IMO and i may be dead wrong on this its gonna be much harder for non UE5 games to compete with UE5 games when it comes to graphics. Just kooing at Senua and Lords of the fallen (wich i played recently) my god this is completely new quality in games. Level in details is just absurd nothing we are used to. Even SH2 (havent played it yet myself) developed by blooberg, their previous game (forgot title, horror where two worlds are rendered at the same time) jesus what a leap in quality. And this is coming from small studio that never produced anything that looked so good. When more big AAA games using Ue5 will be realsed with massive budgets i think it will completly overshadow any other games build on custom engines. Would be great to know what kind of budget games like Indy, SH2, Senua and Wukong had.
Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2024]
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
- Start date
Pictures does not tell the full story, just like with TAA, motion gives a lot away and I can cleary see the missing shadows in yor examplesAgain, you're missing the point. The point is that there are levels to how accurate baked lighting is versus ray-traced lighting. Sometimes, the differences are subtle such as with this case.
Whereas at other times, the difference looks literally almost like night and day such as with this case:
No, sometimes, the differences are minor unless you look for them. Low-quality geometry cannot be hidden OR FAKED. Anyone can spot its ugly head whenever it appears. It's possible to have good quality lighting even without ray tracing. Some people are good enough to approximate it and give excellent results.
That's assuming there is light bleed occurring in the scene, which isn't always the case.
VFX_Veteran
Regular
I watched that video. It's nowhere near as bad with full RT on. I've also only noticed on foliage which restricts that to the first level in the game and the trees on the Vatican level. The local lighting is still using shadow cascades and so that's not using RT shadows. I'm on the last level now in the snow and haven't noticed it yet.
VFX_Veteran
Regular
Probably because it's not officially released yet. I felt this same way about BG3 but at that time it was in Early Access and took 2 years to complete.
VFX_Veteran
Regular
The problems with GI light probes is that there is no variation in illumination on the same asset. One entire mountain face, for example, would get the same illumination instead of it varying based on the cracks and crevices. You see this a lot in Horizon game. The entire asset loses all direct lighting and can only be visible by evaluating a light probe that's literally a constant color. It also doesn't take into account the inverse square distance law or normalization between adding up all the lighting contributions (i.e. making them all add up to 1). This is especially the case for trying to evaluate a subsurface skin shader, for example, which models light bouncing into layers of skin and leaving the surface at a different location. That totally breaks down using baked lighting because in the real world there is no constant ambient term. Another thing is the screen-space solution for ambient occlusion to try getting some sort of directional occlusion going but is too crude and over darkens where the light is supposed to bounce around.
I can't think of a game that uses baked lighting where I say it's good enough compared to path-traced lighting.
Forbidden West is a good looking game, but let’s be honest, it has some of the worst lighting for an open-world AAA game. That thing at times looks horrible. I know you’re using it as an example to drive a point, but Cyberpunk without RT still has far superior lighting.
We don’t have many path traced games, but I think Wukong in general looks good enough even without RT. It’s much smaller in scale outside of Chapter 6 though. Open-world games should embrace path tracing. Far too many instances of botched lighting in them and I can’t blame them. Properly lighting all those environments would probably take months of additional work.
Senua’s Saga lights and shadows seem painstakingly doctored, so I’m not sure how much PT would enhance it. Might even kill the mood a lot of the time. Real life isn’t that dark lol.
In motion, it’s even less obvious because you have to stop and look at the scene. Developers have gotten excellent at baking lighting and can sometimes get close to ray traced lighting.Pictures does not tell the full story, just like with TAA, motion gives a lot away and I can cleary see the missing shadows in yor examples
Furthermore, accurate doesn’t necessarily equate to aesthetically pleasing. Some scenes have deliberately inaccurate lighting to serve the mood. There’s no such thing as inaccurate geometry or textures. We just call them bad.
That’s why to me, what Senua does with the textures, characters, and geometry is a lot more impressive than what Indy does with the lighting. Hell, given how moody and dark Senua’s Saga is, fully accurate lighting might have hurt the art direction and tone of the game.
Seeing stuff like this is a lot more egregious than light leakage or missing bounce lights.
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davis.anthony
Veteran
DigitalFoundry's video is about games released in 2024. Which other non UE5 game pushes as much geometry as Indiana Jones and was released this year?
This is an example of pushing the limits with tradional rasterizing:
When someone states it has 'state of the art geometry' its stops being about 2024 and incudes all games from all years.
davis.anthony
Veteran
Same with RT.
Look at the generational uplift.
People just assmue today that their entry level GPU can do every at max settings.
