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Hello there and as regular as clockwork, here we are with our appeal for your input into the next episode of DF Direct Weekly! Topics are looking thin on the ground - as usual for the pre-Gamescom period - but we're hoping to get a look at VRR support for Cyberpunk 2077 on consoles, John will be sharing his thoughts on the remarkable new version of Doom for SNES with its own custom SuperFX 3 "chip" while Alex is going to spend some time looking into RT failures on Unreal Engine 4 games running on RDNA 4.

We might spend some time discussing Donkey Kong Bananza's Switch 1 origins and perhaps get some more insights on the game from John, but something else curious we're aiming to look at is Hitman: World of Assassination on Switch 2. You can use the system display menus to drop output to 720p and this does actually seem to reduce game resolution accordingly on the fly. Hitman 720p vs 1080p benchmarks on Switch 2? Might be interesting.

However, DF Direct Weekly is nothing without your input, so do feel free to comment on the topics and also to pose any and all questions for the team. It'll be Rich (ie me), John and Alex on the panel this week and your deadline for input is 7am BST Friday. Thanks!

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Comments

sirseky

Is there going to be coverage of CP2077 on Mac?

Mario Rosa

Hello, team! I think one of the main benefits of consoles sharing similar architectures nowadays is that we usually get ports that are comparable in terms of performance (as I mainly play games on PlayStation platforms, I do NOT miss the days of atrocious PS3 ports) and would prefer console makers to maintain that for future generations. However, I do kind of miss seeing the different, interesting and sometimes absolutely weird ports we used to get back the 16/32 bit console days. Sometimes, those ports were entirely different games! Do you guys ever miss those days? You have to admit there is a certain "boredom" to analysis when the differences are mainly resolutions, frame rates and loading times. This is actually one of the reasons why I enjoy DF Retro episodes so much.

Blam Supplebut

Nintendo has found massive success with the Switch by unifying its handheld and console businesses, while Sony appears to be testing a hybrid approach—maintaining a traditional console while exploring handheld extensions. Meanwhile, Microsoft seems focused on converging the PC and console ecosystems, though its strategy feels less transparent. From your perspective, which of these platform strategies is the most compelling or sustainable in the long run? And where do you think the industry is ultimately heading in terms of hardware convergence and platform identity?

FirmFirman

Hey DF crew, love the show - long time watcher, first time asker. When you look back at GTA V’s launch on PS3 and Xbox 360, what technical achievement do you think is the most overlooked? Things like streaming, LODs, AI routines—it honestly felt like a miracle at the time. Similarly, looking ahead to GTA VI, what do you think might end up being the biggest technical achievement there?

ConcreteLlama

Some time ago you were investigating ways to quantify image quality. What are your thoughts on Intel's new "Computer Graphics Visual Quality Metric" tool and do you think it could be useful for your content?

Jack Craig

When did RT and hyperrealism become a marker of next generation technology? Where does the industry go from here

Having an AI-neurysm

Oblivion’s 1.2 patch is now available on all platforms. Does it actually do anything or is it still placebo as seen in Alex’s testing of the Steam beta version last week?

Nils Roos

PS5 Pro will get FSR4 support next year. A Frankenstein RDNA2/3/4 architecture nobody knows what it is really capable off in comparison to desktop solutions. Since I ordered a Framework Desktop with Strix Halo I asked myself how likely it is that RDNA 3.5 will get FSR 4 aswell. It does not support FP8 like RDNA3 but it is often (always?) accompanied by a strong NPU based on XDNA2. Could this NPU help out the GPU lifting the AI calculations needed for FSR4?

Marcus

Hello foundrymen. Donkey Kong Bananza seems to be quite a success on the reviews front. Including IGN giving it a 10 out of 10. What’s your perspective on if a review score should include performance or not. Should a game like cyberpunk 2077 on the PS4 receive a worse score because of how it ran? Maybe that’s an extreme example, but how do you look at this issue? Hope you have a good week!

