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DF: The Medium Tech Review: A closer look at Xbox's First Next-Gen Game

phil_t98

#SonyToo
Very good Phil, that was short but pointless :p (quote from GB).

Seriously, is there a reason you brought PSVR up in your reply to me beside giving some space to throw shade at VR cuts on a 1.84 TFLOPS last generation console?

no it was what I was responding to with the previous poster but you jumped in and responded to what I said
 
Yeah, I don't think the game is instantly streaming in the other world ; it might be present in memory. DF are at the end of the day fans, not engineers and times like these it shows.
Yeah it’s kinda sad they get worshiped for being the best. They don’t know anything more than gaf members; they just have the equipment and time to analyse games.

they really need to hire a former dev.
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo
Yeah it’s kinda sad they get worshiped for being the best. They don’t know anything more than gaf members; they just have the equipment and time to analyse games.

they really need to hire a former dev.
they also get access to talk to developers and learn what's going on inside the game. they get first hand access, they are not like us on here that's there full time job
 
they also get access to talk to developers and learn what's going on inside the game. they get first hand access, they are not like us on here that's there full time job
? I never said they are like us and I also said it’s their job. I said they don’t know anything more than gaf members as in their technical knowledge. Getting first hand access still doesn’t make them anything more than fans and tech enthusiasts.
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo
? I never said they are like us and I also said it’s their job. I said they don’t know anything more than gaf members as in their technical knowledge. Getting first hand access still doesn’t make them anything more than fans
Yeah it’s kinda sad they get worshiped for being the best. They don’t know anything more than gaf members; they just have the equipment and time to analyse games.

they really need to hire a former dev.

they know a lot more than Gaf members lol
 
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Snake00

Member
Shouldn't the XSX be able to run rdr2 two times at 1080p30 given that it is at least two times as powerfull as a xbox one x, which runs rdr2 at 4k30?
And this game, to me, does not look as good as rdr2.

Obviously it is a small studio and they can't optimize their game like rockstar, but the argument that they are doing something special with their two world design and that a system like the XSX can only deliver 900p30 regardles of optimization does not seem plausible to me.
 

DJ12

Member
they also get access to talk to developers and learn what's going on inside the game. they get first hand access, they are not like us on here that's there full time job
And yet they never ask io once why ps5 ran at 1800p with alledged reduced shadow quality.

Not once did they ask why xbox performs 4k when in every other game the best it can manage is almost match the ps5.

Anyone worth their salt, no matter which console they prefer, would ask that question. Even the biggest xbox fanboy in existence would ask just for the extra ammo.

My guess is they did but the answer didn't fit the narrative they wanted to push.

How you can put so much faith in people like this I'll never know.
 
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M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Shouldn't the XSX be able to run rdr2 two times at 1080p30 given that it is at least two times as powerfull as a xbox one x, which runs rdr2 at 4k30?
And this game, to me, does not look as good as rdr2.

Obviously it is a small studio and they can't optimize their game like rockstar, but the argument that they are doing something special with their two world design and that a system like the XSX can only deliver 900p30 regardles of optimization does not seem plausible to me.
Probably not, there would be memory issues. If the XSX have for example 24GB of memory, than yeah it could have been possible.
 
Great now every rabid ps fan will highlight this game that is literally has to push 2 games at once as the "X" running games at 900p instead of stopping to read.

I will repeat the same thing over and over since Xbox fans trying go spin that xbox runs 2 games at once. Calling out PS fans, but it's ok for Xbox fans to spread crap 2 games at once.


Running 2 games at the same time would be rendering 2x the full screen resolution, but that's not exactly the case here since the 2 viewports share the same screen estate.
So in this case the rendered number of pixels would be the same regardless if it's 1 or 2 scenes.
(for example 2x4k vs 4K split in 2 scenes).

Core of the scene is the same on both shared screen, same building structure and environment, but with different assets, lighting, and other underlying graphical effects. And when that appears, everything drops in resolution to 900p and texture quality. And of course it's 30fps
 

Vae_Victis

Banned
they also get access to talk to developers and learn what's going on inside the game. they get first hand access, they are not like us on here that's there full time job
Not knowing the topic you are covering and getting your spin on it written for you by the companies you are supposed to cover is not journalism.

