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Hello everyone - and it's that time again. Every Thursday, I turn up here to post about the next episode of DF Direct Weekly. I talk about the topics we're going to discuss and then invite you to share your comments on those topics and pose your questions about them - or indeed anything else you fancy.

One of those topics concerns Star Wars Outlaws on Nintendo Switch 2. We've talked about it a couple of times on the Direct before, always after seeing media which... doesn't look particularly great. We've also described how important it is for Switch 2 as it's the first triple-A port that doesn't have a PS4 version. Well, the game is in, the review is happening hopefully tomorrow and it's a revelation. Hardware RT, DLSS, reasonable resolutions, good performance. It's transformed from all previous showings, including that PAX West demo everyone was moaning about. We'll be sharing our impressions there because this is remarkable. Oliver said it was "shocking" but it turned out he meant shockingly good!

Other topics? PS5 Digital getting a storage downgrade is on the sheet, alongside Capcom's complaints about the system being too expensive. We'll be discussing 007 First Light - which we saw (under embargo) at Gamescom and we may well be discussing Take-Two's abortive attempts in buying Perfect Dark.

But here's where you come in - any interesting topics you'd like to see discussed? Any questions for the team? Do let us know. It'll likely be Rich (ie me), John and Alex at the mics - with a special guest appearance from Oliver talking Outlaws.

It's at this point where I typically refer you to the empty box below and I'm nothing if not predictable. Thanks!

Files

Comments

1040STF

The Coalition bringing Unreal Engine 3 on current gen consoles is cool... but didn't Neatherealm already did that in 2020 with the current gen versions of Mortal Kombat 11? That game does indeed run on a custom version of UE3. Does that "custom" aspect disqualifies it as a true port of UE3? If so, why?

Perfect_Organism

What’s the most interestingly boring problem that’s proved to be an impossibly deep rabbit hole that you’ve had to solve since going independent? I want to hear all about the most boring of deep minutia.

Mab7373822

Hi Digitals of the Foundries... Hollow Knight Silksong has been out for barely 10 minutes at the time of me writing this question, but it has already caused quite a commotion! (1) Polygon is annoyed that the release date is too soon for journalists to cope with. (2) Indies have had to delay their releases so they don't get lost in Silksong's wake. (3) Some gamers are miffed that Team Cherry have bypassed traditional gaming media launch reviews. (4) The price point has caused debate that the game is too cheap and some Indies have publicly expressed worry that their smaller but more expensive titles, will now be perceived as overpriced, causing long term damage to their prospects and gaming as a whole, and (5) digital storefronts have been crashing and spitting up errors as users try to make a purchase. So Silksong has come out and now everything is on fire. Simply put: Have you ever known anything like it?!

Dexter

Hey Alex - Doom Dark Ages Path Tracing Optimized settings? :D

CrispyNougat

Silk song just broke steam. Just thought you'd like to know.

Lexxington87

Can we get a primer on Special K and Lossless Scaling? For those who needs a few more baby words on how to best use these tools in conjunction with the standard options. Do you use them all at the same time? One over another? What buttons are on and what are off etc. Thanks!

Dave Brown

Would love to hear updated thoughts on Valve's 'console' ambitions and the current state of SteamOS on desktop PCs!

minty-hippo

Hi Foundrymen! For John/Alex: have you seen any of the recently leaked footage of Prey 2? It got me wondering if Bethesda will ever revisit this series in either the original or 2017 flavors...Prey (2006) could make for a decent Nightdive remaster given their great working relationship with Bethesda. Thanks for all you guys do!

Marcus

Now Star Wars outlaws running well on the switch 2. I haven’t personally bought it, but I’ve taken a look at the content uploaded by other users and wow. It’s incredibly good. Is this the DLSS difference? Beyond that do you think this indicates that other big titles could be ported to the switch 2? Assassin‘s creed shadows seems obvious considering it even has a steamdeck compatible ultra low setting. Outside of the Ubisoft there there are a number of heavy games that I’ve come out this generation that seemed like they could run well on the switch 2. What about the tantalising possibility of Sony porting titles to the switch considering their statements about it not being a direct competitor? Thank you for your time!

Matt

With ps5 storage size downgrade, it was notable call of duty also got a huge storage requirement cut. Down from around 150gb to 25gb, was this simply terrible optimisation or as some say a strategy to keep CoD as the only installable “big” game release each year ?

