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Call For Questions For DF Direct Weekly #199 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-01-30 10:16:24
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
Q&A

Content

Hello there, how are you? We're now putting together talking points for DF Direct Weekly #199 which means that - yes - we'd like to request your assistance in the form of topic suggestions and questions for the panel. This week, that's Rich (ie me), Oliver and Alex. As usual the cutoff for question submissions is Friday 8am GMT.

What's on the docket right now? We'll be responding to the various interviews Phil Spencer has carried out recently, for starters. Is Starfield coming to PlayStation 5 and is that question basically academic at this point? Does maintaining the Series S requirement open the door to compatibility with Xbox's future handheld? What does Phil mean when he says he wants to see 'differentiation' from the next console?

We'll also talk about the mediocre to outright hostile reaction to the RTX 5080 seen in the reviews, while Oliver will be talking to us about the seismic impact of DeepSeek on the AI landscape - and indeed on Nvidia's share price. Other topics? We'll try to have something to say on Marvel's Spider-Man 2 for PC - and we'll be discussing Sony's decision to ease its requirement on having a PSN account to play.

Any more for any more? Please let us know of any further discussion points you may have and - as always - the floor is yours for your various questions! 

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Comments

Maris Ozolins-Ozols

Just wanted to ask a question about the great microsoft and its super console xbox series x. Why I cant play cloud gaming on my xbox series x? I live in Latvia and have US region account becous with Latvia region cloud serviss is not suported. Actualy Im not sure Latvia region exist. Next not so easy thing to figure out was how to get my credit card to work on xbox store but little cheating with postal codes worked. At least now I can by stuff on microsoft store. With my ps5 I have similar setup and their cloud gaming works fine. Why Xbox? If xbox wants to be play anywhere, than sony is realy ahead of microsoft. Sorry about my english is not the best, have a nice day💪

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half-Fortnight Lads! This week a whole smorgasbord of mysterious Nintendo patents have emerged from covert Kyoto chroniclers… (https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/result.jsf?_vid=P22-M6HY7J-56947) One of them describes the Switch 2 cooling system. One describes secondary touch sensors in the joy-con buttons that sense “finger approach to the buttons” ... Another describes higher data transfer contacts on the cartridges. The one that stands out most however is - much more interesting, as it suggests the use of a MEMS (tiny magnetically controlled pivoting mirror) -based TV sensor bar. Unlike the Wii sensor bar which was just a pair of infrared LEDs as a reference point for the IR camera in the Wii-mote (and could comically be replaced with a pair of candles), this seems to have most of the sensors located in the sensor bar itself – which scans the area in front of the TV to determine the position and orientation of the controllers (presumably working in conjunction with the mouse sensor LEDs and motion sensors in each joy-con). I’m beginning to see a bigger picture in which “docked mode” facilitates full 2-handed precise motion controls, with handheld mode offering a dual mouse substitute. Please take a look at this patent (and others time permitting), I’d love to hear all your thoughts – perhaps Nintendo has more up its sleeve than naysayers have anticipated? https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2023199490&_cid=P20-M5JRCA-07252-1

Special Agent Cooper

Hello gentlemen, Rich I was surprised to see a lot of negative comments under your RTX 5080 review, criticizing your neutral tone and lack of SLAMMING Nvidia for this particular release. How do you respond to this criticism and what's your philosophy on what a review should and shouldn't be in this space? Cheers

Mr_Weis

Most Esteemed Foundrymen, I am but a humble soul who hold gaming as a pastime most dear and seeketh ever to deepen mine understanding of the craft and science that lieth beneath it. In discourse concerning the forthcoming Switch 2 and the Series S, it hath been put forth that the Switch 2 may bear an advantage in possessing greater memory capacity. Yet, verily, the speed of said memory is lesser than that of the Series S. Might ye grant me wisdom as to why capacity is deemed of greater import than speed? I extend mine earnest gratitude for thy most excellent and enlightening discourse. With all due reverence, A Humble Gaming Enthusiast

wildwildwesty

Ahoy hoy gents. Question for Oliver: In the rapidly evolving AI landscape, how can industry professionals stay up to date with emerging technologies and their applications? What are the key use cases for different AI models? Thanks, and I look forward to more updates from you on this topic!

gartenriese

With both AMD and Nvidia kind of skipping this generation, do you see a return to form with the next generation? Or do we have to rely on software from now on?

Octolimar

Companies like fromsoft and koei have this strange problem of great art direction yet variety of engine issues like raw performance, stutter, cpu utilization, etc. Where do you think these limitations come from? Negligence? Lack of time? Something else?

