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Call For Questions for DF Direct Weekly #220 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-06-26 10:11:19
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
Q&A

Content

Hi everyone - would you believe it? It's Thursday once again. That means it's time to trawl through the DF Slack channel for 'things we talked about this week', move onto a quick look at Videogames Chronicle and Videocardz and to put together a tentative list of things we want to talk about in the next Direct.

It's Rich (ie me), John and Oliver at the mics this week! We'll be following up on all of the Switch 2 display tests and analysis that have followed in the wake of our review, and we'll also be discussing the Pure update to Fast Fusion that offers the ability to remove upscaling completely from the game. Other topics? We may find some time to take a look at the Mario Kart 64 decompilation product and beyond that, there's also the RTX 5050 reveal.

But of course, it's not DF Direct Weekly without your value input! Please do offer up your topic suggestions and questions for consideration in the Q+A section. Please try to keep them to the point though - walls of text are hard to get through in the show! And with that, the stage - or rather the empty box below - is yours. Have at it! As usual, deadline for submissions is Friday 8am BST.

Files

Comments

Peter

Good day gents, hope the week is treating you well. Regarding the Switch 2 screen, a recent Hardware Unboxed review suggests that maybe the poor latency is related to lack of overdrive on the panel (likely a power saving move). If so, is it possible that this particular aspect of the display could be improved via a firmware update? Nintendo seem to have a bit of grace regards the promised 2 hours min battery life so maybe they can afford to lose some more power on the display? Or indeed, is the system power balanced in such a way that this is not a feasible solution? Thanks as always for the great content, and have a lovely rest of the week!

Simplex

Does John have the 1997 PS1 racing game "Ray Tracers" in his physical collection? Judging by the name, it should be a Digital Foundry favorite. ;)

Perfect_Organism

I don’t get the excitement around Microsoft’s next Xbox/platform. They have a track record of poor products that’s been going on for nearly 2 decades at this point. Windows is a mess, the Xbox division is a mess (albeit some recent hits but they would have been in development before the Microsoft acquisition), and anything they touch seems to become enshitified (MS Teams, their AI integration in Windows, Windows ARM etc). I understand a level of intrigue for sure, but I don’t understand placing any level of hope on what their next thing is when a companies track record is this poor, and when the core products the company offers are in various states of disarray (minus perhaps Azure, not enough knowledge to speak competently on that). I’m a PC gamer in spite of Windows, not because of it. What am I missing here? I’m sure I’m missing something. Is it perhaps that the console space has become very predictable, so there is a strong thirst for something different?

Spoggi99

Dear DF-Team, I hope you are doing well! Death Stranding 2 doesn’t use ray tracing, yet it’s easily one of the best-looking games I’ve ever played on PS5 — especially on PS5 Pro. I think this highlights how far traditional rendering techniques can still go when pushed by the right team and built on the right engine. On consoles with limited GPU resources, is it smarter to focus on great character rendering, material work, and lighting effects rather than pushing for full RTGI? Don’t get me wrong — I love ray tracing on PC — but maybe consoles just aren’t quite ready for it if it means compromising other aspects of the presentation or resolution. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Keep up the great work!

Having an AI-neurysm

Hi gents. Looking back through DF’s graphics of the year results, each Decima game since Zero Dawn has been the “winner” in their respective years. Does Death Stranding 2 do enough to potentially continue that streak despite its raster-only nature? What are the key deficiencies in the current visuals that ray tracing could improve?

David Laszlo

Hello There, Do you guys enable PT in games like Doom the Dark ages? Do you think PT will be available for the masses in the next generation (Console and GPU)? I have a 4080, but when I enable PT, I go down 50-60 FPS (even to the 40s in big fights) with DLSS Balanced on 1440p. Not even Frame gen saves the experience there and the Image Quality gets to the soft side for me.

