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Call For Questions For DF Direct Weekly #219 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-06-19 14:15:26
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
Q&A

Content

Hi everyone, Rich here with your regularly scheduled Call For Questions for DF Direct Weekly! Not a vast amount of topics going on for discussion right now, but we'll obviously be discussing the Microsoft/AMD news from earlier in the week and the Donkey Kong Bananza Direct.

Also: they said it was dead and buried, replaced by a newer and far more performant version of the game but the original Ark Survival Evolved is preserved like a mosquito in amber from Jurassic Park thanks to the cartridge release... and despite its status as a primarily online game, it does still work! And guess what - not even the power of Switch 2 performance enhancements can fully save it. We've tested it for the lulz and we'll cover it in this week's Direct.

This week's offering may not be quite as epic in length a Direct as usual, but rest assured, the colossal Switch 2 hardware review will more than make up for that - it may well be our most in-depth console review yet. Even so, I'd welcome your topic suggestions and questions for our 219th show (not including specials). Looking forward to this one!

Files

Comments

BespokeEP

Did Xbox just cannibalize any potential sales for this ROG “Xbox” ally by announcing next gen already? I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when they made that very strange decision. I get that the RAWG is actually a PC and this “next gen” is presumably an actual Xbox but they are still marketing the ROOOG as if it is an Xbox. Don’t they want to sell at least a couple ROG’s before announcing that something even better is just around the corner?? Xbox!! Go home, you’re drunk!

RL

I know you guys aren't fans but I love them so I'm wondering about your thoughts on the Borderlands 4 previews from this week.

John Nieves

I asked this last week but think you were already recording: Hello DF crew! I originally sent this question to John on Blue Sky, but he was likely too busy getting the Platinum trophy in Mindseye so I will post the question here. What is the outro song for DF Direct? It's intensely familiar, & my shoddy memory remembers hearing menu sound effects while pressing buttons during this music. I play a weekly game of, "Will I remember what it's from" every week I listen to DF Direct & lose every time. I'm sure the answer is embarrassingly obvious. 😅

Taylor Wiseman

Hello, DF Crew! Is John just completely against any kind of LCD Screen? He doesn't like the Switch 2 Screen, and he describes himself as an OLED enthusiast. I am considering purchasing a portable monitor for my Switch 2 so that I can have the full specs of the Switch 2 in docked play but on a portable screen. However, there doesn't seem to be a portable OLED monitor with a high enough refresh rate for gaming, and the best reviewed one, the ASUS ROG Strix XG17AHPE, is not OLED. Any suggestions on this topic?

1040STF

Let's bring out the infamous and never-reliable crystal ball: based on the progress you see between Switch 1 and 2, which of the Switch 3 or Switch 4 could hypothetically be the first to run the OG Ark Survival Evolved correctly?

Hobobench

Hola Amigos! With the discovery that there is some bespoke form of DLSS for Switch 2, it is also clear that it has more visual imperfections than traditional DLSS. Do you think that we will see this version improved down the line similar to our expectations of something like PSSR?

Kitty Raven

I’d love it if you lads could expand on why the: “Switch 2’s success is vital for the industry. How does this apply to SONY for example?” You’ve voiced this assertion at least twice now. Could you make it concrete?

Taggen86

Thoughts on the fsr4 on rdna 3 hacks? Do you think AMD should have provided a version of fsr4 for rdna 3/2 despite its high ms cost?

Having an AI-neurysm

AMD dropped a video today with Lisa Su that goes into more detail on the Xbox partnership - key quote: “Moving forward, AMD will go beyond building custom chips for Xbox consoles to designing a full roadmap of gaming-optimized chips. Combining the power of Ryzen and Radeon for consoles, handhelds, PCs, and the cloud. And we’re doing it all with backwards compatibility so gamers can access their favourite titles across platforms. Delivering on a promise to both gamers and developers.” Can we take this to mean that proper Xbox library back compat will eventually come to all future “Xbox” branded devices, rather than just the main Microsoft console? Video: https://youtu.be/kprpRvsOua0

1040STF

What do you think the chances are that Microsoft will launch its new ecosystem, with Windows and Steam, on the Series S and X? Could they keep it as a marketing tool for the next-gen machines? Or could they roll it out to all of them to offer two entry-level products for this new ecosystem?

Jonny_5a

Starting to see patches for switch 2 fixing previously broken/not working well switch 1 games (for example Pikmin 3). What are your top games you would like to see such updates for? Personally would love to get Portal 2 running.

