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Digital Foundry: A Plague Tale Requiem: A Stunning Tech Showcase on PS5/Xbox Series X/S - DF Tech Review

Yeah, I feel like this game, a lot more so than Gotham Knights, justifies its next-gen only tag and the performance on the new consoles.

The later areas are fucking nuts in the shit the game pulls off.
I think certain people claiming its unoptimized on PS5 haven't actually played the game. As I said you have incredibly detailed environments with a huge draw distance and then you have hundreds of thousands of rats within them.

Obviously everything can be improved but we are at last starting to see what these new consoles can do, and there's a lot more to come.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Yeah, I feel like this game, a lot more so than Gotham Knights, justifies its next-gen only tag and the performance on the new consoles.

The later areas are fucking nuts in the shit the game pulls off.

To me, next-gen performance is 60fps. I can't help but think that in the hands of more capable devs that this game could have achieved that. That fact that FSR is entirely missing from the console version is evidence of that if nothing else.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
To me, next-gen performance is 60fps. I can't help but think that in the hands of more capable devs that this game could have achieved that. That fact that FSR is entirely missing from the console version is evidence of that if nothing else.

If they wanted to make it 60 FPS, they would have scoped the game out accordingly. The way it is, I don't think just a resolution reduction is going to help it much owing to how much grunt the PC versions require as well.

For FSR, well, it's good but I don't think it's a magic bullet. This game is already using a custom engine and custom temporal solution to upscale from 1440p > 2160p.
 

Mr Moose

Member
Every version loads around the same amount of time. It's hardly a long time anyway.
The 130% faster SSD (plus 25 seconds to load on all of them? That's kinda crap) should not be slower by any length of time.
The frame-time is doing crazy shit on all of the consoles, there is something messed up with it. If it isn't fixed in a patch I will never touch the game which I am OK with because I didn't play the first one lol.
 
I think certain people claiming its unoptimized on PS5 haven't actually played the game. As I said you have incredibly detailed environments with a huge draw distance and then you have hundreds of thousands of rats within them.

Obviously everything can be improved but we are at last starting to see what these new consoles can do, and there's a lot more to come.

The CPUs in PS5 and Xbox Series are fundamentally the same. Same architecture, same core and thread count, same support for various instructions including AVX 256. There may or may not have been a reduction in PS5's CPU's FPU, don't know if that was ever clarified or if it did, got redacted afterwards.

The only other real difference are the clocks but assuming the game is using SMT, that difference is no higher than 100 MHz in Series' favor. That would not be enough to cause the difference in performance with the rats (assuming all of that logic is CPU-bound, which it likely is if Series S has similar rat counts but performs those sections better than PS5) when the MHz difference is so small.

It COULD be the dynamic resolution on PS5 in those sections is maybe too high when accounting for all the other stuff going on, but I dunno what the resolution for PS5 is in those sections compared to Series X (I'd assume Series X is slightly higher resolution for those portions). I simply fail to buy the idea that PS5's CPU isn't up to the task for the rat simulations considering it's virtually the same as the Series' CPUs, just 100 MHz lower.

Even considering it's a GPU issue, that again would be down to lack of some specific optimizations. Theoretically PS5 could be seeing upwards a 2% GPU perf drop providing more power to the CPU, but that would reduce the MHz difference CPU-wise to something even smaller, and the GPU would still be performing at slightly over 10 TF.

So it's definitely something related to lack of specific optimizations in the PS5 build, and that might be due to Asobo leading with the DX12 Ultimate APIs because that's what the GDK uses and it makes Xbox & PC (Windows) simultaneous development effectively seamless.
 

Topher

Gold Member
If they wanted to make it 60 FPS, they would have scoped the game out accordingly. The way it is, I don't think just a resolution reduction is going to help it much owing to how much grunt the PC versions require as well.

For FSR, well, it's good but I don't think it's a magic bullet. This game is already using a custom engine and custom temporal solution to upscale from 1440p > 2160p.

If the best your engine can render is 1440p/30/40 on these consoles then you probably need all the help you can get. Makes no sense not to include FSR. If the "magic bullet" is improving performance then yes, FSR is your magic bullet. I'm on the PC version and DLSS Auto takes the game from 4k/30 to 4k/60.
 

01011001

Banned
If they wanted to make it 60 FPS, they would have scoped the game out accordingly. The way it is, I don't think just a resolution reduction is going to help it much owing to how much grunt the PC versions require as well.

For FSR, well, it's good but I don't think it's a magic bullet. This game is already using a custom engine and custom temporal solution to upscale from 1440p > 2160p.

