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Call For Questions For DF Direct Weekly #241 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-11-20 11:24:38
Imported:
2025-11
Tags:
Q&A

Content

We're starting to prepare ourselves for the taping of DF Direct Weekly #241! It'll be Rich (ie me), Alex (ie him) and Oliver (ie the busiest man in videogames) at the mics this week as John is still playing Xbox 360 games and shall not be disturbed. Deadline for questions is 8am GMT Friday morning.

So, what's on the docket this week? Unless there's an early Christmas miracle, there'll be no Half-Life 3 as the game's anniversary has been and gone with no announcement. There is an Xbox Partner Showcase, however, so we may well be commenting on that, depending on level of interest.

Other topics? Yes, memory prices hikes are a worry and yes, we should discuss whether the time is right to buy a new GPU, especially now we're at MSRP or slightly lower. We're minded to share our thoughts on whether this is a good idea and what models you might take a look at.

More, you say? Linus from Linus Tech Tips is suggesting that $500 may be an overly optimistic expectation for the Steam Machine, so what do we think about that? And what about Proton adding FSR 4 support even for older GPUs? Sounds intriguing, right? Beyond that, we're looking to test out Sektori - an indie game from a celebrated Housemarque veteran - and from last week, we may well look into the unexpected arrival of Red Dead Redemption 1 on current-gen systems.

But now is the time to weigh in with your input: comments on the topics above, and of course, your questions please! I look forward to waking up early tomorrow morning, scarfing the first of my gigantic mugs of coffee then reading through your missives! Have a great day.

Files

Comments

Perfect_Organism

Damn, why isn’t my boss letting me play 360 games without being disturbed, that’s messed up.

Ahmed Alrashed

Hello DF gents, With PS4 & PS5 controller batteries running out very quickly, even with features like haptic feedback, adaptive triggers,…etc. turned off, I always thought that reason being that battery capacity was lower than the competition. To my surprise, it turns out that PS5 DualSense, for example, has a 1560 mAh which is higher than Switch 2 Pro Controller’s 1070 mAh. So, how come Switch 2 Pro Controller can last for up to 40 hours, while PS5 DualSense can barely get to 12-15 hours with most features turned off? I’m thinking there’s some sort of input optimization happening with Nintendo & Xbox controllers compared to Playstation.

kreskowaty

Greetings DFers! So, when are you guys building your own equivalent of the Steam Machine and giving us some benchmarks? Cheers!

1040STF

With the release of the Steam Machines, I think one of the less talked-about benefits is their wide compatibility with accessories. All Xbox, Switch, and PlayStation controllers and accessories have some sort of PC support, either officially or through community-developed drivers. That’s not new for PCs, but it’s a first for console-type hardware in the living room. Even better, low-latency USB adapters exist for most retro console connectors, whereas solutions on modern consoles — like the Brook adapters — introduce inconsistent latency. What new possibilities do you think this could open in that area?

Snorkel Bandit

Whuddup Diggy-F. I've been seeing more and more people saying game graphics should've 'paused' at 'X' generation consoles, most often 7 or 8. So market realities aside, would any of you be happy if graphics evolution had 'paused' at any point, and if so, when?

Nick Antrobus

Ladies, Burger Becky passed away this week after a short battle with cancer, would be good to just take a quick look at her career and the ground breaking influence she had

CrispyNougat

Will you cover the shadow dropped tomb raider game on switch 1 and 2?

FlowEffect

Hello and happy pre-holiday-phase Foundrymen! These are some steamy weeks in the foundry! First off a service-note for Alex: you can indeed wake up your PC using an Xbox Controller and the respective button, but this is only possible with the wireless adapter in version 1713. It had this function, if I remember correctly. So pretty straightforward solution :D My question falls into the ballpark of Rockstar Games' latest Remaster, but tackles the games that Rockstar seems to have forgotten about. Instead of touching Red Dead Redemption again - even if the game is still fantastic - I would love to see R* going back to titles like Grand Theft Auto IV, Max Payne 3, the long rumoured Red Dead Redemption 2 Current-Gen Release or even Red Dead Revolver. With Alex latest video (Thanks for that! Got me pretty hyped about the game again :D) also highlighting some of the ongoing problems of GTA IV, I was wondering if there could be other technical hurdles regarding these games, that prevent possible remaster or re-releases. Or could it be just Rockstar Games doing Rockstar-things?