Bassers

The very best of afternoons to you gents! Whilst there was nothing really ‘new’ in Sarah Bonds Xbox hardware presentation - could the fact this took place at all be indicative of a 'sooner rather than later' move to the next gen for Microsoft? Or does this potentially represent more of a shift to more frequent, iterative hardware, steering the ship away from generations altogether?

Julian Shniter

Are you guys worried about the apparent and almost constant double buffer drops in the donkey Kong direct? If Alex is on a crusade to eliminate #StutterStruggle then I would start a crusade to eliminate double buffer vsync

Marcus

Hello Foundrymen! The switch two is undoubtedly a huge success. In large part possibly because Nintendo has been able to keep the console in stock. There are obviously issues with beginning production so early like the console needing an update to Support backwards compatibility. Do you think the benefits of starting production and packaging before the software is completely finished outweigh the negatives like backwards compatibility not working without the update?

Michael Giles

So I play Doom: The Dark Ages on Bazzite or Windows depending on the PC I am using that day. Apparently if you switch OSes/proton builds too many in one day, you can get either a 24-hour ban or a two-week ban from playing the game (courtesy of Denuvo)! This issue has apparently affected thousands of users. How does the DF Crew feel about these seemingly anti-consumer business practices, and is there anything that can be done to disincentive companies like ZeniMax from deploying DRM tools that operate at the expense paying customers?

DyeHardX86

Hello, with the Xbox /AMD HW partnership renewed and Sarah Bonds statements that they are focusing on making Windows the defacto gaming platform on any device form factor I've seen many outlets comment that Windows will be what Xbox is using to run games natively. I actually don't think this is exactly true and rather an Xbox OS partition next to a Windows Partition on the SSD is more likely due to licensing and store monetization, your thoughts? And thanks for the great work as always.

William Z

Hi. Some Retro questions for John…. 1. Would you consider the Sega CD to be the equivalent of a modern mid-generation upgrade like the PS5 Pro It expanded capabilities (CD-based storage, better audio, scaling video playback) but didn’t fundamentally change the Genesis’ base power. So does it count as a mid-gen upgrade or more of a bolt-on platform shift? 2. If Sega had gone with a 3dfx GPU, a more ergonomic controller, and included a DVD drive in the Dreamcast — do you think it would have fared better commercially? Could the additional visual horsepower and media format compatibility have extended its life or helped it stand against the PS2 juggernaut? 3. How does the Dreamcast stack up against the PSP in raw power? The PSP came out 5 years later, but Dreamcast still seems capable of running many of the same types of games (arcade-style racers, fighters). Games like OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast would’ve been awesome to see on Dreamcast — could it have handled it?

FullyTorqued

Question for John if he’s on the panel this week: Have you tried Riven in PC VR? It’s an absolutely incredible VR experience. I just started but so far I’m enjoying it more than HL Alyx even. It’s obviously a different experience but I’m having so many wow moments that are only possible in VR. Also being able to cast from my gaming PC to my Quest 3 in the other room using Virtual Desktop feels like pure magic. My wife and I are playing through it from our bedroom two rooms over (and casting to the TV for a shared experience) and it’s been such a wonderful experience.

Question Generated By JensenGPT

What are your thoughts on theHunter: Call of the Wild, which just got a new expansion? It's made by a very small team on an in-house custom engine, and yet it looks incredible and runs buttery smooth even on weaker PCs. The new expansion adds snow deformation too and looks better than ever. I wanted to point this game out cause great-running games on custom engines are special due to their rarity nowadays, especially when made by small teams.

Dan Matte

Hi, DF. One for John, Tom, or Oliver—the Lunar and Suikoden remasters both suffer from uneven pixel scaling. Any chance you could comment on them? Seems like Lunar might only look good output to a 4K pixel grid, and Suikoden aligns to a 1080p pixel grid? Thanks for everything you do!

Luke

Aside from all the bespoke Gamingstuff, what other devices that u recently bought bring you joy? I've just bought a robot vacuum and it changed my life.

Luke

?

PS3Inquisition

Microsoft’s strategy for Xbox going forward has been sort of a mystery, but I’m thinking they’re following the 3DO playbook. We’re already getting the ASUS ROG Xbox handheld, next might be the MSI Claw Xbox. Personally I’m looking forward to the Packard Bell Xbox home console. I mean, this strategy worked so well for the 3DO. Thoughts?

Aaron Udy

Good day Deefers. Have Nintendo confirmed whether the new DK is canon? Did DK get so sick of Pauline's singing that he started holding her hostage at the top of a building site? I need answers.

