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What's wrong with Digital Foundry?
- Thread starter VFXVeteran
- Start date
Zato
Banned
I buy Nvidia but anyone who follows PC hardware knows now is not the time to buy. I didnt like that video at all.
Their opinions can be bought and they can be very inconsistent.
Cock of War
Member
VFXVeteran
We have a saying around my parts: "A thief thinks everyone steals" (basically a version of "It takes one to know one" but it's more like "It takes one to erroneously suspect everyone else is one").Looking at the magnitude of this thread and the content of it's... well, content, I'd say it was fair when you posted this originally in the PS5 OT:
And followed up with this:
And I, like I said evident by this thread fairly, suspected the following:
However, when you posted the following:
An attempt at this
Due to someone on here already trolling me, I've created a thread on it:
What's wrong with Digital Foundry?
I'm hearing a lot of comments from gamers on this forum about DF that is in a negative context. I am curious why so many people speak negatively about them. Let's hear it.www.neogaf.com
Sorry to have derailed..
...and victimized yourself of my perceived trolling of you, I feel it was more like projection on your behalf, hence the previously mentioned saying.Cock of War is thinking I'm baiting an argument and derailing the thread. No worries.. I created a thread.
Anyway this is neither her nor there and off-topic, but I needed to get that off my chest.
Mad props to you for diverging from the PS5 OT and creating this thread.
Geki-D
Banned
keep doing what you’re doing DF
You don’t need to worry about the 9.2TF boost machine fanbase.
Zato
Banned
Looking at the magnitude of this thread and the content of it's... well, content, I'd say it was fair when you posted this originally in the PS5 OT:
And followed up with this:
And I, like I said evident by this thread fairly, suspected the following:
However, when you posted the following:
...and victimized yourself of my perceived trolling of you, I feel it was more like projection on your behalf, hence the previously mentioned saying.
Anyway this is neither her nor there and off-topic, but I needed to get that off my chest.
Mad props to you for diverging from the PS5 OT and creating this thread.
VFXVeteran has a long history of really hating on Sony, especially their first party.
There is a reason he has been banned and chased from a number of forums, it is entitled to like or dislike whatever it wants ....... but mostly just trolls.
Hezekiah
Banned
Yeah I agree with this. Ultimately they have bills to pay so they're probably not going to go in on any of the major players.
Tbf to Leadbetter, he did say that all the Microsoft pre-rendered footage stuff at their event the other week was essentially pointless, and that on the whole we learnt very little about the games announced.
Digital Foundry aren't shills, they just know what side their bread is buttered on.
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thelastword
Banned
That goes to you and many others before you who think DF's bias just started. DF was clearly biased way before John and Alex came in, they are just moreso with Alex now. Tom is just a fast talking parrot who mentions "XBOX ONE X" a million times in his video even when it's not the console being compared...
DF on
360-PS3 gen: 640p on 360 vs 600p on PS3 was a "world away" from the PS3 version. PS looks so blurry, that vaseline filter ha ha. All fun a and games stopped when Staff had to conduct CPR on Leadbetter since he was so upset with Square on the famous FF13 release. Blaming the PS3 hardware for crap ports like Bayonetta which was not even done by Platinum but by a Z string dev, but tearing a graphical powerhouse like Square apart because they were not using the 360 hardware as they should, with it's ESRAM and all the sweet little nothings MS said to them that would make the game on PAR with PS3. Notwithstanding Square should pull out magic out of their hats (with compression technology, maybe velocity architecture back then or BCP) to make the CG video look as good as those on PS3 on bluray....The irony of it all.
XBONE-PS4 gen: "is resolution really important?" "TV TV TV, KInect", "SSAO greater than HBAO on NFS Rivals", bad framerate analyses, low sample counts and non like for like scenarios to give the appearance that XBONE runs better (Farcry 4) was the analysis that made it all too clear and it's where NXGamer's analysis blew that insulting analysis right out of the water. Better grass in games like Grid are said to be better on XBOX, better effects in Metro Exodus on PRO is not highlighted as a plus.
