Last Call of Duty game I bought and played was Infinite Warfare which had an interesting sci-fi premise but I have had zero-interest in any of the games since.
They seem to just recycle stuff from older games (including the titles which adds to the confusion!) and rarely look interesting for someone like me who only plays single player games and has no interest in co-op or online multiplayer.
Still, the fact that this game is coming to Switch 2 means the franchise has finally become mildly interesting again not because I want to play it - I certainly do not - but simply to find out how it performs on Nintendo's low-spec hardware.
Does the game perform the same whether it is run from the internal storage or from a microSD Express card?
I know that the internal storage is faster but I assume that the game has been coded to take into account the slower microSD Express card speeds?
At least, I would hope it has because I bought a 1 TB microSD Express card earlier this year specifically so I could keep the Final Fantasy VII Remake games on it and not have to remove games to make space for them.
Makes me wonder just how many other PC games are just wasting valuable SSD space because they haven't been compressed properly. For example, God of War: Ragmarok has a much larger install than the PS5 version from memory.
I just want to see Sony commit to single player games, which is the reason I switched from Xbox to PlayStation as my go-to-console of choice with the PS4 and haven't looked back since.
I have no interest in playing live service or multiplayer online games so my reasons for owning a PS6 are entirely dependent on what single player experiences they have lined up.
I also think that ditching the PC might prove to be a costly mistake in time for Sony who seem to be struggling with first-party games on the console (e.g. Saros). I think staggering the release dates is absolutely the thing to do; it's why Xbox is no longer of any interest to me since I can pick and choose the few games from that platform I want to play on my PC on Day One (Forza Horizon 6 being a recent example which I've just bought on Steam).
The problem is getting the timing right and which games to release. Not every PS5 game needs to be on PC and also it has to be released within a reasonable amount of time after PS5 but not too soon that people will just wait for the PC version.
I hope that biennual sports games releases by EA like for F1 is extended to FC (formerly FIFA) and Madden NFL because I personally think that releasing new games every year is unnecessary and have been screaming out for expansion packs for years now.
The extended developments cycle will allow for more innovation to the gameplay and graphics as well as, hopefully, more polished games.
8-12 hours on a PS5 DualSense? I haven't timed exactly how long I get out of my two DualSense controllers but it feels like it is, at most, 6 hours before it drops to 1-bar and I get the low charge warning.
That's the standard DualSense, of which I have two, and they sit on the official charging dock. The DualSense Edge is even worse at around 5 hours, tops. Feels like it is down to 1-bar on that controller after 3 hours!
Comparatively, I get 20-30 hours easily from an Xbox controller, which is what I use on PC.
Would this also work on consoles because my biggest complaint with PS5 and Xbox Series X games was the really bad (in my opinion) FSR2/3 upscaling in games.
This was one reason why I upgraded to a PS5 Pro but even that came with PSSR issues for the first 18 months until it was updated back in March this year.
This would also presumably benefit the Steam Machine which has an older AMD GPU in it?
@themightyant - Microsoft have hardly innovated on the design of the Xbox controller since the Xbox 360 in my opinion so I would be very surprised if they adopted haptic feedback, gyro controls and so on like on the PS5 DualSense controller.
It would be awesome if they did though, as long as the quality control improves, as on PC these features are not available on the DualSense unless you use a cable. The biggest issue I have with the DualSense and especially the DualSense Edge is the pathetic battery life. This is the one area where Xbox controller excel and having a controller with a longer battery life means it will last longer as batteries degrade over time with constant recharges. However, if they add haptic feedback and other features then they would presumably shorten the battery life although it would be interesting to see how such an Xbox controller might compare to the PS5 one for battery life.
This controller is one of the best to use in my experience but either has serious design flaws or bad quality control issues that make it an extremely disappointing purchase.
I bought the original Elite and despite careful use - I am the only one who used it and I never dropped it - the left bumper cracked and started to come loose after a year and the rubber grip started to break apart.
I then bought an Elite V2 which was fine for 18 months until its right bumper started sticking. I also got a second Elite V2 as part of an Xbox Series X bundle back in 2021 but that controller had drift on the right analogue stick pretty much out of the box as it was hardly used up to that point and kept inside the case inside the box.
Last year, I decided to buy a white Elite Core controller and so far that one has been okay. I did not need the accessories as I just recycled the parts from the other two Elite V2 controllers. I expect this controller to develop issues though as despite the hefty seemingly reassuring build quality, it seems like there is a serious lack of care going into the design of these controllers.
My main reason for buying these is to have access to back paddles as I just do not like clicking in the left and right analogue sticks, it just feels so clunky and imprecise, so remap those to the back paddles for ease of use.
Will this Elite V3 controller actually be well-made this time round?
