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Call For Questions For DF Direct Weekly #182 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-09-26 14:28:08
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
Q&A

Content

Well, it's been quite a week, huh? Now you know why we were unable to divulge too much in the weekly update - Oliver has been an absolute champion in getting together our PS5 Pro hand-on coverage and it's been my pleasure a privilege to watch him cover such an important event so well: 3000 words of notes taken on-site, filmed developer interviews and first-class work generally in representing Digital Foundry. Amazing! And it was his first press trip.

Any way, we'll now be moving onto our regular Direct for the week, and maybe it will be a bit shorter - depends on the topics. We'll be discussing the State of Play, the postponement of Assassin's Creed Shadows, Ubisoft's long-overdue return to Steam and we'll be talking in a bit more depth about the Horizon Zero Dawn remaster, with some matched footage for you to take a look at.

Any topics you would like to see us discuss? Any questions for the team? It'll be Rich (ie me), Oliver and Alex on the panel this week and as usual, it's 8am BST cut-off for your submissions. Feel free to bombard us with your queries, missives and what-not. The empty box below needs YOU!

Files

Comments

Leftisthominid

I am a platform agnostic gamer. I play on everything, but I prefer to pay multiplats on PC. However, when we find a broken PC port (e.g., Jedi: Survivor), I defer to playing a console version. However, I hate FSR (probably more than Richard hates the Sega Master System). Do you think justified hatred of FSR will help sell the PS5 Pro? Not having to ever see FSR is one of my main motivations for buying a PS5 Pro.

Aaron Espinello

When are we getting Star Wars outlaws optimized settings that’s the literal reason I subscribed to this Patreon

Jay Adama

Mark Cerny pitched the PS5 Pro as "the end of graphics mode toggles", but the developers Oliver spoke to at the Pro press event were already musing about new modes they could implement, given the increased power at their disposal. Does this not completely undermine the main marketing message of the PS5 Pro?

TMoney58

Maybe this is beyond the scope of Digital Foundry, but with Ubisoft pulling back Assassin’s Creed due to the softer than expected reception for SW Outlaws what lessons do you hope they take from the way Outlaws was received and implement in the 3 or so months of time they just bought themselves?

HelenX

Hello Everyone. Whilst enjoying your optiomised settings I realised something that ought to be obvious. Aren't the low,medium, high & ultra presets supposed to be optimised settings. Certainly medium and high. Were they ever actually optimised? Why aren't they now?

Leftisthominid

The PS5 detachable disc drive appears to be out of stock in most places. Should we refer to this as Leadbetter's prophecy?

Douglas Fowler

With the upcoming release of the Switch 2 further closing the gap power-wise between the series S and Nintendo‘s previous console do you think we will see more cross platform titles that appear on PS5, Series X|S and Nintendo switch?

Selwyn Nypels

Hi Gents! Would love to hear your thoughts on the recent Flight Simulator 2024 announcements. Seems like a very impressive technical achievement, reducing the game to 30gb and streaming the rest. However, this obviously has implications for preservation. Is this the most 'impossible to preserve' game yet?

Having an AI-neurysm

What’s the lore behind Rich switching from his usual wired earbuds to Bluetooth earbuds?

Peter Karadimas

Hello gents! Do you think next gen consoles will be at a point where full path tracing becomes the norm, and does it make game development any easier or harder when you can target path tracing as a baseline?

Kris

With State Of Play I was very disappointed that they didn’t show the Ultra Boost mode or more examples of the Pro

gartenriese

What do you think is the reason that Guerilla Games did not add ray tracing to the remaster like Insomniac did with the Spider-Man remaster? I'm kind of disappointed we haven't seen any ray tracing yet from Guerilla Games. What is holding them back?

Joseph Caruso

Do you think collectors items based on anniversaries have less value in the long run? While the PS5 Pro 30th Anniversary bundle is expensive, part of me can justify spending the extra money with the assumption that I'll be able to resell it someday. However, I bought the 25th Mario Anniversary DSiXL when it came out with the same mindset, and I just checked on eBay and it's not selling for very much, even though DS hardware and software is in demand. These premium collectors items may be unique and pleasant looking, but I feel like associated them with an anniversary that will be dated reduces their timelessness.

DyeHardX86

Hello I always wondered how Alex, Rich and John thought up their Twitter handles? I mean Badger Hunter? Must be a story there. Thanks for the hard work!

