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[NX Gamer] The Medium - The Complete Technical Analysis - PC | Series X | Series S



Shoutout to NXGamer NXGamer , always providing great content

The end is not nigh, I am back with a brand new video on the first Next Gen xbox release from Bloober Games. Is this a shining beacon of next gen action or is the story a little more complex than that?

Let's dive in and see what all versions including PC run like and should you be afraid of the dead?

EDIT: Apparently this summary bothered some people. I apologize. I spoiler tagged it to remedy this, thanks.

Summary incoming:

- His PC tests are done on an OC 2070 and 2700x CPU (unless I misunderstood him)
- Series X renders around 1440p in single world views
- Series X can dip as low as 756p in dual screen views
- Series S maxes out at 1080p in single view, 648p
- No RT or ambient shadows on Series S version, lack of RAM really shows on Series S in this game according to NX
- Game is demanding on PC, At 1440p, his PC can fall below 30 fps, especially in dual screen views
- DLSS needed to achieve smooth performance for higher settings

- He's not convinced that Series X is always using Ray Tracing when it should be, notes that both X and S are using planar reflections in this case:

FOdiid4.png


- Series X generally looks identical to high settings on PC
- Another example of where he observes planar reflections instead of ray traced reflections

HtrTDcd.png


- Suspects the XsX just uses RT very sparingly

wNTQPI3.png


- Animations are stiff, but not bad for a small team
- PC performance:

cyeKqz9.png


- Series S is juddery and stuttery at points
- Series X has some frametime skips as well, but as bad as Series S

- Using "Forced On" ray tracing on PC adds additional graphical effects at huge performance cost
- Ray Tracing alone eats up a whole extra gigabyte of VRAM (Timestamp)

Off topic side-note: NXGamer NXGamer are you planning on a Hitman 3 analysis?

-------------------------

Edit 2

In regards to "is an extra gig of VRAM a lot solely for RT," I still don't know what the definitive answer but I did boot up Control to compare and the VRAM usage between RT on and OFF was basically nothing:

For the sake of comparison, I just loaded up Control on the backup rig (3060 Ti, 3700x, 16 gigs RAM)

1440p/Ultra/RT Ultra (DLSS on quality)

7JyPeVm.png


1440p/Ultra/NO RT/Native resolution

R5y0kST.png


Hardly a difference in RAM usage. Maybe this comparison is invalid and means nothing, but seems like taking up a whole gig for RT effects is a lot.

Someone with expertise like thicc_girls_are_teh_best thicc_girls_are_teh_best could maybe shed more light on this?
 
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Shame about the nasty stuttering though. And I was expecting better RT implementation to be honest.

Pretty nuts how your practically forced to use DLSS to get even decent performance.
 

Zeeed

Member
I finished the game. It was alright. It's no Silent Hill scary level.
Disappointed in the visual for the first next-gen/current-gen game on series X.
Downloaded the PC version to see if it made any difference, not much I'm afraid.
 

Zeeed

Member
I really liked the game but it's true it has problems on XSX, mainly the high resolution textures popping in later than needed
Oh, yeah. forgot to mention that part. Which is wierd.
That's one of the reason why I chose to play it on the SeriesX instead of the PC, because the SeriesX had a faster SSD than my PC. Yet I saw quite a bit of delayed texture loading on the SeriesX.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
This is bolded. Is this good or bad for PC rigs? If RT is super demanding, doesn't 1 gb sound reasonable? I don't know. Just asking.
1gb doesn't sound that bad honestly. Figured it would be a bit more.
1GB when the regular game is already pushing 6.5gb of vram can be a lot. especially when even the 2060 only has 6GB of total vram. it is on par with the xsx in ray tracing but the vram is going to bottleneck the gpu going forward.

especially when devs start to go over the 8GB vram most of these 20 and 30 series cards have.

I do wonder if this is going to also affect the 3080 when next gen ray traced heavy games come out. Its 10 GB of vram might be fine today, but when devs start to code around the 13.5 gb of ram allocations found in the xsx and most likely the ps5, whats going to happen with the PC GPUs that are supposedly 2x more powerful but wont be able to offer 2x more performance because of vram limitations. I wonder if thats why we are seeing Medium perform so poorly even on the 3080. DIdnt Alex recommend you lock it to 30 fps? was he talking about the 3080 or some 20 series card?

P.S Obligatory

source.gif
 
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1GB when the regular game is already pushing 6.5gb of vram can be a lot. especially when even the 2060 only has 6GB of total vram. it is on par with the xsx in ray tracing but the vram is going to bottleneck the gpu going forward.

especially when devs start to go over the 8GB vram most of these 20 and 30 series cards have.