Well, I am certainly not going to be holding my breath but you would certainly hope so for the price Microsoft charge for them, especially when you consider that they don't use TMR analogue sticks. In retrospect, these are almost a rip off and you'd be better off just buying a standard controller assuming you don't mind using left and right analogue clicks!
Intel really should have entered the graphics card market years ago in my opinion, which could have meant real competition for NVIDIA and AMD now.
However, they entered the market too late, with low-end cards that had had immature drivers that took them months to fix and even now there are still problematic games (such as Crimson Desert on release). With AMD and NVIDIA offering more powerful GPUs with much better driver support then what have Intel really got to offer right now?
I have heard that Intel are planning to abandon the GPU market as their cards are just not selling in high enough numbers. That is a shame (if true) because I was really interested to see what future GPUs would be like, especially if they released something in the mid to high end sector which is what I want.
I don't think the specs of the Steam Machine are that exciting personally and it is still stuck with an AMD GPU, as far as I am aware, with sub-standard FSR2/3 upscaling so basically all the same issues as the Steam Deck just on a bigger screen (i.e. TV).
Definitely interested in one of these though to replace my unused Xbox Series X so I can finally play my PC games on a big screen TV, something I cannot do at the moment due to lack of space. However, I am happy to wait for a 2nd or even 3rd gen model with a better GPU and hardware specs. 1st gen hardware revisions are always ultimately a bit disappointing in my experience.
I pre-ordered a physical copy from Nintendo yesterday. It's 'only' £49.99 which seems like a nice price for Switch 2 game.
This is a classic game that I really enjoyed on the N64 and I think the remake looks really nice although maybe they could kept the design of the characters more cute/cartoonish/stylised as Fox especially looked quite creepy/evil in a few of the shots in the trailer. I read one comment on another site that said it was the eyes and I kind of agree. If they made them bigger and more exaggerated then it would look much better.
The game is sure to be great regardless and it has been a long time since I played. This remake also leaves me a lot more optimistic for the rumoured Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake.
Anyone know if the Star Fox remake has been done in-house by Nintendo? I assume it was because Miyamoto introduced the Direct and I don't think he would have been bigging up a remake if a third-party had done it.
I think Project Helix will be a closed off PC that offers a very curated experience that compromises of Xbox emulation for older games not available on PC and native PC games available on the Microsoft Store.
I'd be very surprised if it supported Steam out of the box unless Microsoft have stuck a deal with Valve to pay them a cut to use it. Having Steam would mean that all PC ported PlayStation 4 and 5 games would be available on Xbox, something that I'm not sure Sony would be happy about. Then again they are rumoured to be no longer porting single player PS5 games over to PC so maybe that decision, if true, has something to do with Project Helix and it using Steam?
Regardless, not interested in this console at all. I have a PC which I can play the few Xbox games on so I no longer need to own the console (or hybird console/PC, whatever it turns out to be).
No publisher should be listing specs with frame gen in my opinion as it just looks like they have not bothered to optimise the game properly. I'd argue that listing DLSS/FSR is fine for minimum and recommended specs for games that use ray-tracing otherwise even that can make the specs look suspect. Ideally, people, I would wager, want to see native resolutions and framerates listed, like they did for Crimson Desert, as this gives them a good idea of raw overall performance which they can then 'enhance' with upscalers and/or frame gen on their hardware according to personal preference.
These LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight specs are, quite frankly, shocking and Telltale Games should be deeply ashamed for even listing them.
As you said in the article, it would make far more sense to just be honest and list the proper hardware requirements to hit 1080 30 fps minimum without framerate and 4K 60 fps without framerate. Maybe they didn't do this because they knew it would show that the game was heavy but the current specs already implied that anyway.
Will not be touching this game until I've read/seen decent feedback on how it actually runs on consoles and PCs. I have watched some recent YouTube preview footage of the PS5 version and the framerate looked very wonky in the open world sections and only looked alright in the enclosed spaces. I actually would not be surprised to find out that the console versions are targeting 60 fps but using frame gen from a 30 fps base framerate like Black Myth: Wukong did (which was also a very heavy and not very well optimised UE5 game)
Still rocking an Intel Core i7-13600KF 14 core / 20 thread CPU here and, honestly, it's been one of the finest CPUs I've ever owned but then I upgraded from an Intel Core i7-4770K (which I owned for almost 9 years!). Despite the reported issues with the 13th and 14th Gen Intel CPUs, I have never experienced any issues and my system has been 100% stable even during hours of heavy gaming.
My next CPU will almost certainly be an AMD X3D one though with DDR5 memory as the primary use for my PC is gaming so it makes perfect sense to opt for that over anything from Intel. I just hope I'm not disappointed as I have always used Intel CPUs, mostly because of their previous long-established reputation for solid performance and reliability.