Stiggles

I am beyond happy that I ordered the moment the digital-only rumors dropped! I think that’s the only appropriate name for this

kurtz

Can you explain why the Anniversary Edition of the PS5 Pro has such an extremely limited production run? The PR benefit of having it immediately wind up on Ebay for 10 grand from scalpers must surely be outweighed by the potential income generated from selling the damn thing themselves? Why did Sony choose to limit its production so outrageously far below demand when they could make enough of them for everyone (at least with time) AND charge a markup? Is there a comprehensible reason here, or did Sony just massively misjudge the market potential of the Classic theme?

vangrey4

There’s been a lot of talk about Microsoft possibly developing a handheld. I welcome the possibility as being able to carry saves and progress from both my XSX and XSS games on my ROG Ally has been a really convenient feature of Gamepass. But Microsoft has also promised that its next console will be “a technical leap” and will be the most powerful console ever (😒). As someone who owns all the latest consoles to include the Xbox Series X and S, this worries me. While the XSS I think is a great console, we’ve seen how this has presented challenges for developers who have to ensure their game works on both Series consoles. This may have caused some games to delay release on these consoles, or forgo release all together. I can see how this would be upsetting if you only game on one console. I currently own both a Steam Deck and ROG Ally. I love my devices, but I don’t see how Microsoft could develop a handheld that isn’t roughly the same price as most handhelds nowadays, while at most matching XSS in performance. With the likely large gap in performance between their next console and a handheld, would developers need to ensure that their games work for both devices? And if so, how is that any different than the situation they find themselves in now? If that is not the case, would Gamepass become more like Steam, where your hardware determines your access and gaming experience? There seems to be a lot of unknowns with how this ecosystem would work moving forward if a handheld does come to be. I’d love to hear you guys’ thoughts on this. Thanks for the great content and take care.

Stiggles

Hello DF crew! With the announcement of Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and the rumored/possible Days Gone remaster, will remastering their first party/bestselling titles be a new norm for Sony moving forward? I could see this being advertised as a plus to being in the PlayStation ecosystem, “Your games will always look the best on our system/will always take full advantage of your PC” or something to that effect. Thanks, and looking forward to the continued coverage of the PS5 Pro!

Steven Milne

I know the Playstation 5 Professional is on everyone's minds right now, but this one is about the Playstation Portal. I know there have been some software updates to the device since the initial launch - I'm wondering if they've had any impact on some of the issues laid out in the original DF review (latency, image quality). Have these improved at all since your review? Is it time to take another look at the Portal? Thanks again for all the great work! (PS, still laugh every time John says pisser [PSSR] so please don't stop)

Peter

Hi Digital Foundry crew. New Patreon here. I have consumed your content for years and I decided to support after the talk about AnandTech a few episodes past. With the recent coverage on PS5 Pro done on provided footage as opposed to footage you captured yourselves, it became clear that there was maybe some misunderstanding as to how performance and tech analysis is done. My assumption is that all objective anlsysis such as pixel counts, framerates etc are done on captured footage and thus, as long as the footage is of verified 1:1 quality, it can be just as robust regardless of who captured it. Of course, if you can control the capture you can purposefully focus on areas of known demand (corridor of doom in Control comes to mind) but the actual process of analysing is just as valid regardless. Could you go into detail as to how analysis is done across the team? How is the DF sausage made?

Esteban

After your new hands-on experience with the PS5 Pro, what areas would you like to see Sony improve the most for PSSR (or alternatively, which areas should devs be more careful with when using it) ? The ghosting/artifacts in F1 24 particularly stood out to me (the water trail behind the wheels being quite bad), but where there any other pain points besides that or the over sharpening you saw in some others? Also, do you expect Sony to follow through on the tech in any significant way and see Frame Gen or denoising upgrades later on? Or just fall back to FSR again, assuming FSR4 will probably be out by the time PS6 comes out

Wicca

Hey guys, I’m curious about your take on the recent news regarding Ubisoft's setbacks. More generally, what do you think Ubisoft is doing wrong, and what do their games lack that has led to such a bad reputation—possibly the reason behind the reportedly low sales of a potential hit like Star Wars Outlaws? If the issue is the large scale of their projects, then why aren’t EA, Rockstar, and other big developers facing the same problem (with their stock prices sinking and reputations declining by the second)?

Jellyment

Hi DF crew. Assassin's creed shadows delayed until after the holidays seems like a huge loss of sales. It seems like Ubisoft are worried about something serious, but what could be serious enough to delay, but be fixed in only 3 months?

Abandoned Walnut

Hi Folks. Another PS5 Pro related question. Do you know if Sony's PSSR is exclusively for improving image fidelity or can it also be used for frame generation purposes? I'm intrigued!

Rip Van Winkle

Don't think they're reading all of this out loud on a direct. This is an essay lol.

Rich

Different settings have different impact on performance. Eg shadows imposing bigger frametime impact than texture streaming etc.

