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Early Access To DF Direct Weekly #168 Now Available (Patreon)

Published:
2024-06-22 16:09:21
Edited:
2024-06-24 15:01:11
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Some practical tests in this week's episode of DF Direct as Rich examines the modded performance modes cropping up for the Xbox Series S version of Starfield - while his £2,000 investment in a Surface Laptop with Snapdragon X Elite translates into some truly awful gaming. Meanwhile, John's been checking out the new PlayStation 2 and PSP emulators for PS5, while Alex isn't particularly happy about Game Pass versions of PC games missing DLSS and other upscaler support present on Steam and EGS releases.

And here's your weekly reminder that if you're new to the DF Supporter Program and want early podcast access to DF Direct Weekly via an RSS podcast feed just for you, please ignore any Patreon links elsewhere and head over here for your exclusive feed: https://open.acast.com/public/patreon/fanSubscribe/593963

Downloads: https://www.digitalfoundry.net/df-direct-weekly-168-starfield-series-s-60fps-new-ps2-emu-for-ps5-arm-windows-gaming-disappoints

Files

DF Direct Weekly #168: Starfield Series S 60FPS, New PS2 Emu For PS5, ARM Windows Gaming Disappoints

Some practical tests in this week's episode of DF Direct as Rich examines the modded performance modes cropping up for the Xbox Series S version of Starfield - while his £2,000 investment in a Surface Laptop with Snapdragon X Elite translates into some truly awful gaming. Meanwhile, John's been checking out the new PlayStation 2 and PSP emulators for PS5, while Alex isn't particularly happy about Game Pass versions of PC games missing DLSS and other upscaler support present on Steam and EGS releases. NOTE: In the Snapdragon X Elite section, both Control and Dark Souls 3 are running with Auto SR. These are two titles that automatically invoke the technology, which may explain why native 1080p is not available. All tests conducted with mains power. Want some DF-branded tee-shirts, mugs, hoodies and various items based on DF catchphrases? Check out our store: https://store.digitalfoundry.net Join the DF Supporter Program for pristine video downloads, behind the scenes content, early access to DF Retro, early access to DF Direct Weekly and much, much more: https://bit.ly/3jEGjvx Subscribe for more Digital Foundry: http://bit.ly/DFSubscribe Find DF Direct Weekly as a podcast on your favourite podcast streaming service. 0:00:00 Introduction 0:01:22 News 01: Starfield Series S high frame-rate mods tested! 0:09:26 News 02: PS2 and PSP emulation on PS5 analyzed 0:24:58 News 03: Snapdragon X Elite gaming performance disappoints 0:44:34 News 04: Still Wakes The Deep ships without FSR, DLSS, XeSS on Game Pass 0:54:17 News 05: LRG3 showcase features re-releases, remasters 1:05:04 Supporter Q1: How can I age as gracefully as the Switch? 1:13:55 Supporter Q2: Would you still recommend the Steam Deck over the new ROG Ally X? 1:16:46 Supporter Q3: Could the PS5 last 8 or 9 years as Sony’s flagship console platform? 1:23:25 Supporter Q4: Do you think a 1080p screen could be too much for a next-gen Switch? 1:28:46 Supporter Q5: Do you think any unannounced first party games will be released around launch for Switch 2?

Comments

Dan Matte

Noting that Qualcomm and Microsoft have never claimed that Snapdragon X Elite would ever be miraculously good at this stage for PC gaming. Just that the emulator is more than good enough for x86 emulation, and some amount of light gaming is reasonably possible.

digitalfoundry

It doesn't have to be miraculously good. I would say that for a platform built on compatibility, it does need to work. For me, the question at this point is whether it is the Qualcomm driver or Prism (or both) that is the issue.

Dan Matte

Well, Microsoft’s emulator is world-class and not the problem. The main issue you’re running into is the real blocker: almost all DRM and anti-cheat solutions (which live in the kernel and cannot be emulated) have not yet been ported to Arm. Microsoft on its DirectX blog recently announced that support for three anti-cheat solutions are coming: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/step-forward-for-gaming-on-arm-devices-2024/ Re: DX11—when Intel launched its new Xe discrete GPUs, it used Microsoft’s D3D11On12 mapping layer, and got really burned by that and eviscerated in reviews for DX11 gaming. Qualcomm wisely decided to avoid that path and work on a DX11 driver instead, which is what Intel switched to doing as well. I would also reduce expectations a bit for Auto SR: it’s Qualcomm’s image-based upscaler, which is a pretty different kind of algorithm compared to say DLSS and not aimed at doing the same thing. The headline news with this platform is that the CPU is faster than all of Intel and AMD’s CPUs in market to-date, while offering double the battery life for web and productivity use cases :) And the x86 emulator has been more than good enough for a while.

Daniel M

Also worth noting that a lot of games and DRM solutions depend on certain x86 instruction set extensions such as AVX that aren't supported by emulators (this is true on Apple as well) either because of technical constraints (the ARM equivalents of these instructions work quite differently from the x86 ones) or because patents/licensing issues restricting their implementation.

Dan Matte

On that note, Apple at least now has emulation of AVX2 and AVX-256 for Rosetta 2 and Game Porting Toolkit 2.