DF Direct Weekly

[@perpetualprocrastinator]

what stutter struggle is to Alex ,as digital ownership is to John

[@RobertFromEarth]

I love it when John goes for a rant! In fact, this should be an official part of the show where the whole teams goes for it!

[@HueyTheDoctor]

I like that they rant about issues that affect a broad playerbase, they're not just voicing concerns about stuff that only affects them. DRM issues and stutter struggles affect almost the whole industry.

[@amnril]

Same for me, I’m not a digital only fan.

[@juanme555]

@@HueyTheDoctor Steam has done a lot of harm, i never liked DRM, even as a kid when i thought the Steam user interface looked cooled and fresh, the idea that you'd need internet to install and play your games seemed like some complete garbage dystopia to me.

[@fourlights]

I wish the USB sticks of PC physical media became a thing fully.

[@nuggyfresh6430]

The Elden Ring RT thing feels like they were fulfilling a contract stipulation more than anything else. The ultimate goal is to have Elden Ring on a list of RT-capable games. Unfortunately without DLSS this is all very strange, to say the least.

[@chillnspace777]

Exactly this. 💯 for lack of a better term it just feels tacked on. I'm not a game developer but perhaps especially with from soft games allowing some kind of reconstruction dlss or otherwise to help smooth out the game experience with or without ray tracing

[@6reen6uy]

I’m looking at Bandai.. they seem to have sway with them when they publish the titles. Hence the three dlc requirement since DS2. Sekiro is the only weird one, where it seems activision and from decided against one perhaps due to the story being complete.

[@BAMozzy69]

Agreed - it certainly seems more like a tick-box exercise, to be included in a list of RT games on Consoles or have an 'RT' tick Its no wonder that some aren't 'excited' by Real Time Lighting when their only experience is half assed, minimal/negligible difference with lower, more unstable frame rates.

[@MorejaSparda]

If they had at least achieved that level of rtao and shadows, but with the same native resolution of the quality mode and 30 fps solid... but the resolution and performance has dropped a lot and the resolution of the ambient occlusion is also very low. It's a very poor and dirty implementation wasted in one year!

[@eccentricbeing]

​@@6reen6uy That's because Sekiro is Activision, not Bandai. It makes sense Bandai would put in stipulations.

[@Aaantoni_]

49:14 A propos Nightdive Studios: they recently hired Albert Marin, the creator of the RE4 HD Project mod that we all love so much!

[@HueyTheDoctor]

Holy crap that's good news.

[@TechArtAlex]

As much as I love their games, FromSoft has some of the most underwhelming technical art. Their actual art is generally very good so it's a shame that the tech side doesn't and really hasn't ever held up.

[@theblah12]

I’d love to see what FromSoft’s artists could do in Unreal, unconstrained by all those tech limitations the Souls engine suffers from. Sadly it seems like they’re just going to continue using that in-house engine for the foreseeable future.

[@KhromTX]

Until recently Japanese PC ports have often been terrible from the technical front. They don't prioritize PC or give it nearly enough attention compared to western developers. I think this has been changing in the last 5-8 years, but PC gaming in Japan has been a relatively smaller minority over there compared to here in the U.S. it's changing, but there were a significant number of Japanese developed PC ports in the late 00's and mid 10's that also ran like shit. I'm talking the laziest, sloppiest PC ports you could think of. Non-existent graphics options, console-centric UI, and even sometimes they didn't have proper KBM support at all. I think this is a perspective that DF hasn't really understood or noticed. Consoles in the east absolutely dominated the market for decades, and lagged behind the West when it came to PC gaming. Their priorities were very obviously console first.

[@TechArtAlex]

@@KhromTX You're right - They definitely prioritized consoles, but From specifically has also long been behind on console technology. When you look at most game studios, you'll find technical artists contributing to graphical advancement all the time with clever new techniques and technology. Huge amounts of time at GDC is spent sharing and discussing these ideas to move rendering forward. Not only does FromSoft not push any graphical envelope, they seem to actively reject the freely shared advancements of others. Again, their art direction is top notch, and maybe they're spending that money somewhere else in development, so I don't want to be too critical.

[@HeloisGevit]

​@@KhromTX This isn't a PC only issue though. Their technical quality sucks on consoles too. Look at Bluepoint's Demon Souls remake which is currently a console exclusive, Fromsoft are absolutely incapable of producing a game of that technical quality.

[@lolmao500]

@@HeloisGevit Fromsoftware is like Bethesda, their graphic/coder team is garbage lol. Bethesda engine is easy to mod on... but everything else is crap.

