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It's happening again! The end of the week is upon us, which brings with it the daunting realisation that nothing has been prepared for DF Direct Weekly. But fear not! A mad scramble for material usually comes up trumps and then on Thursday afternoon/evening, something very newsworthy happens.

This week, Rich, Alex and (on special request of Leftisthominid) Tom will be getting together to discuss a number of topics. Rich has taken a look at Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora's new 40fps mode on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and has the assets to prove it, and he's also taking a look at the arrival of AMD Fluid Motion Frames on Asus ROG Ally. Alex has more GDC tech deep dives he's aching to share with you in what will likely be another 20 minute dissertation, while Tom has news on Paper Mario for Nintendo Switch and Lords of the Fallen's new patch, which promises big performance improvements and does seem to have delivered!

Anything more we should be talking about? And how about any and all questions you may have? These can be about the above, suggested topics or just general Q+A. You know the form by now, which sits beneath this post and awaits your valued input.

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Vasyl Baran

Any updates on that Sunshine/Moonlight local streaming video? Cheers! I love your work! =)

TRACEY GRIMSHAW'S DART RETURNS

What form of government would a hypothetical Republic of Gamers take? Would Rich stand for election? I would vote for him to be my ROG MP

MrModius

What are your thoughts on Nintendo's 20-year late mass crackdown this week on every single Garry's Mod Steam workshop mod containing any reference whatsoever to any of their IP? Do you see this having wider ramifications for the modding scene in general and do you think user-created mods containing IP of any sort could potentially fall under fair use?

Fractal Flow

With Sea Of Thieves, we have another MGS title on PS5 showing superior shadow quality vs XSX. Could there be some minor hardware difference which explains why PS5 vs XSX shadow quality differences are a recurring thing? Surely it can't be a bug or oversight at this point.

Jonny_5a

Saw one of the Dolphin emulator devs comment on lack of access to JIT programming on iOS preventing GameCube emulation and up on iPhone. Do you think this is as insurmountable as suggested and might this affect other retro platforms - I’d be disappointed at prospect of no Dreamcast

alexrdavies

A GDC Sneak Peek into Unreal 5.4 appeared on YouTube last week. Some intriguing tools and comments. They mentioned 'rendering' is about twice the speed of Unreal 5.0. How feasible is it for a dev to "update" an already-released game to 5.4, fix snags, and republish with those improvements? Would that be days of work, or weeks? And how much impact would halving the rendering time specifically have on frame rates or pacing when those also depend on ray tracing, DLSS and all sorts of other inputs?

Alex's Retro PC

Tom! Good to see you back. How is your retro setup going - have there been any upgrades recently?

Alex's Retro PC

For a 1080p display, are there any benefits in using a Retrotink 4K for upscaling purposes (excluding filters, presets, BFI etc)

Alex's Retro PC

Yes it is. You can run these apps side loaded now without JIT and see what happens…it isn’t pretty

ConcreteLlama

If frame gen gets to the point where it can generate 2 interim frames, how likely is it that this could be used on 60hz displays to upscale (up... frame? uprate?) 40fps games to 60 by upping them to 120 then displaying every other frame?

Starfox85

Hi gents, I love you all and the amazing work you do! Alex, I recently started the Master Chief Collection on PC and found out that the horrible camera animation stutter in Halo Reach completely disappears when I disable GSync and set it to fixed refresh at 120fps (with V-Sync, in case that matters as well). Not really a question but please try it and put that info out there!

Gordon Lin

John, great review of Stellar Blade. I get the sense that this will be a game that looks beautiful for generations because of its smart design choices and concessions to hit the sweet spot of performance and rendering features. What's are some of the DF team's personal favorite games that live in this same sweet spot? Games like Mario Odyssey and even Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart are personal choices for games that will look evergreen.

Deadeyes

Hello DF team! With Snapdragon X we may finally see Windows on ARM actually get some support and market penetration. If it's successful do you think we might start seeing android phones that can dual boot to Windows? Could we finally see a version of the promise of the Lumia 950 desktop mode? Could you see yourself using something like this? It seems pretty niche to me, but I want it to exist if even just to say "that's pretty neat!"