You know it's almost criminal that the Switch 2 has such a lacklustre LCD screen because at 1080p, it would have been really awesome to have played Final Fantasy VII Rebirth that way with nice HDR and good motion clarity... on an OLED screen.
As it is, I keep my Switch 2 permanently docked and play the games on a 55" 4K OLED TV where at least the games now have passable to decent image quality versus the Switch. But being Nintendo, they always get something wrong, and in this case it is the omission of VRR support outside of handheld mode, which means that the best way to play Switch 2 games is still compromised if the game cannot lock to its framerate target properly, which is the case for this game.
Game looks great on Switch 2 considering though but definitely would not want to play this handheld on the current model.
@Vince_Virtua - Alan Wake 2, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill f all exhibited issues with PSSR (shimmering and other artifacts) that were not present on the base PS5. Those issues might be lessened or improved now with the force PSSR2 toggle but all those games were visually inferior to PS5 for many months prior to that.
Also, Digital Foundry have documented a few PS5 games over the years that have slightly worse performance on PS5 Pro but I cannot remember exactly which ones. I think Metal Gear Solid Delta was one though (just checked and, yes, Tom Morgan confirms the Pro version ran worse at launch and still has framerate drops several patches later in a follow up video).
I was initially excited to hear about the Oblivion Remaster last year, which for me came completely out of nowhere, then a couple of days later Microsoft announced it and then shadow dropped it the same day. Awesome!
Except it really wasn't. This was clearly a game that was unfinished and poorly optimised yet despite all that I persevered with the game on PC, where brute force on more powerful hardware than the consoles could address some of the issues with this remaster. However, the core issue remains that the game's stuttering is unfixable and despite 60 hours of playing the game, I ended up just using fast travel to zip around the map and avoid the worst stutters. That isn't how I wanted to play the game though.
Shame on Microsoft and Bethesda for releasing the game in this state then pretty much abandoning this iconic and much-loved classic three months after release with none of the major issues addressed. This should have been the definitive version of the game, lovingly brought up to date for a modern audience to enjoy again.
Will definitely not be buying any future Bethesda games; I'm sick of their buggy releases and the amount of time it takes for them to fix them properly (if they bother to even fix them at all!!!).
Now all Capcom need to do is allow NVIDIA's ray reconstruction DLL be used in the standard RT mode and not be restricted to the path-tracing mode only. PC version, obviously!
Good to have this confirmed because there was discussion in another comments section about whether the game was actually 864p or 1080p. It seemed to me like it was definitely the former because the RT reflections looked worst than on PS5 which does render at 1080p. RT resolutions are tied to rendering resolutions so that made sense.
Great to hear that the PS5 Pro version now has visual parity with the PS5 version, thanks to this small (136p) resolution bump. It always annoys me when I play a game on PS5 Pro and find out that it has worse visuals and/or performance than on the base system.
In this case, it may be trivial and likely something most people would not notice but the point remains that the PS5 Pro is supposed to offer the premium gaming experience so having anything, visuals or performance, worse than the base system is not a good look in my opinion.
Long battery life?!? The DualSense? Get out of here!
I get around 3-5 hours out of the DualSense controller and less with the DualSense Edge. It might be a great controller in every other respect but the battery life is appalling in my opinion. You get 20-30+ hours with Nintendo's and Xbox's offerings.
I've just bought this controller from Amazon when I saw it for £185 earlier this week. It was just delivered today although I am currently at work.
Can this controller be used wirelessly with the Xbox Elite wireless dongle or does it only work with the one it ships with as it looks much smaller than the Xbox Elite one?
This will definitely be my next controller for my PC.
I have always used Xbox controllers with my PC as they are pretty much the standard in my experience so it makes sense to stick with them. I even bought an Elite controller for the paddles as I hate clicking down on the analogue sticks; it just feels so unnatural in my opinion.
However, Microsoft's quality control on their more 'premium' controllers is shocking. I've been through three Elite controllers (the original plus two V2 ones) and all of them have developed faults after less than six months of very careful use. I am the only user, I don't play games that require me to hammer the buttons (I always switch that to Hold anyway), I am the only user and I have never dropped them.
The bumper buttons broke on the original, the first V2 controller had stick drift after just two months - it was barely used being included as part of an Xbox Series X bundle - and the third had a LB bumper button that kept sticking and didn't always work properly. I am currently using a (white) Xbox Core controller, recycling the accessories and cases from the V2 Elites and so far that has been working fine and I've owned it 18 months.
That will be my last controller from Microsoft though as I have been burnt too often with their poor quality control. Will definitely be looking at buying a third-party option with higher-quality switches and much better build quality, etc, when the Core controller inevitably breaks...
I was going to say that this is a pretty shocking state of affairs for any developer to ship a game that crashes on consoles... but then I realised that this is Bethesda Games Studio, a publisher notorious for releasing buggy games over the years, games that are typically poorly supported post-release, relying instead on the modding community to fix stuff, so I am really not that surprised. Just disappointed.