1040STF

What's happening with the N64 decompilation projects is amazing. What other consoles, genre or specific retro games would benefits from decomp in your opinion? On my side, I would love for exemple the whole Tekken or Soulcalibur series benefit from decompilation, as they're all great games but most are locked to their OG plateforms. Namco doesn't seem to plan on bringing those back any day.

The Knight Who Says Ni!

Hey DF! With Microsoft releasing new firmware and a refreshed dashboard for the Xbox 360 in 2025, it's been great to see continued support for such a legacy console. Looking ahead, what improvements or changes would you like to see in future updates? One idea that comes to mind is embracing the right to repair—for example, unlocking the DVD drive and hard drive to allow easier replacement and repairs. Given the age of the hardware, this could help keep consoles alive longer and reduce reliance on increasingly scarce original parts. Do you think Microsoft would consider this, or is it more likely they’ll keep those systems locked down? Would love to hear your thoughts.

ConcreteLlama

Hello DF and anyone who may be behind you right now blending into the scenery. Whenever watching the show I'm always curious as to what's behind you on your various shelves. John's room seems to be an ever evolving gaming haven, Rich's appears to be just more desk with lots of equipment used in the here and now, and Oliver has a blurry shelf that alludes to a treasure trove of gaming hardware. (Let's not talk about Alex for now as he's clearly in Rich's basement with a kindly supplied window). Can we get a DF shelf tour one day?

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

Do you think UE5 represents a tipping point, where a bunch of creatives can focus on game design and narrative, with the problem of producing something technically competent being basically solved? For example, I was struck by how Clair Obscur's development team was not only small but also surprisingly inexperienced, yet was able to lean on UE5 to produce a polished product.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Cyberpunk on Switch 2 makes a great case for this - the detail on the character models, facial animations, environment detail level, texture quality etc. really are stunning on a portable, and you really don't feel much of a deficit from the PS5 version (apart from 40fps instead of 60).

ConcreteLlama

You guys have covered a lot of stuff on the Switch 2 already but I think the question on everybody's lips is - how is the performance in The Last Hope - Dead Zone Survival? Does the game reach breathtaking new heights?

TheAdam

Hello DF Team. I have a question about the current state of technology and possible future improvements to collision models. This issue particularly caught my attention in Doom: The Dark Ages. The Slayer is slayed and falls to the ground, his hand partially disappears into the ground, creating a poor immersion...Will there be improvements here in the foreseeable future via AI or other technologies? And of course, I can also simply not die anymore. Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half Fortnight Lads! With news this week that HDMI 2.2 specifications have been finalized, and previous news that AMD's upcoming UDNA architecture will support HDMI 2.2 partially (at 80Gb/s not the full 96Gb/s) - what are the chances of a HDMI 2.2 PS6, and what will the likely implications of this be, especially if there is some kind of PSSR "frame gen" implementation. I'm guessing the significance of 80Gb/s is because they are converting Displayport 2.1b to HDMI 2.2 ? Fingers crossed sony pushes for the full fat 96Gb/s if HDMI 2.2 is in PS6..

andre surles

What does the Microsoft and AMD announcement mean for cloud gaming? Will we see XCloud and PlayStation Streaming from Microsoft Azure servers fitted with the latest AMD GPU’s? Where does this leave G-Force Now, Steam OS and Switch 2?

Sammy3D

If you were to make a modern day version of space invaders, what graphical effects would you use to make the game speedup as less enemies are on screen (obviously not the practical approach)

Filip Krynicki

Oops, I accidentally posted this on the last call for questions after the direct already aired, so reposting it here: 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!