Alon Shen

What is the best PC overlay you recommend using (RTSS, Nvidia app, Steam, etc) for monitoring metrics such as frame rate, frame pacing, etc?

Eric Benoit

Hello revered Foundrymen, if it's possible to shock Oliver with a great version of Star Wars Outlaws on Switch 2, shouldn't Nintendo/Capcom have a non-clouded version of Resident Evil 2/3/7 with similiar features of Star wars Outlaws? And would RE 8 be a bridge too far?

Critically Wild

Has Outlaws on Switch 2 opened any doors in your minds in terms of the switch 2's capabilities overall? Earlier assets were really rough and it seemed like it couldn't wind up as good as it has; that talk did seem to centre around the hardware more than what the devs could pull off — so, doors? Opened? Ajar?

The Phantomnaut

With Perfect Dark’s recent cancelled publishing efforts coming to light, was this reboot doomed to fail no matter what? Aside from the many departures during development, the recent effort to revive it with different companies seemed like nobody had an idea to keep the project afloat. The idea of having Microsoft, Take Two, and The Embracer Group (Crystal Dynamics) handling this just seems like a complicated web of who gets the money. At this point, should Perfect Dark be left alone indefinitely?

Dan

Hello Digital Founders, Application code is supposed to be deterministic, so why do shaders differ between different hardware configurations? There must be something I'm missing here. Thanks and have a great day!

YourMotherBoardIsSoFatItsFrontSideBusIsABackplane

Ahoy-hoy! About a year and a half ago you all took a look at the DeckHD replacement LCD screen. A new challenger has entered the market! The DeckSight from Shade Technik. It's a 1080p OLED screen replacement for the LCD Steam Deck. Have you heard of it and would you consider doing a review?

AMH

Hey DF crew, Haven’t seen the Star Wars outlaws overview yet (it’s not out as I write this) but I have played the game and it was a pleasant surprise. Sure there are downgrades but it still looks like Star Wars outlaws and performs better than some very expensive PC handhelds. Do you think we can definitively say that nearly any game that can run at 60 fps on a base ps5 can potentially be ported to the switch 2? (With downgrades)

Skyrimfest 26 FPS Edition

Do you guys have a personal sweet spot for handheld screen size? My aging eyes now find anything less than 8 inches a chore! But is 10 inches too much to handle?

Ian

Yeah hi DFers I’ve played outlaws on the Roggggggg Ally and today had a go on switch 2 and SW2 has really shocked me with how much of a smoother performance it feels compared to handheld PC. Yes the resolution might be a bit lower and textures dialled back but it’s so smooth by comparison. You’ve already had a similar question but it got me thinking. If SWO with RT can run on the switch 2 what current gen software would be off the table if any?

Perfect_Organism

I have no idea about the technicals of MK11 but could it be running in “back combat plus” mode or whatever we’re calling it?

James

Hi gents! Are games getting worse? As a 43 year old, I feel like the current 'store shelf' for all modern platforms is much more diluted in quality, compared with say 25 years ago when releases had to be fully finished and high enough quality to sell. In the past we've seen the gaming 'bubble' burst when quality has dipped. I'm wondering if there are any predictions on if or when this might happen in modern times? Or have digital storefronts made this much less probable an outcome?

Snorlax cat

the ps5 base launched with 825 gigs. the ps5 slim upgraded to 1 tb. But there are two things I would like to point out. Most players who are upgrading at this point are those who play war zone and/or Fortnite plus Fifa. with 825 gigs you are good for that (666 usable). If that avoids a price increase so be it. The magic number is 512 usable (because series s had 330 usable and was not good enough). Also games are using more compression thanks to lumen and RTGI.

Simplex

Could you contact someone at Sony and Microsoft and ask them to implement integer scaling as an option in PS5 and Xbox Series X/S? It would be very useful when scaling backwards compatible games from 720p and 1080p to 4K. This works great on PC and has no performance cost.

Abhi

What do you think of Naoki Yoshida saying there’s no need for more hardware regarding the consoles? Has an active developer with a large presence been known to say something of the sort in the past?