Gordon Lin

Hahahah. I'm struggling to picture Oliver as bad cop. He's so congenial. Love the whole team

andre surles

Technically speaking how does a developer prepare a massive game with an incredibly long tail like GTA6?

Deadeyes

Unfortunately, that does nothing for the input lag issue, which is the primary reason for recommending 60fps baseline before turning on FG.

andre surles

I believe the limitation is the display, it would need to be 120hz to work with 40hz in the first place.

Eric Benoit

Since the Microsoft leaks, I decided to dust off my old desktop and make more of an investment in PC gaming, it's running on an I7 first generation with a GTX 960. It's great for older games but If I want to upgrade should I do it by upgrading my hardware gradually or just get a Steam Deck? Or go nuclear and save up for a new high end PC?

andre surles

I’ve always wondered this as well, could a game developed in 5.1 be recompiled and updated to 5.4 etc and sent out as an update/redownload?

ConcreteLlama

My thinking was mainly "40 is better than 30", I'm sure I heard it mentioned at one point that frame gen is OK at 40. But maybe not!

Full House's John SteamOS

If gaming moves towards more ARM-powered devices, do you think that'll translate to a future with more Mac ports question mark

DaJaCo (Dan)

This week it was reported that the Switch 2 will utilize Samsung's 5th generation V-Nand for its game cartridges. While not at blazing speeds, or the cutting edge (9th or 10th gen) - this would still deliver read speeds of roughly 1.4GB/s - This would represent a 10 ~ 20x speed increase over the current Switch, but still be quite some way behind the SSDs in the home consoles. How do you all expect Nintendo to approach the "handheld storage problem" - will they lean heavily on an internal SSD installation to close the gap with home consoles - or will they just do their own thing and aim for speed parity between the internal storage and the game carts?

FrametimeSommelier

HI DF Team! Do you think we will see more AAA and AA games using path tracing in the near future? In last week's Q&A you discussed how a 5090 could improve gaming. But path tracing wasn't mentioned. Wouldn't path tracing be the perfect way to utilize the the extra power of the 5090? I really enjoyed PT in CP2077 and AW2 and would love to see more games using the tech.

Jonathan Thomassen

It's been 3,5 years since the PS5 came out and there are still new games being released on the PS4 regularly. How much of a win is this for the average consumer and how much of a problem is it for Sony?

Xilon Xiao

Hello everyone! Interesting the case of Sea of Thieves, huh? In times where most games are nearly identical on PS5 and Series X, SoT showed some interesting differences between those platforms. Would it be just a matter of "pending proper optimizations" that would flatten out those differences or we are seeing and example of the developer trying to squeeze the best of each console design?

FrametimeSommelier

With PC handheld gaming on the rise, do you think we will see a Ryzen Z2 Extreme version of Strix Point (9050?) for the second gen of the ROG Ally, Lenovo GO, and the likes? Or do you think it is more likely that they will use the standard APU without the removed NPU. Would there be a use case for a NPU in handheld gaming? Thinking machine learning super sampling.

Rich

Depends on your motherboard and what upgrades it can support. Your CPU is still decent, you might be able to get more years out of a GPU upgrade.

RAVE_DAM0S

Hola Gents, and happiest of weekends to you. If you were called into Microsoft to design an Xbox Handheld based on Arm, would you accept such challenge and what radical ideas would you implement in this "DF Inspired" device! Would this device support different power profiles for docked vs mobile? And how much die space would you devote to AI (TOPS!)? Good day gents!

Rob Walker

What were MSI and Intel thinking releasing The Claw in such a state? Rarely have I seen a gaming product so universally trashed. Have MSI and Intel done anything besides hurt their brands?

Eric Benoit

It's 1156 motherboard so I think a 3060 is the maximum GPU. Thanks for the response

Leftisthominid

A while back, you did a video comparing streaming quality on xCloud and PS Plus. I was wondering if you had any plans to do a comparison of in-home streaming on these devices. Late last year, I used to the Backbone with my Galaxy S22 Ultra to stream from my Xbox. I was only doing an NG+ of Persona 5R this way, but I did not notice any major issues. (My Xbox is hardwired into my network).