L p

Given games like Doom: Dark Ages offer only modest visual improvements with its path-traced lighting (over the standard RT setup) and Death Stranding 2 showing stunning results (despite a purely raster/baked lighting pipeline), can we assume that the future of console hardware will converge on something like the Switch 2? For one, none of the friends I've shown the video comparisons to, would say Cyberpunk running on a PS5/XSX has noticeably better visuals than the Switch 2 edition. Plus, it’s likely the next-gen consoles will be able to do some form of path-tracing (with ray reconstruction etc) and support neural rendering features, and that, combined with rendering tech getting ever more efficient (I’d never imagine the base PS5 would be capable of running the Witcher 4 demo at 60 fps!) - so it’s quite possible the handhelds of 2040 will provide visuals equivalent to the path-traced games of today. This generation itself has largely solved the LOD problem (with virtualised geometry systems like Nanite) and all platforms next gen should support high quality upscaling/frame generation. So I wonder, once all your lighting is path-traced, and you have neural materials, ML solvers for complex animations (cloth physics, muscle simulation etc) - are there any issues left in rendering, that would offer any more than a marginal improvement in visual quality?

Aaron Udy

My local bus stop runs Windows for its information screen. I've often wondered if it will run Doom. Given its now an Xbox, do you think it will run The Dark Ages?

Snorlax cat

do you take at face value the comments of one of koji-pro tech directors saying that anything done in DS2 could have been done on ps4?

Eric Benoit

Hello DF Crew, it seems the rate of older games being decompiled is increasing, do you think this could be an issue for Sony, Microsoft, and especially Nintendo to take legal action with? I mean, if someone decompiled games like Blue Stinger, Cold Fear, and Resident Evil Code Veronica, I'm not sure I would have been tapping my phone at 9:00pm last night like a spaz trying to get the Switch 2. Such a huge portion of new games being marketed are remasters that quite often feel worse than the original. Do you think decompilation is a threat to the lazy remaster industry?

Marcus

Hiya DF Crew. Maybe a slightly academic question but Nvidia recently released smooth motion and AMD have AFMF. Apps like lossless scaling are also popular. Do you think that in the near future you could make an external monitor that does the frame generating on its own? Thank you for all your work!

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half Fortnight Lads (2). Ok with the emergence of the Meta Quest "Xbox", on top of the Rog Ally "Xbox", and with talks of yet more developer layoffs, so far, their strategy doesn't seem to amount to much more than two tins of paint! (Black and Green). From a brand identity perspective, do you really have faith that their brand can withstand all of this identity dilution without it severely risking the future success of any "proper console / PC" device that they produce to compete with the PS6? I can't help but think these initial offerings are doing nothing but damaging their brand identity. Finland just officially withdrew physical Xbox games from stores altogether - this all seems incredibly high risk - no retail presence, and brand dilution so thinly spread that nobody knows what any of it means anymore. I can see major disaster ahead for Xbox personally. I know you've discussed before, but it gets a step worse every week!

Pol Kallamata

Will adding ray tracing effects be a common means by which to remaster or re-release a lot of current generation titles in the PS6 era? Games like recently released Death Stranding 2 or Final Fantasy Rebirth already look spectacular with non-RT rendering and run at pleasing resolutions and frame rates. Would overhauling their lighting systems with ray / path tracing be the most obvious path to make them appear generationally better when the hardware is capable of supporting this?

Jagster

Gents, relatively new patron here, if/when we get the seemingly inevitable Switch 2 OLED updated model, what other features do you hope they integrate into the display or console as a whole? Improved battery life seems like a no-brainer to me, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts. Thanks for all the hard work you guys do!

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?

Tuomo Perkiö

Hellou! Recently Epic showed impressive performance updates for UE 5.6. How difficult or challenging it is for developers to update launched game to latest UE5 version?

Someguyperson

Regarding the Switch 2 power consumption while docked, I was only able to hit ~18 watts running Mario Kart World, which is basically the same as your test of Dragon Quest Builders, yet Cyberpunk was able to hit 21-22w. Do you think that the power limit in CPU-limited workloads will be around that lower number and the power consumption in GPU limited scenarios is closer to the 22w mark? Could that help you guys figure out what is holding the Switch 2 back when you review a game now?

Someguyperson

In Nvidia's slides about the 5050, they mentioned how they needed to have a VRAM pool of 1536 Mb to run DOOM: The Dark Ages without being VRAM limited. If Nvidia needed to tweak this value and list it in their performance numbers, is that an admission by Nvidia themselves that 8 GB isn't enough VRAM to run modern games?