Toa Axis

Hello gents! Long time viewer, first time question-er. What would the crew say are some personal standout examples of improvements to rendering/graphical fidelity between titles from a given developer? One that comes to mind for me is that jump from Deus Ex Human Revolution to Deus Ex Mankind Divided; the devs made excellent use of IO Interactive's Glacier engine and it was an almost unthinkable leap from the last game, which from a rendering standpoint I felt was rather dated even at release. With some modern features like ray tracing (and a more cromulent revision of the game's rather crusty TAA implementation), I would dare say it wouldn't be too far off from more modern releases on a visual level. But what examples stand out to you all? Go on, lads. ;)

DudleyTheGentleman

Hello resident frametime sommeliers, with Lossless Scaling introducing adaptive frame generation back in March, it seems like this is the next logical step for frame generation to go across the industry. Do you see this feature being adopted by the major graphics IHVs in the next generation? Should this be a standard, toggleable, option on future consoles (ie set target framerate and FG will do the rest)?

Dave Scholze

Hallo DF! What do you think of a video comparing base Unreal Engine 5 vs. the official NVidia RTX branch? With all the discussion lately it could be a very interesting indeed. Keep it up and greetings from Germany!

Jonathan Hamilton

Any impressions of the new No Man's Sky update on PSVR2?

HorizonOfANewDay

Is a Rog Xbox Ally X with eGPU a viable console/gaming PC alternative for a Switch Like experience? Given MS's track record, will they actually shore up the Xbox App experience or try for 3 years, abandon it, and cede the market to Valve?

Sloth

You've mentioned before about potentially doing explainer videos focused on aspects of technologies like ray tracing, upscaling etc. - but these presumably take a lot of work to create regularly. Would you consider instead doing a 10-20 minute segment on the Direct every month or so to discuss a topic in-depth as a team? These could then be uploaded to a playlist on the DF Clips channel too. Sometimes there are acronyms and terminology used in the Direct which might be unclear for newer viewers - so it would be good to create a space to explain technologies like these, giving the pros and cons from different team members' perspectives. I would like to see one on BVHs for example - which are often mentioned but I don't have a clear understanding of.

Real Frame Collector

Greetings to the citizens of the independent nation state of Digitalis Foundrious, seemingly YouTube has introduced changes to how video views are being counted with view count drops being noticed across a number of channels in recent weeks. Has this affected you kind folk and are there any medium to long term implications going forward?

Someguyperson

Re: Switch 2 dev kits, do you think Nintendo is extremely stingy with dev kits and didn't have any press units before launch because they're paranoid about Switch 2 hacks and piracy? I can't really see another reason why Nintendo would go to such lengths and potentially harm sales of consoles & software.

Someguyperson

There was a whole lot more shovelware back there on the store shelves. Now, all the shovelware is in digital stores. If a company puts out a physical game now, there's basically an expectation of ongoing updates, so from a product management perspective, why not push a game out ASAP and fix it as you go along?

Someguyperson

Is Switch 2 mobile performance capture impossible, or could someone hack an HDMI port to the ribbon cable that drives the internal display? Is there another feasible option on the table?

Belkeri

Hello DF Greats and greetings from Finland! Now that you are free from the evil megacorporations, I too decided to became a paying supporter. Only on the lowly peasant tier, but anyway. Do you have any plans to have an annual DF anniversary special on your independence day? The topics could vary from the history of DF, games or gaming technologies, about yourselves as persons, your favorite games, debates... Anything goes. I think it could be fun (at least for the viewers).

Real Frame Collector

Howdy DF crew! I'm afraid it's been nine years... I mean ten years since Metal Gear Solid 5 was released which was developed using the proprietary Fox engine, allowing for stunning 1080p visuals to run at 60fps on the PS4 and presumably similarly on Xbox One (guessing a lower resolution?). The visuals holds up quite well even compared to recent releases. However the Fox Engine never really got another release that could have showcased its strengths (ignoring PES and Survive). With proprietary engines losing popularity with developers, which abandoned engines would you want to be resurrected or preserved?

Someguyperson

As that one dev mentioned, the GPU in the Switch 2 is good, it has plenty of RAM, but the CPU will be a limiting factor. If a game has a lighter CPU load, the Switch 2 can make some crazy things happen. If a game is more CPU bound, the Switch 2 will fall flat compared to Steamdeck & the PS5.

Someguyperson

TSMC is raising prices of 2nm, 3nm, 5nm, and 7nm chips by 5%-10%. Will we see the price of gaming continue to climb?