DaJaCo (Dan)

unless this guy is a double buffer bluffer

DaJaCo (Dan)

extrapolation has its limits, be reasonable

1040STF

It's a joke.

wildwildwesty

Alex, that was a brilliant interview with CDPR and Epic! I’d love to see more content like that. One moment that really intrigued me was when you asked how they plan to scale up The Witcher 4 for PC, and it seemed like there wasn’t a clear solution yet. It got me thinking, with the impressive technology on show and the base PS5 as the target, are we approaching a point where the artistic vision for an open world game like The Witcher 4 can be fully realised at 60fps on console, leaving the PC version with little room for visual upgrades beyond ultra-high frame rates and resolutions?

AMH

Hey DF Crew, with the size of handhelds getting larger and larger I’m starting to miss the smaller ones. Theoretically could Nintendo make a switch 2 lite the same size as the switch lite or even smaller (let’s say vita size) I do have one handheld called the AYN Odin Mini and it has pretty beefy specs and it just a tad bigger than the vita. I mean phones are extremely powerful and fit in my pocket so what’s stopping console makers making smaller handhelds that I can sneak yo work?

Pol Kallamata

If the future of all "Xbox" hardware is Windows devices, including in the living room, do you think its likely that PlayStation alters its strategy with regards to porting 1st party games to PC? And what would this most likely entail? Could they lengthen the gap between releasing on console and PC again, create their own PC storefront / launcher that gives them more controller over which device their games run on, or perhaps withdraw from publishing on PC altogether? It seems hard to imagine Sony being comfortable with other living room consoles having access to their titles when exclusivity has always been a key part of their success.

Gordon Lin

I've been playing with the recent lossless scaling version lately, which updated the algorithm for improved hud and edge and text handling. The clarity with text has been impressive! Especially with the adaptive frame gen setup, i actually prefer it over the Nvidia frame gen feature. It's been great playing Dragon's Dogma 2 at 240 fps. This brings me to a question about a quote you guys shared a couple months back where the future might be frame generation up to a target frame rate with some sort of base rendered frame rate to work with. How would you change your performance analysis workflow to adjust for this if this is indeed the future where the next generation consoles end up using frame generation technology as their rendering pipeline?

AGSMA

Does Ark on Switch 2 still look like an impressionist painting in motion? If so, then I think it's time for John to take screenshots and print them in canvases, because there should be a market for those.

Auro

Is it possible we'll see 120 FPS upgrades with certain third party Switch 1 games? I'm thinking titles like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, or Furi! I'd just like to add that I would love to see a 60 FPS patch for Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, I know its turn based but the original was 60 FPS and I won't be purchasing a 30 FPS version!

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half Fortnight Lads! With the Switch 2 launched now and a picture emerging that "NintenDLSS" is being used quite broadly with everything from fairly imperceptible success to borderline abuse - I thought I'd put their upscaling patent into Gemini and ask some questions about it. From this I gathered that it differs from vanilla DLSS in these significant ways: 1 - Tight control over inputs using nintendo's standardised "virtual camera snapshot", which may go beyond supplying motion vectors and depth data as part of the "context data" mentioned, as well as being tightly optimized into a standard input format for the model. 2- Tailored and optimized for a small handful of FIXED upscaling resolution ratios (i.e. 540p to 1080p) and FIXED Aspect Ratios, (instead of the vast array of PC resolutions and aspect ratios) allowing the model to make more assumptions about inputs and outputs. 3- Hardware SOC enables the upscaling hardware to have very low latency access to the rendering pipeline data (i.e. the "virtual camera snapshot") I wonder if you could glean anything from a similar exercise, or if any of you have heard anything from developers?

Xfiles_Frohikee

I am reading FSR4 is not available or not yet compatible for with the Vulkan API? Can you confirm this is accurate and if so why AMD is taking so long to release a version of FSR4 for Vulkan? I was trying to use optiscaler to add FSR4 to Doom the Dark Ages which sent me down a rabbit hole. Thank you and be well !

Someguyperson

The inconceivable has happened; AMD will produce the silicon for the next-generation Xbox! Praise be to Phil Spencer for this momentus occasion has never occured in the history of mankind!

Someguyperson

Alien vs. Predator The Sith vs. The Jedi The Rock vs. Vin Diesel John vs. Poorly Performing Game Which series provides the most entertainment?

