Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2024]

[Charlietus]

No it really isn't. Its some other issue that as Shift says, impacts the CPU. A much more powerful CPU than those found in the consoles is unable to fully mitigate the issue. So unlike originally presented, this is in no way evidence of the console CPU's performing above their specifications relative to PC CPU's. To be clear, they do perform above their specifications relative to PC CPU's, but this isn't evidence of that. It's evidence of something else entirely. i.e. some kind of event that causes a frame time spike on PC which does not exist (or at least is far less severe) on console.

On PC it's a problem, on console it isn't. As I have said 10 times, to the end user it doesn't matter why it happens.
Also, hellblade is just one example, it happens in a lot of other games. Not every game, of course, but enough to be noticable.

 

[pjbliverpool]

On PC it's a problem, on console it isn't. As I have said 10 times, to the end user it doesn't matter why it happens.
Also, hellblade is just one example, it happens in a lot of other games. Not every game, of course, but enough to be noticable.

Yes, but it's not evidence of console CPU's performing much better than PC CPU's as originally claimed. It's evidence of some other issue exclusive to the PC side which more powerful PC CPU's (that are literally performing better in the same game than the console CPU's for general gameplay) are unable to overcome. It may not matter what the issue is from an end user point of view, but earlier you claimed it was evidence of the console CPU's generally performing better in the console environment than a similar CPU would in a PC environment, which it isn't. As mentioned above, they do perform better, but this isn't evidence of that.

 

[Sonic]

Imagine you are doing a race on a circuit. You have a 10000HP monster truck which can accelerate to 100mph in less than 2 seconds. The other guy has a formula 1 car, and he is Max verstappen.

Who is going to win the race?

So while power matters, design and how the power is used is more important, and who uses is might even be the most important. PC is raw power on archaic designs with severe bottlenecks. It achieves results despite being pc architecture, not because of it

How many laps? But if I was the monster truck driver the goal would be to physically disable and damage the F1 car to the point it it can't run any more. Demolition F1 Derby with a monster truck sounds all right.

 

[see colon]

How many laps? But if I was the monster truck driver the goal would be to physically disable and damage the F1 car to the point it it can't run any more. Demolition F1 Derby with a monster truck sounds all right.

Make it multiple F1 cars and one monster truck. It will be like Dead By Daylight but with cars.

 

[pjbliverpool]

what's wrong with PC according to you? It's an open architecture, so you have NUMA PCs, UMA PCs, x86 PCs, ARM PCs. Anybody can make the architecture of the PC flawless.

When it comes to gaming, there are flaws compared to consoles -and it's not the price, since you end up saving money over time compared to consoles-, that's something MS should be working on now, and thing like Steam Deck started to solve. Currents consoles share the same architecture: Northbridge, Southbridge, APU.

can you elaborate what it has to do with the flaws of a PC? You have x86, you have ARM, and Windows has ran on things like MIPS and Alpha AXP architectures (RISC).

Dsoups original basis for these claims was around the latency and available bandwidth between the 3 core PC gaming related components, i.e. CPU (and main memory), GPU and Storage.

After much debate I believe we settled on the consensus that the previously called out bottlenecks in bandwidth and latency did not actually exist but if @XboxKING and @Globalisateur want to present their arguments I'm happy to go through it again.

Obviously there are inherent disadvantages of a discrete GPU vs an APU (as well as advantages) but that's not an inherent flaw in the PC architecture since APU's exist in the PC space too. It's more of a design compromise to enable the PC's modular nature of desktop PC's amongst other things.

 

[Cyan]

On PC it's a problem, on console it isn't. As I have said 10 times, to the end user it doesn't matter why it happens.
Also, hellblade is just one example, it happens in a lot of other games. Not every game, of course, but enough to be noticable.

perhaps it's due to how fine tuned the work of the CPU cores is on consoles, when on PC you can have anything from a single core CPU, to a dual core CPU -or 1 core 1 thread, too-, 2C/4T, 4C/8T, etc, and maybe Windows isn't up to the task yet. It's up to MS to fix that and I'm sure now they are finally working on that.