Snoopey0

Hey Dude, Duder, and Dudest! What's your take on vkd3d-proton 3.0 adding FSR 4 and Anti-Lag support – even with a fallback mode for some older RDNA GPUs – how big a deal do you think this actually is for SteamOS and the Steam Machine? Seems such a shame that the Steam Machine is on RDNA 3, surely it would have been better to wait another year for lower end RDNA 4 SOCs?

Mario Rosa

Hello, team. As someone who doesn't really understand how engines work, how is UE5 having such a strong hold on the market a bad thing for the industry? I constantly read comments bemoaning this fact but I've never quite seen an articulate explanation as to why. Additionally, what would it take for another engine to have a significant presence? I know it's easier said than done as Frostbite has shown that it's not flexible enough for even EA studios to handle it. Thank you for the tremendous work that you do.

Bespoke To Soon

Word!! I've been thoroughly enjoying Dispatch this last week. Could you provide any insight into what's going on with the graphics? There are very few graphical setting, and in assuming the characters are 3D models against a pre-rendered background? Playing on TV via Steam Deck and it looks so good in doubting what's going on.

regawdless

Hello Gents! With the ever increasing costs and the increasing demand for the components, are we stuck with a ~10% performance to price increase every GPU generation or do you see that changing with the next gen of cards? Cheers

TMoney58

What am I missing with the Steam Machine? The deck worked because it was a great compliment to the PCs people already have. Who is replacing their PC or console with this? Addressable market seems small?

Orcacle

Good day to you fine gentlemen. Along with the memory price hikes, I've seen rumours of Nvidia and AMD thinking about halting production of low and mid range GPUs. Nvidia doesn't surprise me but to my knowledge the entirety of AMD's current line up is just low and mid range! Do you think that things are really this dire? Or is it just fear mongering to push sales? Cheers

Abandoned Walnut

Greetings gents of the DF. There's been much talk of how concerned xbox should be at the development of the steam machine given that it looks to bear many similarities to the console xbox plan to release in the future. My question is how concerned Sony should be given that many playstation games now go to pc. Will they just hope that a sufficient number of exclusives that never get ported to pc will be enough to fend off any threat to their console sales?

Ian

Hello gents. Very interested in your take on what you think something that is equivalent to the steam machine spec would be and what that currently costs as a pre built or would cost to build? Seen a lot of conjecture online about this - but would appreciate the usual DF considered view on it.

DenuvoFan68

Hello DF gentry! This questions goes out mostly to Alex regarding his testing of Switch 2 DLSS. Do you think Switch 2 DLSS is superior to purely filter-based TAA like FSR 3? Or do you think Switch 2 DLSS is so poor quality at 4K that you would prefer that developers just use FSR 3 instead?

beer chugger 209

From what I seen on Twitter. Its all pre rendered movies. Because the person wanted to take the models on the PC version for mods. Not sure if actually true or not

VeryProfessionalDodo

To put it relatively simply, UE5 has some performance and visual characteristics people tend to dislike in general. Stuttering and noise with lumen are some of the worst offenders in general. However, the narrative that is forming online is that "UE5 is poorly optmised", when in short, the feature sets it allows developers are the real "culprit". Nanite and Lumen can make the development process so much more straightforward, since you don't have bake levels of detail (LODs) for object nor lighting, that a lot of developers use it. However, it has REAL drawbacks in terms of performance, forcing devs to compromise elsewhere. So the narrative about UE5 being unoptimised is mostly people sick of the traditional cons of UE5 games, namely low resolutions on consoles, and degraded performance on PC and consoles. However, this is also one of those instances where great UE5 games that use the feature set well aren't newsworthy, but engagement bait highlights the cases where it does go wrong. Personal sidenote: The only drawback to me to UE5 having such a chokehold on the AAA industry is that graphics in general are less exciting, because we see so many games look "similar" when it comes to lighting, a bit of a shame :(

Deadeyes

With Fossilize being a feature of Steam on Linux already, what is stopping them from implementing it on Windows too?