Generally in the beginning of the gen "Games with greater framerates were the superior way to play and gets the nod despite some having lower resolutions, when it favored XBOX of course; AC Unity, Witcher 3, GTA 5. Yet when a tonne of games with better framerate debuts on PRO with lower resolutions, they prop resolution, "that full phat 4k is the truth, we've seen the resolution light again from the 360 days". Bare in mind, all these games which performed better on XBONE were CPU bound, yet GTA was patched with better performance on PS4 overall as it already led that charge in battle scenarios. A horrendous port to consoles in Witcher with low AF and settings is said to be CPU bound when the XBOX OS has a bigger grip on the XBOX's CPU with it's higher overhead there, and for it's API as well, when devs clearly stated that they can get more out of the PS4 CPU. Supported by the fact that pretty much all open-world games in the last 4 years run better on PS4 over XBONE minus those bad ports. AC Unity and Witcher, so where was the superior XBONE CPU in all the open-world games that followed, but DF surely pushed that angle didn't they?...
Don't forget, the most balanced console, 900p-1080p is negligible, the best looking 720p game award goes to Halo 5........A game with dialed down physics, bad and inconsistent textures even with HD textures on and low ATD is seen as an accomplishment in Gears 5, a benchmark for graphics if you will, when a certain staffer only used notes from the dev's pdf to outline the most giddy school girl puff piece ever written, where they disregard everything that was wrong with the tech in that game, that would have been clearly visible to Stevie Wonder with blinders on. So much for professionalism and DF being a shining light, hitting us with all those truth buckets......
In truth, thank heavens we've had some Salvo over the years.....In the 360 days it was Lens of Truth, perhaps the best tech site to ever exist. They really broke down the faceoffs and showed us many things DF never did or imagined to. They gave wins to PS3 games that deserved it and showed us the real differences between the consoles on various criteria....They were exemplary in their visual cues and their summaries...
In this gen, we had Nxgamer, Vgtech and now KingThrash and thank heavens for those guys because we would be relegated to biased opinions more than truthful information, we would be privy only to LOW ATD analyses where simple things are not highlighted, especially when it comes to XBOX games. Thank heavens, not necessarily for dissenting opinions but for analyses which don't hide or obfuscate the details. Thank heavens for these outlets which separate their own biases from the tech and present everything they see and critique it just the same....So these other sites are very much necessary to go against DF because had it not been for them we would have been misled so many times and not been privy to so many details.....And it's crazy, because I still want to know why my "Halo Infinite King Thrash" thread was closed by the mods, when his analysis was a million times more accurate and thorough than DF and yet DF's thread is still up....?
Tom and Richard don't go on twitter and on forums fighting people who disagree with DF, they don't lose their cool and curse out people who criticize them. These first two guys on your list are very immature in this regard and have a lot to learn in how to have discourse and not get butthurt, when it's clear they got things wrong........Tom was Cataferal here, he was on GAF, he never got nasty, Leadbetter despite my criticism of him in the past. I love an honest man who has a bias nut keeps it civil and I love his PC videos. Look, a Sony fan to an MS fan, I have much respect to Leadbetter. He is a civil man....You cant hate the guy, even if he has his bias.
The only person I know was in the industry is NXGamer, he may still be.....At least he is very familiar with what he talks about. Most times he "don't read big words off of dev PDF's"......Shoutouts to KingThrash though, for putting together a high ATD piece on his lowly PS4 in quicktime that overshadows DF's entire video and at least, he puts a little humor into it as well. So a Double-Slay there. You look at Alex, he is just trying too hard to gain a job in green valley and may even burst a neck vein in the process.......
alabtrosMyster
Banned
He is in their consoles analysis, I don't even know why it matters (I don't think Alex being a PC gamer makes a difference).
I could not have done it better, use the info provided by the experts or publisher's PR, but they should also be there to correct it instead of blindly reading off of the material provided by those trying to sell their wares.
I don't think many people had problems with them doing so, I had a PS3 back then, I knew about the situation and I watched their material.
