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Digital Foundry Forspoken analysis; hint: it sucks

rnlval

Member
Good to see a PCIe3 Drive with Direct Storage outperform PS5, when used with a modern Intel CPU.

Too bad he didn't test with PCIe4 drives on PC, I wonder how much effect that would have on PC.
Intel Core i9 12900K AlderLake is considerably faster than 8 cores of Zen 2 equipped with a mobile grade L3 cache size.



  • Ray traced Ambient Occlusion is broken on PC and PS5. Only randomly works during certain cutscenes
  • Shadow quality overall is poor with most using shadow maps. Even with RT shadows, only a small portion of shadows are ray traced
  • Some of the most lackluster RT out there
  • RT shadows have a 20% impact on performance for little visual payoff
  • Large impact on VRAM, 500MB for each RT effect
  • Does not recommend turning on RT for mid-range hardware or lower
  • FSR has multiple issues with ghosting, transparency effects dithering, and disocclusion during movement
  • DLSS is overall better but still has issues where shiny surfaces sparkle during movement with motion blur on
  • XeSS has a big problem when DOF is enabled, it flickers massively
  • TAA exhibits ghosting problems as well
  • Every image reconstruction is poor overall but DLSS is still superior to FSR
  • DRS causes more problems than it solves, introduces massive frame time variances to the point of being unplayable
  • VRS doesn't appear to be working at all. There is no visual or performance difference
  • DirectStorage is one of the few bright spots, with a capable CPU (12900K) and 3.5GB/s nvme, the PC version can load slightly faster than a PS5
  • More modest CPUs such as the 3600 are still slower than the PS5 with a 3.5GB/s nvme but still much faster with DirectStorage
  • Does not appear to use GPU decompression
  • Textures management is peculiar. 8GB GPUs or less will always load poor quality textures no matter what happens
  • Does not recommend even playing this game on 8GB GPUs because the textures look like they're from the late 90s
  • Does not matter what texture setting you choose, you can even disable ray tracing and it's the same
  • No optimized settings for 8GB GPUs because the game looks so bad already, he cannot recommend lowering settings
  • Lowering clouds, disabling RT, and lowering SSR can save performance
  • Has encountered a bugs such as crashes and LODs not loading
  • Every time he moves the camera with a mid-range rig, there are noticeable frame rate drops
  • The game is almost as demanding as Cyberpunk with DLSS performance with settings maxed out
  • Pretty bad port overall


AM4 Ryzen 5 3600 owners can upgrade to faster 5500/5600 CPUs.


From https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/forspoken_pc_performance_graphics_benchmarks,5.html

0Zcl1IW.png
 

rofif

Banned
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess. There is literally nothing impressive about those images to me. The last one with the distant staircase is particularly bad, there is a flatness to it. Something with the lighting just does not hit right. The buildings look almost like cardboard cutouts, almost like it is faux 3D (like a super high res version of The Sims 1, LOL). Textures are sharp but somehow completely unrealistic looking in all the wrong ways. It's not a looker for me from the shots you posted. 🤷‍♂️
The last one looks particularly good to me haha. It’s a marble city with midday light. I think it looks proper.
Ok never mind. We don’t have to like it the same or not
 
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S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Its not cross gen as long as it isn't on the previous generations of consoles, these minimum specs are way above the ps4 and xone capabilities.
If it's vastly below the PS5 AND made for much older tech.... it's cross gen.
The game was literally announced as “built from the ground up for PS5”, and devs have repeated this as recent as 2 months ago. The PC version was ported over and scaled down for minimum requirements.
I don't care if they said the sky is neon.
It supports not only vastly slower storage tech(including HDD's)but also weaker CPU's and GPU's
By that logic Returnal is also a cross gen ...

that's not how cross-gen console games are classified lol.
Post is dumb. Returnal is coming after the PS5 version.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
If it's vastly below the PS5 AND made for much older tech.... it's cross gen.

I don't care if they said the sky is neon.
It supports not only vastly slower storage tech(including HDD's)but also weaker CPU's and GPU's

Post is dumb. Returnal is coming after the PS5 version.

Wait until you find out that Returnal’s minimum requirements includes a CPU weaker than the PS5, a GPU that not much more powerful than the PS4 Pro and also works on HDDs and SATA SSDs.

