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Call for questions on Digital Foundry Weekly (Week 48, 2021) (Patreon)

Published:
2021-12-01 14:41:18
Imported:
2022-03

Content

Hello one, hello all, this is the time, this is the night, this is call for questions for DF Direct Weekly. Yes the gang will be on tap to answer your questions as usual so leave them in the comments section below and challenge us, let's see what you got!

Comments

Anonymous

What are your guilty pleasure games?

Anonymous

Docs or Docs Bot?

Anonymous

New Patreon Here 👋🏻 What are you all most excited to potentially see at The Game Awards?

Jonas Taghizadeh (Taggen86)

Which gaming headsets are you using and what are your recommendations in that regard?

The Wooniest Woona

What is a trend in game development that you all thought would be good, but turned out bad, or one you thought would be bad, but that ended up working out well. For example, I was excited about all the new graphical effects being pushed in the 360/PS3 gen, but in hindsight I think they pushed the hardware too hard. We would have been better suited by cutting back a bit and having stable performance.

Karl

So why are Valve so stuck up about not selling their hardware through third party sellers when they won’t even even sell or ship stuff like Steamdeck to most places, e.g. to me in Åland Islands, and in return has even less of an reach than it already has and is why Oculus has the bigger market share than them besides the price.

Anonymous

Would it be worthwhile to develop a DF performance rubric (similar in layout to aacu.org/value/rubrics/critical-thinking)? It could have rows for different performance criteria - framepacing, resolution, shader compilation etc. then columns for how well a game addresses these aspects. It might help make the review process more transparent and game developers could use it as a benchmark during testing. Maybe it could be co-created with the Patreon community if it is something you think is worth doing?

André Scheffler

With the CES '22 just around the corner, how hyped are you about the new Intel "Alder Lake" notebooks with the E(nergyefficient) and P(erformance) cores, offering up to 20 threads on a 28W TDP? Is the M1 (Max) already beaten? I'm looking very forward to this so I can boost my eGPU setup from i7-1165G7 (4C/8T), which is a little too slow for Watch Dogs Legion or Cyberpunk 2077.

Anonymous

I have an Xbox Series X now, and I have it set up with a standard LED 4K television. However, the TV doesn't have any of the bells and whistles the Xbox calls for (120hz, 2.1 HDMI, Dolby Vision, etc). Is it actually worth upgrading my television to get these features, or am I fine waiting a few years?

Anonymous

(don't worry about my name pronoucation, Polish phonetics is weird, 'Matzey' will be fine :)). Hey guys! Do you know anything new about machine learning capabilities, that were supposed to be one of the strenghts of Xbox Series consoles? From what I recall, they went late into production because of additional hardware in their SoCs, that would accelerate machine learning computations. If I'm right, to this day no games are using it (or am I wrong?). Why is that? Is there some problem with developer SDKs and developers are unable to use it yet? Or maybe the hardware proved to be not capable of doing serious ML tasks? Or maybe there is some another problem yet to be solved? Insights, thoughts? Thanks in advance! And sorry for my poor English :)

Anonymous

Knowing that the chip shortage will continue for quite a while still and PS5 and Xbox Series consoles will remain severely supply-constrained, do you think Sony or Microsoft would have delayed their launches if they knew about the extended situation ahead of time? Fun thought experiment - if the consoles were indeed delayed until say Fall 2022, and the chip shortage wasn't as much of an issue by then, what benefits (if any) would two additional years of hardware development time bring the consoles?

Gordon Lin

What are your preferred means of maintaining high framerates while keeping graphics options turned on? Consoles tend to use dynamic resolution scaling more often than PC's, while the latter now has increasing access to various upscalers and reconstruction techniques. With DRS, DLSS, FSR, VRS, or even TXAA reconstruction, which one reigns supreme?

Anonymous

Hey guys! I had to think of John's Killzone 2 retrospective the other day and I seem to recall you discussed it as an iconic game for the Ps3 as well as for certain rendering techniques. As we're now at the tail end of another generation - is there a game that would merit a similar video for either Xbox One/Ps4? A title that's both iconic for a system and its implementation of certain rendering techniques?(Oh, and thanks for all the great content over the years :))

Anonymous

Have you considered reaching out to Chad Warden to collaborate on a special DF Retro episode? Perhaps an in-depth PS Triple retrospective.

Nico Simmons

This is potentially a very cool question =) +84 Kudos from me

Anonymous

Streaming textures - why not streaming weather, AI and extra compute power?