Leftisthominid

When will we see Will once again on DF Direct? I enjoy seeing all the random tech boxes in his background and trying to guess what they are.

Woody Chang

Hi Rich and DF Direct crew, To follow up from last week, here are some suggestions for Palpatine quality presets- Potato- Lack of vision Low- Feeble skills Medium- Give in to your anger High- Fully armed and operational battlestation Ultra- UNLIMITED POWER

Leftisthominid

If Richard Leadbetter from 2029 came through a time warp and told you that Intel ARC had overtaken AMD in discrete GPU marketshare (but had no way of showing proof) and then went back to his own time, would you believe him?

Leftisthominid

These are very important questions. 1. When was the last time Alex played a console game on console (not emulation) for his own personal enjoyment (i.e., not for work). 2. what is Richard's favorite (or least hated) Master System game? 3. What is Tom's favorite game in the Paper Mario series?

zurce

Any plans on covering Lossless Scaling ? Latest elgato firmware reduced latency in their 2.1 card significantly, it so low now I was able to beat stellar blade using Lossless Scaling framegen and run it at 4k120, a better Ps5 pro alternative ?

zurce

I'm capturing PS5 games through the HDMI 2.1 cards , then the obs capture is getting the Lossless Scaling to 120 fps Stellar Blade at 4K balanced is mostly 60 fps , I am doing frame gen to 120 fps and some extra sharpening with LS1 scaling and looks and plays amazing

Jay’s Alvarado

With the prolific use of dynamic times of day, shadows, etc... Do you fear that developers will lose touch with how to artistically frame a scene? For example, I’m playing through Pacific Drive, and while no one will say PD looks photo real, what I think will age like fine wine is Ironwoods studios skillful environmental lighting design direction. On a foggy map, on a sprint back to my car the dramatically red light cuts right thru the fog and gives off an almost artistic (rather than realistic) ethereal look. It’d be a shame if lighting direction was lost to real time/dynamic lighting system.

Kellan Sandifer

Sampler feedback is the savior for the series s? What is this feature in direct x ? PlayStation has a better API than Microsoft how is this possible? What is an API? #ConsoleGamer

Raijin94

Hi DF team, I'm working on a master's project about recognising gameplay in Pokémon games. This has led me to review Computer Vision applications in video games, but I haven't found many. One example might be cheat detection in FPS games. Do you know of any examples of the application of Computer Vision in video games? How do you think it could be used in the future? Greetings from a Peruvian living in the UK.

Mr Bespoke

Hi guys just a quick question. When can we expect the next DF Indirect?

FrametimeSommelier

I heard a rumor that Intel basically gave MSI the APUs for free.

AfreemTheDream

I received Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora as a Christmas gift and haven't yet had the chance to play it. Now I hear there's a 40 FPS mode coming out, and it is yet another example of "I'm glad I waited to play it." Is it just me? I feel like it's smarter to just wait to play a game because 90% of them get better with patches after a few months. Won't this kill studios as more and more players wait for the patches/a price drop to purchase the game?

AfreemTheDream

Do you think the console manufacturers would ever require (as a standard) that all games play at 60 FPS minimum, visuals be damned? I'm playing Jedi Survivor at the moment and 30 just ain't cutting it for me anymore.

digitalfoundry

I tried it with the ROG Ally today. I'm sure it's great at high frame-rates but at the 30 to 60 or thereabouts the Ally requires, the artefacting was pretty horrible

JayeizH

Hi DF Team! Greetings from Finland! I have been wondering why Microsoft would launch Xbox Series X Pro when the S version is more popular. Clearly "most powerful console" ads aren't working, so wouldn't it be more logical to launch Xbox Series S Pro? There is greatly power space between S and X, and S could benefit also more additional SSD space. The more I think about it, more it makes sense. What do you think? Could that white Xbox Series box actually be Xbox Series S Pro? It was even disc-less, like Xbox S models usually have been.

zurce

Yup 30 frames is pretty unusuable, at least 30 to 60, if I run the 30 fps in a 60 fps container (like for example PS5 running FF7Rb in quality mode) and then framegen to 120 it gets very minimal artifacting

The Knight Who Says Ni!