CrashOverride

Given the dominance Xbox Series S in Microsoft's share of console sales along with the increasingly long time to produce a game, do we now have a recipe for disaster in keeping the development cost for games (at least those one console) under control? The Series S has proven to cost developers quite a bit of time and resources to deliver the experience they want on the low-powered, mandatory offering while development times regardless of hardware are now beyond 5 years for many games. The life cycle of a console used to be roughly 5 years plus a cross-gen lag period in phasing it out! In light of the exploding budgets of games like Concord and other AAA titles that are taking well over the lifespan of a console to make, do devs just go back to PC as a primary platform and consoles make the complete transition Steamdeck-like open PCs that just have to meet a minimum spec? This would be good for me as a PC gamer, but this could break the budgets of those with less money who can't afford $2500 machines like the what I have. Where do devs go from here?

Kris

On the PlayStation store the disc drive is available and the cheapest

alexrdavies

PSSR uses machine learning, which is based on training data. Have Sony told us where they sourced this from? The natural place would be their own games, and those of other devs used for PS5 Pro testing. Does this create a risk that PSSR fidelity falls away once it is used on games outside its training set?

HelenX

What I don't understand is why High has to then have 'high' for every individual setting. Shouldn't the high preset be optimised for the best visual performace on high end hardware and similarly with medium on mid range computers. At the moment these presets just set all the options to high or medium without seeming to consider the visual and performance effect.

Gavlan Wheel

Can NVIDIA drivers (or AMD, for that matter) actually lead to a reduction in performance / increase in stuttering among other issues? Or is that more of an urban legend? I tend to not upgrade my driver's unless I specifically need to and would like to know if I'm being paranoid. Thanks for all your work!

monlyHunter

Im curious about PS5 Pro enhancements for older titles, that don’t get a developer update. What is known about possible benefits / enhancements for PS4 titles like e.g. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate? Is there a boost mode? Thanks!

MGsubbie

Does it look to you that Hell in Us is using the Decima Engine? I got some strong Death Stranding vibes from it.

MGsubbie

Do you agree the EU should implement an anti-scalper law? I'm tired of these as****es making it difficult for regular consumers to get it for a fair price. Why should people who contributed nothing get such a massive profit margin?

Full House's John SteamOS

In John's Echoes of Wisdom video he mentioned that he hopes that backwards compatibility in Switch 2 would effectively allow for a native "boost mode" to counter the game's slowdown. Problem is, Nintendo have a history of not supporting a native BC boost, eg. GCN games played on Wii, Wii games on Wii U, GB games on GBA, GBA games on DS, DS games on 3DS, were all running as they did on the original hardware. More recently though, there has been a shift with certain 3DS games on the New 3DS running more smoothly, and the slightest bump to performance in certain Switch scenarios on the Mariko chipset. (Also, arguably the colour mode on GBC for GB games was a form of "boost mode", ha.) Question: what's your guess on boost mode for BC titles running on the Switch 2?

7SAN

Hey guys, as you know the base PS5's HDMI port is capped at 32 Gbps bandwidth, do you think the PS5 Pro got the full 48 Gbps? Allowing 4k120 10bit at full RGB? Thanks.

Eric Benoit

Buying the PS5 was an unpleasant experience 4 years ago, and this morning, the Suckage was reacheived. isn't making loyal customers work for buying products a bad move? Or is FOMO such a force now that old customer service models don't apply anymore?

AdorablyAllPhysical

The Horizon Forbidden West part was the most intriguing to me. Does this mean they've created their own ML-based upscaling solution in house at Guerrilla? If it looks that good (especially compared to some other showings of early PSSR) what are the implications there? Do you think Insomniac could also be leveraging the PS5 Pro hardware to make an ML version of Temporal Injection or do you think they'll just sunset that in-house tech and just switch over to PSSR for good?

Engin Cetin

What are you guys playing for pleasure right now?

Three Seashells

With the Switch 2 starting to come into view, it looks to be a more refined Switch with vastly increased power (some might even say...super power). Thoughts on its eventual name? My strong suggestion - Super Nintendo Switch, bring back Paul Rudd as spokesperson, and Nintendo will have to branch into asteroid mining to mitigate the raw materials supply crisis its mammoth sales causes. Is there any falsehood here at all? Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSBFw93V3Rg

ChowYunMatt

Goodness. Yeah buying a PS5 was like a full time job. I can't believe the lengths I went to with constant notifications, stressful waits in that Sony website line, and obsessive refreshing of Wario64's twitter posts. I'm not doing that ever again.