Gian

Hello Digital Foundrymen! The discussion about an adapter to use FSR in DLSS games got me wondering, do you think there will be a standard API for AI-based upscalers? Has the development slowed enough for that to be feasible, or would it hamper innovation too much? Do you think Khronos and/or Microsoft are already working on one?

Allan Lindqvist

Switch 2 patches for existing titles could be a way to entice players to get the new hardware and also pad out the library a bit. Wouldn't it make sense for alot of titles? Surely the Switch 2 could run mario kart 8 at 120 fps. That would leave room for MK9 to be more experimental

Question Generated By JensenGPT

It really does seem like Blackwell is underperforming considering the supposed hardware improvements, especially when it comes to ray tracing. Do you suppose Nvidia might "claw back" performance with driver updates kinda like what AMD did with the 7900XT and 7900XTX when those launched underbaked, or do you think what we've seen so far is the best we should expect? Nvidia isn't really known for doing stuff like this, but my gut really is telling me there's something wrong here.

EvilRacer329

Howdy folks, one for Rich here. All the 5080 reviews so far have really focused on whether or not the card is fast enough to tempt xx80 owners to upgrade, with the resultant muted enthusiasm. But I'm one of (i'm sure) many people packing an 8GB 3070 and desperately looking to upgrade to something that can deliver a better experience on my 4K144 monitor. Is the 5080 a worthwhile upgrade to stretch to for those of us running cards further down the pecking order, or would you counsel waiting for the 5070Ti as 'good enough'?

Jonny_5a

Been playing Dark Forces Remastered and loving it. What 90s era PC games would you like to see get the same treatment? Personally I wouldn’t say no to a DF2: Jedi Knight or a Slipstream 5000

Peter

The lastest video from Alex and Oliver on Rebirth, which is great, highlights another game with shader compilation problems. Why is this such a difficult thing to solve? Is it not a simple process to just allow an initial shader precompilation burn to capture ALL shaders or am I missing something that makes this a more difficult task than it appears to be on the surface?

Critically Wild

I just binged PLAY NICE, Blood, Sweat and Pixels and Press Reset by Jason Schreier and one of the common threads is how the publishers, with all their analytics, can make such catastrophically bad decisions around which games studios make. Eg. the single player studios who have been reeling from failed / cancelled live service projects. Back in the day trend chasing was easy, because games took a year to make... see FPS, make inferior FPS: profit. But now, as you guys pointed out last week, a wrong turn can mean a studio goes a console generation without a game. How do you think this will play out next generation, which is increasingly looking to be an enormous test when it comes to the business models of Sony, Microsoft and the big publishers.

wildwildwesty

Ahoy hoy gents.Do you think the RTX 5080 is a good product and offer for customers? Your analysis shows it leads in price-to-performance, yet something feels off to me. The 80 series card performs poorly compared to its 90 series older sibling more than ever before. It suggests a shift in stack branding that places the 80 series streets behind more so than in previous generations, making it feel like a less sensible investment. Thanks!

Bulbous_Bow

Probably hard to give a definitive answer until we know for sure what AMD’s price / performance are going to be. Unless the enhanced AI capabilities really show their worth though, I can’t see the 50 series looking like anything other than a nothing burger in a few generations’ time. VRAM could be an issue for future gen compatibility with the PS6 having 32gb too. Nonetheless it could be reasonable purchase for today assuming AMD price : performance doesn’t have it beat

wildwildwesty

In that video they do say that knowledge has been communicated widely within the industry on how to resolve these issues. So it's been solved, but Square have chosen to not invest enough resource to investigate and apply the solutions. As Alex says, it's unforgivable from such a large company that can afford to do this.

Critically Wild

Why I haven't tried it, but the model itself on local should be okay.

Brandon van Beekum

The state of PC gaming in Windows is almost untenable… - not providing native support for PS5 dual-sense controller - not providing excellent controller configuration like Steam (I'm disabled and need the functionality Steam Input provides like layers and action sets) - having launchers launch launchers - big gaps in Ryzen performance between Windows updates - games often only available on certain stores - often games have their own native controller support and don't work with Steam Input The only reason I have a Windows PC in my house is for gaming, yet it truly is an awful experience these days. How can we fix this nightmare?

DaJaCo (Dan)

PS5 Pro is a reasonable compromise

inebriatedPorcupine

Hey DF team! In last week's episode there was a discussion about rising game prices, and as a child that grew-up at the turn of the millennium, I feel not addressing inflation gives a misleading impression in how expensive games really were back then. For example, Half-life came in 1998 with an ARP of 49$, which in the year (of our lord) 2025 is equivalent in purchasing power to 94.88$! It seems that the truth is that while game development costs have gotten more expensive prices (in real terms) have actually gone down. Have profit margins for developers shrunk or is there something else going on?