Define quick!
The problem is when Sony has the upper hand they will not state it plainly, when MS is on top there is no hesitation on making a recommendation.
Criticism and disagreeing with DF is not console warring in and of itself, even if you are wrong... They are wrong all the time.
Bryank75
Banned
Because he said the patch was coming 'after launch'... your quote says significant changes before launch are unlikely.... so he is saying that the lighting patch will make a significant difference in his opinion.
They haven't ignored any of the issues that you mentioned. As a matter of fact, it's very likely that you are aware of some of them BECAUSE they highlighted them.
The textures are not poor, this is a native 4k game. They covered the texture issue extensively and 343 said they received the feedback. I am more tempted to applaud a case of user feedback (including Craig) being immediately acknowledged by a studio. We will see at launch if they took it on board and remedied the problems, especially that awful pop in. If it ships with that, I will accuse 343 of malpractice given the hardware that they have in their hands.
Nemesis Prime
Member
They aren’t biased enough
We'll have to disagree on the invalidity of their analysis. They slowed down the demo multiple time to illustrate the issue with the flatness of the textures when in shadows and displayed examples of the same effect in other well known games such as Metro Exodus. Nothing they do is ever going to convince every viewer but they have the merit of backing everything up.
Physiognomonics
Member
When one guy at reee easily found very noticeable parts rendered at 720p in the Halo Infinite gameplay (direct feed), so most likely some kind of (ugly) VRS artifacts and asked why Dictator didn't talk about them in his article:
- DF looked for VRS clues in all footage of Sony PS5 games, compressed or not
- They still think VRS is only possible because of hardware when actually VRS is mostly a software tech as depicted in the MS patent. It's because they are still on the narrative that PS5 has no hardware for VRS (so not true RDNA2) so if they don't see VRS in any PS5 games, it could mean PS5 GPU has no RDNA2 (Dictator is known to state in a DF video that PS5 didn't have any hardware RT)
When the probable reason why we didn't see VRS objects in any PS5 games is because it's ugly and the final image looks blurry, i.e.: lower resolution.
- DF looked for VRS clues in all footage of Sony PS5 games, compressed or not
- They still think VRS is only possible because of hardware when actually VRS is mostly a software tech as depicted in the MS patent. It's because they are still on the narrative that PS5 has no hardware for VRS (so not true RDNA2) so if they don't see VRS in any PS5 games, it could mean PS5 GPU has no RDNA2 (Dictator is known to state in a DF video that PS5 didn't have any hardware RT)
When the probable reason why we didn't see VRS objects in any PS5 games is because it's ugly and the final image looks blurry, i.e.: lower resolution.
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PresetError
Neophyte
What's happening is so simple. After many years of shilling for Sony they are now shilling extremely hard for Microsoft and it's very easy to notice.
They are not the only ones. For many months it's been floating in the air the increase of positive press Xbox is getting from many outlets and individual content creators. Microsoft must have been investing a lot in buttering asses up. And I say good for them. Marketing is a service. Microsoft has the money to buy a lot of external marketing services. Sony has been doing it for ages to an extreme extent.
They are not the only ones. For many months it's been floating in the air the increase of positive press Xbox is getting from many outlets and individual content creators. Microsoft must have been investing a lot in buttering asses up. And I say good for them. Marketing is a service. Microsoft has the money to buy a lot of external marketing services. Sony has been doing it for ages to an extreme extent.
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Shmunter
Member
I don’t get it. Was the whole demo in shadows, there were no other conditions in full sunlight? Because anything in sunlight is not in a shadow and it should not be subject to flat lighting. What am I missing?
Journalists are supposed to have something called integrity and deontology. The question is whether it still means anything.
Freeman
Banned
Yep, that Alana something video pushing gamepass and the Kinda Funny new Xbox Podcast timing is pure astroturfing. MS PR guy even was a guest there already, doing the rounds on every hardcore Xbox supporters podcasts as well to suppress negative coverage.