Full House's John SteamOS

This x1000. I had money riding on Microsoft partnering with Atari for next-gen hardware, yet some how AMD has pulled off this unprecedent coup. Rich, please shout out Phil Spencer for this real "4D chess" move.

Someguyperson

Did you guys see HDTVTest's video about Switch 2 HDR calibration? I feel it's incredibly useful, much more so than the awful instructions Nintendo gave users.

Someguyperson

The Steam Deck offers a 90 Hz OLED panel, so panels do exist. I just think that would have been too expensive for a handheld that's already $450. You're looking at $550+ for an OLED version and just doesn't cut it for a launch console.

Wilbert

Hey gents! How much do you think we will see Switch 2 updates for Switch 1 games in the next 6 months? Both Nintendo and 3rd party? My guess is that studios are focusing on new games or bringing "old" games to Nintendo Switch 2 that haven't yet been on Switch consoles. Personally I would love to revisit many games (e.g. Luigi's Mansion 3) having improvements.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half Fortnight Lads! (2) In the current market, could it not be said that Nintendo and Microsoft's strategies are absolutely poles apart - and as Nintendo's success grows with every exclusive launched on their new system; with Microsoft's flailing as they launch their exclusives elsewhere - who's strategy will ultimately be vindicated; or is there room for both extremes to be successful? I fear that Microsoft is slowly becoming a publisher that happens to sell mediocre PCs

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

It's been a pretty amazing year so far for gaming across the piste, with Clair Obscur, Doom, Mario Kart, Oblivion, Blue Prince, Split Fiction, KCD2, InZOI and Civ VII being only a selection of H1 2025's big hitting titles. With games like Witcher 4 and GTA 6 on the horizon, we have a reasonable expectation that 2026 and 2027 will have at least one standout game. I keep hearing of layoffs and an industry in crisis, but as a consumer it's hard to see. When will we see the fallout from what's happening in game development? Or will we ever?

DyeHardX86

This IS an Amazing turn around it was only a month ago that Xbox was completely out of the hardware Race and last week their previously announced Xbox Native Handheld canceled outright and suddenly neither are true and Next Gen Console(s) and Handheld(s) AND PC(s)!!!! Are coming with full backward compatibility with previous Xbox Generation s across all 3 Platforms!!! Viva La révolution!! Seriously though Xbox console games on PC and PC games on Console sounds Dope af to me.

Someguyperson

Considering how Nintendo sold 3.5 million consoles in the first 4 days after the Switch 2 was released, do you think you guys will ever get a console before release day? Do you think this is unique to Nintendo? Clearly, Nintendo has absolutely no incentive to manage all those press relationships if the thing is going to sell out no matter what.

Taylor Wiseman

Do you think Nintendo will release a new model of the Switch 2, maybe a Switch 2 Pro? I'm thinking it could have higher clock speeds and an OLED Screen.

Someguyperson

Well, you can't really buy one right now, so they haven't "kept it in stock". They just had more available at launch than any other console in history.

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

If Sony gave PSVR2 away for free, do you think people would play it? I'm not convinced they would and think implies a big problem for VR even if the tech gets massively better.

BespokeEP

I think the issue with PC hardware is, it comes out every 1-2 yrs. It's getting hard to predict what new advances will be available. I thought they were pretty clear that if you bought the best hardware available, they would support up to the full extent of its capabilities. But mosly you'll be able to increase draw distance, texture detail, resolution... more RT... Etc.

AfreemTheDream

Greetings, Foundrymen! One of the reasons I bought a Switch 2 on launch day is that my wife is obsessed with Mario Kart and would have most likely murdered me had I not made the purchase. My personal reason for buying it was because I was really interested in Donkey Kong: Bananza, and after yesterday's DK:B Direct I am even more excited for it, although it looked like there were frame time issues popping up throughout the video, in particular when a lot of effects and destruction were going on. Was this just my ancient eyeballs, or did you gents notice frame time issues as well? Also, back to Mario Kart: World... I think it's just "mid." I don't care very much for the open map (I don't care about collecting digital stickers and costumes) and, if I'm not mistaken, a good chunk of the tracks are recycled from old games. Am I alone in this thinking, or is what I'm spouting heresy? Cheers!

MittenFacedLass

Not entirely direct-related, but No Man's Sky Switch 2 seems like worth a look!

Jefff

What does DF think about the recent trend of Dual GPU rigs? Recently I've seen a spate of blogs, videos and posts showcasing a dedicated second GPU used exclusively for scaling or frame generation. Typically the mix is a ~flashshipish part from Nvidia or AMD paired with a lower end chip to run lossless scaling. I've seen these posts claim significant performance and latency improvements over using a single GPU. I'm skeptical to say the least!