It's fine to ask developers what they did in a game, but if you don't have the minimal knowledge to go in and call bullshit when you see some, then your articles and videos are little more than glorified press releases.

This game runs like arse because the developers optimized it poorly. They are a small team, so whatever, not a big deal as far as I'm concerned. But all this "it's running two games at once, so of course it runs twice as bad!" is PR nonsense that doesn't really add up with how the rendering process should work at its most basic level.

The fact you see things in two different rendering windows doesn't mean it's "two games", just that there are two cameras in the 3D environment running at once (for half the pixels each).

Anything this game does can be done by having two similar environments in the same 3D space and forcing synchronization on a lot of pairs of objects. If they did that, there is no reason for it to run this bad. If they didn't and came up with some byzantine custom solution that overcomplicated and fucked everything just for the sake of being original, that's still on them.
 

Thomish

Member
Surely serious issues with the game itself if even the new 3000 series are having proper frame rate issues. Clearly lots of optimisation issues. Don't think we can conclude anything conclusive if it's even struggling on mid-high end PCs.
 
Just a few of John leadbutters recent videos have been repeatedly called out for mistakes or things he just simply doesn’t know. Like people keep saying, they’re enthusiasts not experts.
I like John, and he's knowledgeable but yeah these guys are enthusiasts. Some of his takes have been wrong, and some opinions baffling. His opinions on unlocked fps are extreme to the point he would prefer locked 30fps over 45+ in an action game requiring fast input? So if you tell me you think bayonetta 2 on wii U would look better if you locked it to 30fps you are insane full stop lol. Not to mention your input would slow hugely.

And motion blur is important but mostly at 30fps and more so on oled where there's little tv blur. Depending on the game and your display it can be beneficial to turn off motion blur. I've never heard a time where DF says a motion blur implementation can be bad, but it can. So yeah he repeats these things a lot but I cringe every time lol.

If I could pixel count I would fit right in with DF, not going to lie that's an awesome job.
 
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Radical_3d

Member
Hello, hello!

giphy-tumblr.gif
Bookmarked.
 

AgentP

Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
Probably not, there would be memory issues. If the XSX have for example 24GB of memory, than yeah it could have been possible.
No no no. Going from 1080P to 4k is ~4x the pixels , but the extra memory only comes from the various buffers involved , if more than the output frame buffer (the image you see). The rest of the engine doesn't suddenly take 4x the memory and unless they change the textures (unlikely), the assets don't take 4x the memory.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
No no no. Going from 1080P to 4k is ~4x the pixels , but the extra memory only comes from the various buffers involved , if more than the output frame buffer (the image you see). The rest of the engine doesn't suddenly take 4x the memory and unless they change the textures (unlikely), the assets don't take 4x the memory.
But this is factor of 2?
 

Esppiral

Member
The 900p figure is in the worst case scenario stop this mantra of the game running at 900p because that's false is like saying Hitman 3 runs at 37 fps on ps5, False.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I like John, and he's knowledgeable but yeah these guys are enthusiasts. Some of his takes have been wrong, and some opinions baffling. His opinions on unlocked fps are extreme to the point he would prefer locked 30fps over 45+ in an action game requiring fast input? So if you tell me you think bayonetta 2 on wii U would look better if you locked it to 30fps you are insane full stop lol. Not to mention your input would slow hugely.
I will never forget John recommending the 30 fps mode over the unlocked 60 fps mode in GoW on the Pro. I played GoW for almost 200 hours, 90% of it in the 60 fps mode and it was a massive improvement over the locked 30 fps experience.

Even Richard says that you dont notice framedrops that much in the 50s. Or at least not as much as you would when it goes below 30 into 20s.

I remember him making a big stink over the TLOU remastered 4k 60 fps mode too. It dropped a few frames here and there, but John acted like it was the worst thing ever. Which led ND to either downgrade the resolution or cap the fps to 30 fps. I was so pissed I never touched it again and called out John who then blamed ND for not offering multiple modes.

I like John the most out of all the DF guys, but the guy can be too much at times.
 

Leyasu

Banned
I will repeat the same thing over and over since Xbox fans trying go spin that xbox runs 2 games at once. Calling out PS fans, but it's ok for Xbox fans to spread crap 2 games at once.