MS is in the fake hype business now, paying streamers to play their games, getting cozy with DF, funding pro-Xbox podcasts, etc. They are not subtle at all with their strategy.
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PresetError
Neophyte
Sorry to break it to you but journalism is almost dead all around and in the (non vital) videogame industry journalists ar an extension of companies marketing departments.
Believe me, I know. I was a journalist for 10 years.
I wouldn't necessarily assume that if someone streams anything other than a Sony game or acknowledges what everybody knows about Game Pass, they are a paid shill for Microsoft.
Freeman
Banned
I wasn't born yesterday, I know what is up, no need to try and gaslight me. There is nothing organic about it.
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VFXVeteran
Banned
Hmm.. I was thinking about this but I'm unsure if I will have the time.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Do you have proof of this? People keep saying things like this, but until you can demonstrate this with evidence, you're just talking out your butt.
Nikana
Go Go Neo Rangers!
THe problem with anyone on Youtube these days is that its written in ink. You cant say anything without someone diving into it and over analyzing it to death. If I say a tree looks bad in Ghost of Tshuima but then say a Tree looks good in Forza Horizon, the internet will chastise me for the rest of time over tress.
DF have their own opinions a lot of time and they arent perfect by any means but the fact that they have an opinion on everything they do vs a flat analysis is where the issues come in. You can look at one game and say hey I think the 900P vs 1080P here is a huge difference.
But then look at Halo 5 which runs at 720p with 30 FPS animations at times and say this looks really nice while also saying a game on PS5 that runs in 1080P with bad frame pacing is rough to look at. It varies from game to game but the internet will take anything you say as a blanket statement.
DF have their own opinions a lot of time and they arent perfect by any means but the fact that they have an opinion on everything they do vs a flat analysis is where the issues come in. You can look at one game and say hey I think the 900P vs 1080P here is a huge difference.
But then look at Halo 5 which runs at 720p with 30 FPS animations at times and say this looks really nice while also saying a game on PS5 that runs in 1080P with bad frame pacing is rough to look at. It varies from game to game but the internet will take anything you say as a blanket statement.
VFXVeteran
Banned
I hear a lot of people ragging on Halo Infinite. In this particular case, it's justified. If I worked for 343, I would have never allowed that demo to be shown. The game engine and assets need a lot of work.
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VincentMatts
Member
Because they speak about MS in a positive light. Isnt it obvious?
This is more "loud minority" complaints from the same people who complained about tomb raider exclusivity: Sony fanboys.
UniformDeliverance
Member
The complaints that DF are Xbox biased is hilarious to me. When the PS4 and Xbox One launched loads of people thought they were PlayStation biased as the results consistently showed superior PlayStation performance.
It's just funny to see how perception online changes.
It's just funny to see how perception online changes.
Explosive Zombie
Banned
When one guy at reee easily found very noticeable parts rendered at 720p in the Halo Infinite gameplay (direct feed), so most likely some kind of (ugly) VRS artifacts and asked why Dictator didn't talk about them in his article:
- DF looked for VRS clues in all footage of Sony PS5 games, compressed or not
- They still think VRS is only possible because of hardware when actually VRS is mostly a software tech as depicted in the MS patent. It's because they are still on the narrative that PS5 has no hardware for VRS (so not true RDNA2) so if they don't see VRS in any PS5 games, it could mean PS5 GPU has no RDNA2 (Dictator is known to state in a DF video that PS5 didn't have any hardware RT)
When the probable reason why we didn't see VRS objects in any PS5 games is because it's ugly and the final image looks blurry, i.e.: lower resolution.
I'd like to see someone discredit this particular post, if it's possible.
It helped me choose which platform to buy certain games sometimes.