0E0mjgv.jpg


‘Post is dumb’ indeed.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Whats there even to discuss, it runs like ass, looks like ass, plays like ass, price is ass, main character is a ass.

Honestly i watched some twitch streamers play the game and all of them quit even the most dedicated people that play the worst games and complete them.

The constant cursing is probably also going to go very well over at youtube which basically makes the game blacklisted by most channels.

In short its a complete shit show.
 
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Thebonehead

Banned
I’ve posted many screenshots already. They game looks fantastic. Big areas with volumetrics and great geometric detail. Really is stunning at points.
Stop following the sheep and trolling. Try giving the game a chance yourself.
I would stop following the sheep .... but I've played it.

Well, the Demo at least, and that was enough for me.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Guess we'll add FFXVI to the cross-gen list too eventually
IF versions of FFVI run on dated specs like hes claiming for Returnal... those versions won't be the same gen/experience as the PS5.

Doom could be played on the SNES.. Obviously a dramatic difference in tech between it and the MSDOS version exists.

Another example....
The Witcher 3 can be played on the switch and is a vastly different experience than certain PC's and consoles.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
IF versions of FFVI run on dated specs like hes claiming for Returnal... those versions won't be the same gen/experience as the PS5.

Doom could be played on the SNES.. Obviously a dramatic difference in tech between it and the MSDOS version exists.

Another example....
The Witcher 3 can be played on the switch and is a vastly different experience than certain PC's and consoles.
And why doesn't that logic apply to Forspoken being played on minimum specs then :pie_thinking:?
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Post is dumb. Returnal is coming after the PS5 version.


This reply is dumb.
The experience with those weaker,dated specs won't be the same.


And you're assuming the experience with 1060 will be the same as PS5 ?

You're using some real loony tunes logic lol.

Here's what the devs of the game themselves say:



“From the very early stages of game design, we always thought about doing something that could only be done on PS5. Bringing that full power out was something we’ve been aiming for since day one. So I don’t think it would be possible to have Forspoken on PS4 at all, in terms of the engine, or graphics, or anything that we’re doing with gameplay.

“In terms of platform, the game is coming out both for PS5 and for PC. But it was created from the beginning with the capabilities of the PS5 in mind, and as such it has really been optimized for that platform.”
 

Mr Moose

Member
And you're assuming the experience with 1060 will be the same as PS5 ?

You're using some real loony tunes logic lol.

Here's what the devs of the game themselves say:

in terms of the engine, or graphics
and as such it has really been optimized for that platform
519.png
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?


Keep in mind they (Square) also say they're aiming to make Forspoken the 'best looking open world game ever'.

They had lofty expectations but clearly something went wrong in the pipeline.


With Forspoken, we are aiming to achieve the highest quality visuals ever seen in an open-world game.

 

Mr Moose

Member
Keep in mind they (Square) also say they're aiming to make Forspoken the 'best looking open world game ever'.

They had lofty expectations but clearly something went wrong in the pipeline.




I was looking forward to this game a while back, then... It went downhill fast. Shame.
FFXVI looks great though, can't wait for that one.
 
Square Enix should’ve dumped Luminous off a cliff after the FF15 shitshow decade of development. Luminous Productions should’ve either used Unreal, or been told to pack their things.

Then Forspoken would likely have launched on PC with shader compilation stutter as well a.k.a. #StutterStruggle because the developers have made so made blunders elsewhere that this is almost a for(spoken)gone conclusion, right? At least this engine runs smoothly even if everything else about the game's visuals are broken in some way.
 
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And still only took 6 years in development. Versus 13 took a decade without switching engines. They realized the problem with KH and made the switch. Meanwhile Luminous released 15 and went “this is fine. Can we make a new game with the same engine?” And Square retardedly went “yep!!”
Wasn't the Versus-team moved over to help out with another game for quite some time? FF XIII iirc.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
If it's vastly below the PS5 AND made for much older tech.... it's cross gen.

How do you figure that? Most of the time the PS5 is targeting at least 1440p in some way or another, the PC minimum specifications are often for 720p/30. I think you will continue to see PC ports on current-gen games supporting weaker hardware for quite some time.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
The last one looks particularly good to me haha. It’s a marble city with midday light. I think it looks proper.
Ok never mind. We don’t have to like it the same or not

Exactly. One person's masterpiece is just a flaming turd to another. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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