I bet in many scenes they would hit 60fps on Series X if they ran it at 1080p and the reduced settings the Series S uses.

even if it's unstable 60fps, as they clearly aren't afraid of unstable performance looking at that 40fps mode, especially on PS5 where it's more like a 35fps mode.

so an additional unlocked VRR mode at a lower resolution could make this run at 60fps, at least in most parts of the game.

the fact that the Series S ran faster than the PS5 here also tells us that at the very least those scenes in the video weren't CPU bound as the Series S has a slightly slower CPU (unless they are using the SMT off mode)
 
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The CPUs in PS5 and Xbox Series are fundamentally the same. Same architecture, same core and thread count, same support for various instructions including AVX 256. There may or may not have been a reduction in PS5's CPU's FPU, don't know if that was ever clarified or if it did, got redacted afterwards.

The only other real difference are the clocks but assuming the game is using SMT, that difference is no higher than 100 MHz in Series' favor. That would not be enough to cause the difference in performance with the rats (assuming all of that logic is CPU-bound, which it likely is if Series S has similar rat counts but performs those sections better than PS5) when the MHz difference is so small.

It COULD be the dynamic resolution on PS5 in those sections is maybe too high when accounting for all the other stuff going on, but I dunno what the resolution for PS5 is in those sections compared to Series X (I'd assume Series X is slightly higher resolution for those portions). I simply fail to buy the idea that PS5's CPU isn't up to the task for the rat simulations considering it's virtually the same as the Series' CPUs, just 100 MHz lower.

Even considering it's a GPU issue, that again would be down to lack of some specific optimizations. Theoretically PS5 could be seeing upwards a 2% GPU perf drop providing more power to the CPU, but that would reduce the MHz difference CPU-wise to something even smaller, and the GPU would still be performing at slightly over 10 TF.

So it's definitely something related to lack of specific optimizations in the PS5 build, and that might be due to Asobo leading with the DX12 Ultimate APIs because that's what the GDK uses and it makes Xbox & PC (Windows) simultaneous development effectively seamless.
It's a GPU heavy game as per the PC performance analysis I read. It's probably true that the development lead on PC but I'd be surprised if the PS5 version wasn't given enough time to optimise it for launch. The resolution is 1440p upscaled to 4k on both consoles no DRS is being used, this explains why Series X is performing better.
 

OmegaSupreme

advanced basic bitch
Too bad the result barely qualifies as a game
Tom Cruise What GIF


Not enough shooty bang bang for you?
 

JackMcGunns

Member
If this is next gen, I’ll wait for ps6 lol, barely looks better then then the last game, poor man’s Xbox Ss is holding us back, me thinks.

Something tells me you don't know how this works lol. Series X and PS5 would be running this at 120fps or 240fps, that's the definition of holding something back, when there's so much performance potential left on the table.

For example instead of adding more rats, it's kept down to 20 rats so the Series S can manage, but then PS5 and Series X are running the game at insane framerates, aka wasted potential.
 

TonyK

Member
After seeing the DF video that spotted framerate and frame times are fine I returned to the game (I stopped playing in PS5 due to the constant framerate hiccups). What I discovered is that what I thought were frame drops it's in fact the camera colliding continuously with the environment. It's because that, that I didn't notice it until I arrived to narrow areas.

You can check that the framedrop/stuttering non intended visual effect is due to camera colision because it doesn't occur in Photo mode, where environment can be trespassed.

As it is now, camera effect is very annoying for me. What a stupid game decision 😪
 

yamaci17

Member
To me, next-gen performance is 60fps. I can't help but think that in the hands of more capable devs that this game could have achieved that. That fact that FSR is entirely missing from the console version is evidence of that if nothing else.
their taa reconstruction is pretty good. fsr 2.0 / dlss techs are fancy temporal upscaler reconstruction alternatives. never forget this. (dlss is the fanciest, with added advantages. FSR, less so)

this is how native 1080p fares against 1080p upscaled to 4k on their engine. 1440p to 4K will most likely look somewhere near 1700-1800p natively with their taa upscaling.


clearly, it does a lot by its own. no need for FSR if ur engine can already achieve great upscaling.
 
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It's a GPU heavy game as per the PC performance analysis I read. It's probably true that the development lead on PC but I'd be surprised if the PS5 version wasn't given enough time to optimise it for launch. The resolution is 1440p upscaled to 4k on both consoles no DRS is being used, this explains why Series X is performing better.

Huh, I thought DRS was in use. Guess not.

Still leaning that it may be due to lack of some specific optimization or a bug on PS5's side, but it could be that the game is not bound by rasterization during the sequences with the rat, so maybe the PS5 version needs to be set to a slightly lower resolution in those moments (but still generally close to 1440p).

Kind of makes no reasoning or sense why they aren't employing DRS even if they cap the framerate on console to 30. FWIW though, this game isn't using UE5, but Asobo's own proprietary engine.
 

TrueLegend

Member
Flightsim? In all seriousness Microsoft are clearly missing a huge get by not acquiring this studio and giving them the bigger budget.
They like their independence and they want to do different stuff then everyone else.