Someguyperson

With the new HDMI 2.2 spec, you can have a 1440p 480 Hz monitor or a 4k 240 Hz monitor both at 4:4:4 w/ no DSC. You can also get to 1440p 960 Hz or 4k 480 Hz with DSC. Does this finally let us reach the temporal resolution required for a 1440p flat panel to reach the same motion clarity as a CRT? Will John finally be able to retire some of his CRTs now? Does DSC degrade quality too much to use those higher refresh rates?

Someguyperson

The GTA 6 trailer showed off some great character rendering. Since then we've seen the Witcher 4 demo, Death Stranding 2, and how they render characters, which both seem to be a step above GTA 6. Do you think aspects of GTA 6 will look mundane by the time it actually comes out next year?

Someguyperson

Overdrive would barely effect power consumption at all. I feel it's just something that Nintendo either overlooked, or it's a bug.

Someguyperson

There are quite a few extremely fervid Microsoft fanboys on the Internet that are quite vocal about how great Microsoft is. That's been the case for decades now, so you really can't take online sentiment to mean much of anything there.

Someguyperson

There are still some snags in the engine that keep it from being as performant as it should be, but we're definitely getting there. I think after CDPR & the Coalition feed performance improvements back into UE5, that's where we'll be.

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hi DF crew, how likely is it for Nintendo to add black frame insertion to Switch 2. 120hz seems perfect for 60 fps games but the screen might be too dim and VRR would not work, so I guess it’s not likely. Cheers

Snorlax cat

do you think that ray tracing will be underutilized in the switch 2 as in ps5/xbox series x?

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hello gentlemen, John, have you heard about the RGB-Pi initiative? It sends signal from raspberry pi 4 into TVs via a bespoke SCART cable. They’re now working on a revised edition for the Pi 5 which would make it even better. Cheers

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hi DF crew, if everything is an Xbox now why do you think Microsoft won’t allow their GamePass games to work natively on Steam Deck. I know it’s not Windows but if they support it via cloud gaming I don’t see a proper reason why not take the next step. Cheers

Someguyperson

That's a bit of a loaded question. Death Stranding looks so good without RT because rasterization works best with open organic spaces without large amounts of vegetation. If you look at the forest sections of Death Stranding 2, they don't look anywhere near as good as what Indiana Jones is doing. It also takes a lot more time & extremely talented artists to pull off good rasterization, while the cost to create a great looking RT game can use less time to obsess over small details. As for Doom, the difference between RT & PT is relatively small because of how much RT they used to begin with and how they designed the game to already look great with RT. Going from a 70% solution to a 90% solution doesn't provide the same difference in a game that has 20% RT going to 90% RT.

L p

Well that's the point, going from 70% to 90% is already marginal improvements (and 90 to 100%, as some NVIDIA GPU 5-10 years from now might do is even less). So maybe the OEMs/consumers will just settle for a portable device that can do 70-80% of what the desktops of the future can do (i.e. perceptually, not computationally). And yes, RT is great for devs, but the next gen platforms will be able to considerably outpace the anaemic RDNA2 hardware there - so once a handheld can approximate path-tracing (given future architecture and algorithms) will that be end of the road for the traditional console under the TV, and you'd just dock your handheld? Or maybe everything will just be hallucinated by AI rather than actually rendered!

The Shadow-Map

Where can I get the worst Xbox experience on the market today? ----------------------- This is a question no one at Microsoft is probably asking, but they are offering superior answers every quarter. The latest Xbox is the slickly packaged Xbox Quest 3S. It looks great, it has a fantastic ad, and the value of what's in the box is sound. However what's being offered here to experience Xbox is poor -- it's the worst-in-class streaming service coupled with a fresnel lens VR headset that only has three pre-determined settings for the distance between your pupils -- this does not seem like a great way to play Xbox. This comes months after partnering to release handhelds that offer worse features and performance than the competitively priced and aging Steam deck. So the question is -- is a 5.4 inch phone connecting to Xbox Play Anywhere on a dodgy LTE signal with on-screen controls *still* the worst way to play Xbox? (But really: Is Xbox diluting their brand? How many Xboxes providing sub par experiences need to be sold before the Xbox brand is impacted?)