Léon

Hi DF team, I'm struggling a lot with the amount of time I spend daily looking at computer and phone screens. I have started reading more books related to my hobbies. What would be your suggestions for interesting books related to videogames and the technical topics you cover? Perhaps you could even ask the wider audience to chime in with some book suggestions in the comments? Thanks so much!

Full House's John SteamOS

Given DF Direct seems to be the best medium for you to provide one-minute analyses and updates instead of making full-blown videos, could you please provide a quick analysis of Wolfenstein II and No Man Sky on Switch 2? On the OG Switch, John chugged the former down to about 360p 25fps in its DRS, and the latter Olie dragged down to about 1fps with UGC. Do it again on Switch 2 this time, go on lads.

1040STF

I've read some controversy on social medias (what a surprise) about John's fair review of Donkey Kong Bananza. Let's settle this: where do you put the line between acceptable performance drops and unacceptable ones to enjoy a good game?

Zero

Hi Gents! If you had to pick a single game that would set a standard level of graphics for the industry, where all games would look as good and use the same great tech, but then new games would never go past that level, what game would it be?

Stop the Spread

Am I missing something? John didn’t say the performance was terrible. He said it ran fine except in some instances we’d here are you guys getting this?

Josh O'Roake

The Genesis game Paprium has been a hot topic in the retro game scene. It's recently been made playable through software emulation. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this topic, as the nuances between piracy and preservation are unique given Watermelon's history of distribution issues. I'm also curious of your general thoughts of the game.

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hello gentlemen! Alex, last week you said you were going through your „backlog” and playing mostly PC titles from the early 2000s. Is there any game you’ve recently played that you think should be remade with RT? Of course, I’m curious to hear what everyone thinks about it. Cheers!

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Dear Founders, what video game soundtracks you often come back to? Do you ever listen to them when working on your projects? Cheers!

BespokeEP

Jason Schreier’s books are all really good, his latest, “Play Nice,” is all about the rise and fall of Blizzard. And his other two, “Press Reset” and “Blood, Sweat and Pixels” are also both excellent reads.

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hey DF crew, have you ever hosted a couch multiplayer session with more than one member of the team? Perhaps some oldschool lan-party? I know you’re split between the UK and Deutschland but I can defo see it’s happening at some point. Cheers!

Marcus

Personally, I don’t think an entire boss battle being 30 FPS and other less egregious examples of subpar performance is acceptable in a $80 title that’s releasing on a singular platform a month and a half after the console’s launch. I didn’t say that performance was horrible, but if I would’ve rated the game at 10 out of 10 otherwise if a game has this type of performance issues, it would be a 9 out of 10 for me. I fundamentally think that a console should provide a smooth gameplay experience, especially for first party titles and especially for titles coming out on a singular platform. On platforms without VRR, which I consider the switch 2 as being considering that the docked mode does not support it, I don’t find relatively common frame rate drops acceptable.

FullyTorqued

What’s everyone’s favorite Doom level? Across the entire series.

Clay R.

Morning, y'all! If you're willing, I'd love to hear some prognostications. It seems there's a small trend now with many recent Nvidia GPU generations implementing a major new feature as a selling point (e.g. RTX for Turing, FG for Ada, MFG for Blackwell). What would you speculate are the big features in future generations that could be similarly paired with new architectures? Frame extrapolation? Variable FG? Whatever the heck neural rendering is? Cheers!

Question Generated By JensenGPT

Spawn Wave did some jury-rigging and found that the Switch 2 dock supports VRR output to external displays without issue when you connect a PC to it (he used a Steam Deck) meaning the reason Switch 2 doesn't support it at the moment is arbitrary and is locked away due to software configuration. Do you see this changing at any point?