I do wonder if this is going to also affect the 3080 when next gen ray traced heavy games come out. Its 10 GB of vram might be fine today, but when devs start to code around the 13.5 gb of ram allocations found in the xsx and most likely the ps5, whats going to happen with the PC GPUs that are supposedly 2x more powerful but wont be able to offer 2x more performance because of vram limitations. I wonder if thats why we are seeing Medium perform so poorly even on the 3080. DIdnt Alex recommend you lock it to 30 fps? was he talking about the 3080 or some 20 series card?

P.S Obligatory

source.gif
I'm guessing that's why DLSS is being implemented so much lately.
 
Oh look another stuttering mess on his 2700x i wonder why.

Runs butter smooth here zero performance issue's.

I have a 5900x CPU and 3080 FE GPU, the game had really bad performance issues for me even just at 1440p. Some scenes would just completely tank the FPS into the low 20s even with nothing going on, I would get stuttering when just walking around certain areas. Seems to be pretty widely reported across multiple forums, at least for the PC version.

It looks good, and I enjoyed the game, just saying I had really odd performance issues even though I am over-spec'd for it. I am playing the PC Game Pass version, not sure if that makes a difference vs the EGS version

P.S Obligatory

It is not obligatory. Please stop.

Please.

Please stop.
 
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Kenpachii

Member
I have a 5900x CPU and 3080 FE GPU, the game had really bad performance issues for me even just at 1440p. Some scenes would just completely tank the FPS into the low 20s even with nothing going on, I would get stuttering when just walking around certain areas. Seems to be pretty widely reported across multiple forums, at least for the PC version.

It looks good, and I enjoyed the game, just saying I had really odd performance issues even though I am over-spec'd for it. I am playing the PC Game Pass version, not sure if that makes a difference vs the EGS version



It is not obligatory. Please stop.

Please.

Please stop.

Try without RTX, maybe that's the issue. Currently setting at highest setting at 1080p zero stutters here. 9900k/1080p but then i only play the game for a hour yet.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
There is a reason why i stated in the PC technical thread that a 3060 and 3090 are the only GPU's that will age well. 8gb and 10gb is a joke for a next gen card.
yep. i said the same thing.

you have 2x the power of next gen consoles in a 3080, but 1x the vram. the bandwidth is roughly 1.25-1.75x but is that going to be enough when you are trying to push 2x the framerate or 2x the resolution?

now granted, a 970 which was 2x more powerful than the ps4 was able to run pretty much everything at higher settings at double the framerate despite having only 3.5gb of vram so its possible, but we didnt have bandwidth hungry RT in the picture back then.

What I do remember is my GTX 570 becoming obsolete the moment next gen games like ac unity and advanced warfare came out because the vram requirements were way higher than its partly 1.2gb of vram. that gpu is supposedly more powerful than the hd 7850 which is equivalent to the ps4 gpu, but all that processing power meant nothing when it came to games that were using higher quality assets. it ran cross gen games just fine.
 

Kenpachii

Member
yep. i said the same thing.

you have 2x the power of next gen consoles in a 3080, but 1x the vram. the bandwidth is roughly 1.25-1.75x but is that going to be enough when you are trying to push 2x the framerate or 2x the resolution?

now granted, a 970 which was 2x more powerful than the ps4 was able to run pretty much everything at higher settings at double the framerate despite having only 3.5gb of vram so its possible, but we didnt have bandwidth hungry RT in the picture back then.

What I do remember is my GTX 570 becoming obsolete the moment next gen games like ac unity and advanced warfare came out because the vram requirements were way higher than its partly 1.2gb of vram. that gpu is supposedly more powerful than the hd 7850 which is equivalent to the ps4 gpu, but all that processing power meant nothing when it came to games that were using higher quality assets. it ran cross gen games just fine.

Exactly u and me both, i had 3 580's with 1,5gb of v-ram. had lots of fun running those unity and shadowdog games oh wait didn't run for shit, bought 2x 290's then found out amd was still utter dog shit with there drivers, downgraded to a 970 never looked back. currently on a 1080ti. why 1080ti? and not a 2070 super at the time? 3gb more of v-ram. RTX can suck a nut until i we get 20+gb cards preferable 24gb for a sane price while at it.

Never again after those 580's.
 
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OP posted the whole damn video content, no need to watch it now. Thanks i guess.....🤦

Would you rather I post just a link with nothing else? People used to appreciate summaries. I will stop if it bothers you. TIL that putting effort into posts is bad. Gotcha.

Do you feel like I "spoiled" the analysis for you? Would spoiler warnings help next time? Should I put the details in spoiler tags?