PharaoTutAnchAmun
Member
O, its not DF, they are great in theyr work, its Alex, he is an MS chill. I read a lot of and seen more than hunderds of videos of them, theyr almost neutral, but one stands out, he biased as hell and that is Alex....fact
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Jooxed
Gold Member
Anyway, I don't get it, why is everybody talking about DF and Sony? I've watched DF for months, and their real bias is obvious - they absolutely hate Nintendo! In every Wii U and Switch video I have ever watched, they always shit on Nintendo, pointing out how downgraded the Switch ports are when compared to the Xbox/PS4 versions, patronisingly referring to many as "miracle ports", such is their distain for Nintendo hardware. There is no other reason for this, other than unfair bias. The are obviously paid shills for Sega, who everyone knows are still bitter about not being in the console business anymore, so they give money to DF to make them dump on their old rival.
Jooxed and the rest of the Nintendo GAF crew, GET ITTT!
This is my favorite
D
Deleted member 740922
Unconfirmed Member
Thelastword calling someone biased is like being told to stop slouching by the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
PharaoTutAnchAmun
Member
Its not the DF panel they are great....its Alex
Who is KT? You got a link to one of their videos where they were pro John?
Bryank75
Banned
It would be better to have qualified people like yourself break things down from a technical perspective and maybe 2 artists break down the artistic aspects to each scene....
People do not understand the differences between artists contributions and technical contributions and how each is combined to optimize what appears on screen.
I think someone like you could provide a lot of clarity and be more informative.
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DeepEnigma
Gold Member
No they weren’t. You can search on here for threads from the beginning of this gen where they were criticized for introducing a new narrative in their analysis that DID NOT exist in the PS360 gen... and that was Richard making comments of, “if all your friends are on XBL or you like the controller more, then you’re not missing out on the performance differences.”
Quality “tech” analysis that did not exist the gen prior, but they felt the need to candy coat a certain base. Then those same comments disappeared when the X came out. No, “if all your friends are on PSN” and all that malarkey.
A little background on DF as well, when they first started out, they were one of the few places given special equipment and expensive software licenses for free in the 360 era from MS. They had that on their old website as a disclaimer. They’ve been getting the goods for a while, much like the Polygon investment from MS as well.
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Manwithoutfear
Member
Ok, confession time: which of you guys is Tominator on Twitter?
This dude tominator is nuts.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Honestly? It's usually hardcore Sony fanboys/fangirls who think they are financially compromised by Microsoft, especially Rich Leadbetter, and confuse having a friendly system preference with having an extreme console bias that produces hatred for the "other" brand, in this case that brand being PlayStation.
They also don't tend to like Alex all that much, either, the latest reason being because he didn't absolutely eviscerate Halo Infinite as it was trendy for many other people to do. Yes his analysis wasn't really the same as NXGamer's or The Cherno's, but it had a lot of good points in its own right. There is no one objectively correct source on "explaining" Halo Infinite's visuals, you'd better be willing to listen to multiple viewpoints or just don't bother.
He is. Before he got ran off of the forums in the Next-Gen Console Speculation Thread (can you guess why?), he gave some great input. Also, he does some bomb-ass retro analysis specials, my favorite being the SEGA 32X series.
While I think the hate DF gets can be ridiculous at times, I do find some of it funny. There's Youtubers like KingThrash for example who got on them over the Halo Infinite video and I just found it amusing due to the "tonal contrast" you get between KingThrash stuff and Digital Foundry stuff. Anyone who's seen even snippets of both will know exactly what I'm talking about
They also don't tend to like Alex all that much, either, the latest reason being because he didn't absolutely eviscerate Halo Infinite as it was trendy for many other people to do. Yes his analysis wasn't really the same as NXGamer's or The Cherno's, but it had a lot of good points in its own right. There is no one objectively correct source on "explaining" Halo Infinite's visuals, you'd better be willing to listen to multiple viewpoints or just don't bother.
He is. Before he got ran off of the forums in the Next-Gen Console Speculation Thread (can you guess why?), he gave some great input. Also, he does some bomb-ass retro analysis specials, my favorite being the SEGA 32X series.