Someguyperson

Microsoft has a huge history of putting software on a pedestal and hating on hardware. Microsoft came to my college campus over a decade ago to recruit new hires and I asked about applying to work in the hardware department. The Microsoft employee literally laughed at me and said "we don't have a hardware department" - this is the culture at Microsoft. Panos left Microsoft for a reason: Microsoft hates making hardware. They're a software company and they only want to make software. Microsoft has only made hardware as a means to sell software. Particularly now that Azure and subscription models are driving all of Microsoft's revenue, they want to rid themselves of hardware and just sell software to everyone. If you paint these decisions in that light, it all starts to make more sense.

goregutz

Hi DF Masters. Here's a fun question for y'all. If you had to pick a winner, who would you say has more talented first party studios: Sony or Nintendo? Personally, I think Nintendo takes the cake because what they are able to do with the switch chip is nothing short of a miracle

goregutz

Hi DF crew! In a timeline where the Arc B570 exists, is the RTX 5050 a "waste of sand?" Has NVIDIA forgot how to make budget GPUs?

goregutz

Ahoy, DF mates! I asked this question before and you guys have also answered this question before but I feel like it makes more sense now that the switch 2 has been reviewed: any fresh suggestions for a swoled 2 besides the obvious (OLED screen)? Or is the answer still the same?

goregutz

Hi DF team! Can we please supply a switch 2 to Alex for reviewing? It'll be heaps of fun. I want to see Alex suffering as he makes the most boring switch 2 review ever. Maybe it can be called: "switch 2 review: a perspective of someone who doesn't care". We might also call thos format of review the "anti review".

goregutz

Hi DF peoples. Does the launch of the desktop 5050 signal that NVIDIA feels threatened that it might be loosing the budget segment of the market or that's it's a valuable enough demographic to release a product for? I'm struggling to understand the rationale for this abysmal product's release. Why are they trying to compete here after skipping the 4050? What did they feel they lost after not having released a 4050 desktop?

(Don’t be a) Richard

G’day team. Does the HDMI 2.2 specification that’s now available to manufacturers bring with it any advancements that will be of interest to the gaming community?

goregutz

Hi DF bespokers. The HDMI 2.2 specs just dropped. I think it's a no brainer that the next gen will adopt it. The question is how it will affect image quality and will it make any difference. Curious to hear your thoughts. Cheers.

Cameron

Please, do this lol

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

In a world where VRR is commonplace, should console games be targeting a frame rate range rather than a fixed frame rate? Or could they target an arbitrary frame rate? Apart from not being a traditional frame rate is there any problem with targeting, say, 45fps?

Cameron

I second this one, what's truly stopping them from creating a native Xcloud app or even a Gamepass app that leverages Valve's proton implementation and auto-adds games and art into the Steam Library? Seems like they have a chance to make the Steam Deck an Xbox lol

Frustumalignedvoxelfog

O illustrious conclave of rendering virtuosos, behold my verbose proclamation! With the Switch 2’s screen chugging along like an original Gameboy stuck in molasses, how soon can we expect aftermarket wizards to conjure up OLED or micro-LED upgrades with HDR that actually dazzles?

Cameron

Yes! I'm curious as well. I'm guessing we might need to watch for Star Wars Outlaws to really find out... but what can the onboard RT cores really offer from the limited resources of the handheld form factor. I'm curious because I'd really love to see UDNA and raytracing in the next Steam Deck as well. What can these devices really do and what trade-offs might be required?