[@alexsnow5]

I can't imagine spending a full Monday without my DF Direct dose

[@sellingacoerwa8318]

it's nice just seeing some knowledgeable folks talking about the hobby and it's not clickbait, hyperbolic low effort junk, or used as a screen to project their social/political agenda of the week on.

[@leomariano2735]

You should try it on Saturday DF Supporters Program FTW

[@awlafferty]

Real and true!

[@Vsevolod3788]

Fair enough.

[@abacabdk3490]

Can Alex get a "RTX ON" sign on stick to hold up when he talks about ray tracing? Maybe Nvidia could sponsor it!

[@xyoxus]

With that sponsorship they could maybe afford a Shader Buttler for DF

[@no-barknoonan1335]

It's a clever idea! 30:55 Ray Tracing is larger than just RTX, I doubt they ever would simply bc it would feed into the Nvidia preference the market already has and I don't think they would like to suggest any positive bias towards any brand. Having said that, a "Ray Tracing On" I'm sure they'd be fine with that.

[@SciAntGaming]

@@no-barknoonan1335 Actually isn't RTX the one that encompasses Ray Tracing? Isn't RTX = Ray Tracing features like GI, Shadows, Reflections, AO, etc. + DLSS + FG + other RTX features that fall under the RTX brand name from Nvidia?

[@TheDravic]

That's really silly to suggest.

[@TheDravic]

@@SciAntGaming No. RTX is just a marketing name and Nvidia has been using it in various ways early on but over the last few years they kept using it to refer to THEIR technologies being turned on. This includes Reflex or DLSS2 or DLSS3. Sometimes they make comparison where left AND right side has ray tracing on, and the difference is DLSS3 being on/off - and they still label RTX on/off, proving my point.

[@danielsandberg6217]

I think the most likely reason for delisting games is that licenses for things in the games like music are expiring and its too expensive to renew.

[@jovi9918]

The other consideration is the sales for those titles is incredibly low and with server closures the sales would pretty much be single digits for any given day. If you haven't bought bad company in the past 15 years for $2, then you clearly aren't going to care if it gets removed.

[@SoulbentAnime]

Yeah too "expensive" lol

[@alext3811]

Which is stupid, because then piracy is the only option (usually on PC, because they don't really release physical games anymore on PC), and the original license holder makes no money rather than some money.

[@Dionyzos]

15:35 That's an important point. Those people who enjoy building stuff from the ground up aren't going away. They're still out there and will still seek out challenges.

[@tyo101]

For Elden Ring, 60fps is more more preferable than RTX!

[@dannypassion]

They also should give us a PC option to Elden Ring more than 60fps.

[@tyo101]

​@@dannypassion 120fps would be buttery smooth, probably!

[@dannypassion]

@Boss yeahh, I'm on a powerful PC built this past December with an RTX 4090 and Ryzen 7 950x and I can't do more than 60fps, because they capped thr FPS to 60

[@tyo101]

@@dannypassion Maybe they'll work on uncapping it as part of the development of the upcoming DLC?

[@jarlwhiterun7478]

​@@dannypassion don't care

[@iamastrangeloop96]

I hope UEFN gives a huge generation of kids the experience some of us got with gmod, hammer, early Minecraft modding etc… that stuff used to be niche and it’s so cool to see epic mainstreaming digital tinkering

[@inrevenant]

Aye! Oh man, do you remember Gordon Frohman from HLComic?

[@iamastrangeloop96]

@@inrevenant concerned!! That was hilarious. Also loved half life: full life consequences

[@willuigi64]

sadly epic is VERY strict about copyrighted material so it won’t be quite the same, but it still does look like a great tool

[@XenonG]

I 'member when Gmod was a mod, holy moly.

[@phrozac]

FromSoft really need to shake up their tech department. They seem to always be years behind the curve. That company succeeds based on the strength of their game and art design. Imagine if they had a top-tier engine with some real code ninjas behind it.

[@kaidatu.]

Agreed. After launching elden ring for the first time and realising it didnt have unlocked fps made me mad. We talking about AAA game in 2022, thats locked to 60 fps and has no dlss, its a joke.

[@hiyasuamv9776]

I just pray for proper performance from these UE5 games

[@dante19890]

Obviously a move to unreal 5 with nanite and lumen is gonna be more performance heavy. So I don't know why people think it will somehow run better

[@ZacDonald]

​@@dante19890 Nanite can give better performance than normal 3d geometry on modern hardware, but damn lumen is expensive.