Abhi

Is scalability the enemy of art direction? I know DF often likes meaningful upgrades for PC while games also wanting steam deck support. How can art direction work when different versions of the game might have different solutions for reflections, lighting, or shadows. CDPR's direction for Witcher 4 looks like they're trying to solve for scalability by keeping all platforms in mind as they develop & start from the base consoles. They didn't an answer yet for how it'd scale up.

Someguyperson

According to this game business article, basically all physical Switch 2 games sold were either Nintendo games, or Cyberpunk. Does this mean doom & gloom for 3rd party publishers (as the article indicates), does this mean that consumers are smart and only buy physical games with the actual game on the cart, or something else? https://www.thegamebusiness.com/p/it-was-the-biggest-console-launch

Someguyperson

That's also why these companies partner with Nvidia to get the latest & greatest graphics tech. It also allows Nvidia to test their R&D projects out on a real game without requiring Nvidia to create a whole game just to test out some tech. I can easily see CDPR teaming up with Nvidia again for something special in the Witcher 4, but they would obviously be under NDA until the thing came out.

Someguyperson

Collectively, tons of people online complain about how big phones are and how they want to buy small phones. But what do the people actually buy? Bigger and bigger phones. These handheld consoles are in the same boat. Until they feel like The Duke controller, they'll just keep getting bigger & bigger.

BespokeEP

PSVR2 is also OLED and it supports up to 120Hz. And it’s made by Samsung display . So the tech is definitely out there for a small form OLED at 120Hz with HDR

Someguyperson

That's pretty much exactly what's going on here. The main difference is that Microsoft is making much more revenue than Nintendo, while Nintendo has better and more sustainable margins. If you want to make the most money possible, you have to take the Microsoft way of doing things. If you want a sustainable & successful business that is incredibly resilient, you need to go with the Nintendo way of doing things. it's just different philosophies at the end of the day.

Someguyperson

You can't just look at layoffs to gauge the health of the sector. Several companies fire a bunch of people and then hire the same number of people, if not more, they just don't have big announcements regarding hiring people. On the whole though, it looks like the bigger companies with poor management are suffering, while creator-driven companies like Capcom, Nintendo, and indie developers are thriving. This also means you see tons of stories about big companies laying people off without seeing how many of those people start their own company and make something great on their own.

Someguyperson

If I had to guess, they're probably working with Nvidia to see if any future Nvidia technologies would make sense to integrate into the Witcher 4, but they haven't made a decision on anything just yet (it's still really early for that). CDPR wouldn't be able to say anything regarding that due to an NDA with Nvidia. They might also be doing the same thing with Epic and again, would be under NDA until all parties were ready to announce the future work.

Marcus

I don’t know about where you are, but I can get them very easily for MSRP, which is admittedly ridiculously high here in Sweden.

Soyokaze

Hello chaps! Somewhat academical question here. From what we can see about switch 2, it seems that there's somewhat of a divide between the machine's true capabilities and what some devs are doing with it. We've seen titles like Cyberpunk and Hogwarts Legacy run quite well on this machine, even so, it seems that there's a growing gap between the top end and the "average" switch game. Couldn't some devs or even Nintendo itself be playing it "safe" in terms of pushing graphics? Mario Kart, Pokemon and others still feel very conservative. thoughts?

Pelicanman

Greetings Direct Crew, It seems that everywhere you look, people have strangely specific suggestions for improving gaming performance on PC, but the large majority of them are apocryphal and/or negligible. In your learned experience, what settings or other changes actually make a difference when gaming on PC?

BespokeEP

TechLinked made a great video on how confusing Microsoft is with using the phrase “Xbox” to describe what an Xbox is. The entire marketing team and leadership needs to go. I mean Phil must have some juicy dirt on Satya or how else does he still have a job? He changes the direction of Xbox every couple days. Here’s the link to that video https://youtu.be/yjEXzZtLUMw?si=DuyztZvYKLo2RSQp

tod weitzel

Is there any defense you can think of for the physical version of Street Fighter 6 on Switch 2 being a game key card that only activates the base game with a one time use code in the box for the DLC?

tod weitzel

Related to this, how long does it take to decide if a newly released console is DOOOOOMED or just a slow launch?

