Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2015]

[Billy Idol]

The variance in framerate is quite extreme for this game on PC it seems: 60Hz as a target and achievable in average...but all tests show lowest fps in the range of 40 or even 30ish, even for the most expensive setups!!

This shows how difficult it is to achieve a locked(really in the sense of locked, and not average) 60Hz experience. This also underlines comments by devs who develop locked 60Hz games on console and say how difficult it is to get real locked 60fps....

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Yeah, unfortunately DF have a tendency to highlight the averages of PC games, but demonstrate the lows of the consoles.

I saw one of the videos and they showed a 750 running at around 40fps and comparing it to the PS4 version running at locked 30. If it were shown unlocked on PS4 in that range, it'd be suggested that a option for hz lock should be used. On PC it's used to demonstrate how superior the system is.

It comes across as being a bit inconsistent in the reporting.

 

[Cyan]

Yeah, unfortunately DF have a tendency to highlight the averages of PC games, but demonstrate the lows of the consoles.

I saw one of the videos and they showed a 750 running at around 40fps and comparing it to the PS4 version running at locked 30. If it were shown unlocked on PS4 in that range, it'd be suggested that a option for hz lock should be used. On PC it's used to demonstrate how superior the system is.

It comes across as being a bit inconsistent in the reporting.

Nice post. Unlocked framerate is not that bad. The original Call of Juarez is one of the most fun games I ever played, I don't think I will ever laugh -and by that I mean crying with laughter- with a game like with that one, and the X360 version had the framerate completely unlocked.

It ran at more than 30 fps all the time, peaking at 45-50 fps. It was a very responsive game. Man, how much I miss it.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Digital Foundry: Hands-on with PlayStation Now

A little surprised at this article given the current terms of service for access to the beta includes a prohibition on capture and redistribution.

 

[zed]

Digital Foundry: Hands-on with PlayStation Now

A little surprised at this article given the current terms of service for access to the beta includes a prohibition on capture and redistribution.

Not good enuf still too laggy for most games, OK with strategy / RPG etc thats not important but with most game types it is. Though one place I could see this being used is, hotels, airports, malls etc i.e. places away from home where ppl are gonna be waiting for a while

 

[DrJay24]

Not good enuf still too laggy for most games, OK with strategy / RPG etc thats not important but with most game types it is. Though one place I could see this being used is, hotels, airports, malls etc i.e. places away from home where ppl are gonna be waiting for a while

How many games have you tried?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Not good enuf still too laggy for most games, OK with strategy / RPG etc thats not important but with most game types it is. Though one place I could see this being used is, hotels, airports, malls etc i.e. places away from home where ppl are gonna be waiting for a while

I played hours of Arkham City and it was good. Unfortunately that game disappeared before I finished it.

 

[goonergaz]

Yeah, wired I've experienced very little lag on PSTV - mind you I only played about 30 mins of Sniper Zombies to test it...I also took it into work and used the internet to try out some DC which impressed my pro MS mates at work

 

[Nesh]

I have tried PS Vita Remote and TV from afar but it didnt work. Only locally I managed to make them work. Does it require 5mb upload speed minimum for it work outside of your home??

 

[Globalisateur]

Digital Foundry: Hands-on with PlayStation Now

A really confusing and incredibly unstructured article. Here is the only pertinent information from the whole article, hidden in the 12th and 13th paragraph. Most people would have probably stopped reading long before this point or / and just reached and read the conclusion.

Ultra Street Fighter 4 handed in a 150ms latency - about 80ms slower than the game running locally.

the slower-paced 30fps games... input lag travel up closer to the 200ms area

It could have being so easy, a simple table, like this:

Game | Input lag of PS3 game | Input lag (average) of PSNow | additionnal input lag (average)
USF4 | 70ms | 150ms | 80ms
UC2 | ???? | 200ms | ???
Batman | ???? | 200ms | ???
Dirt 3 | ???? | ???? | ???

We get a table...but why only for the boring loading times? Anyway 80ms of additional input lag is quite reasonable. But is this number the same on all games?

 

[Allandor]

Game | Input lag of PS3 game | Input lag (average) of PSNow | additionnal input lag (average)
USF4 | 70ms | 150ms | 80ms
UC2 | ???? | 200ms | ???
Batman | ???? | 200ms | ???
Dirt 3 | ???? | ???? | ???

We get a table...but why only for the boring loading times? Anyway 80ms of additional input lag is quite reasonable. But is this number the same on all games?