[@wojtekwodarek3995]

​​​@@ZacDonald not That expensive as ray tracing.

[@DarkReturns1]

@@wojtekwodarek3995 lumen is ray tracing 😣

[@andyward8430]

These long form discussions are really enjoyable and provides a great insight into how passionate about gaming and game related technology that digital foundry is. Each of you bring a unique perspective and I just really appreciate you guys.

[@jimjamsam3482]

cheeky cut at 16:08. john must've said something spicy

[@ThePolyesterPimp]

I’ll recommend Zombieland in VR since it taps into the on-rail shooter/light gun game that I wish more publishers would fund. I would eat my boots for a Time Crisis 5 in VR.

[@Pedr4m]

Crisis VRigade might scratch that Time Crisis VR itch.

[@ThePolyesterPimp]

@@BaldingSasquatch the rollercoaster aspect of that game makes my stomach feel sick 😞

[@Deliveredmean42]

​@@Pedr4mlooks like a Virtua Cop game, which we also miss.

[@minners71]

@@BaldingSasquatch A poor sequel to one of psvr1's greatest games.

[@wombocorp]

34:05 legendary moment

[@CaptToilet]

I never get excited for tech demos anymore. I get excited for what that demo could bring to graphics tech 4-5 years down the road. FF7 tech demo on PS3 and it took over 10 years to achieve that and then some so yeah.

[@Glowbox3D]

Loved this show. Thank you. Not sure why I wasn't subbed before, but now I am!

[@Notisfan77]

When publishers are no longer selling their games, the games should be free to pirate and distribute between users. The company essentially should be forfeiting their rights to the game if they no longer provide availability to it. The community should also find ways to create and implement free servers for online play for these games.

[@maevtr3922]

When people say "ray tracing isnt worth it", they arent talking about the potential of the technology, theyre saying in its current form its not worth the tax on performance.

[@wiegraf9009]

In that sense they're generally right

[@x00Mystery00x]

I'm glad you're back Richi! I mean John and Alex are awesome but it's not the same when you're not there.. welcome back ❤ and by the way, you have the most beautiful British voice I've ever heard.. I just wanted to say that! 😊 Greetings from Berlin

[@mazziecat]

What's with the awful PC coverage on this channel RN? At best we get a separate video by Alex a week later but that's like every 4-5 games you test now. Maybe consider hiring another PC guy?

[@bcrocka18]

Taking game creation to everyday people or enthusiasts and empowering them with tools like these will definitely spawn some great indie games through out the years and definitely spawn some horrible ones with gotcha maybe but still this is amazing

[@gameguy301]

its seems hypocritical to me that EPIC went to war with Apple because they weren't happy with the app store revenue share, and advertise their own Epic Games Store based on their generous revenue share, only for them to turn around and keep the lion's share 60% of Fortnite creator revenue for themselves.

[@wiegraf9009]

It's never about principle, always just about their profit seeking strategy

[@devonmarr9872]

Yall really need to dive into Deep Rock Galactic and how it makes its image and procedural generation. Also check out Fluid Ninja

[@artemas7076]

Lots of game where ray tracing isn't worth it BUT for the games where it is worth it, oh man. Cyberpunk max Ray tracing settings on PC is the best looking thing I've ever seen.

[@darkl3ad3r]

Same here man. 7950x3D and 4090 tearing that game up with DLSS 3 all settings maxed out. It runs beautifully and looks incredible. I constantly find myself pausing to appreciate how "right" the visuals are compared to RT Off. Especially the shadows look amazing to me, 0 LOD transition lines or aliasing or Peter panning or shadow acne. It's glorious.

[@artemas7076]

@@darkl3ad3r Yes, my 12900K and 4090 max setting with DLSS quality and frame Gen getting around 85-100FPS. Amazing

[@chrisbullock6477]

Hope to see coverage of AMD's GDC event. Alot of interesting tech

[@mlitkey301]

For the PSVR2 question, I’ve been having an absolute blast with After the Fall which is basically Left 4 Dead in VR. It looks pretty good and with the haptics the guns feel great. The best part is that the community is overall really nice and supportive of new players in coop play. Highly recommended!

[@DarkReturns1]

Is that game cross-play with the Quest 2?

[@mlitkey301]

@@DarkReturns1 yes

[@DarkReturns1]

@@mlitkey301 thanks!