Naryoril

Guten Tag DF Team What are the power draw implications of multi frame generation? How much more power do those 3 extra frames consume? Bid you farewell und ♪auf wiedersehen♫

AGSMA

Hi, DF. With Dino Crisis finally available on GOG as part of their preservation program, and the launch of GOG Dreamlist, which more titles do you want to be added to the platform? Personally, as much I adore my PC copy of Zoo Tycoon 1, I'd love to have a version without SafeDisc DRM.

GenerativeJake

Hello Team, As someone in their 30s who has been gaming their whole life, I have found myself in a bit of a cruel paradox in that as I get older and have more disposable income for better hardware, I also have less free time to play games. When I do I tend to choose games which are shorter so I can actually complete them, or games I have already played and love since I know it will be worth my time. With recent data showing most gamers don’t even finish the newer AAA games that they start, do you think this is having a negative impact on the industry when the perceived value for hardware is going down, and the people that can afford that hardware have less of a need for it?

André

Why do you think we aren’t seeing the Blackwell architecture changes actually have an impact on performance in games? The numbers we are seeing — 25~35% over 4090 — correlate linearly with the increase in CUDA cores and power consumption. Especially for full RT titles, I was expecting to see at least a 50% improvement. Given the chance to the cores back to a configuration similar to Turing’s, perhaps we could test games that performed exceptionally well on Turing to see if they’re also going to perform exceptionally on Blackwell? Thanks.

Dave Brown

The new NVIDIA app update launched today with a driver-level feature I hadn't read about: "Smooth Motion". From the description it sounds like a driver-level Frame Generation toggle for games that don't support the feature. Not sure if it warrants a full video, but would love to get your initial impressions in this week's Direct!

Rafael Godinho

Hello DF crew! I've been following your insightful analyses for quite some time (since the infamous PS Vita Most Wanted video), and I truly appreciate the depth you guys bring to the world of video game technology. I'm reaching out with a curiosity about the upcoming Indiana Jones game and its potential performance on the PS5 Pro. Following its stellar performance on the Xbox Series X, achieving 1800p with ray tracing at 60fps, I'm eager to hear your expectations for the PS5 Pro port. Do you foresee the possibility of a bespoke optimization strategy that includes path tracing on this platform? Given the VRAM constraints pointed out by Alex in the PC version, do you folks think path tracing targeting 30fps is feasible? Considering that an RTX 4070 with DLAA manages 1440p at 30-40 fps (medium texture pool), could this be an achievable goal for the PlayStation console using PSSR at lower resolution and a real test for the RDNA "next-gen" architecture available only at the time on PS5 Professional? And with that in mind, do you think Microsoft and potentially PlayStation could be poised to launch the first path tracing game on a console? (Who would have thought something like that!). I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter and any insights you might have. Thank you for your time and the exceptional work you continue to do.

Dave Brown

I got the impression from DF's review that the 5090, or at least MFG, might be overkill for 120hz displays. One use case I could imagine for some games is DLDSR supersampling to 8K, capping framerates to 40 or 60, and using FG to get to 120. Do you think the card has enough headroom to achieve that for some games, and would it be a good experience in your opinion?

Ildar Nurislamov

Can GPU vendor solve the shader compilation stutter struggle by simply maintaining repositories of compiled shaders for each combination of device/driver-version/app-version? I guess that may be achieved in different ways: one of which – GPU vendor Apps that maintain all shaders fresh for installed games by downloading complied code from GPU vendor cloud once per driver or app update. another one – GPU drivers instead of compiling shaders trying to acquire compiled code from GPU vendor cloud. How compiled code appears in the GPU vendor cloud is another story - but it is pretty much doable in many different ways.

Dave Brown

My follow-up question is - if publishers won't fix things, can this be solved externally? Like a game mod that hooks into Unreal Engine, or a Windows equivalent to SteamOS's Fossilize system for building shader caches.

Esteban

Following up on your recent discussions of DLSS4 SR, do you have any plans on doing a deep dive on what are the performance implications of using it in older series (and lower models) of cards compared to using DLSS3? Most comparisons on YT so far still seem to only be using 5090s and 4090s, so it would be nice to see how much is the performance loss on other cards (maybe even the 3050 PC equivalent you had to the Switch 2). And on that same note, maybe also do a comparison of a lower tier of DLSS4 vs DLSS3 to try offset that performance loss and see how the image quality holds up?