Spodlude

Hi Team DF, hope youre having a fun week! I've been replaying all the gears games on xbox series s after finishing reloaded. I love how they're enhanced with FPS and resolution boost. I'd love to play it natively on my ROG but as of now for 360 titles the xbox is my only option outside of cloud gaming which the compression and latency feel poor. Do you think with the "everything's an xbox" mantra we will ever see native back compat of 360 titles outside the traditional xbox? Cheers, Lewis

Spodlude

Hi Team DF, Radio 4 in the UK has a feature called desert island discs where celebrities state their must have music if they were ever stranded on a desert island. IF each of you were stranded on a desert island, what gaming system would you wish to be stranded with if you could only have one, and which selection of (or singular) games?

Spodlude

Hey Team DF, if there was a now defunct aspect of 90's- 2000's gaming that you could resuscitate, what would it be?

Rostislav Ulbricht

bespoken day DF lads! With GTA 6 announced for PS and Xbox, I wonder if this could also include the Xbox handheld discussed last week. It's possible the release is only coming out for Series X/S but if it's possible to port it to S, do you think ROG Ally version is feasible? With PS5 Pro having the most performance to play it, Xbox could have an edge with the most portable way

regawdless

Hey, people of the Foundry! - Unreal Engine 5.6 up to 30% faster, 17% lower CPU usage - RTX Neural Texture Compression beta reducing VRAM usage by up to 96% - AMD research reducing VRAM usage for trees from 34.8GB to 51KiB - Legion Go gains 5 – 15% performance just by using SteamOS instead of Windows - DirectX Raytracing 1.2 and Neural Rendering significantly improving RT performance When an engine update provides a larger performance gain than a new GPU generation, is software the real bottleneck for current PC performance? It feels like there are so many inefficient processes on all software fronts that we could freeze the current GPU and CPU generations and have larger gains by concentrating on software improvements compared to trying to brute force it with hardware advancements. Will actual hardware advancements further decrease over time and will we instead pay for software upgrades to access more performance in the future? Cheers, regawdless

James

Doesn't reflect my experience, but interesting take. On releasing and patching, that seems more like it's greed driven to me. I'm not sure we'd accept that model with any other artform - a book with chapters missing, a music album that gets released bear bones and added to, or a painting that gets improved each week. It's simply not acceptable, but the industry keeps telling us it is.

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hey DF crew! Have you tried the CRT beam simulator on a handheld? John praised it last week for PC, but I think it’s also really impressive when paired with a good CRT shader on smaller screens. Cheers!

tod weitzel

Which is the more powerful release date mover: Silksong or GTA6?

goregutz

Hi DF gentlemen! Since DF is now independent, have you thought about the (potentially) lucrative business prospective of starting a consulting business for game developers? You may consult them on what settings and frame rate and resolution targets they should implement in their console versions and what settings and optimisations they MUST including the PC version of their game? If you hadn't considered it until now, I hope you do now. Cheers!

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hello Gentlemen! Everyone thought SW:Outlaws would be another „impossible port”, this time around to Switch 2. Since however it’s so decent (I.e. not a „potato version”), what game would you consider to be the next impossible port? Cheers

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hi DF crew! When you eventually bring a new member on board and the team grows, do you plan to expand your hardware coverage? The handheld market is exploding right now, with new devices launching almost every month — from portable PCs to Android-based emulation machines. Cheers!

10 Watts Raytracing

My question exactly! With SW:Oulaws being as fine as it is, is there really any current-gen game that stays out of question for Switch 2 ? (excluding the ones that are already choppy on PS5/Xbox Series)

10 Watts Raytracing

Hello DF crew! I'm excited to see Kay-tracing being as viable as it is in SW:Outlaws, and I wonder if we should expect more current-gen games to undergo the "impossible ports" treatment. Surely the publishers across the industry are taking notes of Ubisoft's success? Cheers!

Alan

Hi guys, With the increasing talk and speculation regarding PS6 and NextBOX, when do you realistically think these will be released? The 9th Gen has been disappointing so far really considering the costs imo and it seems that it could also be one of the shortest?

Alan

I have had this idea before and mentioned it a couple of times, I think it would be good as they would be able to have guests on maybe as well.