This game is just an unleashed beast of raw unaldutrated graphics, something ratchet and clank and demon's souls could only wish due to the very manner those games were designed....After Red Dead 2 this is the game and if you are thinking there he goes with his red dead stuff again...let me tell you Red dead on ultra is a different beast than the shite you see on consoles and i m not being condscending at all. Yes there is more to something looking more beautiful than extra polygons, detailed meshes and terrain.....I do find God of War and Guardians of the Galaxy looking better than this but thats because the art style and art direction is better...when it comes to fidelity this is it. It is nextgen. And yes they could have gone for 1080p60 medium settings for performance mode, the reason they didnt because of many of the tryhard critics here who just cant stop saying this doesn't look good......NO, you need to go to a hospital and get an eye checkup period.
 
Stunning for what the game is pushing, on closed $499 hardware.

This is a console thread. Feel free to play it on PC for 60fps.

Unoptimized garbage. Runs like utter shit on PC as well. Nothing next gen about unoptimized shaders/graphics. Doesnt look near as good as HFW which is open-world. You people are just blind af. Imagine needing a 4090 to manage to push a linear game at 60 without dlss 4k. How are people not bashing this game more is crazy to me.
 
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lukilladog

Member
I think certain people claiming its unoptimized on PS5 haven't actually played the game. As I said you have incredibly detailed environments with a huge draw distance and then you have hundreds of thousands of rats within them.

Obviously everything can be improved but we are at last starting to see what these new consoles can do, and there's a lot more to come.

But it is not well optimized, weaker pc hardware does better.



Ps.- But I agree with you on the detail, geometry is crazy, even digital foundry seem to have confused actual 3d rocks with parallax in that river level. You can call this the first next gen game NP.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
Unoptimized garbage. Runs like utter shit on PC as well. Nothing next gen about unoptimized shaders/graphics. Doesnt look near as good as HFW which is open-world. You people are just blind af. Imagine needing a 4090 to manage to push a linear game at 60 without dlss 4k.

They are an AA dev pushing some crazy tech to drive such massive rat swarms. Much of that is demanding on the CPU/GPU. I don’t give a rats arse if it doesn’t look as good as HFW made by multiple times the number of devs and the budget.
But you’re moving goalposts. Your initial claim insinuated that 30fps was unacceptable on console, with no disclaimer about visual quality. Prepare to be disappointed this gen

How are people not bashing this game more is crazy to me.

Thankfully, most people are happy to rein in the toxicity for these devs and this game.

To me, next-gen performance is 60fps. I can't help but think that in the hands of more capable devs that this game could have achieved that. That fact that FSR is entirely missing from the console version is evidence of that if nothing else.

For a game made with under 100 people on an AA budget, it’s actually quite impressive. Their game and targets are quite demanding. I’m not convinced that there’s any issue with their competence levels.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
"A Plague Tale: Requiem can be easily described as a GPU-bound title. At 1080p/Ultra, the only GPUs that were able to provide a constant 60fps experience were the RTX 3080, RTX 4090 and AMD RX 6900XT. The NVIDIA RTX2080Ti was also able to provide a smooth experience, though we did notice some drops to 57fps"

This is what I thought and explains why the PS5 is struggling compared to Series X. Make no mistake about it this is a true next generation game (current gen really ).
Does the PC version run on HDD's?
If so it's not a current gen game.
 
Series X on a 60hz tv,and the framerate feels below 30fps most of the time
The framerate on the X is almost locked 30, I'm playing it currently and find it fine. Obviously if you're used to playing 60fps games then it's gonna take some getting used to.
 

M1987

Member
The framerate on the X is almost locked 30, I'm playing it currently and find it fine. Obviously if you're used to playing 60fps games then it's gonna take some getting used to.
I'm playing the last of us part 1 in 30fps and that seems ok,but A Plague Tale felt awful and janky.I really want to play it as I really liked the first one,but I'm going to wait until I get a pc
 

Metnut

Member
I wonder if there will be a PS5 patch in the next month or two. I might hold off until then.

For 40th fps mode, will I need to change any settings, or can I just select it and it’ll just automatically work?
 

twilo99

Member
So it's definitely something related to lack of specific optimizations in the PS5 build, and that might be due to Asobo leading with the DX12 Ultimate APIs because that's what the GDK uses and it makes Xbox & PC (Windows) simultaneous development effectively seamless.

You can flip that statement the other way around anytime the series X or S are struggling.
 

twilo99

Member
For FSR, well, it's good but I don't think it's a magic bullet. This game is already using a custom engine and custom temporal solution to upscale from 1440p > 2160p.

I was thinking for a performance mode they could’ve done

720p > 1440p at 60fps

Or something along the lines
 

FukuDaruma

Member
PC version suffers from asset streaming stutter:

Here's unlocked framerate:


and here 's RTSS locked at 59.938:


Asset loading stutter is clear and it shows in the frametime graph, in both locked and unlocked options.
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
PC version suffers from asset streaming stutter:

Here's unlocked framerate:


and here 's RTSS locked at 59.938:


Asset loading stutter is clear and it shows in the frametime graph, in both locked and unlocked options.



Yes, the DF crew mentioned this in their latest DF Direct as well, they said that whenever you turn the camera there's stutter.
 
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