Esteban

As a related question, which might be better informed from the results of the previous question, do you still think its more likely the Nintendo would stick with DLSS3 since its cheaper, despite likely not having much assurances that Nvidia will continue to train/develop the CNN model it uses for the potential 6-8 years the Switch 2 would be on the market?

Deadeyes

Hi DF crew! Do you feel like the latency talk around FG is a bit overblown? Yes, it adds latency, but only about 1 frame worth. If you have a decent framerate to begin with (comfortably over 60) you're talking about like a dozen milliseconds, which I expect the vast majority of people won't feel. I agree it's not a great fit for twitch shooters and the like, but it seems to me that a lot of people fancy themselves to be much more sensitive to latency than they actually are. I think if nobody told them FG added latency they wouldn't know. Thoughts?

Peter Karadimas

Hello DF Gents. I've noticed quite a few GPU reviewers focusing on either rasterized performance, or like for like settings with upscaling when comparing GPU's between vendors. This seems like an odd comparison because of the massive gap in quality between DLSS and FSR. Should reviewers be trying to match roughly equivalent image quality for benchmarks, even if that ends up being DLSS performance up against FSR Quality in order to more closely match how users would actually configure games using these GPU's?

Rich

I definitely wouldn't describe it as a "nightmare", especially compared to how windows uses to be. Many of the points you're complaining about are inherent to the nature of an open platform- as a PC enthusiast, having different competing stores/launchers is a GOOD THING. For the most part icons still launch each game independently.

Rich

It's an excellent value for anyone coming from a 3080 or below, which is the vast majority of gamers. The 5080 will sell extremely well. People should remember that the 3080 was not a big jump in raster performance over the 2080ti /RTX Titan either, but it provided value in RT and AI, and still sold extremely well at the time. The 4080 too, had less VRAM than the 3090/3090ti and yet the 4080 and 4080 Super both easily outsold those flagships independently of each other.

TheMightyEthan

Hey DF! The new Nvidia driver with support for DLSS overrides just "dropped" and I noticed there's also added support for something called Nvidia Smooth Motion. From the description it sounds basically like Nvidia's answer to AFMF. I don't recall hearing this talked about at all prior to the launch, even though it could be huge for games with arbitrary framerate caps and no DLSS framegen, like many older titles, or the very not-old FF7 Rebirth. Why do you think this wasn't touted ahead of time? Also, it appears to be restricted to 50-series. Do you think that's a real technical limitation or simply Nvidia holding back features to encourage upgrades? Looking forward to your thoughts. Cheers!

Rich

Nvidia DEFINITELY is known for improving performance with driver updates and software features, that happened in RT with Turing and AI with Ampere, both of which got better over time. It's already been pointed out that early drivers have been patched during the review period that addressed some performance issues, including in DF's review of the 5080 itself.

Rich

You can run the model completely locally, it's open source. You don't have to submit any data to anyone if you don't want to.

Scooter-Pooter

Considering Xbox seems to be phoning it in on competing in the traditional home console market, do you think they have a strong enough brand identity to stand out and achieve their goals given the lack output for legendary IPs we’ve seen? For example, Nintendo has managed to completely avoid competition by cornering their own specific market through unique technology and a strong output of marketable IPs. Xbox seems to want to create a unique brand. They have already done so on the software side and made their intentions fairly clear on that front, perhaps now that mentality is being applied to the hardware side as well. How can they evolve into something unique yet necessary to the gaming consumer?

TheGreatJumanji

Hi DF Crew! If I own a 4k/120Hz capable TV and a 50 series graphics card, is there any reason not to limit the native framerate to 40fps and let 3x MFG render up to (or just below) 120fps? If I’m playing games on my TV, I’m likely using a controller, so the latency isn’t too big of an issue, and targeting 40fps vs 60fps would presumably let me target higher in-game graphics settings. Cheers!

Eric Hurst

After watching your Final Fantasy VII Rebirth PC coverage, I found myself reminiscing about Final Fantasy XV on PC, which I believe to have been the greatest Final Fantasy PC game. Up to 8K resolution, ultra wide support, the high quality assets pack, and things on the bleeding edge at the time like DLSS 1.0, and simultaneously supporting the low end with FXAA . I understand that nowadays Nvidia Gameworks perhaps conjure a small chuff among those who remember them, but I miss the ambition and boldness of the PC edition of Final Fantasy XV. Am I blinded by my own nostalgia with Final Fantasy XV, or have the PC Final Fantasys (throw Forespoken in there if you’d like) truly taken a dip in quality? And is there any hope of SE returning to their previous tier of quality in the future?