Anonymous

Any of you guys into sim racing, with force feedback wheels? Or even arcade and casual racing games with wheels instead of controllers (I love playing outrun and sega rally online arcade with a wheel) If so, what does your gear looks like (brands, models etc)?

Oisin Brannock

What’s in the box this week Rich? Audi you need to bring that back lol

Anonymous

Hello. As VRR screens become more and more widespread, do you think some games may launch with atleast the option for framerates that dont line up with the typical refresh rate of tv's. say a 90 fps target in some games. maybe even a range of framerate? 80-100 fps as a target. this would look good with vrr after all. also hurry up with vrr support sony

Anonymous

Do you expect games designed to stress the storage and IO architectures of the new consoles to require creative solutions to run well on a wide range of PC hardware? In particular, Alex brought up before that a game that really puts PS5's IO bandwidth and decompression through its paces in order to perform well could present challenges in creating an accessible PC version, and I was wondering if he could elaborate on that. Could this be overcome by cranking up RAM requirements, or would Direct Storage largely alleviate an otherwise potentially massively heavy CPU and IO task? Thanks!

Anonymous

In a recent update to Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, a ray-traced mode was added for Series X and PS5. This is in addition to the already existing Performance (1080P 60fps) and Quality (4k 30fps) modes. I was wondering where this new mode fits in performance wise and what your recommendation are? Thank you!

Anonymous

As someone working in the games industry in a research capacity, I've been pretty keen to see what we could do to communicate and share our work in a way that more people could understand and appreciate. I was wondering if you had any suggestions on this topic? Biggest issue I've identified is just that sharing openly is often difficult in the industry - you don't want to leak game info, unreleased tech, etc. Since you guys have a lot of experience working with developers, what do you think can reasonably be done without violating this condition? Are there things we could do better? Thanks for the great content as always!

Anonymous

In the next decade or so , do you think that we might see a game fully remastered using only deep learning? Interested in hearing the team’s thoughts on that.

Anonymous

Do you have any plans for coverage of PSVR2 when it launches? Would love to see a hardware review like last time and analysis of the launch games.

C Nguyen

I've always called the PS3/360 generation the literal dark ages of gaming with my friends because of the muted color schemes revolving around shades of grey and brown a large part of the AAA games would go for on top of the decline in Japanese development as seen with Keiji Infaune and Capcom where Japanese franchises would get gritty western style reboots. That’s nothing to say about the low frame rates the consoles were notorious for. Do you agree with this assessment and if so, what was the reason for this shift? I've always theorized it was the technology of the era simply not being up to the task of rendering in HD, as shown how ridge racer 7’s 1080p60fps was the exception and not the rule, along with an over-emphasis on spectacle. would love you guys’ opinions. To be fair, I was in elementary school during this time and owned a Wii and DS, so maybe I was missing something due to me being younger. That said, older consoles like the Saturn and DS artistically are a lot more appealing for me to go back to despite their lower polygon count.

Anonymous

Nice short question for all of you. Pick any game, any time, any system, that you could be there for every step of development in. You're a fly on the wall from inception to completion; what game would it be?

Anonymous

I love what HDR can do for games, but the inconsistency in both set-up and quality from game to game is maddening. It feels like I have to change TV settings/modes every time I switch to a new title, and the in-game settings often either do nothing or explicitly tell you to do the wrong thing. Do you guys have any insight into why HDR implementation is in such a state?

tod weitzel

Whither the 2021 Atari VCS? Did it ever come out? Did any games for it ever come out? Was it just a steam machine? Was it any good?

Snorlax jobless

What do you think about videogame accessibility features?

Anonymous

Which games have been elevated for you by their fandom or which games have been ruined by it?

Vasyl Baran

Do you think that this semiconductor shortage, GPU prices skyrocketing (as the result of cryptocurrency mining boom) as well as disappointing supply/demand of gaming consoles - do you reckon that all this will go back to the 'good old days' in a year or two or it will become a long-term problem and price/availability won't come back to normal any time soon? What do you think? Thank you! I love the great job you're doing =)

Anonymous

Hi Team, First, my apologies, I don't think my english vocabulary is good enough to write what I have in mind, but I'll try. This is a question for when you'll begin Halo Infinite analysis, but you may already have an opinion about it : There will be night time on Zeta Halo. Some people think it's a bit too bright for a night time. But, I'm wondering, isn't it a mistake to expect a night time similar to our planet which is more or less round ? As land and water face the outside. While Zeta Halo is more of a circle where the land somewhat face the inside of the ring. So a lit-up part of the ring could reflect its light on an opposite part that is on night time. What do you think ?