Also, lol, is this really what you felt like you just HAD to contribute? Put on me on ignore, or don't enter analysis threads. You just bitch in them, nonstop. Your post history is pretty telling:

5rYQu4R.png


No one is forcing you to click on them, bud. You can ignore threads by their tags (in this case, the Analysis tag), you can ignore threads individually, and you can ignore posters. Use your tools.

Side note:

There's actually a lot more to the video if you take the time to watch it. It's like 16 minutes long. I just snipped out the parts I felt were key.

You seem to only post drive-bys, so I doubt I get a response to this. Shame.
 
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KungFucius

King Snowflake
There is a reason why i stated in the PC technical thread that a 3060 and 3090 are the only GPU's that will age well. 8gb and 10gb is a joke for a next gen card.
AS a 3090 owner who used the extra RAM to justify trading up from a 3080, the real joke is on me looking at games use 4-7GB of your 24GB and laughing at yourself for compensating with a GPU. But hey the girth of the 3090 FE is impressive.
 
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Zeeed

Member
1gb doesn't sound that bad honestly. Figured it would be a bit more.
Wouldn't it be bad, though?

Even if you have 8gigs of VRAM on your card, you never want to get close to 8gigs of VRAM used, correct?

When I play games and go to the graphics section, some games give real time calculation of how much VRAM it will use up when you change the settings. So even when I choose the settings that takes up 5 out of the 8 gigs VRAM, my game chugs even though I have 3 gigs of VRAM not being used.

So if Ray Tracing off or on is 1 gig VRAM difference, that is a lot, isn't it. Or am I not understanding how VRAM works? Please educate me as I can never understand why the game is not performing as well when there is unused VRAMs (And yes, I believe I have a good CPU, I hardly see any of the cores go over 50%).
 
This is bolded. Is this good or bad for PC rigs? If RT is super demanding, doesn't 1 gb sound reasonable? I don't know. Just asking.
1gb doesn't sound that bad honestly. Figured it would be a bit more.
Wouldn't it be bad, though?

Even if you have 8gigs of VRAM on your card, you never want to get close to 8gigs of VRAM used, correct?

When I play games and go to the graphics section, some games give real time calculation of how much VRAM it will use up when you change the settings. So even when I choose the settings that takes up 5 out of the 8 gigs VRAM, my game chugs even though I have 3 gigs of VRAM not being used.

So if Ray Tracing off or on is 1 gig VRAM difference, that is a lot, isn't it. Or am I not understanding how VRAM works? Please educate me as I can never understand why the game is not performing as well when there is unused VRAMs (And yes, I believe I have a good CPU, I hardly see any of the cores go over 50%).

I haven't tested the VRAM usage with RT on vs off in CP77 or Control, nor have I read breakdowns of how RT eats up VRAM in those games, so I don't know what "normal" is, but a full gig seemed like an awful lot when most cards are 8 gigs or less as it is.

I could be wrong though, maybe this is standard.
 
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dEvAnGeL

Member
Would you rather I post just a link with nothing else? People used to appreciate summaries. I will stop if it bothers you. TIL that putting effort into posts is bad. Gotcha.

Do you feel like I "spoiled" the analysis for you? Would spoiler warnings help next time? Should I put the details in spoiler tags?

Also, lol, is this really what you felt like you just HAD to contribute? Put on me on ignore, or don't enter analysis threads. You just bitch in them, nonstop. Your post history is pretty telling:

5rYQu4R.png


No one is forcing you to click on them, bud. You can ignore threads by their tags (in this case, the Analysis tag), you can ignore threads individually, and you can ignore posters. Use your tools.

Side note:

There's actually a lot more to the video if you take the time to watch it. It's like 16 minutes long. I just snipped out the parts I felt were key.

You seem to only post drive-bys, so I doubt I get a response to this. Shame.
Summaries are appreciated when is not the whole thing. Thanks for the essay tho. Now that you mention it i will put you on ignore thought. Reading page long replies is really boring, specially when the content and writing is poor and meaningless. With that said. Thanks for the laugh.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
I really don’t get why it’s so resource intensive. Don’t give me that “ it’s rendering two games” crap.. it one game with two cameras like any split screen two player game before. And with only a few characters on screen.
 
This is bolded. Is this good or bad for PC rigs? If RT is super demanding, doesn't 1 gb sound reasonable? I don't know. Just asking.
1gb doesn't sound that bad honestly. Figured it would be a bit more.
Wouldn't it be bad, though?

Even if you have 8gigs of VRAM on your card, you never want to get close to 8gigs of VRAM used, correct?
I really don’t get why it’s so resource intensive. Don’t give me that “ it’s rendering two games” crap.. it one game with two cameras like any split screen two player game before. And with only a few characters on screen.