Deadeyes

Living room PC is my guess

Sedrick

Hello! The Steam Machine does not have an aux port. When using it like a console with a TV this should mostly be fine. But Valve has made it clear it is also usable as a PC. There are ways around the lack of an aux port, such as Bluetooth or a USB/USB-C connected alternative. I know I would not want to use Bluetooth for audio, and have little experience with the USB alternatives though I hear there are potential issues there too such as increased audio latency. Do you feel this is an odd oversight for a device like this, or do you think it was a sensible thing to cut?

Eric Benoit

Do you gentlemen think the Steam Machine can and should be physically upgradeable by the user? If not, how long would the hardware be viable for future releases. I have an old gaming pc and the Steam Machine would be a upgrade, but if it gets outdated quickly, it might be better in the long term to get a new PC I can upgrade. myself.

Deadeyes

In case they don't answer I thought I'd throw in. Basically, Epic has done a LOT of work developing a jack of all trades engine with a robust licensing and technical support system. The whole point of UE is to be an industry standard that works well enough in most cases. The UE hate recently is stemming from some systemic issues with the engine such as seemingly unavoidable stutters and a lot of the new features such as lumen and nanite being very very heavy to run, even in comparison to similar features in other engines. Ultimately, building and maintaining a game engine is a MASSIVE amount of work. UE is an attempt for a company to provide an engine as a service in exchange for licensing fees. UE has some inherent technical issues that are hard to overcome, but is still widely used because of how Epic has positioned themselves in the industry. This results in a lot of games releasing with the same set of problems over and over again. That's the gist of it.

Marcus

Hello Foundry Men! My dad is not really a gamer but we do play some games together and he has a Mac and he has a studio display so the combination of relatively poor GPU performance and quite high resolution 5K display is a hard combination, but I’ve been using integer scaling from 1440p to deliver a good enough experience. Is this potentially a future for displays since you might be able to sell someone an 8K display intending for them to be primarily playing the games in 4K mode while they could be using 8K for work in order to ensure a high PPI. Especially if Apple ever wants to make a 42 inch monitor since if they want to maintain their 216 PPI that would be an 8K display or at least roughly. Hope you have a great week!

perihelion74

Hey, guys! I’ve been thinking about the Steam Deck and all the performance talk. I recently set up an ancient Linux PC in my living room for TV gaming. Specs: ASUS P6X58D-E, Intel Core i7-970, 12GB DDR3-1333, Nvidia GTX 980. Old hardware, but performing way better than expected. I’m currently playing some older games like Stray and it runs buttery smooth. If you only care about the latest AAA games this Gabe Cube obviously isn’t for you. But looking at the back catalogue, there are way more games you can play at reasonable resolution and settings than games you can’t. This setup has genuinely surprised me in how far you can stretch older hardware if you’re not chasing the latest and greatest. The Steam Machine might not be "future proof", but who would’ve thought a roughly 15 year old CPU could still offer a really solid experience today? I also have a much more powerful PC in another room and stream the heavier games to this one, like Cyberpunk 2077, which works surprisingly well too. Makes me wonder how many perfectly good “obsolete” PCs are just sitting around waiting to become living room Steam machines. Do you think people are too quick to dismiss older PC hardware when there’s still so much playable stuff left on it? I think Valve is on to something.

Simplex

Hello independent crew. Could John elaborate what's the problem with OLED in VR? There seems to be "common knowledge" that OLED picture can never smear because of 1ms response time. Yet reality is different. I'd love to be able to reference OLED apologists to a professional explanation of the sample and hold phenomenon. Cheers!

AfreemTheDream

Greetings, Foundrymen! Could the PS5 "Power Saver Mode" aid in the latency of the PS Portal simply by having less data to stream overall? Or does it not work that way at all? Cheers!

Jonathan Hamilton

Yes, very interested in a look at this. If not a full video, maybe at least some impressions in the Direct.