Anonymous
>>72883617

Not if actually our planet is represented in its true flat form ;-)

Anonymous

Since Nvidia's release notes for driver version 497.09 have confirmed its existence; What are your thoughts on the RTX 2060 12GB? Do you think this product is a better fit for the current market than a desktop 3050 Ti?

Anonymous

What are your favorite gaming anecdotes? My favorites are the Nuclear Gandhi urban legend (a rumored bug in the first Civilization game that made Gandhi a nuclear weapon fetishist warmonger in the late game), and Street Fighter II: Rainbow Edition (a romhack of SFII Champion Edition that made Capcom come up with SFII Turbo).

Anonymous

Many people are still using last-gen systems, whether due to cost, availability or something else. If using last-gen systems, do you think an external (or internal for PS4) SSD is now approaching a necessity? Loading times like in FH5 are particularly painful on stock hard drives.

Anonymous

@John. On DF Direct Weekly #29 (54:03), you mentioned the Dolby Atmos latency issue on Xbox Series X effecting everyone. Any updates?

Anonymous

I would like to know how Tom is? A recent a DF post alerted us that Tom would be covering the Skyrim Anniversary Edition. Tom’s coverage now spans over a decade, across 3 generations of consoles, PC, portables, VR and Very Special Editions. Early reporting on the performance issues and the infamous “rimlag”. I would like know Tom’s impression’s on how the game has materially changed over this timeframe? Is it just performance or surface level improvements or has deeper work taken place within the game that only someone covering this game in such detail would notice? NB I posted this question and 2 hours later Tom posted the excellent Skyrim video. So please feel free to disregard. I’d still be interested on Tom’s thoughts on covering this game for so long and does he think we’ve seen the last of it.

Anonymous

Hey, an odd question maybe, but here goes: After reading that Cyberpunk 2077 is getting positive reviews I went ahead and bought it. My PC sports an RTX 2080 and I've rewatched Alex recommended settings video and I'm matching that. I'm getting a range of FPS between 48 in the open city, to 60 in closed environments, at 1440p with DLSS set to performance. I'm considering limiting the FPS to 30 so I don't get constant fluctuations, I play on an LG C9, which supports G-sync but frame rate drops are very noticeable to my eyes. The question is, should I limit the FPS to 40 instead? I think my machine can hold a solid 40; after 2hrs of game I've never seen anything below 48 FPS. Or best to stick to a more standard 30 FPS lock? Thanks Manu

Anonymous

Thoughts on Marty McFly reshade RTGI and its positive and negative effects on visuals when fine tuning it for each game separately.

Anonymous

I feel game sound is criminally overlooked in favour of graphics/ performance/dlss ect..The main option really on PC is good heaphones with an amp/dac but that consoles are getting the better deal here with 3d audio and dolby atmos support along with proper HDR support (Sekiro for example). Consoles will get good support on sound with either headphones or home theatre system. What are your thoughts on the lackuster audio and HDR support/implementation on PC gaming compared to consoles? HDR monitors with HDR1000+ are starting to roll out at a premium but with barebones support in games.

Anonymous
>>72903412

Agree, would love to hear more about this aspect. Really enjoyed how much the Metroid Dread review video focussed on sound.

Anonymous
>>72893489

You should in theory get a similar benefit like with the ratchet rift apart video on 120hz screen at 40 fps, I have the c9 oled aswell and might look into the 40fps method myself on the most extreme settings in cyberpunk when i buy it, with a 3080.

Anonymous
>>72873479

Interesting if you look up HGiG you can see both Sony, Microsoft, a bunch of developers and TV manufacturers are attempting to establish guidelines and practices to standardise HDR across the industry. Some LG set already have an HGiG setting.

Anonymous

Respawn has pulled Titanfall 1 from all stores because of a continued DDOS that kept the game unplayable for months, according to a Reddit comment I read a minute ago. So my question is: What have you heard about this situation, my gentlemen?