While I think the hate DF gets can be ridiculous at times, I do find some of it funny. There's Youtubers like KingThrash for example who got on them over the Halo Infinite video and I just found it amusing due to the "tonal contrast" you get between KingThrash stuff and Digital Foundry stuff. Anyone who's seen even snippets of both will know exactly what I'm talking about
ZywyPL
Banned
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PharaoTutAnchAmun
Member
That article was not about the PS5, the focus was on the Unreal 5 engine, praising it, that was obvious and that was clear to see.
Griffon
Member
They're not expert, but... DF pointing out frame pacing issues has been a very good thing for the industry overall. Most devs didn't give a shit until DF forcefully put their nose in their shit.
But beyond pixel and frame counting, DF analysis can be limited and have inaccuracies. If they want to go deeper they would need to get some actual graphic programmers on board.
But beyond pixel and frame counting, DF analysis can be limited and have inaccuracies. If they want to go deeper they would need to get some actual graphic programmers on board.
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Explosive Zombie
Banned
My first post in the thread, the third video.
The post I'm asking someone to discredit includes that idea being purported by DF, you're pretending the post doesn't exist and are just parroting something it responds to.
thelastword
Banned
PS4 was 1080p vs 900p on Xbonex with better effects and framerate on the majority of titles. It was then DF found it important to mention that the differences were negligible, when in the prior gen a 40p difference was a world away.
PS4 had 60fps games run at 1080p with better effects whilst the same game run at 720p on XBONE. Who in their right mind would declare Xbox the winner in these scenarios. Yet DF has never been Sony biased, they stopped at no end to minimize the differences between Xbox and PS4, but if Xbonex ever had a slight framerate edge in any game, they would make sure we knew about it, like in 80% of the article, they would spell it out and highlight it a million fold,
and its where the term "judder" was popularized. They even hated on PS4 exclusives that offered unlocked framerates, whilst praising Ryse as a solid performer, a game that dropped to the teens. Nobody ever declared DF Sony biased, if anything this gen showed their MS bias even more as they gritted their teeth every time they came to an analysis ps4 vs xbone, telling us, how apparent differences are like for like or negligible. It's where your friends are etc....
And of course, plainly misrepresenting framerate analysis and of course leaving out pertinent details that would make MS look much worse.
ZywyPL
Banned
I see. Well then:
Most likely because it's not confirmed nor there are any evidence/rumors pointing towards PS5 also having the tech.
Because it is, it's a feature that requires specific hardware, like you cannot have shaders without shader processors, simple as that, that's the reason only few GPUs have VRS (Turing, XBX, and upcoming Ampere/RDNA2 PC cards). I'll repeat what I once wrote in another thread - a "custom" GPU doesn't necessarily mean "more", "better", it can as well mean that Sony ditched some features to save on transistor budget, or to use it on something else.
Bottom line is, until Sony decides to drop that promised teardown all sorts of such speculations will continue to circle around, some people will try to make it look worse than what it is, some will try to make it seem batter than on paper specs suggest, all I know is that there's a Geometry Engine and that's it, until Cerny/Sony confirms otherwise.
Physiognomonics
Member
Yeah, about their article of the Unreal 5 demo running on PS5. When most experts (including the Epic boss and his developers) think that it was maybe only possible because of super fast I/O solution.
DF experts : Not a word of fast SSD explaining the detailed graphics. Not one mention in their article.
DF experts : Not a word of fast SSD explaining the detailed graphics. Not one mention in their article.
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Explosive Zombie
Banned
If they use not analyzing compressed video as an excuse for Halo Infinite why do it for Sony games? You can say it's searching for evidence but by their own words such evidence isn't reliable in a compressed Youtube video.
Wait, XBX and upcoming cards similar to what Series X uses? So... why are we saying it can't be found in Halo Infinite (especially since it's running on a PC)???
Reindeer
Member
The point is that they got an exclusive look at that footage ahead of time because Epic gave them that exclusivity, just like Microsoft gave an exclusive to DF. And the whole focus of the Epic demo was around PS5 tech, so DF very much was covering PS5 and its capability in that video.That article was not about the PS5, the focus was on the Unreal 5 engine, praising it, that was obvious and that was clear to see.