Taking in 2 minutes of that video, they look very alike in terms of overall presentation and feel to me.
Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2025]
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
- Start date
Finished Split Fiction and I won't say what happens at the end, but on a technical level it does what
Incredibly impressive.
Ratchet and Clank wanted to do but on a whole different level.
Flappy Pannus
Veteran
For example, Unity has a 50GB install size on PC - this is an 11 year old game. Only can guess how big it would be with modern materials/textures, even if the size of the city remains the same.
Still, damn if there was just an NPC LOD fix (tbh just went to nexusmods to see if there was one, gave up - my god wtf did they do to that site's UX?!?)
Unity also isn’t a completely static environment. You can open doors. Guess what happens to baked GI when you change the amount of light coming through a doorway? Absolutely nothing! Dynamic GI is another one of those things that will take a while to get used to and then 20 years from now some ppl will finally notice baked GI’s limitations.
Flappy Pannus
Veteran
00:00 Overview
00:23 The VRR Stutter Problem Explained
06:53 Unaffected Games
09:36 Alex’s Experience
14:48 Conclusion and Recommendations
Great deep dive into this.
Due to my hypersensitivity to frame pacing I would prob have noticed this if I had a VRR display hooked up my PS5 (and would be bitching about it nonstop.
).Damn though Sony has kinda struggled with VRR - the delay in any implementation, still no LFC, and now this. This doesn't affect every game with VRR mind you (albeit quite a few), and some very specific circumstances have to be engaged top see it (like it not starting until after 20 minutes of play!).
Edit: As they're hypothesizing this is some sort of expected refresh rate/timing issue, this reminded me of a PC game which had a somewhat similar issue albeit not with VRR - Bayonetta. For years, Bayonetta on the PC had this very small, hard to detect stutter issue that most probably couldn't see - but once you did, you can't unsee it. After ~30 minutes of play, playing Bayonetta on PC (at least on a fixed refresh rate display) would result in a tiny frametime flip after a few rotations of the camera. It was finally fixed late last year by a modder.
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The 20 second mark reminds me of bugs that occur because of floating point precision issues, they get less accurate when they are bigger. Wonder if the problem gets worse if you let it run for like a day or so.
As per the comments, why has DF not noticed this before? Could do with a response, plus explanation on displays tested as brand and model is being questioned in the comments.
Seriously, the world needs some major updating. Ditch fractional framerates! Ditch PAL. Record everything at 24, 48, 60, 120 FPS exact and solve all this nonsense!
Better than what? Baked lighting is less accurate in games than RT. For me, baked lighting is more a technique from the past.
Unity looked very good back then. I played it 2 or 3 years ago and the graphics were too outdated for me. Shadows is much more advanced. The predecessors of Shadows looked outdated too.
In terms of testing, speaking personally if I do test VRR it's typically going to be for sessions that are shorter than 20 continuous minutes - and I've only reviewed 1 or 2 games with unlocked frame-rates with VRR since the issues started being reported (December-ish).
In my own personal use, I tend to stick with locked frame-rate modes even when playing with VRR. I also often keep VRR off, just so I can be more aware of frame-rate dips to communicate that to our audience.
Obviously going forward, this is something I am going to test in any applicable games I review on PS5.
I tested on a Samsung QN90D, Tom tested on an Eve Spectrum, and Alex tested on an LG Ultragear OLED, and we were all able to replicate the issue.
And we also mentioned most of this in the video I believe!
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OMG this!
As someone who has worked in broadcast and building tools for tv and broadcast environments, you wouldn't beleive the amount of testing time we lost due obscure bugs in 720p59, or some other fractional and unusual framerate!
But there is at least 20+ years of legacy digital equipment in most studio, locations and developers, and everything needs to "just work" when plugged in.
God we could have been to the stars and back if it was only 24, 25, 30, 60 and 120!
Although even 24 can be an issue. - and 120 is really only a video game format, not really any tv or movies getting made in that format.
Unless of course your some smart schmuck who wants to pack a higher bit depth 60fps format into a 120 container.
/rant off.
I actually know and understand a lot of the history behind many of the decisions behind these unusual framerates,
and most of them seemed like a good choice at the time, it's just that time was often a LOONG time ago!
On one hand it's all related to a power station in upstate NY, with a slightly wonky cycle rate over 100 years ago!
but thats a story for another time. ( also it could all be very wrong )
The reason why I never noticed it before is because I do not play and test games on consoles, and definitely not with VRR
It would be ultra rare for me to test a console game for some reason.DF Direct Weekly #207: Nintendo Direct, Switch 2 C Button, Witcher 4/Intergalactic Next-Gen
0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:17 News 1: Nintendo Direct - Metroid Prime 4
0:11:02 Pokémon Legends: Z-A
0:22:08 Patapon, Everybody’s Golf, Tomodachi, Dragon Quest, Witchbrook, Shadow Labyrinth, Gradius, Marvel Cosmic Invasion
0:33:02 Switch 2 C button leak and Nintendo Today app
0:40:01 News 2: Nintendo introduces Virtual Game Cards
0:54:01 News 3: Switch 2 game rollout revealed?
1:00:33 News 4: Witcher 4, Intergalactic to arrive after 2026
1:09:51 News 5: Alex’s Nvidia driver woes
1:19:36 News 6: John’s GDC thoughts
1:32:44 Supporter Q1: What’s your favourite GPU of all time?
1:39:07 Supporter Q2: Will Valve release a Steam Deck 2 soon?
1:44:31 Supporter Q3: Should PC settings be changed to improve branding?
1:52:02 Supporter Q4: Could Xbox One have succeeded if it had been better introduced?
2:00:12 Supporter Q5: Is disc degradation a concern with Blu-ray media?
It's nice to see them discuss Nvidia drivers. It's gotten to the point now where they're worse than AMD. A scenario many could never imagine.
My PC hardlocked when installing 572.70. It seemed fine after reboot, but I eventually had to reinstall because DLSS4 override wasn't working in FF7 Rebirth. I even tried NVInspector and I think it still wasn't working. Reinstalling the driver fixed it.
BTW DLSS4 is obviously clearer than older DLSS. I could immediately tell when the override started working.
Agreed on the newest drivers being junk, I still can't really use VRR and HDR on my TV. I apologize to all on this forum who I questioned the usefulness of modern consoles, I am on the verge of just going Xbox again lol.
However disagree on the new DLSS, I can't really tell a huge difference. It's very marginal, good but marginal.
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