Andreas Wright

No talk about the nee Ghost of Yotei Gameplay Reveal? Shame I guess but no state of the art graphics or game engine so gets ignored 🤔

Stop the Spread

Oh, please. The game generally runs fine given the gameplay and John’s own review. I don’t care, honestly… I don’t have a Switch nor a Switch 2. I likely won’t (my ps5 and gaming PC has been collecting dust), but I can’t stand this narrative. Y’all just say anything. It’s an over the top example. Eat a snickers.

Eric Benoit

Hey DF Crew, I was just wondering when you're reviewing a new game, how far into the game do you play before you're comfortable giving an assessment? There must be a real time constraint because the review of the game has to be more or less concurrent with the games release. Does someone play the entire game and share the save files? Have you had an experience where a game plays well in the beginning but there are major problems in the end (Mass Effect 3 on PS3 for me)? I noticed other reviews from other sources don't really seem to go beyond the first 10 minutes of a game.

Mr Bespoke

Hi DF Crew! Did Alex get around to finishing his pizza after caressing it through out the Decompilation of Mario Kart 64 video? And was that the Mortal Kombat Champagne Alex poring in to a glass? Thanks and keep up the Awesome work!!

Marcus

I’m sorry, but I don’t know what narrative you think I’m trying to propagate here. My question was about if a game can be rated a high review score while having performance issues and how the digital foundry team considers a review that doesn’t look at performance at all when calculating a score. That was my question I’m not saying that the game is unplayable. I’m sure it does run generally fine. I’m about to start playing it now actually I just got home from picking it up but that’s not really my point. I’m not trying to grand about how bad the performance is. I’m interested in if the team thinks a reviewer should consider performance When calculating a review score.

Shadowreaper

Guten Tag die Herren! [I can't wait to hear Rich attempt to say that ↻(𓄼 .̀ ̮.́)Ψ ] Are there any technologies or game engines which have disappeared over time that you would love to see make a comeback? (no matter how feasible that really is) personally I kind of want to see what a modern Unreal Engine 3 project could achieve. Arkham Knight STILL looks great somehow but imagine if it targeted modern consoles, you could probably crank the visual target straight past 11 and comfortably go for 12. I'd imagine that iIf you got together a group of Devs who are crafty enough to work around it's limitations, you could assemble a rather pretty looking game. But enough about me, I'd love to hear what the team can come up with :3

BespokeEP

I think John’s will be the SuperFX :D

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

I have been pondering the 'long tail' issue, where everything published today competes with everything published in the past - which has been an issue for new music, films, TV and games. Game preservation instinctively feels right, but does it not end up harming the industry?

Snorlax cat

if it was astrobot vs DK Bananza? which one is a better platformer? Bananza rewrites the book, but astrobot dared to charge on nintendo at its own game and succeeded in doing so before Bananza.

Snorlax cat

bonus question: if the switch 2 does switch resolutions according to output does this mean that will see the return of the triple?

Snorlax cat

insert chad warden face here

Someguyperson

The Analogue 3D might finally come out next month! What N64 games would you want to play on it? Would you use it to make more N64 content, or would you prefer to use original content?

Someguyperson

This week Microsoft announced the ability to stream Game Pass games to your PC. Do you think they could bring "backwards compatibility" of older Xbox titles to PC via streaming and would that potentially get around the legal issues around emulation?

VeryProfessionalDodo

Going to hard disagree there. Not only new movies, shows and music can still have success while competing with older offerings, gaming needed to has evolved much quicker than movies and music. I can still listen and enjoy an album from 1995, but that doesn't mean I'll enjoy playing a game from that time. New games are so much better in so many areas that sometimes it's hard to go back and tolerate so many issues, be it performance or game design

VeryProfessionalDodo

@TatsuMaki I don't think it's unreasonable to question how performance and visuals can impact a game's score. It can directly impact your enjoyment of the game, so it should deserve fair criticism. I would personally expect a 10/10 game to have near flawless performance, especially taking into consideration it's a Switch 2 exclusive, made by a first-party developer. Not sure what narrative you're thinking of (at least I haven't seen any discourse online, nor do I care that much), so I wonder if you might not be projecting a bigger narrative onto a valid question.