Seriously though, Bethesda need to get their act together and start actually testing their games prior to release. It is simply unacceptable to be shipping a game two and half years after the original release with issues like this. They clearly do not QA their games properly as even the Xbox Series X version now has issues.
How difficult can it be to test games on fixed console hardware anyway? These are not the PC with multiple variations of hardware and software to contend with, these are consoles that are all built the same!!!
All I want in console games is, at most, a locked 30 fps Quality mode, a 40 fps Balanced mode and a 60 fps Performance mode with the visuals tweaked to hit those targets without the need for VRR although allowing the game to run above those targets with VRR is fine too.
If a 120 fps mode is available then great otherwise I am fine with 30/40/60 fps options.
What I don't want to see are tons of graphical options in a console game. It makes sense to have those on a PC where there is a multitude of different hardware configurations from low end handhelds to high end systems with RTX 5090s but it makes zero-sense on fixed console hardware in my opinion.
I half suspect that Capcom view Switch 2 owners as being incapable of selecting a toggle to lock a game's framerate and so have decided that it is best for everyone to not bother adding one!
It's the same kind of mentality that has left many first-party Nintendo games with barebones options, missing basics like volume and brightness settings. Don't want to confuse those kiddies with too many options, right?
All Switch 2 games should either be locked to a framerate target or at least have the option to do so in the options if the default has to be unlocked. There really is no excuse. Everyone is happy, right?
Are Nintendo ever going to support VRR in docked mode for Switch 2? I only ever use my Switch 2 docked because the screen is so poor but it annoys me that VRR is only available in handheld mode.
I would not consider purchasing anything below a 2 TB SSD at this point and even then I would ideally be looking at 4 TB SSDs to replace existing ones... well, if it wasn't for the AI price hike. I haven't owned a 512 GB SSD in many years. My PC has drives with a minimum storage capacity of 1 TB.
I managed to pick up a 4 TB WD NVMe SSD for my PS5 Pro at launch for a decent price and I have four 2 TB NVMe SSDs in my gaming PC. I'm a bit of games hoarder and like to have a large "on-tap" library to dip in and out of when I feel like it instead of uninstalling games to make space for new ones.
Definitely would not considering buying 256 and 512 GB SSDs at this point, not with game installs being so large these days.
The PS5 Pro at $699 was expensive but I would have been fine with playing that if the system had come with the disc drive attachment and stand as well.
A $699 PS6 is unlikely to come with those either as I suspect Sony will want to push people away from physical games next gen to being all-digital for PS7.
That's assuming the PS6 will even come with a disc drive but hopefully it will since it is likely to be backward compatibile with PS4 and PS5 games so anyone with a physical library would lose out if the PS6 was digital only.
I am happy to be all-digital on PC where third-party keys can be bought cheaply, offsetting the loss of having a physical game to sell on, but I would not like this on console where you are tied to a single store front and high prices unless you wait 6-12 months for the game to maybe turn up in a sale.
This is a lovely looking game but sometimes I wonder if Nintendo are stuck in the late 1990s as their developers seem to have a real apathy for using modern techniques like 'anti-aliasing' and 'anisotropic texture filtering', which have been in use elsewhere for over three decades!
And while, yes, you can argue that a side-scrolling pseudo-2D platformer like Super Mario Wonder maybe does not really need anti-aliasing, it does mean that the game will not scale up as gracefully on future hardware should, say, 8K TVs ever become a thing. And when Nintendo do embrace some kind of anti-aliasing it is usually the worse kind: FSR1 upscaling or FXAA or something from the dark ages of gaming rather than DLSS or TAA!
As for the lack of 120 fps support, well, this just fits in with my theory that Nintendo are just 20+ years behind everyone else when it comes to embracing new technologies. The Switch 2 technically supports 120 Hz, VRR, HDR, DLSS and ray-tracing but they are barely used by Nintendo's first party developers with VRR still not supported in docked mode (which is really is where I need it because don't use the Switch 2 as a handheld due to finding the LCD screen so smeary and poor quality).
I am fine with frame generation being used in consoles games but only if the base framerate is 60 fps or higher. Don't want to see being used to turn a 30 fps game into a 60 fps one like with that Black Myth Wukong game on PS5 and Xbox Series X.
@Sausages - But modders on PC do this all the time anyway... just check out Nexus Mods for any game. Tens of thousands of graphics mods to tweak character faces, game assets and textures as well colour tone and lighting etc etc.
DLSS5 is just another mod. I am fine with this as long it is an option and doesn't replace the original artistic intent. I mean common sense tells me it won't because the games still have to run on AMD consoles and GPUs.
As such, this will surely only ever be optional and hopefully NVIDIA will see sense and separate this 'filter' from actual DLSS which is used for image reconstruction/upscaling.