Didn't find any stutter on my 3700X playing Senua 2 though. Maybe because I don't try to run the game at crazy framerates and set the framerate to 1/4 (41) of my display (165Hz)

 

[Charlietus]

Yes, but it's not evidence of console CPU's performing much better than PC CPU's as originally claimed. It's evidence of some other issue exclusive to the PC side which more powerful PC CPU's (that are literally performing better in the same game than the console CPU's for general gameplay) are unable to overcome. It may not matter what the issue is from an end user point of view, but earlier you claimed it was evidence of the console CPU's generally performing better in the console environment than a similar CPU would in a PC environment, which it isn't. As mentioned above, they do perform better, but this isn't evidence of that.

Does it even matter in my argument if there is some issue to the PC side? Then again, hellblade isn't the only example. The question is, what's a good example to you?

 

[Seanspeed]

A good example of how console CPU's can do better than expected is how many ambitious XB1/PS4 titles ran at a decently solid 30fps using terrible 1.6Ghz Jaguar cores. Granted, there was eight of them which helped a lot by the latter stages of the console's lives, but this is still a good deal above what anybody would have ever thought they could run in a PC environment. Not to mention there were still plenty of 60fps titles that generation as well.

It's also well known that PC has issues with stuttering for numerous reasons in certain titles that have nothing to do with lack of horsepower.

Both things can be true.

 

[Remij]

It's also true that console games can and do stutter as well... signifying that the ACTUAL issue isn't CPU power, but code.

And for the record, with Elden Ring I definitely did not have those camera cut pauses shown in that video. Just a theory, but it could be anti-cheat causing them with some specific configurations and not others.

 

[Charlietus]

It's also true that console games can and do stutter as well... signifying that the ACTUAL issue isn't CPU power, but code.

And for the record, with Elden Ring I definitely did not have those camera cut pauses shown in that video. Just a theory, but it could be anti-cheat causing them with some specific configurations and not others.

If you go to any elden ring playthroughs on PC, you'll see the stuttering. Maybe it's shader compilation and not CPU stuttering, so for you it doesn't show up. So it shows up after any driver update and game update.

 

[Remij]

If you go to any elden ring playthroughs on PC, you'll see the stuttering. Maybe it's shader compilation and not CPU stuttering, so for you it doesn't show up. So it shows up after any driver update and game update.

It's not shader compilation.. and if it was that WOULD be CPU stuttering lol.

I remember a lot of people were getting stuttering in RE7 when killing enemies, and it was the anti-cheat BS. I had those stutters too, and went to the forums to complain about it, and there were people that were adamant that it wasn't happening to them.. Let's just say they provided 100% proof that it wasn't happening to them, which threw my entire theory out the window that everyone was affected. We now know that it was Capcom's anti-cheat BS causing issues which affected mostly everyone, but not everyone.

I'm willing to bet its the same thing here. Show me the earliest case where you can confirm it happens repeatedly on PC, and I'll see if I can prove you wrong.

 

[techuse]

It’s more accurate to say PC hardware underperforms. Combination of a convoluted platform with many interconnects, poor APIs and development tools and generally receiving the least amount of developer time.

 

[Charlietus]

It's not shader compilation.. and if it was that WOULD be CPU stuttering lol.

I remember a lot of people were getting stuttering in RE7 when killing enemies, and it was the anti-cheat BS. I had those stutters too, and went to the forums to complain about it, and there were people that were adamant that it wasn't happening to them.. Let's just say they provided 100% proof that it wasn't happening to them, which threw my entire theory out the window that everyone was affected. We now know that it was Capcom's anti-cheat BS causing issues which affected mostly everyone, but not everyone.

I'm willing to bet its the same thing here. Show me the earliest case where you can confirm it happens repeatedly on PC, and I'll see if I can prove you wrong.

Yeah lol I forgot for a minute that shader compilation is CPU stuttering

You can also play without anti cheat in this game, so it could be tested. But I'm making a new character for shadow of the erdtree on PS5 so I don't have the time now.

 

[Remij]

It’s more accurate to say PC hardware underperforms. Combination of a convoluted platform with many interconnects, poor APIs and development tools and generally receiving the least amount of developer time.