[@floppa9415]

One thing I would love to see with procedural generation is building interiors. Maybe even at runtime to keep the game's size in check. Its a thing that always really unfortunate in GTA like Open Worlds that most of the buildings aren't at all interactive. If you maybe could generate interiors on the fly when you are nearing a building that than allows you to go inside to hide from the cops or sack the place. That would be so damn cool. Hope we see it at some day.

[@shriyanshpandey112]

That has been at the back of everyones head since the beginning of open world games.

[@willuigi64]

@@shriyanshpandey112 the problem with modelled, accessible interiors is that it doesn’t fix open world games’ problem of lacking, unsubstantial, meaningless content. I really do hope the new tools allow for more individual questlines, and generally more unique content in open worlds.

[@theblah12]

Tbh while procedural interiors might be fun for a few minutes, I don’t really see how that would create meaningful content in the game - if anything all it does is clutter the world with rooms that serve no gameplay purpose. Plus there’s the fact that building interiors in real life tend to be rather repetitive anyway - an apartment complex is going to have the same room layout for each flat, and most office buildings just contain generic open plan halls filled with desks and meeting rooms. I think the result would probably be close to something like the Matrix Awakens which while very graphically impressive and huge in scale, also felt very repetitive as the cityscape was obviously procedurally generated from a small number of building types.

[@edragyz8596]

Dying Light 1 had a ton of accessible building interiors, always thought that was pretty solid. But the truth is, it gets a bit repetitive and there isn't much reason to go inside.

[@Bloodyshinta1]

go play Shenmue 2, tons of interior rooms

[@mayen67]

Richard is the DF Daddy 😂

[@jeanmartin7166]

I've got a real question for you guys: is 40 FPS/60hz + VRR the same as 40 FPS/120hz without VRR ?

[@AndyGilleand]

PC absolutely generates a much smaller portion of the revenue for most *AAA* games. It's important to mention that. PC does very well with non-AAA, and it also does well with specific genres and studios that have an established history with PC players, but for mainstream AAA releases, PC sales tend to be a small fraction of the console sales, so that's why it's rarely worth spending good money on a PC port.

[@plushquasar653]

Just have an option in the game “Do you want to pre-compile shaders? Saying no will have performance overhead when shaders are first compiled.”

[@wiegraf9009]

Yeah the new Star Ocean did this and it worked fine

[@thanksbetotap]

Not just RE4 Remake, but I think also all versions of RE4 HD, RE Revelations 1 and 2 since the 3DS original, and RE Village on Xbox… *all* have bad deadzones. It’s like Capcom’s “signature feel” at this point… I guess every single time they port a RE game from an original version they screw this up.

[@jonRock]

The PC version of RE4 Remake is sooo much better better with the m+k input. I was trying hardcore mode with the Xbox Series X gamepad, and it was literally impossible. Switched to m+k and it's now a very satisfying experience.

[@AG-ld6rv]

When it comes to in-house engines, keep in mind a few facts about using ANY software from another company (including video game engines). First, the software you get will likely be good at a particular job like any tool, which can make it the wrong tool for a particular job. Basically, you can bet the engine used for Skyrim was handcrafted to represent an open world with NPCs that have a schedule with quests. Similarly, the GTA engine is likely highly tuned to represent a metropolis with all the typical features in a GTA title. It's impractical, on the other hand, for something like UE to be a perfect match for every use case. Secondly, when you get a dependency on another programming team / company / their software, you are at their mercy. Do you have a bug your team considers HUGE? Well, you submit your ticket, and you hope your clout and others having the same issue will motivate them to fix it. If you have your own engine, your leadership can instead pass the work to the engine team: "We need this fixed! Urgently!" The second point can be slightly remedied if the software is open source since you can fix it yourself, but it's still different having a team of 8 engineers who own a chunk of important software at your command that work on your in-house engine exclusively versus telling people who don't work on some random open source project daily to get up to speed with its design, figure out the cause of a problem, and fix it. Your engineers want to work on their own code, not dive for days into some tremendous open source project. So to sum, you get a more tuned tool for the job, and you have more control over that tool's evolution -- not just fixing bugs but also bolting on features dynamically as new business use cases arise. And keep in mind not every game tries to sell on the promise of absolutely top graphics. Something like Dark and Darker shows that. There will be plenty of small teams cook up an engine for a particular type of game they have in mind. It can sometimes be simpler than trying to shove your game design forcibly into an engine perhaps not created specifically for that game. Back in the day, a team of 5-10 would create an entire engine and an entire game, and that can still be done. Keep in mind that knowledge is also cumulative, so let's say someone wants to implement ray tracing in their in-house engine. That stuff is taught in school courses it's so understood now. It's not like every person making an engine has to derive every single truth when it comes to real-time rendering on their own. There's textbooks, courses, research papers, etc. A similar thing happens with AI. One company makes a chat GPT, the work gets published, and other companies are able to mimic the result very rapidly since they're not inventing anything new. If you want a concrete example, Alpha Zero is a closed-source chess engine, but a similar engine, Leela Zero, was made within a year of the papers about that type of technology being published. Basically, it's way easier to do something when there is an educational paper about it than figure it all out yourself, and your typical programmer has access to this body of knowledge the same as the engineers working on UE. Expect features in UE to permeate to other engines rather quickly. If you want another concrete example, consider how GTA V on console got a ray tracing update, same with Witcher 3. The technology gets figured out, published, and everyone benefits.