I think it is interesting use of AI technology that does make some games look better - Starfield for example which has pretty awful character models by default - and it reminds me of something like RTX Remix or those fan made mods on Nexus Mods that aim to change the visual look which are a matter of preference as to whether they actually look better or note.
I have two issues with DLSS5 right now:
1. This should NOT be called DLSS5. This technology is something completely different from image upscaling and should be called something else DLFX (Deep Learning Effects) or whatever to differentiate and avoid confusion.
A game with this effect should have DLSS as a separate option.
2. These demos are obviously being shoehorned into games that were not designed with DLSS5 from the onset so the results are somewhat mixed. Some games look fine, others look too different, uncanny even because the AI is striving for photorealism when the game was not designed that way, e.g. Hogwart's Legacy with its pleasant cartoonish looks.
Got to admit that I was surprised at the backlash against this. There is no way that this will replace the original artistic intent because the game still has to be designed to look good on AMD GPUs and consoles with don't use NVIDIA hardware (and the Switch 2 certainly isn't going to be running this either, let's face it, outside of a developer tech demo maybe).
I think the ray construction just highlights how lacklustre the game's standard denoiser is.
I get that this is a low-cost feature to allow the game to scale across consoles and low-end GPUs but why is there no higher quality denoiser for medium and high options between the standard "low" setting and the "ultra" ray construction option?
For example, the game engine's denoiser by default uses 1/16 rays per pixel so why not 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and even 1 rays per pixel options on PC? These would still fall below the quality offered by ray reconstruction but surely would be less intensive to use for those us for not running RTX 4090/5090s? These would also bridge the gap between the low quality denoiser with its issues and ray reconstruction.
More choise is always better, right, especially on PC?
@JamieAnderson - I expect it will be included in a Day One patch but even if it isn't then the system level PSSR 2.0 firmware update is due for release this month anyway (so anytime in the next 18 days) so you would be able to force the game to use PSSR 2.0 even if the developers have not patched the game to use it.
@CorporalHicks - I have to agree with you about the excessive pop in and LOD issues visible in the PS5 Pro version.
If it was in the far distance then I would be fine with it but not when it occurs mid distance and even closer for foilage. It's not just pop in but also LOD transitions which are quite jarring. I found it quite distracting personally to the point where it would break immersion for me.
This is clearly how they've got the game running (relatively) well on consoles with ray-tracing. After years of Unreal Engine 5 games that use Nanite I have become used to seeing little to no pop in so this is quite a step back in my opinion. Game looks fantastic otherwise, no doubt, but there is no denying this is a weak aspect of the visuals on PS5 Pro.
I will be getting the game on PC anyway and hope that the higher settings allow the draw distance and LOD transitions to be pushed out much further.
One of the great things about the previous Unreal Engine 4 is that you could very easily tweak the games on PC using Engine INI variables to massively push out the foliage, shadow and draw distance in most games as well as basically remove LOD transitions. Maybe this is also possible with this engine too?
Not watched the video yet but from reading the article it sounds like the PS5 Pro is very good.
However, I am disappointed to read that the game has screen tearing when it drops outside of the VRR range. Since owning a VRR capable TV in 2019, I cannot remember the last time I actually saw a game with screen tearing which has been a blessing. Screen tearing is something that takes me completely out of a game if I see it as I'm very sensitive to it, unfortunately. In some cases, this issue can ruin a game for me.
Hope that the developers can address this quickly and in time for release. I see no reason why the current build cannot use the 120 Hz container and LFC seeing as it is part of the console's development kit.
Maybe this indicates that the console versions have perhaps been getting less attention than the PC build?
Honestly cannot say I understood every word of what was said but it sounds impressive all the same!
Really looking forward to playing this on PC and possibly on PS5 Pro as well. I understand that the PS5 Pro version will be using the new PSSR 2.0 which should (hopefully) yield good results if Resident Evil Requiem is anything to go by.
I also picked up the physical Resident Evil Generations triple pack bundle for Switch 2 last week and have been impressed with the quality of all three games so far, particularly Resident Evil 7 and Requiem.
However, Village felt a bit jerky when I briefly tested in handheld mode last night, which I found surprising considering the handheld mode isa supposed to use VRR. I was expecting the game to feel jerky when played docked as that mode does not support VRR and the game does not lock to 60 fps for extended periods of time.
I hope Capcom can either optimise the game to improve perfornace, fix VRR (and include it for the docked experience) or add a 40 fps mode for a smoother gameplay experience.
Shame that the Switch 2's screen is so dreadful - all these games showcase the LCD screen's poor black levels and sub-par HDR - and everything looks smeary in motion, thanks to the slow pixel response. Makes me want the Switch 2 OLED all the more as the games otherwise look really imrpressive visually considering the low-powered hardware running them.