ChowYunMatt

Hey DF! Thanks for all you do. I always feel regretful that I didn't wait until the first console refresh (slim model, OLED, pro, etc.) to buy a new generation. Any tips on how I can have the willpower to wait for the Switch 2 OLED? Will there be one!?

alexrdavies

Perhaps John can record a motivational message exhorting the faithful to wait for a worthy screen, which we can play on loop through headphones as we sleep

Crashsune

Any chance we'll be getting coverage of the Lollipop Chainsaw remaster? There's plenty of controversy surrounding if the visuals are indeed even an upgrade and the performance on the consoles/switch seems to be particularly dire. I understand that you all have been swamped as of late though. Thanks for the excellent content gents! :)

(Don’t be a) Richard

Now that you’ve been hands on with the PS5 Pro, what games would you like to see get significant updates for the system and what sort of updates leveraging the hardware would most excite you. Are there games you are keen to see fidelity improvements from, or others where a performance gain could be transformative. From one Richard to another, I hope you got your preorder in so that you can make use of that disc drive.

James Prendergast

First, I want to say, "Congratulations!" to Oliver. Also, well done... also you guys are killing it with the synergy with IGN - made me subscribe despite not caring about most of their output but really and truly, it'd be great if you started highlighting DF content/personnel that was/are highlighted there, as well!

alexrdavies

The detailed technical insight Oliver brought back from just 3 hours of time with the games was impressive, and highlights what a high level the team are all working at

Cyber Furnace Fueler

What are your views on Sucker Punch's graphical progression with the announcement of Ghost of Yōtei? A whole 2.5 minutes of footage should be easy work after your PS5 Professional activities!

DezzyD

Hello gents, probably the most interesting part of the Horizon Zero Dawn remaster is Nixes' involvement. Could we see the studio expand from just PC ports to a role similar to that of Bluepoint in the PS3 and PS4 gen?

Snorlax cat

for now I am holding off on buying ps5 pro till next year, but I am wondering if there is any sense on keeping my base ps5 around because, as I see the modes are different, and when upgrading you usually win something by not giving up nothing. What I see here is not like ps4 pro vs ps4 were there are no modes vs pro enhancements and modes. Here ps5 base has modes and one could argue that base ps5 modes on some games is more options to the player than going for pro and loosing something in return for some new feature. Sorry if it seems foggy but I hope to make my point

ChowYunMatt

Hahaha. John did convince me to wait for the OLED steam deck. I'm forever grateful.

Nolasco

Evening my DF-Pro's With the arrival of the PS5 Pro and my soon to be Noddle diet in the horizon after my pre-order do you think the 5-Pro will further optimize demanding PS4 titles and do you think future state of play will only show PS5-pro captures and forget the vanilla experience? Thank you for your as always awesome content and hard work.

Pol Kallamata

You've often mentioned on your podcast that its becoming more difficult for console manufacturers to reduce prices due to transistors cost not coming down at the same rates that they did in the past. Creating situations like the PS5 Pro, where Sony was able to deliver a mid-gen refresh but at a substantially increased cost. At the same time, the rate of graphical improvements gen-on-gen has also slowed down considerably and we're in the age of diminishing returns with the leap in power provided by each new generation. Would the logical solution to both of these trends simply be to extend the generations for much longer than they lasted in the past. If you can't deliver a compelling next gen experience every 7 years for $400 USD. Wouldn't it just be better for everyone (consumers and platform makers) to deliver that next gen experience every 10 or 12 years instead?

Someguyperson

Even after all the great journalism and reporting from the PS5 Pro event, I see tons of comments about how someone doesn't see any difference, complaining about how you "need" a developer to show you all the differences because they're so minor, and how the PS5 Pro is a waste of money. I feel the simplest answer to the question, "Why should I buy a PS5 Pro?" is image quality. The PS5 Pro plays PS5 games with a PC level of image quality and that's about it. If you can't see FSR2 disocclusion fizzle, don't buy a PS5 Pro. If you don't see anything wrong with the image of your PS5, don't buy a PS5 Pro. Do you guys agree? What's your buying advice for a prospective PS5 Pro purchase?

Rich

The impact of the various settings likely changes radically over the course of development, as optimizations at both low and high levels take effect. Also, different kinds of systems will have different balances (ie AMD vs Nvidia GPUs). Nvidia's specific per-machine optimized settings actually do set things on a per setting basis, but in my experience they tend to be overly conservative (that is too aggressively tuned down for my hardware).

Someguyperson

I am very much looking forward to Monster Hunter Wilds coming out February 28th, but I'm a bit concerned that in all the provided media so far, the game is an unlocked 35ish FPS. Dragon's Dogma looked very similar at launch and improved by 20%+ over various patches you guys covered. Do you think that Capcom games in general have a target framerate issue? Do you think it's a Capcom tech team issue? Is it a management issue? Why does Capcom keep putting out games with bad framerates at launch?

Butler404

I think you've already talked about the PS5 Pro's modest CPU upgrade vs the massive GPU upgrade, but do you have any details on why Sony decided on this? I've heard it was for compatibility, but how does that work with both Xbox Series and PS5 having backwards compatibility with Jaguar based CPUs, and the GPU architecture changing to a semi-custom RDNA?