DudleyTheGentleman

Hi DF team! Though we just entered the "Neural rendering" era, how do you see Nvidia, and the rest of the industry, advancing the AI/ML future of games? Neural Tesselation? Neural Destruction/Deformation? Neural Fluid Simulation? ML assisted shader compilation and/or PSO gathering? Separately, how will Nvidia's Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) be used in games? Nvidia mentioned the technology in their "Neural Rendering" presentation, but haven't seen much on it in a gaming context.

Snorlax cat

Do you think Helmen hulst was given a raise to stay in the company?

Diego ElRey

Hello, DF gents, exclamation point! In the year of our Lord 2025, I am wondering how far is frame gen going to go? I ask, because RTX 50 can generate 4 assumed frames per real frame. However these assumed frames, can't contain any actual data, such as physics from the game. For instance, if you have a character simply standing in a windy field, the game is calculating the wind physics on the grass, clothes, and hair. The AI frame, I assume, is itself assuming(?) the visual position of the affected materials, as opposed to doing it by game engine calculation? Assuming this is the case, if they want to do 8, 16X, or more MFG, then aren't all games still going to be beholden to the physics calculations of 1 frame of those 16? How accurate could 16X FG actually be? Are we just accepting MFG to fill monitor refresh, even with no benefits, or even penalties to gameplay?

Michael Brown

Hello DF Team! After looking at Cyberpunk using the transformer model, I would say its "transformative" to ai upscaling. :) Is FSR 4 using a similar model? Also why is Sony opting to use PSSR over FSR4 in the PS5 Pro and PS6?

Richard Tucker

Hail gaming tech Overlords. I just had a quick look at a video from 'Hardware unboxed' testing the MSI Vanguard RTX 5080, where they saw overclocking gains comfortably of 10-15% and it was sitting very near the RTX 4090 in most of the benchmarks they did. The power-draw didn't seem particularly egregious for the perf gain. I wonder what you think of this, does it make the GPU more interesting, and why do you think stock clocks are not higher in such a scenario as this? (they mentioned they felt the OC gains were attributable to the 5080 in general and not just the vanguard model) All hail Richard Leadbetter, Overseer of the Foundry.

Diego ElRey

Hello DF Gents, I've been wondering for some time exactly WHAT XBOX's and PS's handhelds are supposed to be? The PSP and Vita received versions of console games tailored to the hardware, as well as bespoke games that were made specifically for the system. Now, it seems like the new PS handheld will only play PS5 games, but possibly at lower settings and resolutions. It seems that there will be no Chains of Olympus, no Vice City Stories, or such. So, is this to be PS Portal without latency, but with lower settings? The only benefit of this seems to be able to play Sony first parties with waiting a 1 to 4 years, and possibly GTA, if it can run the said game. Then on to the new XBOY, are we to assume that this is just going to be a Gamespass device? Surely it would need an XBOX OS to differentiate it from ROG Ally and the such? But then, if you don't have Windows or Steam, is the device really worth much? Then there's the question as to if the device is going to use something like the PC app, or the console version. The former locking you out of a bit of games, the latter possibly keeping tied to set console versions of the games. As they seem, both of these machines dictate inferior versions of console games needing to be made just for them. They are not going to get games that are bespoke, such as a game PS handheld-only game based off Wolverine but is maybe shorter and featuring X-23, or a Fable: The Side Quest game. With the current way development works, is it even feasible? You could possibly play GTA6 before any windows device, but that goes back into the conversation of inferior versions. What is the end goal to these machines?

RAVE_DAM0S

Hola DF Dudes, With the pace of advancements we are seeing in AI and ML, are there any inherent risks with launching a new console TOO soon? Would a console launched in 2026 be "AI disadvantaged" to similar consoles launching in 2027 or 2028? Good day chaps!

VeryProfessionalDodo

Yes, artifacts are much more noticeable at sub-60fps. They're not real frames in the sense that they're intelligent interpolation, but they can be good enough if they don't stay on screen too long. If you reduce that base frame rate though, artifacting is going to get worse, and stay visible for longer

VeryProfessionalDodo

Totally agree, latency is a bit overblown. Artifacting though feels almost underblown. Disclaimer, I haven't seen MFG in real life, only personal experience from a 4070

Deadeyes

I think back to Rich's video where he extracted the FG frames from the 'real' frames in spiderman. Of course you can pull out some really garbled looking frames, but for the most part it looks surprisingly good and stable to me. I think like anything some people are going to be more sensitive to it than others. The good old "runs fine on my PC" they always talk about with stutters.