Well yes, that's what happens when the Windows platform holder, and API developer, happens to build and push their own separate gaming platform for generations while generally supporting their Windows PC platform in a less than stellar way for all those years. I mean, yes, they're separate platforms and were separate areas within Microsoft's structure... but they were competing for gamers time and attention.. and all the years MS has been pissing away at console hardware has no doubt in my mind affected the PC gaming platform. PC was always playing catchup. They'd get support for API features and such.. after their console. Obviously it's influenced it in many good ways over the years with some level of standardization... but if MS had taken PC gaming seriously all these years, without being distracted with their own competing platform, it would be in a better place overall I'm sure.

MS just drop the "console" for crying out loud... make an actual Windows PC handheld device or PC based console, and focus on making WINDOWS and DIRECTX better and start focusing on tools with AI and all that shit to make PC developers lives easier.

 

[function]

I'm not sure how you're supposed to get around shader compilation when you have lots of hardware vendors and generations and endless driver releases on PC.

Shader compilation, driver&API overheads and cheating are the trifecta of PC woes that I'm not sure you could ever fully get rid of without making the platform 'worse' on the whole for people who like the PC for what it is.

 

[Cyan]

Well yes, that's what happens when the Windows platform holder, and API developer, happens to build and push their own separate gaming platform for generations while generally supporting their Windows PC platform in a less than stellar way for all those years. I mean, yes, they're separate platforms and were separate areas within Microsoft's structure... but they were competing for gamers time and attention.. and all the years MS has been pissing away at console hardware has no doubt in my mind affected the PC gaming platform. PC was always playing catchup. They'd get support for API features and such.. after their console. Obviously it's influenced it in many good ways over the years with some level of standardization... but if MS had taken PC gaming seriously all these years, without being distracted with their own competing platform, it would be in a better place overall I'm sure.

MS just drop the "console" for crying out loud... make an actual Windows PC handheld device or PC based console, and focus on making WINDOWS and DIRECTX better and start focusing on tools with AI and all that shit to make PC developers lives easier.

touché! That's what they should be doing, spoil Windows and the PC to be more efficient at gaming. They are working on that now, I am sure. I don't mind if they keep making desktop consoles, but a Windows handheld or mini-PC or whatever sounds very appealing. And they should also integrate some way of shader compilation in DirectX.

 

[Remij]

I'm not sure how you're supposed to get around shader compilation when you have lots of hardware vendors and generations and endless driver releases on PC.

Shader compilation, driver&API overheads and cheating are the trifecta of PC woes that I'm not sure you could ever fully get rid of without making the platform 'worse' on the whole for people who like the PC for what it is.

I'm convinced that if MS and IHVs wanted to tackle this problem, it would essentially be completely mitigated to the point where nobody would talk about it as being an issue. Not 100% perfect... but close enough. Nobody complains because a game stutters 1 time over the course of hours and hours. They complain when anytime a new visual effect or object is rendered it predictably stutters. It would require a multi-faceted approach.. but I've no doubt it CAN be done.

Again, if developers had one less entire platform to worry about, aka "Xbox", then they could better focus on PC optimization. If Microsoft was fully focused and committed to making Windows the absolute best platform it could be for gaming, things could be much better than they are.

 

[techuse]

Is it really in the IHV’s best interest to improve things though? It isn’t clear to me that doing so would drive more sales than people upgrading to mitigate these issues. WRT Microsoft, I think they just don’t care given they have a complete monopoly on the market and there is no chance of that ever changing at this point. Why bother investing a lot of money?

 

[Remij]

Is it really in the IHV’s best interest to improve things though? It isn’t clear to me that doing so would drive more sales than people upgrading to mitigate these issues. WRT Microsoft, I think they just don’t care given they have a complete monopoly on the market and there is no chance of that ever changing at this point. Why bother investing a lot of money?

With regards to shader compilation stuttering? Yes, of course.

WRT Microsoft.. if it gets bad enough, something WILL happen. And you can then begin to see why Valve has been making the moves they've been making with regards to Linux, Proton, and so on.

Again, I know for a fact that MS and IHVs are already working on this very issue and know that it has to be taken seriously. We just don't know what they have in mind to mitigate it.

 

[techuse]

Linux, even with Valve efforts, will never dethrone Windows. They will keep their comparatively tiny Steam Deck audience at best.