FrametimeSommelier

I really enjoyed John and Oliver’s discussion in the DF Direct Special about the Steam Frame. One thing caught my attention. You praised the move to relocate the battery from inside the headset to the back of the strap, which makes sense for balance and thermals. But here’s my question: what happens to third-party battery extensions in this setup? On my Quest 3, I use a head strap with a built-in battery that essentially doubles my playtime. This has been a game-changer. With the Steam Frame’s battery already occupying that rear space, is there any room left for aftermarket battery solutions? Or is Valve betting that the internal battery will be good enough? Would love to hear your thoughts on this tradeoff. Especially from a practical, long-session gaming perspective.

FrametimeSommelier

How likely do you think the recent GTA VI delay is tied to Rockstar possibly aiming for a simultaneous PC release alongside consoles? Also, what’s your take on the rumor that Rockstar is exploring a GTA VI port for the Switch 2? Wouldn’t it make more sense to first bring GTA V to that platform as a technical and commercial test case before jumping into GTA VI?

FrametimeSommelier

I still have tears in my eyes from the fact that we didn’t hear anything about Half-Life 3 on the anniversary date. So here’s my totally rational, not-at-all desperate question: what do you think the odds are that Valve (in the most un-Steam-like move ever) might shadow drop Half-Life 3 during this year’s Game Awards? I know it sounds wild, but sometimes dreams are all we’ve got. What’s your take?

VeryProfessionalDodo

I think Half LIfe 3 is too big for The Game Awards at this point, and if they didn't wait for an event to announce Alyx, a VR only Half Life, I don't think they're going to do it in the TGAs, chief :(

VeryProfessionalDodo

I don't think that's how it works. I think it just sends a 1080p stream of the content, regardless of the content itself. Some content is necessary to be at a higher bitrate, like games with a lot of detail, but I don't think that a 4K downsampled stream to 1080p will save that much compared to a native 1080p stream. I genuinely think the worst part of the latency is the screen itself, on a Steam Deck OLED playing with Chiaki I sometimes forget I'm playing a stream game

VeryProfessionalDodo

I think if upgradeability is a concern, the Steam Machine isn't for you. I think it's much more targeted to people who can't / don't want to fuss around with tinkering and "just want something that works", close to a Steam Deck, just better

Tom Kirby-Green

Is there any chance please we could get an end-of-year AI wrap up from Oliver? I appreciate your schedule is probably ‘x certificate’ but AI is effecting the gaming industry massively and Oliver’s previous video on AI was refreshingly grounded.

sj33 (Jake)

Hi all, Some people like to use period-correct PC hardware so they can experience games as they were played at the time. Are we going to see people go to similar lengths in 20 years time to properly replicate period-correct 2020s shader stutter?

MarineCHF

Ubisoft has recently put out a statement stating less people are paying for full price, traditional releases and are turning to subscriptions, live service games and free to play games. They also said less people are playing games. This statement baffles me as there are now more concurrent players on steam then ever before, PS5 is now the second best selling PlayStation Console and GTA VI is set to make a billion dollars in sales. Where exactly is UbiSoft getting this information? From what I read online and in forums, it seems a lot of people still want that grand, single player experience. Am I missing something? Do you gents agree with this statement? Thanks for everything the team does for the gaming community and congrats on going solo! P.S. Rich saying “exclamation point” and Oliver saying “Yes Rich” are the highlights of my week. Cheers.

MittenFacedLass

I imagine it has more to do with the scale of the game and them engaging in union busting...

MittenFacedLass

Huh. Hadn't realized that. Weird omission, but I guess it makes sense for a more console-like device. You could probably always run a solid external USB DAC/Amp? But it is a slightly odd omission.

FrametimeSommelier

Just watched the newly released gameplay trailer for Fatekeeper and I’m highly intrigued. It feels like a wild blend of Skyrim, Dark Souls, and Ratatouille. Brutal combat meets immersive exploration with a touch of surreal charm in form of a talking rat. The look of the trailer screams Unreal Engine 5 to me. What’s your take on the graphical presentation? And do you think it might help sweeten the wait for our next adventure to Tamriel?