Bulbous_Bow

Oh, hi there Foundrymen! While Oliver muses on AI I’m wondering if he’s noticed Chat GPT getting a bit worse the last few months? Despite being a Plus subscriber I’ve found it increasingly prone to making things up and then going back on itself with an obligatory “You’re absolutely right!” whenever I point out it’s either made something up or not done what I’ve asked it to. E.g. created a blank word document and presented it as a finished piece of work because it didn’t understand the parameters of my initial question, which were to filter out only certain subsets of data. Or, on a game related note, it recently told me the PS5 Pro is only rumoured to be in development and hasn’t been officially announced yet… is this really the thing that’s threatening to take my job? And, to what extent might PSSR causing Silent Hill’s graphics to glitch in and out of focus potentially be the result of an existential crisis - as the AI momentarily ponders whether the hardware it’s running on indeed exists in the first place?

Bulbous_Bow

For anyone interested, I asked it at what resolution FF7 Remake runs at in performance mode on the PS5 Pro (after Oliver suggested in his video it might remain at the upper end of the existing PS5 patch’s dynamic resolution). It replied with details of how it runs on PS5 compared to PS4 Pro. I then clarified once again that I was asking about the PS5 Pro, and it stated “As of December 2024, there is no official announcement of a “PlayStation 5 Pro” console. Consequently, specific performance details for Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade on such hardware are unavailable.”

Bulbous_Bow

Greetings all! I wasn’t expecting a huge performance increase from the 50 series but have surprised it’s been this substandard, particularly on the 80. It seems that despite (presumed) architectural improvements, massive increases to bandwidth and GDDR7 memory, the performance increases on both rasterisation and ray tracing are only equivalent to the increased power consumption… It made me wonder, if you were to downclock them to only sip the same amount of power as their 40 series equivalents, would there be any gen-on-gen improvement whatsoever?

Jonathan

Great tidings, gentlemen! A practice in speculation here. A potential issue with an Xbox handheld occurred to me. Would MS not be putting themselves in a difficult position of requiring their first-party teams to limit scope of future projects to "fit" on a handheld? Seems like MS may end up with a similar situation to now where they have their highest selling hardware (Series S) starting to limit game devs. Sony likely has an easier potential approach for a future handheld in just saying, for example "PS4 games will run natively, select PS5/PS6 games will also run natively." I can't see Xbox getting away with that since the handheld seems like it will be a cornerstone of their new hardware push. I guess the impact here will rely on how important Microsoft deems the handheld to be for them, and like Series S, how well it sells. Thoughts?

Neotokyouk

Hey guys! The PS5 Pro VRR micro stutter bug- why is this not being talked about? Huge flaw with this £700 system that is effecting many different users, most notably in Pro enhanced games with unlocked framerates on 120hz+ screens. Will you guys be looking in to it?

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

Could the future of Xbox be a $1,000 uber console plus a $100 GamePass box? Selling a very powerful Xbox (at a profit) to showcase games, plus a streaming box to deliver the same experience for less with a cloud subscription could be a winner for both core gamers and casuals. Selling the same games to run on the 'mid' PS6 and PC could then soak up the rest of the market. If not this, then what do you think will happen?

Someguyperson

The internet runs on loud, bad hot takes and irrational fanboys which makes Rich and his sanity their mortal enemy.

Someguyperson

I would expect the 5070 Ti to have more "frames per dollar", but overall less performance, so it would really be up to you. Personally, I want a 5080 because my 2060 Super isn't great on my 4k monitor.

Someguyperson

I most certainly want a 5080. It's about as good of a card you can get before moving up to 450+ watts and a whole lot more money. I think all 50 series cards will be priced well and the 5080 is no exception. It is the current winner of Rich's "frames per dollar" chart and it plays games at 4k quite well. Going forward, I don't think there's a huge leap in perf/dollar, but the next few TSMC process nodes should drop the power substantially if that is more important to you.

Someguyperson

Gamers Nexus did some PCIe bandwidth testing on the 5090 and found that Black Myth Wukong had a 4% performance drop in average framerate when moving down to PCIe 3.0 x16, with the 1% and 0.1% lows similar across PCIe bandwidth. Do you think this means that we could use the full power of a 5090 over a Thunderbolt 5 connection (effectively a PCIe 3.0 x8 connection)? Could the dream of a laptop with external GPU enclosure be here with Thunderbolt 5?

Someguyperson

I noticed in your multi-frame generation graphs that the input latency chart gets extremely jagged like a sawtooth wave when you use 4x frame generation. Is this simply because there is one input for every 4 frames? Does the game feel more unstable in this mode as a result? Is this the new "micro stutter" issue that Nvidia needs to tackle? How does this play with Reflex 2?

