't need it. The thing that's really jumping out at me is the character rendering in terms of the eyes. The eyes look very good, especially eye movement. In a game that's emulating a very well-known film, and probably has a lot of cutscenes, it was very smart to nail the faces.

 

[Riddlewire]

I think Indiana Jones at times looks a little flat, like there's either not enough shadows, not enough contrast, or not enough variance in materials. Geometry also doesn't look next-gen, but overall I'd say it looks very good, very clean at 60 fps. And having ray-traced GI at 60 fps on console is very impressive. They didn't have to go the bio-luminescence route that every game uses as a hack to add lighting to natural environments that shouldn't need it. The thing that's really jumping out at me is the character rendering in terms of the eyes. The eyes look very good, especially eye movement. In a game that's emulating a very well-known film, and probably has a lot of cutscenes, it was very smart to nail the faces.

It might be a configuration issue with your display.
He says the HDR implementation is almost perfect. But it takes some tweaking.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

I think Indiana Jones at times looks a little flat, like there's either not enough shadows, not enough contrast, or not enough variance in materials.

My initial thought at the start of the video was actually - thank god, this looks so much better than some of the previews! While I think that largely remains true of most of the indoor stuff they showed, the outdoor stuff is rough IMO. Not just the shadows, the GI basically disappears or becomes so low res that it is functionally gone. See for instance all of the shots starting around here in the review:

I'm not sure from the narration in the video if these are meant to be impressive, but they are all extremely flat. Probably a combination of very low res BVH and low res sampling/probes.

I guess that's sort of to be expected in larger areas for a game on console targeting these performance levels, but I can't help but thinking perhaps a bit of baking would have looked better here. That said, I'm fully aware that's an entirely different art workflow and probably not something reasonable for them to mix in this project.

Overall I'd say my impressions are higher than what I expected from the trailers though, especially for the interior scenes. I love me some Indiana Jones so something I plan to check out at some point.

Also props to DF for the HDR youtube video! Always fun watching on an OLED, especially now that we've finally gotten to the point that it works reasonably even in windowed mode browsers on PCs.