Perfect_Organism

Curious to know about the pet situation at DF - and to also be provided with mandatory pictures of said pets. Even better if we’re blessed with some DF pets on the stream!

Maddog

Hey DF Crew, with the formal announcement of Horizon Remastered, rumors of a Days Gone remaster, and the previous remasters/directors cuts of PS4 games, do you think that these PS5 updates are done to help new devs get familiar with the studio’s engine and the PS5 with relatively low stakes? I know Sony positions theses as the definitive way to play these games on the PS5, but as we all know, the PS5 patches already give what some would call the definitive way to play these. Thanks for all you do. P.S. Won’t the PS5 Professional with its ultra boost mode make it the ultimate way to play the PS4 versions of these games?

Perfect_Organism

How are you gonna cope with yet another load of modes to test on the Pro? It already seem like a bit of a nightmare having to test and compare all the performance modes on current gen (and sometimes last gen) consoles, but the Pro is gonna add a whole host of new modes to test. Honestly thinking about all that work gives me an headache and I am but a lowly spectator.

Tom Fagerlund

Hi DF, I am wondering if you heard anything about a 40fps mode with ray-tracing for Hogwarts Legacy and Alan Wake 2 on the PS5 PRO?

David Laszlo

Hello there! I was wondering what are you guys' opinion on RT used in games for fallback reflections (ie.: RoboCop, SW:Outlaws) and then completely covering it up with SSR. I dont have a problem adding dynamic objects withs, but I have two problems with this. The SSR artifects are still very visible, which I hate, and I feel like RT reflections like this does not worth the performance cost. I prefer a well placed Cube map and then put SSR on top like GoW: Ragnarok does it. How do you see this? Does the RT + SSR technic worth it? Thank you!

Kellan Sandifer

Is having two consoles launch really that bad, most of the complaints of the series s seems to be due lack of memory, Would everything be alright if the memory amount was the same between the series s and x?

MittenFacedLass

Any idea what's up with the image quality in the Ghost of Yotei reveal trailer? It seems... really mediocre/actively bad? Just bad capture/encoding? PSSR artifacts? What's up? It was egregiously noticeable & distracting, to me, at least. Was a bit confused to see it revealed looking that way?

MittenFacedLass

Personally really hope Housemarque gives Returnal some attention. Between the somewhat low resolution, FPS drops, and actively disabled VRR compatibility on PS5, it could use some love and be a big upgrade on Pro.

MittenFacedLass

It's technically possible. I've experienced it. That said, it's rare, and benefits from updating tend to outweigh the cons.

MittenFacedLass

Supposedly Outlaw's somewhat mixed technical launch state/polish on consoles and some backlash therefrom is part of the reason. It'll be better for the game, in the end. Though February is fairly packed now.

Taggen86

What are your thoughts on the new leaked specs for the 5080 and 5090 from kopite7kimi? The 5090 sure sounds like a monster based on the specs (22000 cores, 600w, 32 gig GDDR7 on a frickin 512-bit bus=1792 gb/sec!) I can literally hear my poor 4090 crying in the corner.

Dennis Löfgren

Hey DF crew! It feels like the major improvement we're seeing in PS5 Pro games are due to PSSR which seems comparable with DLSS 2, which was available at the launch of the OG PS5. How much of what we're seeing in the PS5 Pro patches would've been possible at launch if the OG PS5 had that hardware capability and PSSR at that same DLSS 2 parity?

Daniel

being enjoying the recent DF PS5 pro chatter etc, I've got my ps5 pro pre order locked in, looking forward to it. had my current ps5 for 2 years in November and I kinda hope the pro is here for 2 - 3 years (3 max) before the ps6 releases.

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hi DF crew! First of all - amazing work on the PS5 Pro coverage, Oliver! The whole thing was so great to watch. Are you excited for Metaphor Refantazio’s upcoming release? Do you think you could cover it similarly to what you did with Persona 3? I’ve heard it’s not running well on PC / Steam Deck. Cheers!

Wilbert

Well deserved praise for Oliver! The latest PS5 Pro preview was superb and really showed nice details about upcoming improvements. Always great and interesting to hear his thoughts. Also want to pass huge thanks also for the whole DF group. Your game analysis videos are gems when they pop up and my Sunday morning routines are planned around DF directs. Thank you for your great work!

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hey Gents! With AMD silently announcing FSR4 based on ML, do you think it would be the main upscaler in the incoming Microsoft handheld aka XBoy? Cheers!

BigFoot

Hey guys. I've been curious about this for a while. Among the four main RT features (GI, AO, shadows and reflections), how would you rank them by importance? Personally, I'm a huge fan of RT GI and reflections, however RT AO and especially RT shadows don't really do much for me. Thanks and keep up the great work!