Anonymous
>>72886822

Now they have confirmed the specs of it: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/graphics-cards/rtx-2060/

Beefington von Barnstorm

I think I missed it - but why the heck did framerates for my PC (1700X / GTX1080) double when I added a second stick of 8GB RAM

Mark Smith

With current engines and game development techniques is it just me or do we not see the cool tricks and manipulation of hardware that used to be seen in the third, fourth, and fifth generations of console and/or PC gaming? Examples like the Naughty Dog's development of the original "Crash Bandicoot" where they were able to fit all of Crash Bandicoot's animation data in the PS1's small storage using a custom-made algorithm. A second example would be scaling tricks developed using the Sega Megadrive/ Genesis hardware to simulate scaling like that implemented in "Panorama Cotton." I feel like a lot of devs seem to favor horsepower over programming magic in most cases of late. Am I wrong or is there some amazing trickery that hasn't been talked about a lot as of yet?

Kris Graney

What did Alex do with his Gateway 2000 Vivitron 15 monitor?

Kris Graney
>>72858838

The only way to really answer this question is to know what your current TV make/model is, then we know it's capabilities and can then tell you for sure.

Anonymous

What do you think of DLSS 2.3? The improvements seem quite significant and I noticed Nvidia has been marketing it differently in the last few months. Isn't competition great :)

Anonymous

Hi DF, do you think that Mesh Shaders is going to be more peformant than PS5’s Geometry Engine?

Anonymous

This generation seems to be moving far more slowly when it comes to taking advantage of the new console hardware. It seems like most games on PS5 and Xbox are not even using the SSD to its fullest, let alone the more advanced features like Sampler Feedback. Do you think this is likely to change soon, or do you think it will remain impractical for the foreseeable future to invest the dev time into these types of hardware features?

Anonymous

Hello Fellas! Rich mentioned VRR is coming to PS5 next year. What is taking Sony so long to implement? Is it Sony's relationship with other display makers or perhaps a PS5 hardware issue? Didn't Microsoft state they worked closely with LG when they added VRR?

Anonymous

Hi DF, I've tried out several streaming services recently (Parsec, Gamestream, Geforce Now etc) and encountered varying degrees of stutter while playing (using a wired connection). Do game streaming services suffer from frame pacing issues due to the way that the frames are delivered and if so, how could it be overcome? Thanks!

Anonymous

G'day lads. Mad props for all the excellent content. Just wondering your thoughts on NX Gamers videos where he compares the PS5's performance on Death Standing 'vs' Nvidia and AMD hardware. Is his analysis valid and accurate? He unfairly copped a huge amount of flak in the comments section on the Youtubes, so much so that he did a brief follow up video to try and justify his earlier vid. Just love to hear your thoughts as I found the video interesting. Cheers!

Anonymous

Can the DF team please comment on the performance overhead that "vsync" incurs? Will this overhead be negated by running a game in VRR mode (unlocked). Would there be any merit to allowing a 30fps games (that struggles to hit the 30fps cap) to run unlocked in VRR mode, since it would free up a couple of ms of render time and maybe allow for a higher average FPS? Also, which feels better, 30fps with perfect frame pacing, or the same game running in VRR at 30-35fps for example. Cheers!

digitalfoundry
>>73069669

This is an interesting question that arrived too late for inclusion but the issue with VRR at 30-35fps is that very few displays support that. Usually it's 40Hz+ or even 48Hz+...!

d0x360

What are your feelings on the gaming community's current vitriolic attitude towards MS &amp; 343 in regards to progression, prices, armor sets and game modes? I try to look at it from a developer point of view instead of a gamer. I don't think people understand that changing the progression system is likely very difficult due to how intertwined it is with the MP as a whole. They also don't seem to understand that you can't mix certain armors and armor pieces because the meshes won't fit properly and would probably look terrible and having clipping issues along with pieces that just kinda float in the air. Lastly game modes.. they should in theory take less time to make and put into the playlist but I imagine 343 is more focused on bugs at the moment. In my opinion people are as upset as they are because Halo Infinite is a genuinely excellent multiplayer game and absolutely the best mp game released this year. I also think the progression and pricing structure is terrible but can and will be fixed and I'm genuinely happy to enjoy the game while they work on it. People seem like they have been brainwashed by the constant feed of gun upgrades, skins etc from COD and can't handle not getting rewards every match.

Anonymous

Hey guys, cross-gen games existing seems to have got some commenters knickers in a twist, some use it as an example that this new generation of consoles are poor for it. How do you all feel about this? To me it's like getting a new gaming PC to play a game that ran poorly on your old computer, instead of 1280 x 720, settings at low, at 30 fps you can now get the same game to play at 2560 x 1440, settings at high, at 60 fps.