Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2024]

The issue with Elden Ring for me personally was never it's looks, it was the performance of those looks - It was/is too high for what they are.
It runs at 4k native at 120 fps on a 4090. 1440p 60 fps on a 3060 12gb without any upscaling. Is that too much? I don't think so. The nioh engine and the ff16 engine are what I would consider terrible engines. Ff16 has to drop to 720p in combat on PS5 for 60 fps? That's what I would consider "unoptimized".
 
It runs at 4k native at 120 fps on a 4090. 1440p 60 fps on a 3060 12gb without any upscaling. Is that too much? I don't think so.

For a game that looks as average as it does, it's not enough.

Art style is excellent and carries the game a lot, but technically it was nothing special at release.

The nioh engine and the ff16 engine are what I would consider terrible engines. Ff16 has to drop to 720p in combat on PS5 for 60 fps? That's what I would consider "unoptimized".

Irrelevant to what I said.
 
FROM have somewhat weird technical priorities by normal standards and I think it costs them in performance in areas(like pushing geometry for everything). But I also think it probably helps them just in terms of doing what they know and what works for them. They're an incredibly efficient studio, and I think not trying to be cutting edge on graphics and just kind of sticking with what they know is a big reason why.

I think their general performance is acceptable enough, though stuttering issues are a different matter for some.
 
Can I ask you where exactly why it's not enough?

I've already explained that.

I'm not saying that it looks mind-blowing or anything, just that by what people online and digital foundry says, you would think that it was a PS3 game.

So I can't have my own view of the game because Digital Foundry and people online say something different?

The issue with posting screenshots like you have is, they are cherry picked shots of the game looking it's absolute best, and in no way represent what the game typically looks like during play.
 
I've already explained that.



So I can't have my own view of the game because Digital Foundry and people online say something different?

The issue with posting screenshots like you have is, they are cherry picked shots of the game looking it's absolute best, and in no way represent what the game typically looks like during play.
"The issue with Elden Ring for me personally was never it's looks, it was the performance of those looks - It was/is too high for what they are."

You said this. This doesn't explain in technical terms why the performance/looks ratio isn't enough for you. That's what I asked.

Also, the screenshots here are also old, so now that it has rt ao and shadows those environments look even better.
We are discussing technical merits, and those screenshots demonstrate good technical merits. It's an open world, of course there are areas that are more detailed than others.
And the dlc is even denser in detail.
 
Can I ask you where exactly why it's not enough?

I'm not saying that it looks mind-blowing or anything, just that by what people online and digital foundry says, you would think that it was a PS3 game.

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the game looks really good to me. It even looks better taking into account that entering caves and dungeons doesn't load another zone, it's already part of the map. I found that mindblowing when I started playing the game.

On a different note, I am very glad that Alex was singing loud and clear about the issues with the PC version.
 
Can I ask you where exactly why it's not enough?

I'm not saying that it looks mind-blowing or anything, just that by what people online and digital foundry says, you would think that it was a PS3 game.

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Alex said 2015, which is accurate. Those shots are wide and distant, making the game's art style shine. Up close, it can look quite ugly. The textures are awful and the geometric density leaves a lot to be desired. The lighting and shadows are also poor. The character models are hair rendering are also crap. Almost nothing in this game is technically accomplished honestly.
 
Alex said 2015, which is accurate. Those shots are wide and distant, making the game's art style shine. Up close, it can look quite ugly. The textures are awful and the geometric density leaves a lot to be desired. The lighting and shadows are also poor. The character models are hair rendering are also crap. Almost nothing in this game is technically accomplished honestly.
It's important to take in to consideration the target platform, which is a PS4. The textures are identical no matter the platform. The lighting and shadows are perfectly fine for a last gen game. Things like the npc's that have the player character model are a bit difficult to judge, since you aren't supposed to look at them up close, and they never show up in cutscenes or something like that. But the model quality for enemies and other creatures is pretty high.
The geometric density, depends on the area, but there are next gen games with worse geometric density on things like rocks: Screenshot_2024-06-27-00-19-47-56_64ef5fc2000c1caa954c114bb372e1d5.jpg

All in all, the real question is, is this game engine and graphics bad? And if it is, what techniques is it using for a last gen game that are inadequate compared to other PS4 games? Is elden ring really carried by just the art style as people say?
 
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That's not even talking about the animation quality and blending.


The way the animations flow from one another seamlessly, the super complex model, the cloth physics all in tandem create something that I consider technically impressive (and artistically beautiful, of course).
 