People have bad memories, this is "The Witcher 3" at launch:
The Witcher 3 Video Card Benchmark - Poor Software Optimization by CDPR | GamersNexus
stub Benchmarking the Witcher 3 proved to be more cumbersome than any game we've ever benchmarked. CD Projekt Red's game doesn't front the tremendously overwhelming assortment of options that GTA V does – all of which we tested, by the way – but it was still a time-consuming piece of software to...gamersnexus.net
Only thing that have changed since 2015 is that the whining minority has becaome far to vocal for their numbers and they forgot about the past.
Was no better in 2004 either:
Matching Doom3 With The Best Graphics Card
Which graphics cards offer maximum-quality Doom3 play? We benchmarked a selection of newer and older models from ATI and NVIDIA to find out.www.tomshardware.com
I blame DLSS and FSR to be honest for people's perceptions of what their GPU actually is.
And which other games from not 2024 have a better geometry fidelity?
This is Sukhothai:
Nothing on this planet looks better than Cyberpunk with Pathtracing. So does this makes other games or engines not "state of the art" in certain aspects?
davis.anthony
Veteran
And which other games from not 2024 have a better geometry fidelity?
This is Sukhothai:
Alan Wake 2
A Plauges Tales Requiem
God Of War Ragnarok
Avatar
.....and others.....oh and that Indy screenshot isn't impressive.
VFX_Veteran
Regular
I'll load it up and turn off RT and see for myself.
UPDATE: I can see why you would think it's good enough as it's a much closer approximation than last-gen's GI light probes (i.e. HFW, etc.). However, it still comes up short in accuracy compared to it's PT competition. For example, when you place the main character in shadow, his hair, skin and clothing materials break down. He's also not getting lit by the same environment sun. This technique will not be good enough come next-gen if the developer landscape starts putting out nothing but PT games by 2028.
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Nearly all recently released games look better than Cyberpunk with path tracing. Just look at the screenshot above and count the polygon edges of the cups in that trashbin. The game has last gen assets because it's a last gen game made with Xbox One and PS4 in mind.
Sega_Model_4
Newcomer
Same with RT.
Look at the generational uplift.
People just assmue today that their entry level GPU can do every at max settings.
People have bad memories, this is "The Witcher 3" at launch:
The Witcher 3 Video Card Benchmark - Poor Software Optimization by CDPR | GamersNexus
stub Benchmarking the Witcher 3 proved to be more cumbersome than any game we've ever benchmarked. CD Projekt Red's game doesn't front the tremendously overwhelming assortment of options that GTA V does – all of which we tested, by the way – but it was still a time-consuming piece of software to...
View attachment 12751
Only thing that have changed since 2015 is that the whining minority has becaome far to vocal for their numbers and they forgot about the past.
Was no better in 2004 either:
Matching Doom3 With The Best Graphics Card
Which graphics cards offer maximum-quality Doom3 play? We benchmarked a selection of newer and older models from ATI and NVIDIA to find out.
View attachment 12754
You exaggerated a little. The Witcher 3 in 4K in 2015? Doom III at 1600x1200 with 4x FSAA?
TW3 is difficult to benchmark at launch, considering that the game had a radical change in performance, according to new patches. I even remember Digital Foundry making videos for each new patch, because its radically changed performance.
Not to mention that the game had bugs with Hairworks, even on Nvidia hardware.
Charlietus
Regular
Very interesting new antilag tech in the PS5 SDK. Developed in conjunction with Infinity Ward no less. Or is it a feature of the engine?
Edit: "Developed in conjunction with Sony, an extra API call is made on PS5 Pro this way, to predict the upcoming frame-time."
Still not sure what is what.
I haven't had time to watch the video, but if this is developed in conjunction with Sony, and assumingly a system level feature devs can tap into... I wonder why Sony didn't bother to market this ability at all? Do they test it in the video and does it show any meaningful difference?
Charlietus
Regular
Infinity Ward claims that it has lower input lag than running the game unlocked. But rewatching that part of the video, it sounds more like a feature of the engine than a SDK thingy.
davis.anthony
Veteran
Anti-lag??
Seems like a feature they've prepared ready for PSSR frame gen if you ask me.
Seems like a feature they've prepared ready for PSSR frame gen if you ask me.
very impressed with this game. I got past
China
- and before that, whenin the Himalayas, when Gina throws the grenade
Currently playing Indy at 1440p no scaling, all maxed out except textures. The lighting of the game gives me that Metro Exodues vibe, but maybe even better. That's my favourite thing about decent RT, that whether it compares favourably vs non RT, the lighting feels logic.
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