Diego ElRey

Hello DF gents! Forza Horizon 5 was just announced for the PS5. We've known Phil Spencer's plans for releasing XBOX games on other platforms, and we've seen the results bear fruit. It feels like Forza is probably the ultimate XBOX IP to go multiplatform with, where nothing could be considered sacred afterward, possibly Gears as well. I put them above other XBOX IPs because they consistently review well, whereas even Halo has had well known missteps. Do you believe Sony is likely to return the favor, or does their favorable position keep them from considering it? Will you do be doing Forza Horizon 5 PS5 testing against Series X and PC? What are some XBOX titles that you feel may suit release on the PS5, and Switch/Switch 2?

Jules Wyns

Hey DF ! Salutations from tiny Belgium ! Long time follower and few years Patron. How embarrasing is it for MS to shadow drop Ninja Gaiden 2 black on a ( great ) direct and it being an absolute mess. Day one releases on Gamepass are 90% not up to standard compared to steam. How can these things pass QA, it's uncomprehensible to me. What are your thoughts ? Are their procedures just not good ? Keep up the amazing contect ! :)

Conner Patzman

Now that embargo’s have passed and we have seen raw data, multi frame gen being limited to 50 series seems a little fishy to me. Apparently the old cards don’t “have enough AI”?Surely the 4090, which had so much AI, that US lawmakers made it illegal to export it to China has enough AI to generate a couple extra frames. It seems like the feature has been locked to give high end buyers fomo and upsell otherwise modest but reasonable performance gains.

CABBAC

Which is better, Blast Processing, or PSSR?

Pallaringa Martínez

Hi DF Crew! For academic purposes only, can we ever expect a DF comparison of the official PC release of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 against the unofficial (and very illegal) "PC Brazil" version that has been available since last year? Cheers!

Groovy Duck

Howdy gents. Did any of ya'll put your name in the hat for the Switch 2 hands on event? Did anyone get lucky? Cheers.

tod weitzel

What would Apple need to do to actually compete in the AAA games space? They have the hardware for it; the iPhone's install base puts the Switch to shame, and yet they just... don't seem to care?

BespokeEP

The development costs and fan fair lost would never be worth it. The problem with Xbox is Phil. He’s a likeable guy, but hasn’t got a clue. He changes his stance on things weekly, and he gave up on Xbox years ago when he was crying about PS’s dominance and said if Xbox released great games it wouldn’t change a thing. lol. That’s exactly how you change things, it’s exactly what got PS in the position they are in today. Can you imagine if Xbox had delayed Starfield and Redfail by 12-15 months, so they were good, made Indy, Doom, Perfect Dark, Fable exclusive. Xbox could be toe to toe with PS. But it is too late now and i honestly see Xbox cancelling this upcoming hardware and focusing on just becoming the American tencent

Ben

Hi, Do you think Nvidia could use their latest development on DLSS4 and Reflex 2, and use it to develop VR features using frame generation and reflex2/inpainting to delegate the rendering of the second point of view/eye to AI/frame generation, allowing us, in game like Flight simulator, to use the same graphic settings in “2D” mode and VR. Thanks

Graczdari

Hello to the entire DIGITAL FOUNDRY team. A few questions, maybe now you could answer at least one ; ) 1. do you think that the presented graphics quality of Watch Dogs at E3 2012 really was not achievable on the day of release at least on PC? 2. why do you think SVOGI, which seems to be a very lightweight GI solution, is not widely used? Possibly a solution similar to that of Metro Exodus EE, which in my opinion is second to none in terms of quality/performance 3. don't you think that the level of game optimization in the CPU area has become unbelievably lazy? It would seem that on much weaker Jaguras proportionally much more was achieved than now.

CaptBrick

Hello DF team, Why can't we crowdsource shader compilation by capturing shaders from users and letting each PC compile them locally? Steam and Bazzite have tackled this for handhelds—why can't the similar approach work for PCs? If the challenge is game/engine-specific, wouldn't Epic be in a unique position to implement a universal solution - finally giving PC gamers a reason to install the Epic Store? Cheers!

Alan

Hi Guys, Is Xbox the new Sega? They spent $70 Billion buying ABK and a year after that deal closes they are seeing a 7% drop in earnings, paying $70 Billion for an asset only to experience negative growth within a year! Forza Horizon 5 just announced on PS5, all the big Xbox games will be on every other system, is there any reason to buy Xbox hardware?

Someguyperson

50 series cards have additional frame pacing hardware to allow proper frame pacing with more than 1 generated frame. If you enabled multi-frame gen on a 4090, you would be able to calculate those additional frames, but the pacing would be off like in old SLI/CrossFire systems.