Running 2 games at the same time would be rendering 2x the full screen resolution, but that's not exactly the case here since the 2 viewports share the same screen estate.
So in this case the rendered number of pixels would be the same regardless if it's 1 or 2 scenes.
(for example 2x4k vs 4K split in 2 scenes).

Core of the scene is the same on both shared screen, same building structure and environment, but with different assets, lighting, and other underlying graphical effects. And when that appears, everything drops in resolution to 900p and texture quality. And of course it's 30fps
Well done. But did you miss the links where this game runs badly on new nvidia 3000 gpus?

So what is it: XsX and all PC configurations are bad or an optimisation problem?
 
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muteZX

Banned
Small team, low "the first iteration is sufficient" effort. Productivity-oriented engine /code/, not for performance.
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo
I will never forget John recommending the 30 fps mode over the unlocked 60 fps mode in GoW on the Pro. I played GoW for almost 200 hours, 90% of it in the 60 fps mode and it was a massive improvement over the locked 30 fps experience.

Even Richard says that you dont notice framedrops that much in the 50s. Or at least not as much as you would when it goes below 30 into 20s.

I remember him making a big stink over the TLOU remastered 4k 60 fps mode too. It dropped a few frames here and there, but John acted like it was the worst thing ever. Which led ND to either downgrade the resolution or cap the fps to 30 fps. I was so pissed I never touched it again and called out John who then blamed ND for not offering multiple modes.

I like John the most out of all the DF guys, but the guy can be too much at times.
kinda funny when you read what's going on in The Hitman 3 comparison thread
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Yeah it’s kinda sad they get worshiped for being the best. They don’t know anything more than gaf members; they just have the equipment and time to analyse games.

they really need to hire a former dev.
They started as posters on NeoGAF back in the day, aided by the popularity of this platform to launch into what they have today. Right in the trenches of the PS360 console war when #grassgate kicked it off. They were also one of the very few given special tools/equipment on a free license from Microsoft back then as well to test the games if I remember correctly. I remember the disclaimer on their old site before the start of last gen.

Leadbetter's history here... was quite something from what I read.
 
They started as posters on NeoGAF back in the day, aided by the popularity of this platform to launch into what they have today. Right in the trenches of the PS360 console war when #grassgate kicked it off. They were also one of the very few given special tools/equipment on a free license from Microsoft back then as well to test the games if I remember correctly. I remember the disclaimer on their old site before the start of last gen.

Leadbetter's history here... was quite something from what I read.
You have no idea of Leadbetter's history in gaming? He was the editor of Edge magazine for many years, how do you think he has so much insider knowledge?He has many friends from years of working with developers on exclusives and what have you.
 

FranXico

Member
They started as posters on NeoGAF back in the day, aided by the popularity of this platform to launch into what they have today. Right in the trenches of the PS360 console war when #grassgate kicked it off. They were also one of the very few given special tools/equipment on a free license from Microsoft back then as well to test the games if I remember correctly. I remember the disclaimer on their old site before the start of last gen.

Leadbetter's history here... was quite something from what I read.
Aye. The rise of DF predated grassgate though. Rich already had gained popularity through EG by then.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
You have no idea of Leadbetter's history in gaming? He was the editor of Edge magazine for many years, how do you think he has so much insider knowledge?He has many friends from years of working with developers on exclusives and what have you.
Oh I remember.
Aye. The rise of DF predated grassgate though. Rich already had gained popularity through EG by then.
Aye, grassgate was when the trenches kicked off napalm levels in the war, was my point. So it's always cute when they cry about what their very model relies and fuels, and they know this. We all know this.
 
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Oh I remember.
Then why only mention post history on Gaf like he somehow got lucky with Digital Foundry. EG helped him make DF popular but these days they help each other. Leadbetter has led the way in gaming analysis for nearly two decades, come on man give him his dues.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
kinda funny when you read what's going on in The Hitman 3 comparison thread
right it was ridiculous then and its ridiculous now. I have always criticized DF for picking the worst performing sections for stress tests and then making out the game performs badly based on those stress tests.

The goal should be to inform the viewer about the average framerate, not taking the worst case scenario and making it look like the game performs like that all the time.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Then why only mention post history on Gaf like he somehow got lucky with Digital Foundry. EG helped him make DF popular but these days they help each other. Leadbetter has led the way in gaming analysis for nearly two decades, come on man give him his dues.
Post history was mentioned with how he conducted himself on several tech/gaming forums, nothing more.
 