@themightyant - That's a very good point about the potential performance hit of using PSSR2. After all, DLSS4 has a performance hit over DLSS3.
Maybe Sony have considered this and forcing PSSR2 at a system level uses the next preset down but still offers superior results to the higher PSSR1 version?
The system level setting is presumably just a fallback for games that don't get updated and Sony will no doubt be encouraging developers to patch their games with PSSR2 where they have more control over what settings that can use etc etc?
I played the PS5 Pro version of Resident Evil Requiem last night on my LG C3 OLED TV and was blown away by how good the game looks visually, especially after hearing that it is upscaling from a base resolution that is only slightly higher than 1080p.
After the initial excitement and then disappointment of PSSR 1.0, I have been eagerly awaiting the release of PSSR 2.0. I was hoping it would be part of the current beta firmware, which I am currently testing, but sadly it isn't.
That PSSR 2.0 can be forced at a system level, I assume in similar way to how DLSS3/4 and FSR4 work on PC, is surely a blessing?
Even if it isn't perfect, it means that we finally have an option to fix all those lacklustre early Pro PSSR enhanced games that were never fixed by the developers. I'm thinking of Star Wars Jedi Survivor and Silent Hill f here.
Also, this may resolve issues with games like Star Wars Outlaws and Silent Hill 2 which were patched with options to turn off PSSR but now may actually look good with it enabled when forcing PSSR 2.0 at a system level.
I expect that most developers will not bother to patch there games with PSSR 2.0 officially as it wouldn't make sense for them to spend money on older games that are only enhanced for a niche console with a small user base.
Fingers cross that this will actually be as good as I am hoping it will be.
The problem is that Microsoft have damaged the Xbox brand and reputation with too much interference from the higher ups. They've diluted the brand to the point where I no longer see Xbox as a console worth owning but as a publisher of the handful of decent games each year that I can buy on my PC.
Long gone are the exciting Wild West days of the original Xbox and the excellent (if somewhat unreliable) Xbox 360. Xbox One should have been the next step in console gaming dominance but instead it flopped with a disastrous TV! TV! TV! unveilling and Xbox has never really recovered since. The hardware isn't selling and as a result Game Pass subscriptions have stagnated.
Can Xbox come back from this?
It would be sad to see it go completely - Sony need competition - but at the same time it is hard to see anything positive from all the years of mismanagement, u-turns and lies. I would not be at all surprised if Microsoft switch Xbox over to just being a games publisher over the next few years and abandon the hardware market completely.
Whatever they do, I will not be buying future Xbox hardware.
I've started to really dislike Capcom's slack business practices.
On the one hand, they do release consistently good games but on the other, more worryingly, is their complete apathy for releasing their games with issues that either take months to fix (the infamous stuttering bug in Resident Evil Village on PC for example) or releasing their games with serious performance issues (such as Monster Hunter Wild which was a complete disaster on PC).
Now we have this. I cannot say that I am surprised that they've degraded the performance in Resident Evil 4 on PC with a DRM replacement update but I will say that this is another massive disappointment to join all the other disappointments.
Honestly, at this point I'm seriously wondering if buying any Capcom game at launch on PC is a good idea. Seems like the prudent thing to do is to wait a couple of years in the hope that the various issues are fixed. By then the game will likely be cheap in a Steam sale anyway so it's a win-win for me really.
I am disappointed that the Switch 2 TV experience lacks VRR support not to mention poor support for 120 Hz which would be great for this game's 40 fps Balanced mode in the absence of VRR support in docked mode.
I only use my Switch 2 in docked mode as I find the LCD screen such a massive letdown compared with the Switch OLED. That wouldn't be an issue if more games supported 120 Hz/40 fps modes and VRR in docked mode.
But then this is Nintendo who are about 5-15 years behind when it comes to adopting technologies that others have used for years. "Anti-aliasing" is still an alien concept to many of their first party developers for example.
@ramu-chan - Kind of agree that this is definitely a game that looks like it was designed first and foremost for the Switch and then "uprezzed" for the Switch 2. It looks kind of like the upgrade we saw from the Super Mario Odyssey patch on Switch 2 in my opinion. Looks sharper and clearer but definitely not a generation leap in graphical fidelity over the Switch version which I saw a comparison of on YouTube this morning.
As such, it looks nice enough for a Switch 2 game but at the same it is disappointing that it isn't doing more with the hardware beyond offering a higher resolution and a 120 Hz mode.
I think we are going to see a very long cross gen period on Switch 2 as it seems clear that Nintendo are absolutely not going to be turning their backs on the those 100+ million original Switch owners any time soon. I kind of get it but at the same time without the exclusives then there is less incentive for those people to upgrade to a Switch 2 if almost all the major first-party releases on both consoles.