[@MDmechanix]

I'll never understand why we're still getting KZbin videos in 1080p, especially when they are showing content that's being played in 4k

[@tyrantworm7392]

DF game or tech review do typically have higher resolutions available.

[@wiegraf9009]

It takes a long time for KZbin to process 4k video, so if you watch DF videos right after they launch 4k isn't available yet. This is a KZbin problem not a DF problem

[@cameronbrown9266]

Battlefield 1945 still has players! I played some matches recently on the 360 and was getting full lobbies. So weird to get rid of these games

[@alexadelaide]

I can see the tabloid headline now “Bad company removed by bad company”

[@coleposton2430]

I remember spending dozens if not hundreds of hours just playing in the halo 3 forge or the farcry 2 map editor with my brother messing around trying to come up with new ways to play the game

[@rcavicchijr]

I'll be expecting the battlefield origins low effort remaster bundle for $100 - $200 to be announced now that they're removing the originals.

[@Wobbothe3rd]

UE5.2's procedural runtime generation opens the door for a game with entirely randomized and destructible environments. Imagine a factorio 3d without any fixed grid... a Minecraft clone without blocks... Magic Carpet 2023 but with real dynamic structures. Or SimCity, but with the same fidelity of environment simulation as the Matrix Awakens demo! Theoretically, UE5 could now be used for RTS and turn based strategy games without any limits to total entity count on screen or map changes...

[@steveco1800]

Sounds like Deep Rock Galactic

[@willuigi64]

depends, but yeah for the most part it’s possible. very excited.

[@ivanleon6164]

i want an AntMan game where you can go super small with insane details at very small level and great detail when being huge, imagine the transitions :O

[@willuigi64]

@@ivanleon6164 there is a game where you play as a really little dude in a big ue5 environment in that state of epic

[@speedracer2please]

What's Magic Carpet 2023? I'm not seeing any search results for it, but I remember playing a game called Magic Carpet in the 90s that I forgot about until now. I'd love if it had a remake lol

[@ArtyomGalstyan]

37:37 I'd like to see RT reflections, RT bounced lighting and RT shadows + DLSS. This would make it worth implementing. With what they did is just like they wanted to say to the community - "ok here is your raytracing, are you happy? Just leave us alone now."

[@CdrRogue]

Kudos to Arkane for listening to the fans.

[@Saturn2888]

I'm a JavaScript developer, and these sorts of graphical issues would never be allowed. It'd be one of those "drop everything and fix it now!". Product managers and QA should be catching these things. In the past, I might cause a regression from adding a new feature and not realizing it because I was only testing a small slice of the app, but PMs and QA folks will tell me in minutes once my changes are in. We'd catch that stuff and fix it before going to production. I find it unimaginable that games have these issues.

[@charliestewartchukkers]

My issues with “upgrades” like spacers choice is how the developers have to take the flack for how shareholders desire turnover for profit even at the expense of the quality and reputation of the devs and their games

[@cdragon88]

Link to where the shareholders ordered the spacers choice edition to be made?

[@Zastrutzki]

I hope to get RTX soon on my Nintendo. Dang, I was being flip about using brandnames that replaced technological terms, but the next switch might actually have RTX ray tracing. Also, From should've worked on a Bloodborne PS4Pro patch before adding RT to Elden Ring.

[@Chicky_Lumps]

We all wish, but Nintendo will probably wait 3 more years then release a Switch Pro with 20% more performance, same price on launch as the Switch, and call it a day for 5 more years.

[@SaltyMaltyMo]

Elden Ring needs a consistent performance frame rate fix. Keeps dropping all the time. Talking of the PS5 version.