Special Agent Cooper

Hi folks! Slow week you say? Then I just might be in luck to come through with my potentially stupid question: Graphics have been advancing on two different paths, hardware and software. What if a tech wizard company like CD Projekt Red were tasked to develop a game for say Playstation 2, but with the software and solutions of the year of our lord 2025. What kinds of results might we be able to see, if any? Cheers

Stephen Heim

Howdy, Foundrymen. A few Directs ago, Richard praised Microsoft for how well they managed to convert their old PowerPC code to run on newer generations with backwards compatibility. Instead of just using regular emulation, which I believe Sony mostly relies on to bring classic PlayStation games back through the cloud or something like that. That got me thinking about a Modern Vintage Gamer video on the N64 Recomp project from about the same time as the previously referenced Direct. It shows you can actually rework old game code so it runs natively on modern systems instead of just emulating it. Which, is not always the best experience. I believe DF has touched on that a few times but with how quickly AI has been improving at understanding and translating code (just look at how fast traffic to Stack Overflow dropped off), I kind of figured that by now one of the big console names like NVIDIA, AMD, Sony, or Microsoft would have seriously invested in an affordable, AI-driven machine-to-code (M2C) decompilation and recompilation solution. A small experience team, with corporate backing, could get something going quickly. Such a bespoke system could, for example, handle the notoriously complex C++ Cell architecture of the PSTriple or other legacy gaming platforms from the 90's. Enabling more seamless backwards compatibility for some disc based games. With their resources, these companies could feasibly develop tools to convert older game binaries for use on modern hardware, moving away from imperfect emulation. Is the issue here a lack of monetization incentives, or is the technological challenge greater than it seems? It would be fascinating to see one of the industry’s heavyweights take on this challenge and unlock broader backwards compatibility in a commercially viable way. Put some real effort into making a tool that uses AI to automate the process and make some money off old games, but for a newer generation of gamers. ***This next part is not part of the question but just an observational rant. With all the resources these companies have, you would think they could build something to let us play more old favorites without the downsides of emulation. I guess the real reason it hasn’t happened yet is either there’s not enough money in it or the tech just isn’t quite there, but they could do it faster and cheaper than the public can. Imagine not being able to watch an old movie with a younger generation unless you found a reel-to-reel projector from your childhood to watch it on. Kind of ridiculous to think about today. Even finding a VHS player is tough. So why do we treat games the same way? "Let me go find the SNES in storage so you can play this game that started it all in the series. Oh wait, these TVs don’t use this connector? Well, we can emulate it on the PC, but it’s not the same experience." Kind of silly, right? But so far, I haven’t seen any of the big companies actually use AI to fully convert old games for new consoles on a large scale. RTX Remix is great but something different. It’s starting to get more attention as an idea, but nobody’s really done it yet. With the "lack of stuff to play" I keep hearing about, this could open a market for new eyes to old games that need a little TLC to get working and they can fill the space we wait in between AAA releases with older games.

DudleyTheGentleman

Hi DF gang, correct me if I'm wrong, is the current long term goal of Epic to effectively "virtualize" all aspects of rendering : ie all lighting, shadows, geometry, textures, etc? Assuming this is true, and they eventually achieve this goal, how would this ultimately impact content production and scene composition for games? Would asset production pipelines for offline CGI and games ultimately converge? Related to the topic of merging asset pipelines, would advancements in neural textures and materials ultimately alleviate the space concerns that using CGI quality assets directly for games would entail, or would there also need to be some sort of Neural Geometry advancement that reduces the space requirements of extremely high poly models and meshes as well? Thanks to Alex and DF for the awesome CDPR + Epic interview! It directly inspired many of my questions. I'm always looking to better understand the information I'm taking in.

Neotokyo

Greetings gents! What was your first wow/ jaw drop moment for gaming graphics which caused you to stop and admire in awe? in my personal opinion, the atmosphere and details of a game like battlefield 1 with the rain/dirt that is possible on your viewmodel was mighty impressive for 2016. cheers!

Alan

Hi Chaps, Xbox CEO Sarah Bond has said, "AMD will be powering the next generation of Xbox, in your living room and in your hands." The thing is, who is the Gen 10 Xbox aimed at? Who is going to spend the likely £600 on a Gen 10 Xbox? People with PS5s will buy a PS6, people with PCs will upgrade their PC, and Switch 2 owners will just play Xbox games on their Switch 2. The Xbox messaging seems to be all over the place, and surely all credibility has evaporated given how MS has hollowed out the Xbox brand. What does it even stand for anymore?