For the sake of comparison, I just loaded up Control on the backup rig (3060 Ti, 3700x, 16 gigs RAM)

1440p/Ultra/RT Ultra (DLSS on quality)

7JyPeVm.png


1440p/Ultra/NO RT/ (DLSS on quality)

R5y0kST.png


Hardly a difference in RAM usage. Maybe this comparison is invalid and means nothing, but seems like taking up a whole gig for RT effects is a lot.

Someone with expertise like thicc_girls_are_teh_best thicc_girls_are_teh_best could maybe shed more light on this? Or VFXVeteran VFXVeteran (if hes still around?)
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Summaries are appreciated when is not the whole thing. Thanks for the essay tho. Now that you mention it i will put you on ignore thought. Reading page long replies is really boring, specially when the content and writing is poor and meaningless. With that said. Thanks for the laugh.
Get some help.
 
For the sake of comparison, I just loaded up Control on the backup rig (3060 Ti, 3700x, 16 gigs RAM)

1440p/Ultra/RT Ultra (DLSS on quality)

7JyPeVm.png


1440p/Ultra/NO RT/ (DLSS on quality)

R5y0kST.png


Hardly a difference in RAM usage. Maybe this comparison is invalid and means nothing, but seems like taking up a whole gig for RT effects is a lot.

Someone with expertise like thicc_girls_are_teh_best thicc_girls_are_teh_best could maybe shed more light on this? Or VFXVeteran VFXVeteran (if hes still around?)

I tested Shadow of the Tomb Raider just now as well, didn't see a dramatic increase in VRAM usage with RT turned on vs off.

I think this game is just not optimized well, due to the small team.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
1GB when the regular game is already pushing 6.5gb of vram can be a lot. especially when even the 2060 only has 6GB of total vram. it is on par with the xsx in ray tracing but the vram is going to bottleneck the gpu going forward.

especially when devs start to go over the 8GB vram most of these 20 and 30 series cards have.

I do wonder if this is going to also affect the 3080 when next gen ray traced heavy games come out. Its 10 GB of vram might be fine today, but when devs start to code around the 13.5 gb of ram allocations found in the xsx and most likely the ps5, whats going to happen with the PC GPUs that are supposedly 2x more powerful but wont be able to offer 2x more performance because of vram limitations. I wonder if thats why we are seeing Medium perform so poorly even on the 3080. DIdnt Alex recommend you lock it to 30 fps? was he talking about the 3080 or some 20 series card?

P.S Obligatory

source.gif

I think Alex has 3090, so 24GB VRAM.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
I hope Bloober learned a lot from this game, and that their learning experience shows up in the next game they develop.

There were a lot of missed optimization opportunities in this game. It should not have been this taxing.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
There is a reason why i stated in the PC technical thread that a 3060 and 3090 are the only GPU's that will age well. 8gb and 10gb is a joke for a next gen card.

By the time you fill up 8GB of VRAM your GPU would probably have choked out on performance anyway.
So giving the 3060 alot of VRAM is pointless because in gaming applications it would have already died by the time if got to filling its VRAM.

Theres is no game right now even with RT that eats up over 8GB of VRAM that wouldnt have already been slideshowing at that resolution.
 

e&e

Banned
I really liked the game but it's true it has problems on XSX, mainly the high resolution textures popping in later than needed
This was shocking to me! I’ve never seen anything like this happen in games even on the Switch. What happened here?

Also RT not worth it! I will continue to say this each time it affects performance in games.
 

Great Hair

Banned
This is how they promoted their "A Cinematic Experience" game :

The Medium dev: Xbox Series X CPU & GPU power lets devs 'go crazy'
The Medium dev brags about Xbox Series X power, game runs 4K 30FPS "

Weak-ass tank gameplay but worse with hand holding, terrible performance, underwhelming, no combat, fake RT or none at all, so la la visuals.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
By the time you fill up 8GB of VRAM your GPU would probably have choked out on performance anyway.
So giving the 3060 alot of VRAM is pointless because in gaming applications it would have already died by the time if got to filling its VRAM.

Theres is no game right now even with RT that eats up over 8GB of VRAM that wouldnt have already been slideshowing at that resolution.
Someone told me that Godfall is that game. How much VRAM does it take when operating at highest settings + all graphical options on?
 

onesvenus

Member
This was shocking to me! I’ve never seen anything like this happen in games even on the Switch. What happened here?

Also RT not worth it! I will continue to say this each time it affects performance in games.
I disagree about the RT. The shadows are really really great in the game and really convey the mood
 
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