[@МухаммедАли-б7д]

It's unstable on all of the consoles. But on PS5 you can play PS4 version and get flawless 60fps 😇

[@lordspalse0062]

There should be a system level option to turn off ray tracing. It's simply a nuisance to gaming particularly on consoles.

[@МухаммедАли-б7д]

@@lordspalse0062 yes, there is option in game menu where you can on and off RT.

[@TheProphegy]

Is Elden Ring on PS5 60fps yet? I know people said they were having to play the PS4 version. Been waiting for a good sale and some good patches to happen.

[@flockelocke2297]

No! They refuse to do it. Instead of this they thought, Yeah, let us add raytracing to the cross gen game with the worst performance on the PS5 so that it can run even worse.

[@Chicky_Lumps]

Wait, how is it even possible to _not_ have 60fps on PS5? I assumed they did because my 3060ti can easily run 1440 / 60, so they could literally do 0 optimization work to just drop in a checkerboard 4K60 on PS5.

[@RxMxG]

Elden Ring performance on PC is pissing me off. Why From Software put RT on an unoptimized game? John summed it perfectly: it feels like a waste of engineering time.

[@existentialselkath1264]

I've seen a lot of people skeptical about whether games will actually look like the unreal demo or if it'll be like past demos that often look a lot better. Obviously it'll take time for games with this tech to be made, but this new tech is unique in that the whole point of stuff is that it DOES run in realtime, for a relatively fixed cost no matter the complexity. Unlike ue3/4 demos and the like, it's not about the maximum potential of the engine. This is about what can be done NOW on current hardware! It's incredible!

[@ZacDonald]

It's pretty incredible how quickly they updated Fortnite and how much of a positive impact it had on the visuals.

[@rickiestmorty]

I mean there is no game today that looks as good or even as close as any of the UE4 demos.

[@existentialselkath1264]

@@rickiestmorty Fortnite... Besides, these demos are announcing new tech that's only just coming out for developers. You need to add a couple years to actually MAKE the games

[@kylepena8908]

But content creation pipelines need to adapt and learning curves need to ramp, so there will be a transition just like always

[@Ali-Sensei]

This delisting bullshit is why I consider pirating AND emulators/roms is THE most ethical and benefiting route in the long run.

[@wiegraf9009]

Correct.

[@twelch12]

There could be music or software licenses that are prohibitively expensive to relicense in order to continue to sell the game. The Bad Company 2 DLC had a lot of 60's music that isn't cheap.

[@spicydeath82]

In the case of spacers choice, it's two things. One is that 2k is losing the distribution rights soonish, they revert to obsidian and now Microsoft. So this was a quickish cash grab buy 2k. Secondly obsidian had zero input or involvement with this new version. Hence certain visual changes that go against obsidians artistic vision for the game .

[@Drragnorr]

the problem with ray tracing as whole is, that It is still mainly a toy for the rich, even after so many years

[@_Ease]

the RT implementation in Elden RIng borders on confusing when the game is so terribly optimized, with no option of DLSS/FSR.

[@loci5327]

That "Sack-Boy" quote was brilliant 😂

[@xBINARYGODx]

Sorry, you can keep the nvidia lie going if you like, but the 4090 doesn't cost ANYthing close to ~$2000 to put on the shelf - the markup is ridiculous.

[@hldave]

I wish Harvey mentioned the Redfall online requirement issue sooner. Like when they had the discord "ask us a question" channel, that was filled with this exact question and somehow wasn't addressed in that thread at all.

[@Apoplectic_Spock]

1:29:00 The background music had me thinking an ice cream truck was driving down the street 😆

[@SnakeEngine]

Ray Tracing needs way too much power to blow my mind, so I am still not convinced.

[@shreder75]

Ray tracing will blow people's minds. Until they pan the camera and get 30fps refresh rates. Sorry, guys. RT is awesome, but not if it cuts the refresh rate in half.

[@defeqel6537]

One reason RT is bolted on is that the install base with RT capable hardware is very small, due to the shortages of tech in 20-22 and due to high GPU prices.

[@sebastiannienow6981]

Is Digital Foundry planning on discussing the Far Cry 5 update or perhaps even making a video on it?

[@pferreira1983]

Not sure why everyone is worried about Nightdive being bought by Atari. The company know what they're doing and have managed to survive this long to make these acquisitions a viable reality.

[@SITSIndustries]

1:19:28 "Rich says in-the-here-and-now" drinking game. Take multiple shots with John repeating it.

[@detoushorizons]

Try with "fair enough". Harder !