Also, it is funny to think that the game likely looks better on the Switch OLED in portable mode than it does on the Switch 2 by virtue of it having a superior screen! I hate the LCD screen on my Switch 2 so much that mine has been permanently docked to my 55" OLED TV since I bought it in June!
I loaded up AC Shadows a few weeks ago and noticed that the performance was surprisingly bad but at the time I just put it down to it being the result of a bad patch or something. Good to know that this is fixed but it does annoy me just how many things Microsoft break with Windows updates.
I had an issue with Star Wars Outlaws crashing to the desktop with no error or event log entry when I updated to Windows 11 24H2 last year and it took almost six months for that issue to be fully fixed at which point I had lost interest in playing the game.
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Re: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will be the first to ship day-and-date on Switch 2 - alongside PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC
Last Call of Duty game I bought and played was Infinite Warfare which had an interesting sci-fi premise but I have had zero-interest in any of the games since.
They seem to just recycle stuff from older games (including the titles which adds to the confusion!) and rarely look interesting for someone like me who only plays single player games and has no interest in co-op or online multiplayer.
Still, the fact that this game is coming to Switch 2 means the franchise has finally become mildly interesting again not because I want to play it - I certainly do not - but simply to find out how it performs on Nintendo's low-spec hardware.
Re: Review: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth: Switch 2 Performance Boosted Over Demo, But Xbox 60fps Mode Still Disappoints
Does the game perform the same whether it is run from the internal storage or from a microSD Express card?
I know that the internal storage is faster but I assume that the game has been coded to take into account the slower microSD Express card speeds?
At least, I would hope it has because I bought a 1 TB microSD Express card earlier this year specifically so I could keep the Final Fantasy VII Remake games on it and not have to remove games to make space for them.
Re: Nixxes heroically adds long-awaited upscaling support to Helldivers 2, from PC to Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PS5 Pro
Wow... 154 GB to 23 GB file compression!!!
Makes me wonder just how many other PC games are just wasting valuable SSD space because they haven't been compressed properly. For example, God of War: Ragmarok has a much larger install than the PS5 version from memory.
Re: PlayStation State of Play on 2nd June: What Are You Hoping for at the 60+ Minute Show?
I just want to see Sony commit to single player games, which is the reason I switched from Xbox to PlayStation as my go-to-console of choice with the PS4 and haven't looked back since.
I have no interest in playing live service or multiplayer online games so my reasons for owning a PS6 are entirely dependent on what single player experiences they have lined up.
I also think that ditching the PC might prove to be a costly mistake in time for Sony who seem to be struggling with first-party games on the console (e.g. Saros). I think staggering the release dates is absolutely the thing to do; it's why Xbox is no longer of any interest to me since I can pick and choose the few games from that platform I want to play on my PC on Day One (Forza Horizon 6 being a recent example which I've just bought on Steam).
The problem is getting the timing right and which games to release. Not every PS5 game needs to be on PC and also it has to be released within a reasonable amount of time after PS5 but not too soon that people will just wait for the PC version.
Re: F1 2026 Season Pack Trailer Analysis: Madring And New Teams Confirmed For F1 25, But Huge Questions Remain
I hope that biennual sports games releases by EA like for F1 is extended to FC (formerly FIFA) and Madden NFL because I personally think that releasing new games every year is unnecessary and have been screaming out for expansion packs for years now.
The extended developments cycle will allow for more innovation to the gameplay and graphics as well as, hopefully, more polished games.
Re: Long-awaited Xbox Elite Series 3 controller leaks in photos from Brazilian government body
8-12 hours on a PS5 DualSense? I haven't timed exactly how long I get out of my two DualSense controllers but it feels like it is, at most, 6 hours before it drops to 1-bar and I get the low charge warning.
That's the standard DualSense, of which I have two, and they sit on the official charging dock. The DualSense Edge is even worse at around 5 hours, tops. Feels like it is down to 1-bar on that controller after 3 hours!
Comparatively, I get 20-30 hours easily from an Xbox controller, which is what I use on PC.
Re: AMD FSR 4.1 Now Coming to Older Radeon 7000 GPUs in July After Radeon 9000 Debut, With Radeon 6000 Support Coming in 2027
Could Steam Deck run this?
Re: AMD FSR 4.1 Now Coming to Older Radeon 7000 GPUs in July After Radeon 9000 Debut, With Radeon 6000 Support Coming in 2027
Would this also work on consoles because my biggest complaint with PS5 and Xbox Series X games was the really bad (in my opinion) FSR2/3 upscaling in games.
This was one reason why I upgraded to a PS5 Pro but even that came with PSSR issues for the first 18 months until it was updated back in March this year.
This would also presumably benefit the Steam Machine which has an older AMD GPU in it?