Alan

Hi Guys, DK looks great visually, but what worries me is the landscape destructibility. To find items/stuff, there seems to be no visual distinction between destructible and non-destructible land. Thus, one could spend ages rolling about destroying land where there are no items or stuff. There seem to be A LOT of things thrown into this game, seemingly hoping some will stick!

Abadaba-Pling Boink Wee Juhu

Do you have any insights into how the Switch 2 DLSS "Lite" functions? If not, do you think Nvidia will share that soon, or is Nintendo perhaps disallowing that?

Nuwa

Given the performance characteristics of the path tracing in Doom Dark Ages on RDNA4 gpus, do yall think it's possible that PS6 will have a path tracing mode similar to how PS5 got an RT mode for Eternal?

DyeHardX86

Microsoft isn't flailing I'd say their multiple platforms strategy is a huge success they are making money hand over fist even from Nintendo and Playstation customers hell even if they only sell a handful of consoles themselves from this day forward it won't matter they keep releasing high quality games PS and Nintendo fans will gobble them up and they're very successful on Steam as well.

Eric Benoit

How much do you think the quality of You Tube videos affects people's attitude towards Path Tracing? Do you think in the future, if there's a way for everyone to watch DF videos in 4k, people's resistance to Path Tracing will lessen, or is something else going on here?

VeganBurg

Hey y’all. At this year’s WWDC Apple announced Metal 4 which has both frame interpolation and a raytracing denoiser along with the announcement of Cyberpunk 2077 coming this year. Are these now the standards for modern graphics and will DF do testing of the Mac version like with the Switch 2 version? Maybe even Remedy’s Control too? Shout out to Oliver for the continued Mac coverage!

Samuel Gao

Hey DF team – Sammy here! Quick thought experiment: what if we scrapped the traditional CPU/GPU pipeline entirely — and replaced it with specialized chiplets for each task? One for path tracing, one for rasterization, one for AI/ML, one for geometry, etc., all working in parallel over a unified memory space. Could this kind of design break the current bottlenecks in rendering and frame pacing? Or would the overhead and scheduling complexity make it worse than today’s APU model? Would love to hear Alex’s take on whether this sort of modular architecture has any future in consoles. Can’t wait for the Switch 2 deep dive!

Samuel Gao

You can try running PT psycho cyberpunk 2077 on a RX9070 and see how well it performs. Even the fabled RTX 5090 can’t run it without AI upscaling.

Samuel Gao

FPGA. You may be able to emulator cycle accurate timing

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hi DF crew, With AMD working closely both with SONY and Microsoft (which will be the third console generation it happens) and powering a vast majority of PC handhelds can we say they are the dominating force on the gaming market? Of course, for PC enthusiasts nVidia still has more to offer but once ML becomes a standard in console gaming FSR4 and its successors will have to be more widely used on PCs too. I know we pretty much knew it would happen but I can’t stop thinking AMD is the biggest winner here. What do you think? Cheers

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Dear gentlemen, How quickly do you think we’ll see Switch 2 emulators? Architecture doesn’t seem to be anything unusual and we all know how little time it took for the predecessor to get proper emulators. The bigger enemy here will probably be Nintendo lawyers and not a „technological puzzle”. Cheers!

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Top of the morning to ya, DF masters, Do you think both SONY and Microsoft will go the Nintendo route and allow their future handhelds to be easily docked thus making them Series S types of lineup? Provided that Microsoft hasn’t abandoned their bespoke handheld, that is. Cheers!

digitalfoundry

The biggest "enemy" is likely the security layers protecting the processor. It's difficult to reverse engineer something you can't access.

digitalfoundry

The problem would be the interconnect for all those chiplets - I doubt there's anything fast enough that could be viable for a consumer product.

digitalfoundry

You can kind of see things like this with GTA3 running on Dreamcast and those amazing Commodore 64 demos.

digitalfoundry

Likely not. Especially with Sony who will be pumping out a PS6 for this purpose.

digitalfoundry

Not so much a device but my wife bought me two more mugs to identically match the very big one I often drink from in DF Direct. This has been a game-changer on days where I did not run the dishwasher the night before.

AMH

True, Nintendo still managed to sell 25m switch lites despite the fact that it was nerfed and not dockable. There’s a whole market for retro style emulation handhelds too. I still think is potential demand for a smaller variant of the switch 2.

Luke

Ouuu interesting! Hope I can hear the teams responses to this as well hehe

Jiminy the 26th

Hi, sorry if this is off topic. Do you Barons of Banter believe Mario Kart World is worth the price tag? As a “brokie” I think Mario Kart 8 is better, even considering the open world challenges the developers had to go through.