Kirkland Spector

Hello DF! First time poster - fan since 2009’s esteemed “Uncharted 2 Tech Analysis” video! I have a question primarily for Dr. Battaglia. I’ve been playing KCD2 on max settings and am undecided on my preferred DLSS setting. When upscaling to 4k, quality mode averages around 60 fps while performance is closer to 90ish (I can't remember exactly). It has me questioning, which is more valuable, the visual detail of quality or the temporal clarity of performance from a higher framerate. I’m not opposed to playing at 60, so I’m less inclined to turn down settings. Assuming quality mode doesn’t max your monitor’s refresh rate, what is your preferred diss mode? Would you always pick performance in that case? Or maybe balance strikes *cough* the perfect balance. DF is a huge part of my life and I greatly appreciate the work you all do! With love from San Francisco :)

Cameron

They probably love the handheld PC market then, so it makes sense they're focusing there.

Cameron

I think John mentioned this in the review, he had the same hope that it might be added, and said that even if it does take more power it wouldn't matter as the extra battery time makes little difference if you find the experience lacking.

Kyrith

Hey, folks! We all know RT is where graphics are headed, and despite its lower power Switch 2 has proportionally more efficient RT capabilities than the other current gen consoles. So, bit of ludicrous speculation for you: Do you think there's any chance Nintendo might opt to make the next 3D Zelda their first big step into Ray tracing? Nintendo's often used Zelda as a graphics showcase, and by the time Switch 2's 3D Zelda comes out (2029?), RT will likely be all-but ubiquitous on other platforms. A dynamic open world is *the* use case for RT, and even the Xbox Series S was able to handle a solid RTGI implementation on Metro Exodus at 60fps. Could Nintendo accomplish something similar on Switch 2 at 30fps, provided they chose a conservative resolution target (dynamic 720p DLSS'd to 1080p perhaps)?

DaJaCo (Dan)

I think that once they open the flood gates to different store fronts etc - it will essentially become too much like a PC.. and everyone will buy their games on steam.. and then they risk people moving back to a valve device for better hardware integration.. Also whoever is the first mover on physical media abandonment is likely to get a massive public backlash, and microsoft seems to be on the most rapid trajectory towards that. PS6 will likely be a PS5 Pro scenario..no drive in the box; but available separately.. i.e. discouragement rather than abandonment.

Diego ElRey

Hello DF (exclamation point) Maybe since the middle of the 360 generation, the PC gaming experience has been console but you can turn everything up to 20. As a console enjoyer, playing console games turned up to 20 is exactly why I have a high end PC. For me personally it's great. But I wonder, where are the bespoke PC experiences aside from turning things up and mods? Is there going to be a game that utilizes my 9800X3D and 5090 in manner that can't be scaled to PS5 level hardware? As far as I know, every game starts at console and scales up. Is PC not a viable platform to have AAA level games made solely for it without need of a console? Even CP 2077, a PC 'showcase' needed the console sales/preorder from consoles to be financially viable.

Perfect_Organism

I feel like this has infected all of tech media. For example, The Verge has done multiple posts this week about it.

Jiminy the 26th

Hi, sorry if this was asked before but are you guys gonna look at the Minecraft “Vibrant Visuals” update? They added Bilinear upscaling and TAAU as options, and the game drops frames from 60 on my PS5, so I wonder how the quality compares using an iPhone. It’s the closest thing we have to the DXR demo 5 (yes!) years ago. Thanks!

Taylor Wiseman

Hello DF. This is a question for Oliver. Do you have any recommendations for Portable Monitors for the Switch 2? I live in 2 places, and it would be very convenient to have a portable screen so that I can dock my Switch anywhere I want.

Soundwave GI

Gentlemen. There is so much going on with the switch 2 right now that already has people (me) thinking about a hardware refresh to address things like ghosting of motion and no VRR with the dock. While those items can't likely be rectified easily with firmware updates, should we really expect much from Nintendo in regard to improving the hardware between now and the eventual release of the inevitable (and I'm coining this now) Switch TWOled?

tod weitzel

Is there anything interesting in the HDMI 2.2 specification? Will 16k matter for anything other than the Las Vegas Sphere? Can Latency Indication Protocol save us from AV sync Hell?