Mr Bespoke

Hi DF! I've been looking on some sites to see what Ethernet port would be on the back of the PS5 PRO but doesn't seem to be listed anywhere and was hoping to see if it would be at least a 2.5Gb port to future proof downloading speeds but nothing was mentioned, is it Wi-Fi only now and/or do we have to buy a another piece of equipment such as a ethernet dongle like you do with Switch to add to an already high priced system?

tod weitzel

Is Valve experimenting with Proton on ARM likely to hasten the end of x86 as the dominant architecture for gaming? What level of compatibility would you expect to need before you're comfortable leaving behind the venerable instruction set?

Rich

As of right now very few people have actually seen a ps5pro in person. If you're seeing comments those are likely from people trying to judge based off youtube compressed video. I think the sales of PC Hardware are pretty conclusive proof that consumers care about image quality and performance in the real world.

Rich

Meanwhile, PC Hardware is accelerating in price to performance and in features. And indeed, more consumers are buying PCs. The console business model in itself should not be taken as a given. If platform makers try to push the lifespan of old hardware they risk becoming even further behind!

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half Fornight Gents! Do any of you have a "CLO-001" what this mysterious Nintendo Radar Device could be; that shuffled quietly through the FCC? My best guess is that it is some kind of TV mounted sensor for the switch 2 (much like the Wii had).. presumably for spatial input or tracking of the position of the switch 2 for "inverse Wii-U" or Augmented Reality madness.. What would each of your best guesses be?

Xilon Xiao

Hello DF crew! Wait, I know it is just the first batch of games, but the jump from PS5 to PS5 Pro seems greater than PS4->PS4 pro and even PS4 pro -> PS5, at least on the graphics side (like not considering the huge hd->ssd jump). Am I crazy?

DaJaCo (Dan)

If they call it Xboy, the sales will be double. This is a fact that no modern marketing team will ever face up to!

Someguyperson

Quote unquote Notorious Leaker and Kimi Raikkonen fanboy kopite7kimi dropped some new information today about the 5080 and 5090. Everyone and their mother will be complaining about how the 5090 uses 600W, but people forget this same guy said the same thing about the 4090 that turned out to be false (although the cooler can dissipate 600W of heat). I do have lots of questions though! First 512 bit memory interface on an Nvidia card since the GTX 280? The 5090 having ~20% more compute than the 5080 and ~100% more memory bandwidth? How much is the 5090 going to cost? Will the 5080 as specified here actually be faster than the 4090? If the 5080 only has 16 GB of memory, what does that mean for the 5060? If I were to take a guess, I would say the 5090 will be the best gaming GPU, but the price will mostly be as an AI accelerator card, so I'm thinking North of $2000. I still think the 5080 as specified will be ~$1200, but what do you guys think? Offending posts: https://x.com/kopite7kimi/status/1509754578728001538 https://x.com/kopite7kimi/status/1532207096116064256 https://x.com/kopite7kimi/status/1519182862699823106

DaJaCo (Dan)

I would love to see 40fps Heavy Ray Tracing modes become the norm on PS5 Pro.. i.e. PSSR 60Hz "moderate RT use" and 40Hz PSSR "Heavy RT use"

DaJaCo (Dan)

It will help that cross gen is dying off.. ?

Someguyperson

I would say PC hardware is increasing in price & performance, but not really price to performance. the most popular PC GPUs were ~$200, but now they are reaching the $300-$400 mark. They do provide more performance, but that comes at a cost. People love the performance of a 4070 Super or a 4090, but those are so much more money than what the best used to cost.

DudleyTheGentleman

Hey DF Crew! With the likelyhood of ML enhanced frame generation (FG), and other ML/AI based techniques, becoming standardized in consoles with the upcoming next generation, what are each of your thoughts on how console game development will be impacted? Will 40fps become a minimum standard for FG to feel decent during gameplay? Could lower base framerates be possible by "effectively" decoupling input response? Lastly, will frame extrapolation ever be a thing?

Ildar Nurislamov

Currently playing on PS5 connected to an old 1080p TV. Looks like some games render in native 1080p in that case. Maybe easily noticed on non-antialiased pixel-perfect fonts rendering in Astrobot. Also TLOU P1 seems to do that too. At the same time other games seem to ignore that and show frame drops or use FSR like Elden Ring and Immortals of Aveum. Maybe that is kinda late for that. But maybe it is worth to check how games behave in 1080p or 1440p mode and give it a few minutes in your tech reviews – that have potential to improve performance or visual quality by lowering output resolution for problematic games.

Auro

Switch 2 - Do you think it can be success without an OLED screen?

Jonathan Hamilton

Any chance that PS5 games streamed from the cloud might run with Pro enhancements? Do PS4 games get PS4 Pro enhancements when streamed?

