Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2014]

[djskribbles]

May be true, but I must say, my PS4 experience so far has been near flawless, gaming wise.

Same here. I haven't built a gaming PC in a long time so I don't know what the current situation is for installs, patches, bugs etc. But gaming on PS4 is such a nice experience all around. It's so seamless with mostly little to no waiting needed to start playing. Playgo is excellent, disc Installs take seconds or 1-2 minutes tops before you can start playing. Digital games are separated in chunks so you don't have to wait for the whole game to download. You can play while patches download (except online MP). Patches download automatically if enabled (must be in standby). You can download stuff from the store remotely from the PS app or from a PC (also must be in standby). And soon preloading will be on PS4. As far as bugs or crashes, I have experienced very few since I got my PS4 at launch.

I guess my only complaints would be that some of the patches are ridiculously big (surprisingly, XB1 patches seem to be even bigger). And there's no way to select which games get updated automatically. You can only enable or disable automatic patch downloads.

 

[pjbliverpool]

May be true, but I must say, my PS4 experience so far has been near flawless, gaming wise.

Same here, on PC, but I haven't got Watch Dogs yet

 

[betan]

Fixed hardware, fixed OS, mandatory manufacturer QA testing. There is no comparison.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Fixed hardware, fixed OS, mandatory manufacturer QA testing. There is no comparison.

To what?

 

[betan]

To what?

I expect, on average, console build quality to be much better than PC, simply because of the reasons I listed.

Just because consoles install now or have a PC like architecture, it doesn't make their games less stable.

First day patches, or post release online patches in general, may have contributed to some lesser quality release builds or at least less then optimal user experience, but those started old gen, and in my last seven years experience of mostly console and seasonally PC (aging old gen) experience, I had much more problems with PC games than console games.

Maybe you can fix most of the PC gaming problems if you dig deep enough, but that's not what people want or some even can.

There is also AMD vs NVidia fragmentation, and driver support in general. I won't go into details but seriously on what other market, a hardware manufacturer releases driver updates after third party software releases? At worst it should be the other way around. Game specific performance optimization they say. Ridiculous.

 

[-tkf-]

May be true, but I must say, my PS4 experience so far has been near flawless, gaming wise.

I do plenty of pc gaming and there is no contest at all. The consoles are superior.

I have worked with pc's since wolfenstien, and i usually have no problem getting through the many challenges the platform offers, and it is my preferred platform for many games. The games are cheaper and usually they look better, and very often are better played with mouse and keyboard.

But you have to keep your pc updated all the time. Os patches, which sometimes takes 2 reboots to get sorted. You have at least 4 DD services that also needs to be kept updated with each different quirks. Constant Graphic driver updates, they at least doesn't require a reboot.
Usually there is a few other update programs running in the background for different hardware or software (install ASK because you update Java..?)
Finally you have to keep everything else updated that isn't handled automatically, net drivers, sound drivers etc, this ASUS was riddles with Sound issues when i got it, sadly the windows updates for hardware are stupid slow in rolling out so you have to keep it up to date by hand. Which version was it that worked the best? Who hasn't rolled back drivers because a new one broke something.. yeah awesome!

Add to that games that have individual updates as well, even though simcity and Sims are origin games they of course have their own launcher and updater.. why?

It's a complete mess compared to the very streamlined way things are handled on the Consoles. And it goes without saying that it's simply more likely to cause problems.

And then there is the worst part, the non updates.. I used to own a Sony Laptop, they released 2 graphic driver updates, the chip was still updated from Nvidia's side (i think it was Nvidia) but those drivers couldn't install because of the stupid limitations by the laptops manufacturer. So i spend several hours with Google until i found a forum that specialized in keeping those old laptops alive. Nvidia and AMD also stops working on older hardware updates, and it's up to the developers to keep them running with the "legacy" drivers, that is very rarely a problem though. I bought my last Sony laptop for gaming (and i guess they made sure i did )

 

[Davros]

Have you actually tried not updating
Things usually work fine

 

[-tkf-]

Have you actually tried not updating
Things usually work fine

Not updating what?
The drivers that fix graphic flaws in games?
The updates that makes sure my computer is "safe"?
The forced DD client updates?
The Java updates that my online banking requires?
The Game updates that is mandatory?

Please let me know.

 

[BRiT]

*ahem* please stay on topic with article discussion and take the PC gaming issues to its own thread.

 

[pjbliverpool]

tkf - that is one seriously impressive feat of exaggeration ! I would wager you spent more time embellishing those PC issues than I spent dealing with them in the last 3 years!

 

[temesgen]

Anyone know why the 360 versions of Wolfenstein and Watch Dogs not compared to XB1 or PS3? Seems strange to basically leave it and to focus PS3 versus PS4 when many more people will likely buy the PS3 and 360 versions....

 

[-tkf-]

tkf - that is one seriously impressive feat of exaggeration ! I would wager you spent more time embellishing those PC issues than I spent dealing with them in the last 3 years!

It´s real, just because your experience is limited it doesn´t change facts, but take it to a PC thread if you want to discuss it anymore.