Taggen86

Why are nintendo so protective with their s2 dev kits? Its like n64 all over again and could be a very risky strategy. The list of upcoming s2 software is extremely small for a new console (especially indies)

Taggen86

Should we be worried about s2 iq/performance long term since we are already seeing games rendering at 360p?

Alan

Hi chaps, So Xbox once again lays thousands more people off. One surely has to question what Xbox is doing, because apparently all the gaming corporations say there isn't enough profit being made from games, which is the reason they keep laying people off. Yet Xbox seems to have gone all-in on being just a publisher and developer. If they keep laying people off, there won't be anyone left to make the games!

Aaron Udy

Sorry, I forgot to say... Hello there Deefers!

BespokeEP

I question whether MS would use it based on their odd choices for things this generation. I mean they used wifi5 (which was released to the public in 2013) and the console only has 3 USB 3.1 type A ports that can only transfer at 5Gbps aka 625MB/s.

BespokeEP

Uncompressed chroma at 4K@240 with up to 12 bit colour … but there doesn’t appear to be any big gaming features like we got with 2.1. There honestly isn’t a huge reason for it in console except to future proof for newer TV’s that may support 240Hz. But it will come down to cost. Cause you would be fine next gen at 4k120 4:4:4 with 12 bit colour which 2.1 can do. I imagine mark Cerny will be asking devs if they would even bother to target 240fps if given the option

BespokeEP

Chips Ahoy!? Yum 🤤

Videogmz

​Hello DF, Long-time listener, but this is my first time writing in. I’ve always agreed with John that 60 FPS is a design decision. There used to be a general sentiment that console gamers didn’t really care about 60 FPS. However, this generation is the first time console players have had a real choice between performance and quality modes. We now have data (during PS5 Pro release) showing that around 75% of players on PS5 choose performance mode. Historically, console gamers never had this choice, nor did we have data to understand their preferences. But now that most gamers clearly prefer 60 FPS, shouldn’t developers start designing their games with that as a priority?

Ednamode

The potential transition of Xbox away from dedicated consoles to a more PC-hybrid approach makes me wonder about the low level apis/optimization that define console video games. Is low level, "coding to the silicon" already sort of dead in the new age of multi-platform games barring some first party switch games?

digitalfoundry

TVs already do it, but the latency hit is pretty bad.

digitalfoundry

Quite possibly but this doesn't help people who bought third party games on Xbox One or Xbox Series consoles...

Marcus

Do you think there is a way to get it running better? Something like a the old Gsync modules running in the monitor to get it more viable for gaming? We have seen so many weird “AI” features out of monitor makers and they struggle to differentiate their monitors for all the other companies making monitors with the same Samsung or LG panel.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Don't worry, the "Two Tins (of paint)" strategy is bulletproof. They definitely won't destroy their brand identity... ... ...

DaJaCo (Dan)

There have been 3 new patents from Nintendo this week that would suggest otherwise, it looks like they are trying to find novel ways to efficiently use the RT cores. One of them looks like SSR but using RT to solve occlusion and edge of screen problems. Something is brewing, when we'll see it - who knows.. would love to see a zelda game with RTGI

DaJaCo (Dan)

UDNA should have double the RT of RDNA 4.. and RDNA 4 is roughly double the RT performance of RDNA 3 and RDNA 3 is roughly 50% more performant at RT than RDNA 2.. so.. The performance jump from RDNA 2 to UDNA should be (very roughly speaking), about 6x the performance.. add this to die shrink improvements and it could be really potent. This will essentially be the basis for Sony's next handheld.. likely 16 CUs of UDNA

DaJaCo (Dan)

Perish the thought HDMI 2.2 does not possess the magic ingredient: Nostalgia

DaJaCo (Dan)

This is why nanite for vegetation is huge, imagine if Clair Obscur had it.. easy peasy performant ultra veg!