Yeah, missing a table for the lag, too. Maybe it is just my impression, but it reads more like a advertising article, that praises the new technique (but that might really be just my impression). Well, the same site notes every lost frame in any comparison. But now we have something with additional 80ms lag and it is like nothing. So my reaction time is another 2.4 frames delayed (that would be ~2 vs 4.4 frames). That would result in a really laggy controls. Well it might depend on the game, and your connection, but you can assume, that it doesn't get better. Also the connection is not really stable, that means micro stuttering should occur quite frequently.
Well, sony might get the input lag down, if they would use more potent hardware at the other side, so they could reduce the amount of time needed to render the frames (33ms on a 30fps title, 16ms on a 60fps game) . But I think because of compatibility that won't happen, right now. The only thing that is faster is the HDD access times (better loading times). As long as this is the case, additional 80ms is realistic on a fast internet connection which is really a game breaker for many games.
maybe with future TVs that can display images faster will even this, but a local console would have this gain, too.

 

[Newguy]

Performance Analysis: Project Cars

More cars and weather can quite heavily drop frames from 60 down into the 30s and the rare high 20s for the X1, quite a bit of tearing. Maybe I need to re-check my eyes but it doesn't affect gameplay as much it sounds from those videos. PS4 for the most part has the advantage with a rare large stretch in framerates, on occasion the X1 level pegs and even slightly beats the PS4 in frames.

 

[AlNom]

Wonder how much difference there is for the other camera views.

Is there a bumper or hood camera?

 

[Newguy]

Yep pretty sure there are both as well as a cockpit view.

 

[Cyan]

Wonder how much difference there is for the other camera views.

Is there a bumper or hood camera?

That's actually a very good question. Still, after watching the framerate videos, I hope they find how to achieve stable 60 fps 100% of the time. In that sense I like the familiarity of Forza, it never misses the 60 fps target.

Digital Foundry: Hands-on with PlayStation Now

A little surprised at this article given the current terms of service for access to the beta includes a prohibition on capture and redistribution.

The environments looked too grey for my taste, but nowadays I'd say that Killzone 2 didn't age so well.

As for the streaming tech, the potential is great for mobile gaming, to play in the metro and things like that, it saves a lot of battery from the phone, which doesn't have to use its chips to render the graphics, it's just rendering a video. It's also okay for puzzle games and so on.

For the purists, I think there is nothing like your HDTV and your local machine processing everything.

 

[JPT]

As for the streaming tech, the potential is great for mobile gaming, to play in the metro and things like that, it saves a lot of battery from the phone, which doesn't have to use its chips to render the graphics, it's just rendering a video. It's also okay for puzzle games and so on.

Mmmm well, the radio sucks battery to, especially if you are in a place where the signal is less than optimal. And continues streaming of data, well that is going to drain the battery even more.
In addition doing handover between cell towers or ap's if you are on wifi, that is going to mess up your streaming quite well I expect. If you stream a video, you can buffer seconds of data and you don't mind that the stream is a bit jittery and bursty due to the handover.
For streamed gaming, where its basically video overlayed with real-time controls, that is not going to work. If you do not like the lag on fixed line, then you will hate the stuff that will happen over mobile or metro wifi.

 

[Cyan]

Mmmm well, the radio sucks battery to, especially if you are in a place where the signal is less than optimal. And continues streaming of data, well that is going to drain the battery even more.
In addition doing handover between cell towers or ap's if you are on wifi, that is going to mess up your streaming quite well I expect. If you stream a video, you can buffer seconds of data and you don't mind that the stream is a bit jittery and bursty due to the handover.
For streamed gaming, where its basically video overlayed with real-time controls, that is not going to work. If you do not like the lag on fixed line, then you will hate the stuff that will happen over mobile or metro wifi.

Fair point. Cell towers handover and ap's when you are moving seems like a good reason for this technology not to work well with mobile phones, at least on the go...

Gotta say that I tried to stay positive on the streaming technology, it has its uses. Actually I am not a big fan of depending on a connection for anything, it makes you dependent, and well, local machines just process everything raw, is like more realistic and at the same time magical, seeing how your PC or console of choice renders everything.

I am quite attached to brands and physical things. Streaming has uses, it's just so impersonal...and the idea of playing video is a deal breaker for me if I want to get serious and play like I usually prefer.

 

[JPT]

Gotta say that I tried to stay positive on the streaming technology, it has its uses.

Most likely, but not as a replacement for 60fps gaming, imho. My guess is that this will be probably work best in some VR/AR solution, in one scenario it is just for your holodeck setup in another scenario its location based.

 

[Arwin]

Note though that the streaming here suffers from the PS3 source. The PS4 streams much better to PS Vita, for instance.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

What a the resolution of both consoles? I don't see it in the write-up...