FrametimeSommelier

by then we probably have emulators in which you can turn on period-correct shader stutters with the click of a checkbox. LOL

FrametimeSommelier

Veteran gamers who experienced HL1 and HL2 at launch are likely to play HL3 no matter what. But the TGAs could be a great opportunity to spark interest among younger players. You know, the ones who’ve only heard about Half-Life through stories from their parents or even grandparents. ;-)

Rectangle Boy

What is fundamentally different about EverDrive carts that make them tough to run on Analogue hardware? Are there aspects of the real hardware that the EverDrive carts could be relying on for full functionality? I think I don’t know the answer because I don’t really know how EverDrive carts, or even ROMs, work without having all the hardware a normal cart has. For example: A Super FX chip doesn’t exist in the EverDrive (right?) or a ROM and yet we can still play Star Fox and Mario RPG.

Chicken Point

Good question! Regarding the addressable market: how many people own some Steam games? Afaik, a large number of people. Among them, for how many would the Steam Machine be an upgrade? Afaik, boatloads. And how many of them do not own a (current gen) console? Afaik, also boatloads. So, by my estimations, the addressable market seems pretty chunky?

Rectangle Boy

Suppose the inimitable Geoff asked each of you to come up with 1-3 new The Game Awards categories related to technical performance: What categories for a game’s performance would you award for and why?

OpenMind

Can't answer the Analogue part of your question, but in case the DF lads don't get round to it, some flash carts themselves will have FPGAs which can reimplement things like the Super FX chip, which is often why cheaper models don't have that feature (the original SNES everdrive didn't support enhancement chips but the SD2SNES/FX Pak Pro did). For ROMs, they typically transfer the data from SD card to flash storage which the console can access like a ROM, must confess I'm not sure I know how they handle bank switching for larger ROMs, but it must be some sort of programmable logic or software solution as some much larger ROMs from newer games won't work without firmware updates.

iGamer - Patrick

Hi From Texas! With the Steam machine Rmored to be somewhere between XBOX Series S and the PS5, do you think that Steam and\or Developers will add a "Steam Machine" Graphical setting that's optimized for the "console"? or automatically enable the optimized settings?

Snorlax cat

For real another port of red dead redemption 1? will they add pssr? vrr? at least it is free but I don't see the point unless they go with higher pc settings.

Ryan Luker

Hello Foundry Gents! Are we looking at a "new" long term foundational hardware power tier developing around the ps5 level? We have steam machine, ps6 handheld, ps5 power saver, steam deck 2, etc all potentially coming in relatively close to each other and probably looking at having support for new games well into the future?

The Knight Who Says Ni!

Hey DF, if you had the chance to offer Valve one bit of constructive feedback on the Steam Machine’s hardware specs, what would you say they should focus on improving?

Ryan Luker

I would guess most would probably mention the VRAM but given we don't fully understand the cost trade-offs maybe 8+ gigs were never in the cards?

Ryan Luker

Maybe even throw in a shortcut key so you can get the full appreciation of a by gone era in realtime.

Bryan Langley

Hello DF. Do you think Nintendo are being clear enough about their marketing for Switch versus Switch 2? I am impressed with the way Metroid Prime 4 looks and their marketing I note is offering Quality and Performance modes (which may displease Oliver) but wonder if realistically users will manage or even access said modes?

FrametimeSommelier

I think what makes it feel off is that they’re marketing it as a 4K/60fps machine, despite it only having 8GB of VRAM. If they positioned it as a 1080p or 1440p living room PC replacement instead, it would come across much more convincingly.

FrametimeSommelier

I sometimes wonder if they bit off more than they could chew with all the raytraced spectacle in the last trailer. It’s possible they’re now struggling to get the game running smoothly on the base PS5 without degrading the visuals too much compared to that trailer.

tod weitzel

I don't know of the logistics but if you could pry John away just long enough for a eulogy for Rebecca Heineman, it would be appreciated.

tod weitzel

Since Zork 1-3 are open source, what other titles in the deep Activision catalog could justifiably be open sourced without much bean counter consternation?

YouthInAsia

Hello DF, Question for you all on the FEX translation layer that will be leveraged in Valve's upcoming Steam Frame VR headset. My understanding is that x86 to ARM emulation can introduce additional stuttering to gameplay. Is Alex at all concerned about this potential new permutation of #stutterstruggle and does the team have any plans in the works to test out the state of FEX on ARM using modern snapdragon chips in Linux prior to the launch of the Steam Frame? I would be particularly interested in performance and frame-pacing comparisons for a Steam Frame equivalent ARM chip versus the Steam Deck.