Someguyperson

Why on Earth do people think the 5080 needs to be a serious upgrade from the 4080 they already allegedly have (even though hardly anyone bought that SKU)? You never need to upgrade when a brand new GPU generation comes out. I'm still using the 2060 Super in my PC with my LG C3 monitor. Is it a good setup? No! That's why I'm trying to buy a 5080 myself. Can I still play games on my GPU and have a good time with it? Absolutely! Do I have VRR? Unfortunately no, because you lose that with a DisplayPort 1.4 to HDMI 2.1 cable (the only way I can get 4k 120 with my setup). The 5080 is really the most GPU I could use and it's still a massive upgrade for me. Can you put all these haters in their place?

DyeHardX86

Now that we know the Rtx 5080 and Rtx 5090 launch was not a launch when do we think it will actually launch?

Bulbous_Bow

Gentlemen, Intel and now Nvidia have both faked the launch of their respective next generation graphics cards. In Intel’s case in terms of stock; in Nvidia’s case both in terms of stock and the idea that the cards represent anything more than egregious editions of their 40 series equivalents to begin with. So, how big an opportunity is this for AMD, and how badly will they fumble it this time?

Salman

After looking at many reviews, and failing the "checkout" task all day, one quesion remains unanswered: can Cyberpunk 2077 run at 4k60fps without a GPU? If it matters, I do have a 4k 240Hz OLED with gsync.

Alfonso

Hello DF crew! Lately I’ve seen some online discourse (mostly YouTube videos, but also some game journalists and streamers) that heavily criticise the over reliance on DLSS/FSR to hit FPS targets in games, rather than doing “real” optimisation. Could you please ellaborate on that? Do you share that stance? Isn’t it, at the end of the day, taking advantage of the possibilities offered by the hardware vendors? Alfonso (Cambridge, UK)

VeryProfessionalDodo

This is the first time I’ve heard of it. Does it only happen in 120hz+ screens? If so, is it a huge flaw when it only happens in those scenarios, on a PS5 Pro, with those types of screens?

VeryProfessionalDodo

Agree with DaJaCo, as a former PC Gamer who switched to PS5 in 2020 for similar reasons. Tried last year to do a living room PC, but had the unwise idea of using Nvidia, which locked me into Windows. If you’re curious for a hassle free experience, try a console, both have accessibility controllers with full support, so no finagling with UI. If you don’t want that and have an AMD GPU, try out Bazzite with the Deck variant. You’ll be shocked at how much better it is than Windows in the regards you mentioned. If you have Nvidia, try out Bazzite with the regular image. It’s more of a PC like build, but I still vastly prefer Linux (with KDE) to Windows when it comes to those thousand UX paper cuts (for gaming)

The Invisible Man

Hi Gents, what are the chances that Nintendo will allow the Switch 2 to remote stream from other devices? cheers

Never Ready Eddie

Hail DF sleuths (new FSR reported on exclusivity by your good selves). Do you think the new FSR with its massively improved image quality (as confirmed by DF spy-cam at CES) will be ported to the PS5 and PS5 Pro or will it be hardware locked to the new RDNA cards with AI gubbins?

Alex’sRayTracedBottom

Lads and scholars, I know many of you are using OLED TVs as your PC monitors. Has the 50 series MFG prompted any of you to invest in a 4K 240Hz monitor instead? Or do you prefer the larger size and are patiently waiting for higher refresh rate TVs to hit the market?

Special Agent Cooper

Verily, good colleague, that question doth stir within me a most profound curiosity and wonder. With greatest hope, may the foundrymen grant thee answer to thy query.

Neotokyouk

From what I understand, that does seem to be the case yes. It's surprising to me that there hasn't been more of an uproar over this, at the moment the discussions are limited to reddit threads and people having to turn off their VRR for a fix.

digitalfoundry

Alex and I still use 4K 120 OLEDs but we also have 4K 240Hz screens for testing stuff like MFG.

shedi1982

Greetings and salutations gents!!! I'm a gamer who enjoys consoles over PC i was wondering if Sony and/or Microsoft could ever make a 2 tier console a base model for 600 and a hybrid console with a base built in GPU and CPU that they can fall back on and make like a cloud version like geforcenow where they can use an upgraded model that can push things on consoles closer to high end PCs (with a subscription service) or is that even possible? Thanks in advance from a advid watcher

DyeHardX86

I think most people don't like that comparatively the configuration of the 5080 should be we're the 5070 is and the in between configs for 5080 ti or super would be isn't there they will be I'm assuming but the 5080 should be more than half a 5090 for the price point but either way anyone up for $1000 gpus will be happy with the 5080 unless they're moving from something close to it