[@MassiveHappyClapper]

I haven't been impressed with Ray tracing in many games. I would rather use the resources for other performance gains. Whether on PC or console. I wish From Software would improve Elden Ring to get a stable 60fps on console.

[@chrisbullock6477]

I feel like John's parents were those "Typical.....Parents" that never told him its not ok to interrupt adults when there speaking, or he was never taught social manners...

[@bcrocka18]

I’ve been messing with unreal five and I cannot wait to play with more of the new features and make my own game for fun just for myself lol

[@TheNerd]

01:14:00 I don't understand why people always think that will get cheaper. Since inflation is "a thing" you actually get more for you money today, than tomorrow. So if anything you should by NOW and not tomorrow (at least if you view this topic over longer periods of time). When I was a child, a can of Coca Cola did cost around 30 Cents. A can of Coca cola is 0.69 Dollars / Euros today. You can buy that can now for 0.69 or in 30 years for twice the price. And no your salary will not rise as much as inflation increases the price.

[@TheDarq0n]

interesting conversation, but more and more I get the feeling, you gents represent the very top 1% and have nothing to do with reality of gaming. RTX 20XX, ray tracing didn't happen, 30XX ray tracing didn't happen, 40XX, it's not really happening. Ray traced games run like shit almost universally. We're yet to see it happen really , hence my zero interest in the tech currently.

[@DeanT1987]

The interesting thing is when they said a Pro model is not necessary when in fact the push for RT proves them wrong. Current hardware cannot properly sustain RT its very apparent you’re sacrificing performance. The One X and PS4 Pro were made with 4K in mind. The Series X and PS5 were made to give us 4K60FPS and we’re not really getting that either. Throw RT on top of that and we’re at 1440p 30 FPS.

[@TheNerd]

Pretty important from the last week aswell: The British government dropped its concerns about the Microsoft - Activision Blizzard King deal which pretty much means that the UK Goverment will give it's green light even if it's not official yet.

[@ivandimitrov7994]

Elden ring had a crack before it released and it still sold amazingly well. Denuvo has nothing to do with better pc sales

[@antnydoom6291]

thank goodness for Monday's with the boys

[@michaelkhoury5231]

Speaking of shadows, I'm surprised nobody at DF noticed this with the Elden Ring patch: the regular shadow detail (of the main character, or other objects, the swords at round table hold etc) are now LOCKED to LOW QUALITY in ALL modes; Performance, Quality and even "Ray Tracing" modes now ALL have the same ridiculously low quality BLOCKY soft shadows! Quality mode used to result in at least slightly sharper shadows, but now they've received an across-the-board downgrade!

[@bikechan9903]

It's not "ray tracing isn't worth it", it's "ray tracing isn't worth it when the base game can't even hit 60fps properly", something that's true for Elden Ring. It's even worse that they just pushed this out without doing anything to help improve performance, so no DLSS and no FSR

[@ITNoetic]

59:45 I've worked in the game industry. They know about the issues. They almost always know. But the people in charge of fixing it are not the people who make the decision to delay launch to fix it. And the people in charge of that don't care if it doesn't block cert, or if they can get an exception with a week 1 or 2 patch promise.

[@Dionyzos]

1:05 I don't really understand where that notion that PC is a significantly smaller platform is coming from nowadays. If you seperate Playstation from Xbox, PC or Steam might even be slightly bigger than Sony according to different sources.

[@OrtadragoonX]

There’s way more gamers playing on PC than on console overall when you add all hardware together. And I say that as a console gamer. But I think what developers are scared of is just how many gamers on PC have the hardware that at least matches current consoles. I haven’t seen the latest stats, but just a year ago the most common GPU on Steam was like the GTX 1050. That’s… not running many modern games at acceptable performance today. Because technically me playing some simple 2D indie game on my MacBook Air counts me a gamer on PC. But that thing, despite being almost brand new, couldn’t hope to run any game I have for my PS5.

[@xBINARYGODx]

stupid that I had to scroll down this far to see someone also mention, actually, yes, the PC platform (in terms of gamers) is at least the size of all consoles combined. that said, Rich thinks PS5 vs Xbox SX is 2:1 in sales, whne its 3:2, so they do love to talk out their ass sometimes.

[@dcphillips1991]

My prediction is much bigger caches (3D vcache) used on next gen consoles to boost performance.

[@Beep2bleep]

16:30 You discussed a split of those that want to work in unreal and make custom, I think there was a similar split in Mobile (ios/android) of those that want to work in Unity or those making custom engines. You could probably ask that developer community what happened.