It's important to take in to consideration the target platform, which is a PS4. The textures are identical no matter the platform. The lighting and shadows are perfectly fine for a last gen game. Things like the npc's that have the player character model are a bit difficult to judge, since you aren't supposed to look at them up close, and they never show up in cutscenes or something like that. But the model quality for enemies and other creatures is pretty high.
The geometric density, depends on the area, but there are next gen games with worse geometric density on things like rocks:

All in all, the real question is, is this game engine and graphics bad? And if it is, what techniques is it using for a last gen game that are inadequate compared to other PS4 games? Is elden ring really carried by just the art style as people say?
Which is Alex's point. The game's graphics look like they belong in 2015 so why does it run so poorly? It looks fine for a PS4 game because as you said, it's the target platform. However, it runs badly on machines far more powerful than a PS4 which is where the issue is.
 
Which is Alex's point. The game's graphics look like they belong in 2015 so why does it run so poorly? It looks fine for a PS4 game because as you said, it's the target platform. However, it runs badly on machines far more powerful than a PS4 which is where the issue is.
Yeah the Alex comment is in relation to the stutters, I forgor the context when I made the comment so it catched strays, sorry Alex 😅. But I remember in some DF directs that the opinions on this game graphics sounded a bit too severe to me, just like on the internet as a whole.

But aside from the stutters on PC, the game performs more or less how it should.
 
It's important to take in to consideration the target platform, which is a PS4. The textures are identical no matter the platform. The lighting and shadows are perfectly fine for a last gen game. Things like the npc's that have the player character model are a bit difficult to judge, since you aren't supposed to look at them up close, and they never show up in cutscenes or something like that. But the model quality for enemies and other creatures is pretty high.
The geometric density, depends on the area, but there are next gen games with worse geometric density on things like rocks:

All in all, the real question is, is this game engine and graphics bad? And if it is, what techniques is it using for a last gen game that are inadequate compared to other PS4 games? Is elden ring really carried by just the art style as people say?
On PS4 definitely no to all those points (I am currently re-playing the game on base PS4). I think the game looks both impressive technically and obviously artistically on that hardware. Just the scale of the world and its density is the most impressive stuff on PS4. Even textures are very good for such a big game. They definitely do exploit the Playstation hardware well at a native 1080p as well and we expect 30fps with bad frame-pacing on that platform as standard, since Bloodborne (and because of Jaguar CPU obviously). But technically the game is one of the most impressive open-world game on PS4.


The main problem of the game is that it's not scaling well at all, even on PS5. For instance with DRS there should be no reason the framerate is not stable 60fps in the performance mode on current consoles. There should be at the very least a VRR mode, and a non-VRR mode and just reduce the resolution enough to reach the target framerate. This is what others engines like UE4 do well as seen in Stellar Blade.
 
On PS4 definitely no to all those points (I am currently re-playing the game on base PS4). I think the game looks both impressive technically and obviously artistically on that hardware. Just the scale of the world and its density is the most impressive stuff on PS4. Even textures are very good for such a big game. They definitely do exploit the Playstation hardware well at a native 1080p as well and we expect 30fps with bad frame-pacing on that platform as standard, since Bloodborne (and because of Jaguar CPU obviously). But technically the game is one of the most impressive open-world game on PS4.


The main problem of the game is that it's not scaling well at all, even on PS5. For instance with DRS there should be no reason the framerate is not stable 60fps in the performance mode on current consoles. There should be at the very least a VRR mode, and a non-VRR mode and just reduce the resolution enough to reach the target framerate. This is what others engines like UE4 do well as seen in Stellar Blade.
I agree, but that is most likely incompetence from whoever is deciding the resolution (here the bottom is 1512p, why not reduce it?). Their dynamic res system is also very slow to react. The incompetence is in those two things, not in the coding of the engine. And that is crazy because the amount of workload to change those two things isn't even high. At least compared to making the engine more efficient.
 
Can I ask you where exactly why it's not enough?

I'm not saying that it looks mind-blowing or anything, just that by what people online and digital foundry says, you would think that it was a PS3 game.

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It looks like a middle of the road, lower budget PS4 game; which is fine because that’s what it is. Performance is very sub par for what the game is doing, just as all games they have released. Technical prowess is not their strong point.
 
It looks like a middle of the road, lower budget PS4 game; which is fine because that’s what it is. Performance is very sub par for what the game is doing, just as all games they have released. Technical prowess is not their strong point.
I don't care, in fact I don't know why anyone does.

The art is good, cool. The game is fun, cool. Why on earth would I care about how much money the devs spent if I'm having fun and think the game looks cool?
 
I don't care, in fact I don't know why anyone does.

The art is good, cool. The game is fun, cool. Why on earth would I care about how much money the devs spent if I'm having fun and think the game looks cool?
You don’t have to care. Some of us are debating the claim that the game performs well relative to its visual output.
 
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