10 Watts Raytracing

Dear DF, look into your ray-traced cristal balls. With Cronos lacking Lumen on Switch 2 while SW: Outlaw knocks dynamic GI out of the park... Is Epic Games holding a secret crysis management meeting to triple the staff on the R&D to bring hardware Lumen to Switch 2?? If you establish a paranormal communication with them, please with them the best of luck! Cheers :)

Someguyperson

Software is absolutely a huge limiting factor with poorly performing games (UE5 & the like). Old school developers like Id and Playtonic have much better performance profiles because the devs actually know how to write performant code, while a lot of newer devs lean more heavily on Unreal & Unity to do the heavy lifting for them, which isn't the best way to go about doing things in a performant way. However, those developers can now make a good looking game without all the institutional knowledge the older devs have. You trade accessibility for performance. Now that the features have been established, Epic is going back and optimizing things a lot better.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half-Fortnight Lads. With first sight of First Light gameplay this week, and after a recent flurry of other demanding titles making a point of showing base PS5 footage first - is it telling that they have shown PS5 PRO footage in this initial gameplay trailer? There looks to be quite a heavy reliance on RT lighting and reflections, and I wonder if the base PS5 is going to take a lot more work to get running ok? I also wonder if First Light had anything to do with the sad news that Perfect Dark is going perfectly dark..

Someguyperson

Can John's son play games on a 120 Hz monitor with the CRT beam simulator via ShaderGlass, or do his eyes still hurt if a game isn't running at 165+ FPS? (As if we would expect anything less from the child of John Linneman)

Someguyperson

Any thoughts on Dolby Vision 2? Using AI to change the gamma curve or something doesn't seem like great idea and having motion smoothing automatically enable & disable depending on the content seems like a nightmare.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half-Fortnight Lads! (2) With everyone and their dog eating their hats over the Switch 2 port of Star Wars Outlaws, does this bode well for other Snowdrop engine games.. for instance a possible Frontiers of Pandora port or perhaps a version of the upcoming Splinter Cell Remake? Is this the first game on Switch 2 that is using hardware accelerated RT effects in addition to using DLSS upscaling?

DaJaCo (Dan)

Thats just time going faster as we get older man.

regawdless

Feels like it's not only engines though. It seems like there's potential in base things like how is compression&decompression handled, how are textures handled, stuff like Neural Radiance Cache offering a good boost in performance for example etc. DirectX didn't evolve much and I think there's a lot of room for improvement, especially taking the new capabilities of the current gen GPUs into account.

DaJaCo (Dan)

I'm reminded of people having to pay a subscription free to unlock the heated seat functions already factory installed in their own cars via a software update. But I take your point, the endless march of hardware progress means that software optimisation development resources have already moved on to the next new toys before they've really milked the full potential of current hardware.

Pulec

Hi DorFs. Can success of Star Wars Outlaws on Switch 2 revive the possibility for a sequel or at least similar games in Star Wars universe?

DaJaCo (Dan)

Happy Half-Fortnight Lads (3) It looks like the Valve "Frame" is Deckard / i.e. the Valve Index VR headset successor. So we have another piece of the jigsaw.. but why would they be readying this alongside a relatively underpowered Steam machine style console.. I'm confused!?

Pulec

is there a possibility of having DF Direct Weekly topics prepared by Wednesday so there is a 24h+ time window of asking questions and having more time to review them rather then quite short Thursday/Friday?

BespokeEP

That's what she said!!! Zing

BespokeEP

Mystic Ryan just released a great video on this. These late last gen releases have happened every single generation but to a much further extent. It's just a recency bias

Deadeyes

Hardware Unboxed demonstrated that in BF6 while more cores *do* help, it's nowhere near linear scaling, with 8 cores barely being 10% faster than 6 cores. But I am struggling to make sense of why that's the case. The game seems to similarly saturate both CPUs, so ostensibly the 8 core *should* be outputting 33% more work. Logic would dictate, then, that the 8 core *should* be 33% faster than the 6 core. Where is all that extra work disappearing to? Is it just CPU usage reporting not being very accurate? Or is there something else I'm not understanding? Thanks

Buttertop

Happy Friday gents! With the AMD RX 9070 XT even beating the RTX 5080 in some recent benchmarks, it seems like cutting cost not on VRAM capacity, but VRAM bandwidth, may be a winning formula. Do you think the RTX 5080 and below cards within the 50 series would suffer that much from a downgrade to GDDR6 over GDDR7? It makes sense for Nvidia to keep GDDR7 in the 5090, but beginning to wonder if starting to segment the memory types between SKUs in a generation is the best way forward. Cheers mates!