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

Z2 Extreme seems like a great fit for a new Deck, with it rumoured to have double the cores and 50% more compute unit and being on TSMC N4 rather than N7. With FSR4 in the mix could it be a generational leap to justify a new Deck to existing owners? I know Valve wanted Steam Deck to be a stable target, but no-one is targeting the Deck and it is increasingly unable to run recent releases. A new model could bring plenty of QoL refinements, like being less creaky and a refreshed vent smell. Do you think it's time for a new Deck?

DennisKRQ

Greetings gents! As much as I love Monster Hunter to bits and will be playing Wilds day-1, the recommended PC specs Capcom posted was quite a mess and I think warrants some discussion. Based on my experience and what I gathered from reviews, using frame gen sub-60FPS to get to the 60FPS line is quite dubious. Why do you think Capcom has chosen to outline the recommended specs for MH Wilds this way? What should they have done instead, if anything?

Diecou

Hi folks! Question for John: The PS5 Pro 30th Anniversary bundle reportedly sold out “in seconds”. Did you manage to get one? Don’t sugarcoat it, I’m prepared for the worst.

MittenFacedLass

Honestly same. Though I'm more of a lapsed PC gamer, outside.of work stuff.

Aliasing Anonymous

Would it be possible for Microsoft to adapt DX13 to give AutoSR access to motion vectors for upscaling and frame generation?

Alan

Hi guys. The scalpers win again by the looks of things, why they don't have a pre-sale via your account and the console or controller has your gamertag etched in to stop scalpers re-selling, there has to be a better way?

Alan

Hi Guys, Anything caught your eye at the Tokyo Game Show?

Newnoobontheblock

G’day! Seeing their track record of post launch support: do you think CDPR will step up and get a proper PS5 Pro update done? With your first hands on impressions, how far do you think they can push the envelope regarding raytracing?

DyeHardX86

Yeah Sony did offer account based orders for PS5 launch why not do that again so everyone who wants one actually gets one the retail price is exploitative enough without paying a scalper an additional %

BespokeDisplayName

Hey there! I'm a new Patron but a long-time fan of Digital Foundry. Really appreciate your work. It's always getting better and better. Anyways, over the years I've wondered: have any members of the DF team worked in game development before? If not, do any of you have aspirations of eventually pursuing that in some capacity? Also would love to know if any of you have ideas for games that you would like to see made, even if you weren't able to be involved in the game's development. Whether it's a story idea, unique game mechanics you'd like to explore, unique art style, etc.

yogi

What do you think of the newly signed law in California restricting digital storefronts from using terms like buy or purchase? Do you think this will have a positive impact for physical media and game preservation as a whole?

alpha54

The "send an offer to current account holders" or some version of this type of pre-sale system seems like an absolute no-brainer, given a huge chunk of customers are expected to be existing Playstation owners/fans/players. I really don't see a downside to allowing your most loyal customers a more stress-free pre-ordering experience, and cutting scalpers out in the process, before opening it for sale to a wider audience...

alpha54

Just tagging onto this with a follow-up/related question: given there will inevitably be a Switch 2 OLED model down the line, why not sell both SKUs at launch and give those that want it an earlier option to pay you more money? Or do you think Nintendo is so convinced those peeps will double-dip on a whole console that it's actually better to launch later?

alpha54

I'm not sure how to get at the essence of your question to manage to fit a version of it on the screen haha, but just want to second this - I'm really curious to hear this discussion as well 👍

alpha54

I'm barely interested in handhelds and I would probably preorder it blind based on that name alone. I recognise this is the dumbest, basest of consumer behaviours, but I am certain there are many more like me out there. Take our easy money already Microsoft!!

alpha54

Ohh the hypothetical discussions between the DF crew can be some of the most fun sometimes, and this is a great one, yes pls ^^

alpha54

Yeah, it kinda feels like John's worst fears about the current direction of Sony are coming to pass. I don't have the expertise to assess whether I buy the argument or not that this is worth it to get devs acquainted with things, but I do know as a consumer who actually tends to be a big of a graphics snob, these remasters left me feeling completely cold. The games are just too recent, and still look and play too well. Bringing Horizon Zero Dawn up to the level of HFW is just not that exciting - I can see those graphics in HFW itself! I do like the concept of remasters generally given how big a role technological advancement plays in this medium, but at the risk of repeating myself this just is way too soon to be worth it. Launch the Playstation 7 or 8 with a remaster of HZD and HFW remastered collection that allows both of them to wow us in a way we've not seen before - then it seems worth it.