Jasper

Hi DF gentlemen, how is the image quality in the new graphics mode for fast fusion after the latest update?

BespokeEP

There’s a really strange misconception that there are tons of games that don’t have a 60fps option this gen. I think there is less than 5 games on PS5, all 3rd party, that launched with no 60fps option out of over 6000 PS5 games or so. Xbox is a slightly different story, and I fully blame SeriesS. They have had the same 5 or so that PS5 had, plus 4 or 5 1st party games that launched at 30. But SeriesX|S also only has about half the amount of total games as PS5. And a good thing to note is most games are GPU bound, not CPU, so the fact that SeriesS has virtually the same CPU as the X, really means nothing in terms of performance

Videogmz

Totally agreed. People who buy Xbox Series S shouldn't expect 60 FPS or high-resolution games (sometimes both). If you recall, Remedy did mention that Alan Wake 2 was built with 30 FPS in mind for console and performance mode was introduced later in development. That's why Alan Wake 2 performance mode isn't great; it's locked at 60 FPS on PS5 and low resolutions as well.

Samuel Gao

The only true architectural advantage consoles have over desktop PCs is shared memory between the CPU and GPU. This reduces the need for copy operations between separate memory pools during frame rendering. However, the CPU and GPU are still separate execution units, each with their own registers and caches. On desktop PCs, this separation leads to higher latency penalties, which is why AMD’s X3D cache architectures (like Ryzen X3D) help so much—they reduce CPU memory access delays. Consoles, by contrast, were effectively born with unified memory, and benefit from it inherently. Still, rendering on consoles is fundamentally brute force, just like on PC. Game engines must be optimized around the general-purpose nature of x86 hardware. To compensate, modern consoles bundle highly integrated APUs, dedicated I/O decompression hardware, and PCIe 4.0/5.0-class bandwidth, which allows the CPU and GPU to efficiently share memory without constant copy-state stalls. That said, since both CPU and GPU cores are still general-purpose, consoles don’t offer something radically different—they just provide a more efficient and better-optimized PC gaming experience, not a truly bespoke platform. The one major exception is the Nintendo Switch, where developers—especially first-party—can still code directly to a tightly defined ARM-based SoC with a fixed GPU configuration. That makes true low-level, console-specific optimization viable in ways that modern x86-based consoles largely no longer support.

Samuel Gao

Developers have been coding for PCs first ever since consoles switched to x86 architecture. You’ve got it flipped — it’s not that PCs are acting like consoles, it’s that consoles became specialized PCs. You're thinking of consoles as "custom silicon," but since the PS4 and Xbox One, they’ve essentially just been fixed-spec APUs in a locked ecosystem. PCs, on the other hand, are built on scalability — the culture is: “throw in a bigger engine and see how far we can push it.” That’s why modern games still run — and look great — on GPUs that are 10+ years old. Take Alan Wake 2. It was initially supposed to require mesh shaders — then got patched to run without them — and still looks phenomenal on Pascal GPUs. That’s PC design: flexible, adaptive, forward and backward compatible. So when you ask, “What can a PC do that a PS5 can’t?” — the honest answer is: nothing—unless developers are told not to let it. And that happens not because of hardware limits, but because of market decisions, like trying to enforce hardware exclusivity or artificial minimum specs. (Consoles can just turn settings down to '1' if they need to)

BespokeEP

Xbox’s biggest problem is they promised that the SeriesS would run games identically to SeriesX, just at either 1440p60 or 1080p120. They even had a video on their YT channel promising exactly that, but they deleted it… thankfully it’s still up on IGN’s website https://youtu.be/u6ftY7t8bJ0?si=IEd7EoxiQ4reZwWW

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

If Nvidia launched a console tomorrow at a good price, with a fast ARM CPU and 5070 level performance, with all the Nvidia trimmings like DLSS, frame gen and ray tracing, do you think it would succeed? I'm wondering whether it's realistic these days for to have two cutting edge home consoles competing in the market, even if it was the (reasonable) best of breed from a technical perspective.