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sncvsrtoip

Member
right it was ridiculous then and its ridiculous now. I have always criticized DF for picking the worst performing sections for stress tests and then making out the game performs badly based on those stress tests.

The goal should be to inform the viewer about the average framerate, not taking the worst case scenario and making it look like the game performs like that all the time.
for their deffense, consoles don't run uncapped frames so its only option for them to test also they always say that just rare situation etc. people fighting over consoles then reinterpretate their videos for their narration (as here that medium is 900p when it's lowest bound in dynamic resolution range)
 
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s-bojan

Banned
Oh, so this became " let's shit on DF" topic?
Rename it please so that we can have OT...it's way easier to ignore just one thread.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I wonder how your post history holds up?
It's on display. I don't pretend to be bias free, that would be a fool's folly.

In fact, my tastes change like a lot of people do with the ebb and flow, so that's something I take into consideration for other people as well.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
They started as posters on NeoGAF back in the day, aided by the popularity of this platform to launch into what they have today. Right in the trenches of the PS360 console war when #grassgate kicked it off. They were also one of the very few given special tools/equipment on a free license from Microsoft back then as well to test the games if I remember correctly. I remember the disclaimer on their old site before the start of last gen.

Leadbetter's history here... was quite something from what I read.
Richard really started to come around half way through the PS3 gen. I think KZ2, GoW3 and Uncharted 2 really opened his eyes and it became clear that the cell wasnt this bs secret sauce excuse. By the time the PS4 rolled around, he had lost all of his anti sony bias. He was one of the few people who loved not just the concept of the Pro but also sold many on the results while the rest of the media and especially gaffers were down on it wishing for it to fail.

He will always remain a MS fanboy at heart, and thats ok. I will always have a soft spot for Sony despite all this shit they have pulled over the years. As long as he gives credit where credit is due, I am ok with it. I do think he needs to make some kind of video on the PS5 hardware overperforming and admit he was wrong to spread nonsense about it before launch. I get it, we didnt have data back then and we just had to take Cerny's word for everything but we do have data now and he needs to admit the PS5 is no PS3 when it comes to bad architectural decisions like split ram and a significantly weaker RSX GPU. The PS5 GPU has its own strengths despite the lower tflops count and thats something he needs to come to grips with.
 

Andodalf

Banned
Oh, so this became " let's shit on DF" topic?
Rename it please so that we can have OT...it's way easier to ignore just one thread.

TBH you should have a lot of people in this thread on ignore anyway. A lot of people do nothing but war with no intention other than to bait and troll.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Richard really started to come around half way through the PS3 gen. I think KZ2, GoW3 and Uncharted 2 really opened his eyes and it became clear that the cell wasnt this bs secret sauce excuse. By the time the PS4 rolled around, he had lost all of his anti sony bias. He was one of the few people who loved not just the concept of the Pro but also sold many on the results while the rest of the media and especially gaffers were down on it wishing for it to fail.

He will always remain a MS fanboy at heart, and thats ok. I will always have a soft spot for Sony despite all this shit they have pulled over the years. As long as he gives credit where credit is due, I am ok with it. I do think he needs to make some kind of video on the PS5 hardware overperforming and admit he was wrong to spread nonsense about it before launch. I get it, we didnt have data back then and we just had to take Cerny's word for everything but we do have data now and he needs to admit the PS5 is no PS3 when it comes to bad architectural decisions like split ram and a significantly weaker RSX GPU. The PS5 GPU has its own strengths despite the lower tflops count and thats something he needs to come to grips with.
And don't get it twisted (not you but people reading the exchanges), I appreciate the work that they do as well as other tech analysis sites out there. I've always been into the technical side of things with how games work or perform since I was a child. Reading C64, PC, and C&VG/EGM mags and the like that rarely included them, but they were my favorite articles or exerts more often than not when they did.

DF Retro is like a nostalgic gaming tech dream come true for me, and some of my favorite content they produce.
 
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CamHostage

Member
Running 2 games at the same time would be rendering 2x the full screen resolution, but that's not exactly the case here since the 2 viewports share the same screen estate.
So in this case the rendered number of pixels would be the same regardless if it's 1 or 2 scenes.
(for example 2x4k vs 4K split in 2 scenes).