[@Case_]

Speaking of Elden Ring's technical issues, some of the incredibly common things Elden Ring is not capable of on PC (officially, without circumventing Easy AntiCheat): running at more than 60 fps (despite being perfectly able to, CPU/GPU performance allowing), allowing the user to disable vsync, supporting GSync/Freesync in fullscreen mode, supporting HDR in borderless/windowed (and even the fullscreen HDR support is moody as hell and more often than not refuses to work properly, at least in my experience).

[@uninfamous]

Melina with Ninja Theory isn’t actually an actress. She’s a videographer that stepped into the roll initially as a stand in.

[@StefanvonderKrone]

GBC: Games Bespoke Conference GSC: Games Shader(stutter) Conference

[@MukiMuki688]

If you don't have an RT capable GPU, just set the shadow setting to "low." It looks exactly the same.

[@Coxy-b34]

Exactly. Elden Rings shadows at max RT quality are what we used to call low res shadows 😅 Of course I realise that isn't actually the case but it may as well be and it's another example of a game looking no better with RT at an enormous framerate cost

[@Doubles_Advocate]

43:00 just to be clear there already exist several server replacements for the older battlefield titles but only on PC and all of them are unofficial. They're also vulnerable to EA randomly deciding they want to send a DMCA to the creators and permanently kill them.

[@diegoamorim2775]

Hey guys, why dont you upload the video to Spotify?

[@xBINARYGODx]

The Keks Engine? Fabulous.

[@BAJF93]

14:51 no one at DF got the hacker alias right. RIP Ambatukam 😢

[@SEXCOPTER_RUL]

Actually if you have raytracing enabled when starting the game, you can disable it and instantly see the change,and enable it again and it comes back. This ONLY works when you start the game with raytracing ON. If you start it with raytracing disabled this will not work. I got a bunch of screenshots that are lined up pixel perfect to show the difference between it on and off, and without dlss it's worthless unless your on a 4080 or better

[@Akrymir]

The only reason there is RTAO in ER is because their marketing team promised RT in a post release patch. Anyone who has any technical understanding and played ER knew that was an empty promise. So it's no surprise we got an extremely poor and minimal implementation so they could still "deliver" on their promise.

[@hsvfanjan17]

Alex mentioned papers published in regards to the presentations given at GDC. Is there a specific keyword or way to find them on e.g. Google Scholar? Or are the papers locked behind (evil) paywalls of GDC?

[@bacardim390]

I think the battlefield games being delisted contained licensed music. This would explain why they chose to make this move

[@erikharrison]

Regarding the Switch 2 chipset: Late last year, Nvidia dropped a Linux driver for the chip, as part of the Orin drop. It's disabled now, but it's there, and there is evidence of some extra power saving tech from Lovelace being backported, but the OFA driver is the same. For anyone reading this anyway

[@comradesandwich9437]

Love you guys, thank you as always!

[@Davitron_87]

On the topic of John talking about people referring to RT as RTX, and claiming it hurts the general perception of RT. That’s more down to Nvidia’s marketing than anything.

[@StringTheory365]

If ray tracing means 30 frames on PS5 I genuinely don’t want it

[@Poptartsicles]

As a 3060TI owner I fully expect to be able to play CP 2077 path tracing edition at a blistering 7fps at 1080p. Thankfully you only need 1 frame for a sick screen shot.

[@ozzyg82]

Rich flexing with 2 PS5s in the background

[@spenny2cents]

That’s just an early PS5 Pro 😂

[@TylerHNothing]

I feel like Elden Ring was something they wanted to spend a year on the RT so they could implement it more strategically in Armored Core. Hopefully they've been working on the other features as well, but prioritized RT for Elden Ring since they promised it would be on there

[@wiegraf9009]

The RT is complete trash so I hope it's not indicative of what we'll see from Armoured Core

[@TylerHNothing]

@@wiegraf9009 the shadows look good if you know where to look

[@wiegraf9009]

@@TylerHNothing I am talking about the horribly restricted RT distance that causes shadow pop in everywhere

[@Sivec5054]

I bought Xbox Series X specifically to play Bad Company 1 and Onslaught DLC for Bad Company 2...now I have to buy them to keep them

[@danbooke2001]

How do these guys wear over the ear headphones with glasses? Forget the fact that I've never been able to find a pair of over the ear headphones that don't squeeze my head to the point of massive headaches all the time, but wearing glasses at the same time just forces them to dig into the bridge of my noise. There is no way that is comfortable.