beer chugger 209

Hello DF KFC crew. I just wanted to share I sold my series X so I can buy a switch 2. Any SD cards brands or sizes that are good ? Or they all fine speed wise for it ? Also HDMI docks. I don’t have enough ports for my ps5 and switch 2. Steam deck to plug into. Thank you

BespokeEP

I don’t think we have enough information to make any judgment, it was a 4k60fps feed, compressed YouTube stream. But people saying they couldn’t see any improvements are out to lunch. Lighting, volumetric fog, draw distance (the fact that you could see trees blowing off on the horizon is insane). The sheer density of the foliage(which is all dynamic), the amount of birds all animating on screen at the same time and never just disappearing, like they do in every other game. The improvements over Tsushima are massive (graphics are not everything, especially when doubling frame rate) people just have a very skewed perception of what is possible when Tsushima already looked better than 90% of “next gen” games

Julian Shniter

In this post Moore age we live in GPUs are relying on software based ML to get more “performance.” How do you think CPU makers will get more performance, since ML is a more GPU specific technology to begin with.

RAVE_DAM0S

Gentlemen of the Digital Foundry, Given Microsoft's push toward an Xbox PC hybrid architecture for next gen consoles rumored for 2027, and knowing console designs take several years from proof-of-concept to launch, what clues could Digital Foundry look for in today's PC hardware that might reveal the core architecture of those future devices? If it's still too early for a reliable read, at what milestone or hardware release window would be the ideal time to perform that analysis? Cheers!

Someguyperson

Do you think DK Bananza is a game you should wait to play for performance patches? It seems odd for a Nintendo game, but not having VRR support below 40 Hz in handheld mode and the seemingly obvious omission of DLSS makes it seem like Nintendo could resolve some technical issues in fairly short order. Also, that one boss John mentioned in his coverage looks so bad that it appears to be a bug or something. Do you think these issues will ever be patched?

Someguyperson

I got an email this week from Dbrand saying, "Because we need to produce about half a million sets of Joy-Lock Grips for the replacement program, our next production batch is delayed." This would seem to indicate that about 10% of all Switch 2 owners bought the Dbrand case for their Switch 2, which is the most expensive case for the device. Given that fact, do you think Nintendo would have sold out of Switch 2s if they cost $550 and had an OLED screen? Do you think most of the sales in the first year is all the fanboys who would buy the thing regardless of how much it cost?

Sloth

Videos and internet articles are obviously well suited to Digital Foundry's content, but what are some aspects of print magazines that you miss these days – either as a former editor or reader? For example, I still have my old PC Gamer UK and PC Zone issues and like having something tangible on my shelves and flicking through old issues to see what was happening more generally at the time in a way that isn’t always easy replicatable online.

Peter

Hello DF crew, hope the week is treating you well. With Death Stranding 2 inevitably hitting PC at some point, I was wondering if you had thoughts as to how the game could realistically push beyond what's on console from a technical point of view? Could we see RT implemented (AO or GI would have a big impact I presume). Anything beyond the standard "framerate and Res" boost. Also, do you think we will see a port this year?

Thomas Trala

After seeing Alex’s Spaghetti Kart video and his sensual pizza shots. It made me want to ask - what’s your favorite pizza toppings and style of pizza?

Auro

Do you think we could see customizable controls on the Nintendo online retro controllers? GameCube controller with gyro feels like a perfect fit for donkey Kong bananaza except you’d want L/R to swap ZL / ZR, snes controller could be great for rayman legends except once again the shoulder buttons need to swap.

James Darley

Hi DigitalFounderers! I saw an article today that alluded to Neural Texture Compression and DXR 1.2 Cooperative Vectors potentially reducing the amount of VRAM used by textures by up to 90% and granting significant performance boosts too. If such technologies becomes widely adopted, do you think it will grant 8GB GPUs a stay of execution?