 

[Aeoniss]

Nothing dubious about it man that's my real world experience, not one issue in years. Main differences are that I don't play launch games anymore which probably has a lot to do with it, I don't use craptacular OS's like XP, I use Windows 8 which has been rock solid for me, I don't manually tweak ini settings on games to activate features that have never gone through q/a, I don't do extreme overclocks and expect them to work perfect, and I don't use crappy power supplies. Power supply is one of those things people often overlook but a cheap one can have sinister random consequences, like a no name one used to give me random crashes and reboots but only when using Vegas Pro software. Replacing it with a Corsair Gold 850 some years ago made all issues with Vegas Pro go away.

Incidentally I've used OSX a decent amount, now that is a crappy os! Display corruption when connecting multiple displays, lockups when printing, the os crashing when pulling out the usb->ethernet adapter, sound suddenly not working anymore requiring a reboot, primitive driver support, and on and on the problems were endless, none of which occurred with Windows 8 installed on the same machine with bootcamp. I already knew the "It Just Works" mantra for OSX was full of it just from using it myself, but it was doubly confirmed when my wife worked for Apple. Windows 8 on my same Macbook Pro with bootcamp has been far more stable than OSX, in fact it's never crashed once which I can't say for OSX in spite of using it far less than Windows 8.




Given how much they had to downgrade the game, it seems like they must have run into various development issues and/or time constraints and just had to release the game to start recouping cash. It'll probably work fine by the time I get around to it though Someone should try it with ssd to see if that helps with streaming issues. Now I'm going to get back to playing Remember Me...yeah that's how far behind I am on games.

You are literally turning my world upside down. Are you some sort of cross-dimensional traveller?

Although the issues you've experienced with OSX have been par for the course in my experience- but I'd still say it is a much more stable OS than Windows (though less extensible certainly).

 

[Deleted member 13524]

PS3 to PS4 comparison in Watch Dogs:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-watch-dogs-ps3-vs-ps4

Looking at the pictures and videos, I disagree completely with their conclusion.
The game looks very similar between PS3 and PS4. The lighting system seems broken to me in both consoles, it's just that the PS3 is more obvious.

They think the game was made with the new gens in mind. I think the game was made with the old gens in mind, witch botched the experience for the new gens.

 

[Arwin]

I think it may be both. I think they started Watch Dogs to target next-gen, but then next-gen was delayed by two years, and they found they needed to target last-gen as well in order to hit the sales targets for such a large scope game and mitigate the risks of any further next-gen delays. Reworking the game to also run on last-gen halfway through development probably helped delayed the game.

They seem to have made the right decision though, considering this is Ubisofts best/fastest selling title to date ... Hopefully a next version will be more 'properly' next-gen.

 

[Sigfried1977]

I think the game gets a lot of shit for its visuals and it doesn't really deserve it. The game looks pretty stunning under the right circumstances. The dynamic nature of the weather and lighting simply means that the right circumstances cannot always be met. There's a reason why the streets in Second Son's Seattle are never not littered with reflective water puddles. Infamous also doesn't have WD's impressive foliage, cloth physics and water simulation. Infamous looks unquestionably gorgeous, but its Seattle setting feels more like a really elaborate level than a proper open world. Reminds me of Arkham City.

 

[Rangers]

Anyone know why the 360 versions of Wolfenstein and Watch Dogs not compared to XB1 or PS3? Seems strange to basically leave it and to focus PS3 versus PS4 when many more people will likely buy the PS3 and 360 versions....

Heh, did you see WD week 1 UK sales splits? 49% PS4, 27% X1, 13% 360, 9% PS4.

Myself I didn't notice Wolfenstein, I assumed maybe they would do a separate X1 vs 360 article for WD later? Maybe tailor the articles to those looking to upgrade consoles within the same brand? I figured Watch Dogs was a big enough title DF could spend a lot of resources on it. And then I assumed they could kind of collect all the data from the separate articles for the giant all-gen one PC/PS4/X1/360/PS3.

 

[Sigfried1977]

PS3 to PS4 comparison in Watch Dogs:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-watch-dogs-ps3-vs-ps4

Looking at the pictures and videos, I disagree completely with their conclusion.
The game looks very similar between PS3 and PS4. The lighting system seems broken to me in both consoles, it's just that the PS3 is more obvious.

They think the game was made with the new gens in mind. I think the game was made with the old gens in mind, witch botched the experience for the new gens.

We just received the 360 version at work, and boy, oh boy, do the df videos a poor job illustrating just how awful the last gen versions of the game look by comparison. Details? - gone; lighting? - if you thought the current gen versions looked flat during the day you've seen nothing yet; image quality and framerate? - christ almighty, I don't think I've seen a game so grainy, stuttery and riddled with tearing in years.

Granted, maybe it really is just the 360 version while the PS3 version miraculously turned out much better, but the 360 version looks nothing like the "big" versions. Nope, that's not what a last gen game with slight upgrades for current gen looks like. That's a current gen game mutilated and cut down so it can run on last gen hardware. Heck, it almost looks like it was sabotaged to make the bigger versions look better.

 

[AlNom]

Anyone know why the 360 versions of Wolfenstein and Watch Dogs not compared to XB1 or PS3? Seems strange to basically leave it and to focus PS3 versus PS4 when many more people will likely buy the PS3 and 360 versions....

From what I understand, they simply didn't get a 360 copy from Ubi.

 

[Rangers]

UFC demo

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...er&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialoomph

Both versions 900p, PS4 better AA, motion blur, X1 runs a bit better.

Surprised at 900P, it's not impressing me that much anyway...

3rd/4th sub 1080 PS4 game, depending if you count Shadowfall for the multiplayer.