Jonathan Hamilton

I am quite interested in continued Mac coverage. I mostly play consoles and do not have a PC for gaming, but I have bought Mac releases like Death Stranding and hope we continue to see more high-profile releases.

Jonathan Hamilton

I believe they said in Alex's interview that they hadn't even started with scaling down for the Series S yet.

Samuel Gao

Hey Alex (or Rich?) — appreciate the reply! Just to clarify — I wasn’t suggesting discrete chiplets connected by external interconnects. The idea is more like Apple’s M-series: a single monolithic die (around 350–450mm²) with specialized core clusters — path tracing, raster, AI, geometry — all sharing unified memory and a high-bandwidth on-die fabric. If everything’s on-die, would interconnect still be the main concern? Or do you think thermal limits, scheduling overhead, or dev tool complexity would be the bigger hurdles? Thanks again — really appreciate your insights!

Dennis Spring

So the cinephile and gamer in me are fighting and I’m hoping you guys can help! This is pretty much a “Is VRR even worthwhile on PS5 Pro?” Question for Alex. Great video on VRR and frame time last year Alex! I recently purchased a 70” Samsung S95D OLED TV primarily for its colour accuracy for movies and its gaming capabilities. I also just pushed the boat out with a PS5 Pro and a Switch 2. And being the obsessive details person I am, I also paid a professional to do a full isf calibration on it. He did so in “Movie” mode as that’s the flattest starting point. Now. The Samsung only supports VRR and ALLM in “Game” mode. But that would have cost me another wad of cash to calibrate that mode as well. So here’s what the fight is about: Is it worth getting the game mode also calibrated? Meaning, am I actually losing out on anything gaming on a ps5 pro in a mode that, while accurate and looks awesome, doesn’t support VRR. Will games like Doom Dark Ages and other games coming down the pipeline suffer by me not having VRR enabled?

editor0range

Hi DF crew. I was watching the DK Bananza Direct and was worried cause I noticed some stuttering in the gameplay demonstration. Can you see that too and what’s your opinion on Nintendo having a 1st party game almost beeing called a launch title to be not technically superb. I mean Breath of the Wild did also run badly on Switch 1 but now we have 10 times the performance - right? #leatherjacket

Soulz22

We kept hearing about the price and relatively modest specs of the Switch 2 in all the coverage on the specs, but I think it would be really interesting to hear your take on how you might spec a Switch 2 - meaning, if you were the product team at Nintendo, what specs would you have chosen to build something that's decidedly still a Nintendo-y product?

DaJaCo (Dan)

Its quite difficult to assess really, from what i can tell, microsoft only publishes revenues publicly and not profits (as nintendo does). This makes it incredibly difficult to judge whether Microsoft's stategy is sound.. large companies are quite adept at making major strategic errors. You can have the biggest revenues in the world and still be making a loss. The way Microsoft has been closing multiple high quality studios that it spent billions on, and presiding over disasters like Halo Infinite, Redfall, etc. I wouldnt be surprised if their profits are much lower than Nintendo's and much less stable. I also feel like their stategy has a major inbuilt risk of "Xbox losing it's identity" - that it becomes so nebulous, and thinly spread that customers struggle to understand their offerings..and the console advantage is lost in the process (i.e. no more proper optimisation). We've seen a glimpse of that with the new handheld.. its not a console at all.

DaJaCo (Dan)

The 3 things i would have changed: -Larger battery (6500mah - 8000mah) - 16GB Ram (mostly for more bandwidth) - An OLED option at launch (2 SKUs)

DaJaCo (Dan)

I couldnt see Microsoft doing it now that they have ditched their full in house handheld, but I could see at least some kind of connectivity with the PS5 / PS6 from Sony's handheld, and if the same games run on each in some form; it doesn't seem unthinkable.. HDMI out..?

Filip Krynicki

One thing that seems left out of the future of Xbox discussions is the "Play Anywhere" initiative going back to Xbox One, where purchases on Xbox or the Windows store entitle users to a license for both platforms as well as cross-save. In the recent Microsoft Direct "Play Anywhere" was prominent in the marketing. Isn't it more likely that rather than see a layer for Xbox One/Series compatibility on Windows/Xbox PC devices, we'd see Microsoft maintain and expand the Play Anywhere brand to encompass more titles and give Xbox users to native PC versions? Thanks for the Directs and everything else!