BespokeEP

Well the ROG Xbox Ally is just a windows PC... It should technically be called the ROG PC Ally. It cannot play Xbox games natively at all and never will. So whenever GTA6 releases on PC it may potentially be optimized for handhelds and therefore it will work on the ROG, but you would need to purchase it again for PC

CottonBird

Does your disdain for 8GB video cards extend even unto the mobile space? Does a gaming laptop need a GPU with more than 8GB of dedicated memory, or do other portable concerns (power draw, component size, etc.) mean that VRAM will be less of a bottleneck?

BespokeEP

PS1-PS2 1994-2000: 6 years PS2-PS3 2000-2006: 6 years PS3-PS4 2006-2013: 7 years PS4-PS5 2013-2020: 7 years PS5-PS6 2020-2027 or 2028: 7 years minimum And Xbox and Nintendo have both had shorter gens before. So no this gen is not short, it's actually on the longer end

Michael Pearn

Hi team, not really a question more a comment. I had the presence of mind to keep my Switch OLED when I bought the Switch 2 and have been very disappointed in the low refresh rate of the SW2 LCD screen especially with 2D side scrolling games. I’ve just purchased Hollow Knight Silksong on the Switch 1 (with the free upgrade for my Switch 2) and had a chance to compare it between the consoles and the OLED screen is so much better for colours and image clarity on the SW1 albeit with a smaller screen in handheld mode. Just don’t understand why Nintendo made these LCD screen compromises for the SW2, surely there were better ways to cut down on its unit price?

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Hello Gents! What’s happening with HDR? Fewer games seem to support it natively and if they do the implementation is quite often subpar. Heck, even the latest biggest Hollywood movies are graded around 200nits (sic!) for specular highlights. TVs are getting brighter yet HDR doesn’t get the love it deserves. Cheers!

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

I think GTA VI will be one of those, if the CPU load is as heavy as we think might be. I don’t think R* would do that no matter how successful Switch 2 was. As the OG Switch was extremely popular yet they didn’t port GTAV to it which seems more doable, TBH. I hope NS2 players will get Baldurs Gate III tho, even if it slightly dips under 30 in the city.

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Star Wars Outlaws is great and all on Switch 2, but the real question remains: can it run Crysis (properly)?

Anxiously Chrono Triggered

Gentlemen, how likely do you think it would be for Valve to add the CRT beam simulator or at least black frame insertion to Steam Deck 2 „three dots” menu? That’d be cool, wouldn’t it?

JakeTheJake

With Capcom coming out and blaming Wild’s missed sales targets on PS5’s pricing, I thought this would be a good opportunity to address an often undiscussed concern for PlayStation; It’s slow decline in Japan. To be clear It’s not doing anywhere close to terrible, PS5’s sales are about aligned with PS4’s but slightly lower. But as a brand it is completely curb stomped by the Switch, with even the dinky switch lite still regularly outselling the PS5 physical. To put it into perspective, there are around 53 million PS4s, PS5s, Switch 1s, and Switch 2s sold in Japan when combined. 72% of that market is all Nintendo’s (37 mill vs 15 mill). Software sale presence is also completely biased towards Nintendo with them dominating every weekly famitsu chart. My question is, what does Sony do about this? I know their current exclusive library doesn’t appeal to that market, so a shift there needs to happen. but with Steam growing over there most developers big and small usually publish there by default as Steam’s store doesn’t require new hardware to be purchased, giving it the biggest potential market with the least barrier to entry. I don’t know what Sony could offer devs beyond timed deals. Square alone is proof full exclusives arent viable anymore. Do they really need to just lower the price? Or do they gotta undergo a rebranding similar to the what the slim model and its new advertising push did for the PS3 in the west? P.S. the irony of Capcom making a game that runs terrible on anything below a 4070 and complaining about hardware prices kneecapping sales is not lost on me.