Core of the scene is the same on both shared screen, same building structure and environment, but with different assets, lighting, and other underlying graphical effects. And when that appears, everything drops in resolution to 900p and texture quality. And of course it's 30fps
I'm with you that the "2 games at once" is a hinky way to describe it (and if that's really how Bloober is doing it, I'd be curious why?), but you're talking about the final output; you still need to get through all the game processes before you render those 4k of pixels. To do that, like you said, they need to have the scene built twice, but just because it's half the pixels doesn't mean it's perfectly half the work. You still need pretty much all of the geometry (you could cut it back but then you'd need full-detail on any frame that you cut to full-scene,) you'd need the textures, and you'd need to make all the passes of the elements you'd do at full-screen (again, at some measure of quality if you can get by when squinting at a split-screen doesn't show the fine details, but I would imagine the quality would still need to be high because compromises would probably stand out.) And your second screen has a lot of differences even though the geometry is very similar, so you don't have the advantage that a full-frame does of having one scene to work with; if you're doing the work twice, every surface that informs how another surface behaves has to do that work twice even though it's the same set of surfaces in both scenes.

If the work of doing a split-screen effect were perfectly half, we'd still have split-screen in our racing games and co-op action games, but it's not 1/2, it's something more like an exponential difference (or fraction of exponential) in how much it takes to do a complex scene twice in a frame, even though the final output will be a set resolution.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
And don't get it twisted (not you but people reading the exchanges), I appreciate the work that they do as well as other tech analysis sites out there. I've always been into the technical side of things with how games work or perform since I was a child. Reading C64, PC, and C&VG/EGM mags and the like that rarely included them, but they were my favorite articles or exerts more often than not when they did.

DF Retro is like a nostalgic gaming tech dream come true for me, and some of my favorite content they produce.
Same. I actually hate that we have to qualify our posts when criticizing DF. This forum openly mocks and criticizes Naughty Dog, a developer thats released 4 GOTY winners in the last 11 years. If they can be criticized then surely we can take issue with a pixel counting website every now and then.
 

CamHostage

Member
Anything this game does can be done by having two similar environments in the same 3D space and forcing synchronization on a lot of pairs of objects. If they did that, there is no reason for it to run this bad.

Split-screen is one thing (and usually with split-screen you have roughly similar assets/geometry, as usually split-screen is for multiplayer and so you're on the same track or level; this is unusual in that the geometry is mostly the same but they're totally textured and lit differently for each use of the scene.) However, there are parts of the game that literally "blink" in and out of the two worlds, at full frame, in fractions of a second. I'm not a game developer, but I've seen game designers turn on/off graphical elements, and it's not that fast. Turn on/off a grass shader or pop a big tree prop in and out and you'll see the tool take a beat to load the thing, then you'll see it show on screen but maybe with not exactly the right mipmaps needed for that viewpoint and the shadows not fully coming out right on even the baked elements already present, then another beat as the game catches up to the differences in the scene, and then everything's smooth after those first few rough passes tell the system that everything's good to go. Once it's on screen, you can dial up and down the sliders and play with the object/effect and the engine keeps going smoothly, but until the system knows what it's going to be doing with what's in the scene, it has to take a few passes to get everything in sync and in the groove.

(Maybe that's just an unoptimized instance of the engine, and it'd be different if swapping those was done in finalized, compiled game code? I feel like it's always chunky in games too though, whenever you make a major modification to a scene.)

RectangularImmediateAmethystinepython-size_restricted.gif


So maybe, because Bloober needed absolutely instantaneous snaps between scenes, they really are having the game scenes running twice at full detail (and optimized so the game looks as good as it can while always having to keep two versions of a scene at a time) instead of turning detail/effects on and off as needed? (They also have sequences where the one world "takes over" the other, which could be done with a variety of tricks, but one approach would be the brute force of doing the scene twice.) And so if that's how they're doing their full-frame sequences, maybe for their split-screen or other views of the two worlds they just figured, why change the approach? Why not always run the game world twice, and then we can split it, we can blink to it, we can fade/morph between it, we can do whatever is necessary depending on the mood we want for that gameplay sequence.

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