Hey there! While I know DF typically doesn't delve into sports games, I'm curious about your thoughts on TopSpin 2K25. It's the first release in the series in 13 years. What do you think?

tod weitzel

Is there anything to this rumor that the 13900K and 14900K processors are inherently unstable? Is this just a tempest in a teapot amongst high end overclockers or something to care about as a regular pc gamer that's parts shopping?

Alan

Hi Richard, Alex & Tom, with the news of the USA proposed Tiktok ban, could this be coming to gaming as well? games companies have huge amounts of players info/data, just wondering your thoughts on this.

Someguyperson

Looking at Rich's handheld coverage got me thinking; what part of the system is holding everything back the most? The performance of these handhelds don't increase all that much as you dump more power into them, so it makes me think that these handhelds are mostly memory bandwidth limited. Do you think the next big update would actually be faster memory, or 3D V-Cache as opposed to a newer GPU or CPU architecture? Could the new presentmon statistics help determine what's the limiting factor on these handhelds?

Someguyperson

Looking at Rich's handheld coverage made me think about the Switch 2 and how that would compare against the plethora of handhelds in the market now. The one thing that stood out to me in the footage of all the handhelds was all the aliasing in the image because most games used FSR2. Do you think the Switch 2 might have an image quality advantage over the other handhelds at a 15w TDP, purely because it will support DLSS? Do you guys think that advancements in upscaling algorithms will make the DLSS advantage moot by the time we actually get the Switch 2 in hand? On a somewhat related note, would Alex put UE5's TSR above FSR2, but behind XESS in the upscaling quality scale he made recently?

Someguyperson

In the world of software, this is one of those instances where everything SHOULD work, but there are always issues in the porting process, so you would need another spin of quality control, which might not be worth the investment. Unless the studio has extensive automated testing of the entire game, the port-testing-fixing-testing back & forth can also take a good amount of calendar time to make everything work properly.

Someguyperson

Do you have an i7-920? If so, you absolutely need to upgrade that dinosaur that came out 16 years ago. Even if you bought a new CPU when you bought your GTX 960, you're looking at last-gen CPU performance, so it would be quite a struggle to play anything remotely modern. The past 5 years have had huge jumps in CPU performance after nearly a decade of stagnation from Intel.

Someguyperson

Maximum read speeds aren't nearly as important as random read performance at low queue depths, however that's nearly impossible to find in a spec sheet and almost always requires real-world testing. Even then, the Switch 2 will undoubtedly have reduced quality textures and a lower output resolution than the larger consoles, so I don't see that being an issue for the Switch 2 at all.

Someguyperson

In ten years? Sure, I'll buy it. 5 years from now? That's way too soon to be realistic.

INGENUK

Hi lads. It seems that no one's really that concerned about video game preservation. (present company excluded) It amazes me, coming from a retro collecting background and more recently, instead of waiting for a PS5 pro / PS6 or new XBOX, becoming PC gamer, that there doesn't seem to be a practical way to insure your catalog / collection for the future. It seems even more expensive to buy all the latest games and enjoy the cutting edge, but with the added risk of not knowing if they'll even be playable in the 10 years time. I feel it's time for a radical solution! Not quite sure what it is, of if anyone cares? Currently working and thinking about a way to back things up and preserve. Hoping the industry might end up offering a solution at some point. Any thoughts on this? Where do you see physical media in 10 years? Is your Digital collection safe? Thanks for all the hard work. Big Love

DarkRod99

HI DF, do you think 3DV-Cache can come to console in the next-generation, and what you think would be the biggest use a console can make with massive amount of cache?

Diego ElRey

With Fallout 4 having an actual 1440p mode that gives you ultra and 60 FPS, I've always wondered why devs won't just use it as a native resolution option on consoles, as opposed to being a DRS number. Even the supported 1440p modes on the consoles doesn't change the rendering, meaning no extra performance. It would seem that 1440p would claw back some of the performance issues, and possibly allow better graphics settings. People are using 1440p with GPUs that are more powerful than that in the consoles. Why isn't it at least an option?