Stephen Heim

Hello to the Independent Nation of Digital Foundrymen. Did anyone else find the Battlefield 6 PC trailer a letdown? It struggled to find any real redeeming PC-enticing feature. That was not reassuring, because the trailer struggled to sell us on features that are simply expected. Ultrawide support, 4K, AI Upscalers, and uncapped frame rates. It felt less like reasons to be excited and more like pointing out that a NEW car comes with windows that go up and down and a stereo radio. BF6 feels like the game we should have had four years ago, but now in late 2025 it is not pushing any boundaries with the more capable systems in the current wild than back in late 2013 when BF4 released. After 2042, I have doubt in DICE that I never had before. Now I have to question if I can trust DICE again to give us what we want. The beta maps looked and felt small, the guns and vehicles limited compared to BF4, and no server browser is a big red flag so far along with others to list. Are we just being handed ‘BF4.5’ with destruction turned to 11, dust and debris to 12, but no Levelution (yet)? Are we left to be DICE’s ‘Bethesda’s unofficial mod team’ and told to go make the game we want in Portal? I am all for Portal as a fun option, but not as a solution. Why am I paying them for the opportunity to go make the game I want? Even the beta felt off. It showed us destruction turned up to 11 but never let us look under the hood. My worry is that when the game launches, we will find missing features we expect, maps that are a letdown, fewer weapons and gadgets, and something rotten at the core that we will only discover at launch after the first few patches. There is plenty more but I wanted to keep it as short as possible, and this is already too long. Sorry, and thank you for everything you do for the community.

Salman

Hello DF Crew With another week comes the obligatory UE question(s?). 1. Why isn't hw Lumen available as an option in more games? Besides Cronos can't think of any others w/hw Lumen that have come out this year. 2. Played the demo for Bramble last week and I was wondering, is there a viable alternative engine out there for games that want to have that kind of look and aesthetic? For a minute I thought of Cry Engine but I'm not sure about Crytek support.

Kaveh PG

I've needed to reinstall my os ever since Windows 11 came out, what are the odds that Windows 12 drops in the next few months and makes me have to do it all again? Do you think it could contain any magic to fix frame time issues?

Kyrith

Heyo, DF! If we develop a technology to rid OLED TVs of persistence blur, what's left for TV tech? Is there still a next big thing, or is that the final frontier?

Kyrith

Foundrymen, assemble! What are the chances Nintendo uses the next open world Zelda as their RT test bed. Open worlds are *the* use-case for RTGI, and if the Series S could run Metro Exodus at 60fps, surely the Switch 2 could run RTGI at 30fps, right?

Kyrith

Hello, Dejected Foresters! What would it take for a few viable competitors to Unreal engine to emerge? The monopoly Epic has feels borderline illegal (though I imagine its run by the kind of people who write those laws anyway), and it's boring seeing the same lighting and post-processing in half of 3D games

Kyrith

When is Alex going to find a nice partner and settle down? Have you considered hosting a Bachelor-style competition for Alex as was done for Grant O'Brien?

Kyrith

Hey, DF! Silksong is wonderful so far, but good lord the banding artifacts are intense (at least on Switch 2 where I'm playing)! How is it that such successful studios, regardless of size, can miss tech art issues like banding that have been solved many times over?

digitalfoundry

Currently impossible. And any hardware hack would need to be able to give an HDMI VRR signal too which adds to the complexity.

digitalfoundry

Probably worth keeping an eye on Alex's left hand in the next Direct!

digitalfoundry

Someone will have to get the Master System and it won't be me.

Kyrith

No f****** wayyy

regawdless

Unlock 30% more performance with GamePass Gold!!!

Marcus

Ubisoft just came out and said that the cartridges for the switch 2 were not fast enough to run Star Wars outlaws from because of streaming as John found out on blue sky. Is this a big worry that we need to consider for the future of this generation?

TheAdam

Hello DF Crew! Donkey Kong Bananza and Battlefield bring destructible worlds back into the game. Will we see more games with this forgotten feature, or does computationally intensive ray tracing prevent more destruction in video games (e.g. Doom the Dark Ages)?

DaJaCo (Dan)

I think it deserves a Switch 2 only spin-off or a new game using the same engine / optimisations.

TheAdam

Hello DF Crew. A question for John. The games industry continues to be restless and I have the feeling that Western companies, with their AAA approach, are heading into or are already in a dead end. Is there a significant difference in the Japanese approach to game development, and can we in the West learn something from it? For example, Nintendo isn't only focused on AAA, they also fill their pipeline with smaller titles. I'm excited to hear your opinion.

DaJaCo (Dan)

I tried to tell him, we just getting old!

DaJaCo (Dan)

I would like to see if IO interactive could get 007 First Light running with the RT effects functional in some semblance of an adequate form.