Pol Kallamata

Its seeming unlikely that there will be a big push towards 8K TV adoption by the time the next generation of consoles comes out. Do you foresee any other nascent display technology being pushed along with new gaming hardware in 2 to 3 years time? Or are TVs with the current set of high end features that consoles use (120hz, HDR, VRR, 4K etc.) going to be already set to fully make use of the coming generation?

Alan

Hi Guys, Staff laid off by Micro$oft-owned Candy Crush developer King are being replaced by AI tools they helped create! former staff have claimed! Your thoughts? Time for PC gamers to switch to Linux? Can SteamOS on PC take the fight to M$?

Kyrith

Hey DF! Shin'en Multimedia got two beautiful games running at 1080/60fps on Switch 1. If even they can only get their generational leap in fidelity running at 540p-ish/60 + upscaling on Switch 2, what hope is there for other 3rd parties to achieve decent image quality? Fast Fusion's a lot of fun, but at higher speeds, it gets hard to see far enough ahead to ready your jumps :/

Doughy

DF Pals! I was curious to see that DK Bananza is using FSR 1.0 yet again, do y’all think this is because the game was most likely developed early on with Switch 1 in mind and they transitioned development over to switch 2? I find it interesting that they didn’t even attempt to use DLSS for a flagship title on their new platform.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Some of the features within HDMI 2.2 could be utilised. There could be a wider range of fixed frame rates for setting frame containers.. new options may become standards in the same way 40fps is replacing 30fps on HDMI 2.1 displays.

Jasper Chauvin

Hey all! I was curious about any thoughts y’all have about the ghost of yotei state of play. The game does look better, but still very similar to Ghost of Tsushima. Still though, some of the open world environments scenes like when atsu is riding her horse through the flowers, I can’t help but wonder how much better scenes like that could really look with an overhauled engine. Would raytracing and something like nanite make a huge difference there? I suspect it wouldn’t be hugely transformative and then you’d potentially lose a lot of image quality. A game like AC Shadows has this beautiful RTGI for example but then you can’t even experience that in 60fps on base PS5. Also curious on any thoughts y’all have on the game informer interview with the directors where they talked a bit about the tech upgrades. Thanks!

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half-Fortnight Lads! There has been quite a bit of chatter about neural texture compression this week, and while it may unfortunately prolong the grief induced by 8GB GPUs.. It occurred to me that it is a technology that could be much more meaningful on highly memory bandwidth contrained portables. Could AMD's equivalent NTBC run on the next playstation portable..and play nice with their rumoured 'odd' memory config.. or could a "super light NTC" version run on the switch 2, perhaps at the cost of disabling DLSS to free up tensor cores?

The Knight Who Says Ni!

John, do you use any of the current-gen consoles on the RetroTINK, and if so, what are the benefits?

SonOfFaith

Hey DF Team looking to get your thoughts on the recent Ghost of Yotei showing and what sort of improvements you noticed in the graphics or are anticipating from the final game. Have a great week.

Samdenn

Hey gents, have any of you tested or played with any of the new XR/AR glasses meant to be used with portable gaming devices? I'm curious to hear from the experts, especially John's opinion on the clarity of the newer micro OLED displays

shedi1982

Salutations gents! With the 2.3 update to cyberpunk not having a dedicated ps5 pro patch do you think they ever will support ps5 pro

Stephen Heim

Hiya Gents! I feel like Alex, as I can't believe I'm about to talk about the Switch 2. i'm not exactly part of that targeted audience but I got a question? I recently found out that Nintendo has restricted most third-party docks on the Switch 2 by making changes to the USB-C standard. Making most unofficial docks incompatible now which forces users (and Parents) to buy Nintendo’s expensive official dock at a eye-watering $120 freedom dollars. Is this anti-competitive or monopolistic behavior? or just business as usual for Nintendo? No lawsuits have been filed so far from what I could see and for all I know this is completely legal. What are your thoughts on it as gamers and as tech reviewers. Thank you all, for everything you do.