CABBAC

Are you planning anything special to celebrate the 250th Direct?

CABBAC

Whatever happened to AgonisingRectalPain? I'm concerned the pain may have become too much.

CABBAC

Given Oliver will be under a non-disclosure agreement after observing Half-Life 3 on his visit to Valve HQ so can't verbalise or write out the fact that he's obviously seen and played it, can you ask him if he enjoyed playing it and if he winks to the camera it means yes. Cheers 👍🏻.

Bulbous_Bow

Good evening all. I feel like since discovering the tech-tuber space a few maxims have been drummed into my head repeatedly… 8GB VRAM is insufficient today and certainly in the future; the console landscape needs real competition from an entrant that doesn’t just provide yet another AMD box; and indeed any new console needs at least a handful of decent and exclusive launch games to justify its existence - ideally with experiences not possible on existing hardware - otherwise what’s the point of even entertaining the idea of another new box?! But the hype around the Steam Machine is most definitely real, and as a PS5 Pro owner I’m even a bit excited about it myself. So, am I being unfair here? What exactly is Valve’s secret sauce that’s got everyone, myself included, so excited?

Octolimar

What do you make of these mods that go and retrofit new graphical features into games. There exists DLSS mods for Elden Ring, FF7 Remake, and now Monster Hunter World has recently received one as well. Some go further like Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro getting DLSS as well as SSGI and other enhancements. Is this the type of thing you want to see coming from developers themselves? The image quality improvements in Dark Souls for example are tremendously beneficial to the game's art and visual clarity.

Alan

Hi Guys, There is a limiting issue with 8GB of VRAM on many PC GPUs and now the new SteamBox. The Xbox Series X has 10GB, and the PS5 utilizes a 16GB dynamic. The 'NeXtBoX', being more in line with the PC and SteamBox, is likely to have 12GB? But could the PS6 steal a march by having 32GB dynamic (or more) thus easily allowing 24GB for the GPU?

(Don’t be a) Richard

Ohh my…that’s next week. Too swept up in all the stores that have kicked off early.

DaJaCo (Dan)

So, AMD Redstone is looking as yet; more like “red magma” ... What seems especially interesting is the fact that their “ray regeneration” seems to have been entirely decoupled from their upscaler. This has the advantage of enabling it to be used broadly with multiple different upscaler versions, and possibly even in conjunction with competitor’s upscalers. It might also mean that the developer has more freedom to choose precisely where and when in the rendering pipeline it is placed. Conversely, the primary disadvantage of decoupling it, would seem to be that it cannot be highly optimised and integrated, and “trained” together with the upscaler. It may also lose some of the efficiencies of shared motion vectors and temporal data. I can understand why AMD has taken this approach given that they did not lead the way with this technology, as it results in wider compatibility for a company playing technological catch-up.. However they could also make a later version of it more integrated, or more reliant on hardware acceleration – similar to the path that FSR 4 has eventually taken. How do you think this will play out, and do you think the PS6 equivalent will be highly integrated with the PSSR version of FSR4, since surely there; there’d be much less of a case for it remaining decoupled on console?

DaJaCo (Dan)

The Gabecube has that Nintendo magic, fun, and charm, but with the freedom of a PC that has a few idiot guardrails. Its a fresh balance somewhere in between console and PC... arguably lacking many of the advantages of either; but somehow still breaking new ground and feeling more than the sum of its parts.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Obviously they would have opened the valve and poured him out a big drink full of drugs. Drugs that upon drinking end winking. Drugs that alter one's memories. Drugs with a very long half life. Oliver no longer lives inside the Gamecube, he's moved into the Gabecube.

DaJaCo (Dan)

I think they should make Alex play DK Bananza until he no longer totally hates it.

CottonBird

Speculating on technical specs may be your forte, but what's your best prediction at what the new Xbox and PS handheld will be named?