Someguyperson

I just had a thought in the shower; could it work with a RetroTINK-4K? If you can somehow get to the analog signal, the TINK-4K could output it at 1080p 120. You would loose the VRR, but that would just effectively mean that V-sync would be enabled, right? Or, if there's tearing due to the source signal not lining up with the TINK's sample rate, you could calculate the true framerate by seeing how far down the tear occurs with respect to the previous frame. It wouldn't look pretty and it wouldn't look like the real deal on the console, but you could get the real performance numbers and just tell everyone that the game doesn't tear like that in portable play. Have you already gone down this route?

DaJaCo (Dan)

I'd like to see them use it for some realistic light temple mirror puzzles.

DaJaCo (Dan)

I would love to think that this has happened, but for some reason i doubt it.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Ray Trace does not approve of Kay-tracing.

DaJaCo (Dan)

What about a high speed camera in a "light controlled" box with a Switch 2?

bibfortuna

My dear DF gentlemen! Let us speculate wildly about the new Valve leaks for the Steam Frame, shall we? Would love to hear Alex’s thoughts on this!

Someguyperson

You could do that for some limited gameplay sections, but you still need to also look at the screen while you play & capture simultaneously. It also wouldn't fit in with the existing DF tool chain and the frames would need to manually be counted, which makes it really not worth it. If you can somehow make it output to HDMI, you can play the game for hours, capture the whole thing, and then tell people about the handful of times when the framerate drops. You can't really do that with a high speed camera in general.

Series Xistential Crisis

What’s up guys? Speaking of these new console prices, I’m gonna have to agree with Capcom. Recently my Series X died (bad power supply) and it was out of warranty. I was able to get it repaired at a local shop for a resonable fee. But that got me thinking, I don’t really have $600+ to drop on a new console right this very minute. And it’s not really in the budget for next week either. Where did the $299 or less consoles get off to? And if I hadn’t replaced it I would’ve cancelled my Game(s)pass subscription for a while. Also not very likely I’d be buying any new games for it during that time. Isn’t that the whole point of consoles? To be a loss leader. If next gen prices are even higher I think they may be losing the plot. Here’s hoping my replacement PSU lasts a good while.

DyeHardX86

Recent articles from Videocardz and 3DCenter(corroborated by KeplerL2) seem to be convinced the Next Gen Xbox Console will be the only device to have backward compatibility with current/previous gens but this is at odds with both Lisa SU and Sarah Bonds statements(we are designing PCs, Handhelds, and consoles "All with Backward Compatibility") what's your opinion on the topic? Can they both be wrong/right? Thanks as always for all the great work.

SonOfFaith

Hello gentlemen! After watching Oliver's coverage of the Switch 2 port I'm convinced of Snowdrop engine supremacy. I'd like to know if we'll be seeing better running RT games vs raster on the Switch 2, and with consoles generally, with the new focus on RT hardware in the current and near future?

Will Dobbs

Hello gents! With the recent revelation that Star Wars Outlaws on Switch 2 is (contrary to many of our expectations pre-launch) an impressive port, how do you think the system is faring at such an early stage in its life relative to its predecessor’s third party output (I.E, the miracle Doom 2016 port)? Do you think this bodes well for the future of third party current gen releases on the system? Keep up the amazing work!

Matt Hermans

Hello DF! Very long time viewer, recent subscriber, first time question-asker. Thank you to Oliver for the great Switch 2 review of Star Wars Outlaws. A stunning port to behold! Would there be a chance and interest to mention whether Switch 2 games are actually "on the card" ? It's a growing concern that "Game Key Cards" are trending upwards and perhaps it would be a small ending topic to Switch 2 reviews to mention whether the developer has done the work to have the game run from the cartridge - which was mentioned for the Cyberpunk review. I think this note would have sympathies from John too and highlight the worrying trend....and perhaps even affect the trend! Thanks for years of amazing depth and coverage and well done on the independence!

Kim

Hi! I only just got round to catching up on your impressions of the upcoming Z2 Ally X last night, and Rich briefly mentioned the Impulse Triggers. Can you describe a bit more about how they felt please? And how important are haptics to you guys in games? Particularly racing games? As someone coming from Xbox controllers to the (current) Z1 Ally X, I found the rumble in Asus' current handheld to be absolutely piss poor, offering feedback that's at best numb, and at worst non-existent, in Forza Horizon 5 and Forza Motorsport 2023. (To say nothing of its lack of Impulse Triggers.) Was that aspect something Microsoft had helped Asus get on top of? Or was Gamescom too soon to tell?