alpha54

I dunno, Sony doubling down, tripling down even, on those last-gen if not even same-gen lol remasters really feels like some of its studios are just treading water :/

alpha54

I think you are right Rich - it really does feel like there's a combination of several significant factors at play here that have really cemented the PC as the cutting-edge platform and it feels like this gap will only continue to grow. This might feel normal to us now, but wasn't always the case at time of launch of prior console generations. I get the sense that Microsoft will be proven right about the future of the console market and wider gaming market - conceptually - but unfortunately that foresight is not guaranteed to pay off if you completely bungle execution of your strategy in response and confuse the heck out of your customers...

alpha54

Second this - would be fantastic to see coverage of this, even if its a bit further down the road, as the devs have promised plenty of fixes - might be worth seeing how well they execute

alpha54

There will 100% be a Switch 2 OLED, and your point re willpower is exactly why Nintendo will launch it at a later date - you are far from the only customer of theirs who has to have it at launch and will consider double dipping down the road 😅

alpha54

Yes, I would love any additional info on this - Guerilla's upscaling solution was in dire need of improvement, but I'm very intrigued by the fact that they didn't "just" roll with PISSER given its availability. Why choose to go their own way, and if it ends up superior to PISSER in some ways, why wouldn't Sony look to integrate their approach into the PISSER core? This sub-topic really threw up a lot of questions for me

Douglas Fowler

Hey there Digital Foundrians, I am playing the Metaphor: ReFantazio demo right now and I noticed that the frame rate is uncapped and fluctuating between 60ish and 120 FPS, depending on the scene. There also don’t seem to be any performance or graphics settings - at least in the demo. I’m curious if any of you have had a chance to play it and what your thoughts are about the interesting performance choice and this new game from the Persona series director Katsura Hashino.

Perfect_Organism

Is it really 3am in Oliver time when you record this?! Dude is a hero.

AfreemTheDream

Why do I have this uneasy feeling in the pit of my gut that this PS5 generation has been mostly fueled by remakes and remasters? A Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver Remaster? Take my money, please!

Abhi

the technical director for Hogwarts Legacy mentioned that the PS5 Pro has much faster BVH management vs base PS5. Is this something that seems new to AMD's RT hardware / taken from RDNA 4 or is this a normal thing that gets upgraded in terms of RT perf gen on gen?

Groovy Duck

Howdy Gents. How likely do we think Sony will support developers in maximizing the PS5P's potential? I am reminded of the PSVR2 which was an impressive piece of kit in its own right that has fallen obscure from the lack of support. Will developers otherwise see the value in the added dev time to support this new "Next Gen Pro" segment of the market? I doubt developers'/publishers' appetite to throw a lot of time and money for what will presumably be a small slice of market.

digitalfoundry

We'd need either Sony to tell us, or to go hands-on with the system.

digitalfoundry

It makes things a lot easier for mid-Direct toilet breaks, sudden arrival of courier packages plus no need to root about sticking wires down my shirt.

digitalfoundry

The pitch was more 'you can now have performance mode with fidelity mode resolution'.

inebriatedPorcupine

Hey DF! Thanks for all the great content. I wondered what is your take on geometry clipping, specifically hair clipping - does anybody care? Is anybody working to solve this? We have these beautiful ray-traced games with excellent character models, but hair is still clipping. It was painfully obvious in your PS5 Pro video showing the improvements in Horizon, where I could see the beautiful main character riding through in the air through the wind, with beautiful clouds surrounding her, and then, on the middle of the view all her beautiful hair was f**king clipping through her upper back like some lovecraftian nightmare. This bothers me much more many other graphical features being worked at. Moreover, I remember the first rebooted Tomb Raider for a decade ago already implemented some physical hair solution to solve clipping - it looked a little wonky but it wasn't horror inducing (TressFx maybe?). Please tell.me it bothers you too so I'll now I'm relatively sane.

Evan Krueger

Question on frame generation: lots of people (myself included) find ‘motion smoothing’ on TVs, which interpolates between frames, to be visually objectionable. With frame generation in games, why is this not considered to be a similar problem? Is it due to the frame rates being targeted in games? (i.e. motion smoothing on filed content usually takes content from 24-30fps to 48-60fps, while frame generation in games is typically being used to go from 90fps to something like 120fps?) I recall a presentation at the NAB conference years ago where James Cameron argued for pushing movies to 60fps in cinemas to overcome the soap opera look of The Hobbit HFR and to address judder in 3D movies like Avatar. But is there anything about the interpolation used in games that also makes frame generation look less like the tv motion smoothing? Thanks!

Daniel M

All games need to work on both the pro and base models. Graphics can be scaled to the GPU of each console, but putting a faster CPU in the Pro would mean that games that needed that faster CPU for game logic straight up wouldn’t work on the base.

Ednamode

Do you think the switch can beat the steam deck in handheld mode? Can the Tegra239 compete at 5w?

Lamine

Question for the PS5 pro : will the basic ps5 games with no pro enhanced mode will still benefit from the Pro’s hardware, basically getting a boost in fps in their respective quality modes.