DaJaCo (Dan)

Agree, I think they really should have tried to stretch to 12GB.. unless the thing is like $299 ~ $399 Maybe they could have done it by shaving some weight out of that colossal heatsink.. or not packing in the controller with every SKU.. Or maybe we're all wrong and there's a Gabecube Pro lined up to compete with PS6 / Xbox Magnus... or maybe they just think 8GB will have enough bandwidth to compete because Switch 2 and the next PSP will remain dev targets for a long time and still have relatively similar memory bandwidth (if not capacity).

MaxedIt

Hi gents, This may have been voiced before, but I think it would be great if the optimized settings for pc games could get a nice section on the new website. I suspect I’m likely not the only one who would find this very convenient. Keep up the good work!

Series Xistential Crisis

Hi. No questions per se. Just sharing that I had a dream the other night where Alex was fired in the middle of a direct because he was skimming off the top from the DF store. John and Rich were chastising him and it was awkward and unsettling. That is all. P.S. Time for an audit? P.P.S Why Alex? Why?

The Shadow-Map

Greetings DF For various reasons, I've found myself listening to a videogame podcast from 2005 -- the old GameSpot show. I bring to you two details from this time capsule I found interesting, and a question about the PS3 if you're able to answer. 1. By 2007 the consensus from reviewers of that popular site was third party software on the PS3 and Xbox 360 looked and ran nearly identically. The game mentioned in this context of finally achieving platform parity was 2007's Assassin's Creed. 2. The guest/hosts on this show have gone on to do a lot great things in this industry: * The original host, Rich Gallup, is now Director of Production at Jackbox Games * Carrie Gouskos went on to be Director Of Product at Bungie (though she has since left) * Jeff Gerstmann, the notable Roger Ebert of videogames * And lastly Greg Kasavin of Supergiant Games, and the recently released Hades II 3. Between the original launch PS3, and the one that fully dropped PS2 backwards compatibility, there was a middle model that supported backwards compatibility via emulation. Was that PS2 emulation any good?

NotARobot

I'd like to chime in on this as I actually have the 80gb model that utitlized emulation. Believe it or not there were compatibility issues with both models that supported backwards compatibilty. There is a list online, though somewhat incomplete, that outlines PS2 compatibility. My main takeaway has always been that emulated backwards compatibility has always had a slightly sharper image while the hardware backwards compatibility model had less issues with the overall library. The only game I ever had an issue with was Stuntman.

Michael Pearn

Hi DF team, if Half Life 3 were to be miraculously announced, what are its chances of incorporating ray tracing at all? Steam Machine and Deck utilise limited AMD ray tracing tech. Is the only chance for a ray traced Half Life title again only by community or third parties?

MattGPT

With the anniversary of the 360 launch coming up what are your favourite games that were released on the console (and for Alex either simultaneously released on PC or later ported)? I remember buying it to play Gears and Mass Effect, but also having a great time with Oblivion. (Or this might all be covered in your upcoming Retrospective).

Someguyperson

As a youth, you go through many milestones. Your first steps, your first words, your first love, and the first time you see framerate drops in a game with your bare eyeballs and not any instrumentation. Do you guys recall the first time you saw a game not performing correctly on your hardware? Mine was unsurprisingly an N64 game. (Banjo-Tooie)

Someguyperson

That might be a good idea for a website article.

HarryB

What are your thoughts on the likelihood of INT8 FSR4 for Steam Machine? And do you think there’s much hope for broader INT8 FSR4 support if they did support Steam Machine? I suppose the recent RDNA1/2 driver “confusion” situation does not make me particularly hopeful for broader support.

digitalfoundry

Great idea, we need to have a good think about this

digitalfoundry

I wake up in the middle of the night "agonising" over this.

digitalfoundry

It's in the first 20 odd minutes of every Direct before I switch from coffee to water.

DaJaCo (Dan)

If it doesn't happen through official avenues, it'll happen unofficially due to how open the system is., so they'd be mad not to do it officially.

DaJaCo (Dan)

I think there must have been a significant portion of my childhood for which i was perceiving performance dips.. but just thinking that it was how the game was supposed to be; with no concept of the underlying causal issues at play.

DaJaCo (Dan)

Is this why john is playing 360 games 24/7 atm?