Stop the Spread

There has never been a 10/10 game with flawless performance. Ever. Stop deluding yourselves you tech obsessed consuming weirdos. Christ. Not even defending Nintendo here, because, frankly, f#%* Nintendo, but this shit had to stop.

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hello there, games using the output resolution you set up in the display settings seems like quite an easy thing to implement, or am I wrong? Why don’t we see it more often? Cheers

Kim

DF! Always interested to hear your hypotheses about the bewildering, uncertain future of Xbox, so I'm wondering if you guys have thoughts about the future of Xbox Live? Maybe I'm too young and don't know my gaming history, but my understanding is that “universal” friends lists, gamerscores, and achievements that go with each player across the platform from game to game started with Microsoft and Xbox Live. But if Xbox's next generation will include/allow games from Steam, PlayStation Network, GOG, EA etc, is there still an incentive for Xbox's (third-party) developers to bother with Xbox integration? Why might Epic, for example, maintain versions of Fortnite and Fall Guys and Rocket League that integrate with Xbox, when they can point Xbox players to the Epic Games Store? And if games aren't supporting Xbox's social features, then why would players want to invest in their Xbox Live profiles anymore? Isn't the network effect supposed to one of the things that makes a product sticky? Is it the correct choice for Microsoft to leave the gaming social network they pioneered to wither like Nintendo's Mii? Outsource that aspect entirely to the likes of Discord, Steam, Facebook Messenger? (Or perhaps Xbox's next generation social is…Teams…? Yikes.) Lastly, do you guys like chasing achievements and trophies?

Marcus

I don’t know if you’ve played Donkey Kong Bananza, but I have and the frame drops are really common. I wouldn’t say they are game breaking, but the game does not feel fully smooth in docked mode. A large part of that is obviously the lack of VRR. I did not say that I was expecting flawless performance actually I wasn’t really talking specifically about donkey Kong I was more wondering how the crew feel about the topic of how performance should affect a game score.

Punished Chad Warden

Performance and stability of Halo 2, especially (but not limited to) Anniversary mode, is TERRIBLE on my Series X. I don't recall encountering this severity of stuttering and instability on my One X back in the day. Stutters on camera movement in static situations on Metropolis. Dynamic situations in Flood levels are a particular disaster. These are observations from singleplayer - splitscreen co-op was unplayable in Anniversary mode. What do we think is going on? I thought we moved on from abysmal stability in the MCC years ago? This is a 10+ year old game designed for the VCR Xbox One. Disappointing to say the least.

Buddha

Hey chaps, Do you think Xbox's likely move away from traditional consoles will lead to more or less innovation in DirectX?

Eric Benoit

I just noticed Xbox is no longer selling movies or TV shows on their store. No more Kinect, backwards compatibility program stopped, now you can't purchase media. Do you think it's necessary, in Microsofts drive to make everything an Xbox, to get rid of features on the Xbox itself?

Rostislav Ulbricht

Thanks for great content DF! I heard about improved Cyberpunk 2.3 on PS5 Pro, 80fps in performance mode. How would you compare this to potential proper Pro patch they said won't happen? For example whether we could see improved ray tracing with decent FPS using PSSR? reference https://www.gamesradar.com/games/rpg/cyberpunk-2077-patch-2-3-has-ps5-pro-owners-living-their-best-life-as-v-can-now-slice-through-night-city-in-40fps-on-quality-mode-and-80fps-in-performance-mode/

Eirik M.Jenssen

Hello again gents! I have a simple question regarding rey reconstruction. Is there a reason why ray reconstruction is not more widely used in ray traced games? I am thinking especially of why its not an option in Doom The Dark Ages, even without pathtracing, or hell, even in Gta 5 enhanced edition. I was under the impression that ray reconstruction is quite the leap and not THAT more costly when its denoising lots of ray tracing (shadows, lighting, AO, reflections etc) compared to a standard denoiser. Am I wrong?