Julian Shniter

I just got an OLED monitor and I’ve found windows HDR support to be baffling, which leads me to ask what are the hallmarks of a good vs bad HDR implementation? What are games like Ori and tools like SpecialK doing that windows and (insert game with bad HDR implementation) doing wrong?

digitalfoundry

Sooooon! We just need to find another slot where we have staff available!

StefanSt

Hi guys! Once PS VR2 will have a connection to the PC, will it be possible to use it one the Steam Deck + Dock? What do you think?

Eric Benoit

It's a I7-875k, I know it's prehistoric. But I think it's basically the best CPU for that motherboard. That was my question, if it was worth upgrading the GPU, then later the motherboard and chipset and PSU. It's more of how do I do this slowly without spending $2000+ a pop? Is it worth it to incrementally upgrade the PC or just deal with it as is and save up for a new PC. I went over my gaming budget on the Retrotink 4k, and with the Switch 2 and PS5 pro I'm going try and ignore the Fomo. If Richard thinks a GPU upgrade is a good choice, I can save for a motherboard chip upgrade next year maybe.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Agree.. unless I'm super hyped about a release, I generally wait for the price to go down, and for the quality, stability and features to improve.

Punished Chad Warden

Hey guys! What do you think the next 3, 5, and 10 years will look like for x86? Does x86 have any intrinsic advantages over ARM or RISC-V beyond its legacy software library? Will AMD and Intel let it fade quietly into the night, or might they have tricks up their sleeves? Cheers!

Never Ready Eddie

DF crew, given the number of games locked at 30FPS recently, do you think it’s time console players got to have more control over their graphics settings? Perhaps keep it behind an advanced menu and only have your base "quality" and "performance" modes for the masses, but let an advanced menu have control over resolution, post processing, raytracing etc that make a measurable difference to the FPS… AND even a user controllable framerate limiter (40FPS anyone?).

Never Ready Eddie

Do yourself a favour and go watch Gaming Tech on YT. He does in-depth HDR analysis with live histograms showing peak brightness and black level floor (I love how he says this with his accent), calling out terrible and great HDR in games. He also provides best settings too. Unfortunately DF don't get anywhere near this on HDR. In fact you wouldn't even know it existed in most of their tech analysis. John sometimes mentions it as "good" or "not great and washed out" but that's it https://www.youtube.com/@GamingTech-YouTube

Never Ready Eddie

Hi DF gents. This one is short and sweet. Why does the PS5 outsell the Xbox by such a huge margin?

Douglas Fowler

Hey DF Team! Watching from Vancouver, Canada. I recently became aware of the 3DS emulation on Quest 2/3/Pro. To me this seems like maybe the best way to emulate 3DS games and still maintain the 3D effect. I have a 3D TV (the PlayStation one) and a 3D Computer Monitor - both around 10 years old. Do you think there’s any hope for using those to emulate 3DS games and maintain the 3-D effect and what are your thoughts on 3DS emulation on the quest or in VR in general?

Mr Bespoke

Cheers, I be looking forward to it

lbb12

Hello DF Team! Upon reviewing footage of Metro Exodus with PhysX features: hairworks & tesselation enabled on PC, I questioned whether PS5 or Xbox consoles had any of these but can't find concrete answers. I personally prefer playing a ver. of a game looking it's best as my platform of choice for it. This was the case for the Batman Arkham Trilogy of games on PC with an NVIDIA card *just* for the PhysX stuff b/c without it, the game looks WAY less immersive (ex. fight with Scarecrow in Asylum, Ra's Al Ghul level in City, lots of effects in Knight). I was hoping by the time a game like Metro Exodus and NVIDIA's open sourcing PhysX awhile ago (as well as continual extinction of dev support for it) that an AMD GPU user/based console would allow the use of its features by now, or am I wrong? Will we ever see a PhysX enhanced title run with those features turned ON for AMD someday (patched-in/updated to run)? I sincerely appreciate your input 😄👍