DaJaCo (Dan)

Be thankful Metroid is getting marketing at all - for some reason they have a very bad track record for advertising and really selling Metroid games.

MattGPT

I think Rich said that they were aiming to release it to supporters on Saturday for the anniversary of the release.

Bulbous_Bow

You’re right of course. I guess I just take a step back and wonder why I’m getting excited (or even bother to wait for) what is basically a 2 year old entry-level PC. Another aspect is that it can’t actually play most of the games that are typically trotted out in defence of 8GB cards - Fortnite and other competitive multiplayer games because of anti-cheat’s lack of compatibility with Linux. As for being more than the sum of its parts, in a console sense, yes. Maybe it will end up being what the Series S should have been. On the other hand, maybe it will look dated on launch (even next to base PS5) and absurdly dated when trying to run the first batch of PS6/Magnus launch games. I believe Alex has mused before about how the new Witcher may not run on 8GB vram cards or the latest consoles. I forget which but either way it could be in trouble quite early into its life cycle

gogoGin

Hi DF! Frame Gen, AI upscaling, resolutions — oh my! With new gamers moving to PC, should the focus be on achieving low-latency over higher FPS/resolutions, or is latency overrated (give me max settings at any latency-cost)?

Chase

Tomb Raider switch 2 appears to be the switch verison with upgraded resolution / better fps. Curious your thoughts on it? Extra bonus: How difficult is the actual process to create a verison with better assets compared to base Switch, internet posters would have is belive it is almost as simple as editing an ini file.

Bryan Langley

My other submission is a suggestion not a question. I'd be dead interested in a "shopping build-off on a budget" where the DF team have a £600 budget and have to build a basket of parts in real-time in a 5 minute time limit and have Alex rank the systems gold, silver and bronze. Perhaps on PC Part Picker or whatever. Heh. (Though I doubt you have the time for such frivolity.)

Ryan Luker

There will probably be a ton of web searches in the future for "steam machine [best | optimized] settings".

Vassil M

Have you had a chance to try the new Xbox “full screen experience” on PC? Does it feel like it has a plausible path to Xbox PC or is it just a stop gap?

Nando Calrissian

My hypethosis is that the ps5 will be a 'quasi forever' gen. This driven by : with hardware pricing seemingly getting us to pay more for the same, graphical diminishing return ( baked lightning at 60fps is 'good enough' for a very large majority), the inability to bring new gameplay with the tech innovation of the current and previous gen (power of the Cloud, fast ssd), mass portable gaming expectation... All those point toward that the ps5 or equivalent specs machine are going to be the commoditised gaming setup for the foreseeable future. The ps6 or new xbox will basically be the 4090 of console, nice to have but evidently a dispensable luxury. What would the DF crew think of that hypothesis?

Game World Art

Hi Guys! I'm interested in your take on Ubisofts recent anouncement about moving forward with AI production across all its teams. I see the utility of this with code (Its already embedded into many editors after all) but as an environment atist myself I see this as a very bad sign for art and the cynical side of me sees this as Ubi testing the waters in regard to how many artists they can replace with AI. No doubt many other developers/publishers will be keeping a close eye on how it progresses. What say ye?

Stan Frusch

Hey guys! Hope you're all doing well. So I own a PS5 Pro, and for the moment, I'm planning to make the switch to PS6 once that comes out. I own a 2021 Mini LED TV that is starting to show it's age. Now I read that in 2027 the first TVs supporting HDMI 2.2 will start coming out. I have been looking into the specs of HDMI 2.2, and I am wondering if it is even worth the wait for gamers who are planning to buy a PS6. I feel like even a PS6 is still well within limits of HDMI 2.1. And what about the Xbox Project Helix? Will it benefit more? What are your views on this? Worth the wait for console gamers? Or is HDMI 2.2 only beneficial for higher spec PC gamers? Have a great day!

Bich_RedLetter

Imagine Sony appoints the entire Digital Foundry team as lead architects for the PS6. You have one non-negotiable design mandate each. Rich gets one, Alex gets one, John gets one, Oli gets one and our gets stars get one each! What are they, what does the resulting console look like, and how spectacularly does it fail in the marketplace?