Re: Long-awaited Xbox Elite Series 3 controller leaks in photos from Brazilian government body
@themightyant - Microsoft have hardly innovated on the design of the Xbox controller since the Xbox 360 in my opinion so I would be very surprised if they adopted haptic feedback, gyro controls and so on like on the PS5 DualSense controller.
It would be awesome if they did though, as long as the quality control improves, as on PC these features are not available on the DualSense unless you use a cable. The biggest issue I have with the DualSense and especially the DualSense Edge is the pathetic battery life. This is the one area where Xbox controller excel and having a controller with a longer battery life means it will last longer as batteries degrade over time with constant recharges. However, if they add haptic feedback and other features then they would presumably shorten the battery life although it would be interesting to see how such an Xbox controller might compare to the PS5 one for battery life.
Re: Long-awaited Xbox Elite Series 3 controller leaks in photos from Brazilian government body
This controller is one of the best to use in my experience but either has serious design flaws or bad quality control issues that make it an extremely disappointing purchase.
I bought the original Elite and despite careful use - I am the only one who used it and I never dropped it - the left bumper cracked and started to come loose after a year and the rubber grip started to break apart.
I then bought an Elite V2 which was fine for 18 months until its right bumper started sticking. I also got a second Elite V2 as part of an Xbox Series X bundle back in 2021 but that controller had drift on the right analogue stick pretty much out of the box as it was hardly used up to that point and kept inside the case inside the box.
Last year, I decided to buy a white Elite Core controller and so far that one has been okay. I did not need the accessories as I just recycled the parts from the other two Elite V2 controllers. I expect this controller to develop issues though as despite the hefty seemingly reassuring build quality, it seems like there is a serious lack of care going into the design of these controllers.
My main reason for buying these is to have access to back paddles as I just do not like clicking in the left and right analogue sticks, it just feels so clunky and imprecise, so remap those to the back paddles for ease of use.
Will this Elite V3 controller actually be well-made this time round?
Well, I am certainly not going to be holding my breath but you would certainly hope so for the price Microsoft charge for them, especially when you consider that they don't use TMR analogue sticks. In retrospect, these are almost a rip off and you'd be better off just buying a standard controller assuming you don't mind using left and right analogue clicks!
Re: Review: Indiana Jones and The Great Circle Arrives Surprisingly Intact on Switch 2
Doesn't the Xbox Series S have less available RAM than the Switch 2? If so, then why isn't the hi-res texture pack also available for Switch 2?
Re: Arc Pro B70 Benchmarks Show The "Big Battlemage" Arc B770 Graphics Card We Never Got
Intel really should have entered the graphics card market years ago in my opinion, which could have meant real competition for NVIDIA and AMD now.
However, they entered the market too late, with low-end cards that had had immature drivers that took them months to fix and even now there are still problematic games (such as Crimson Desert on release). With AMD and NVIDIA offering more powerful GPUs with much better driver support then what have Intel really got to offer right now?
I have heard that Intel are planning to abandon the GPU market as their cards are just not selling in high enough numbers. That is a shame (if true) because I was really interested to see what future GPUs would be like, especially if they released something in the mid to high end sector which is what I want.
Re: Update Hints Steam Machine Will Arrive in 512GB and 2TB Versions, Despite AI-led SSD Pricing Surge
I don't think the specs of the Steam Machine are that exciting personally and it is still stuck with an AMD GPU, as far as I am aware, with sub-standard FSR2/3 upscaling so basically all the same issues as the Steam Deck just on a bigger screen (i.e. TV).
Definitely interested in one of these though to replace my unused Xbox Series X so I can finally play my PC games on a big screen TV, something I cannot do at the moment due to lack of space. However, I am happy to wait for a 2nd or even 3rd gen model with a better GPU and hardware specs. 1st gen hardware revisions are always ultimately a bit disappointing in my experience.
Re: Frame-Gen to 30fps? Lego Batman's "Bizarre" PC Specs Sheet Is a Case Study in How Not To Market a Game
@Claw - More like Windows Vista...
Re: Star Fox 64 Remake For Switch 2 Announced, Arrives Next Month
I pre-ordered a physical copy from Nintendo yesterday. It's 'only' £49.99 which seems like a nice price for Switch 2 game.
This is a classic game that I really enjoyed on the N64 and I think the remake looks really nice although maybe they could kept the design of the characters more cute/cartoonish/stylised as Fox especially looked quite creepy/evil in a few of the shots in the trailer. I read one comment on another site that said it was the eyes and I kind of agree. If they made them bigger and more exaggerated then it would look much better.
The game is sure to be great regardless and it has been a long time since I played. This remake also leaves me a lot more optimistic for the rumoured Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake.
Anyone know if the Star Fox remake has been done in-house by Nintendo? I assume it was because Miyamoto introduced the Direct and I don't think he would have been bigging up a remake if a third-party had done it.
Re: Is Xbox Project Helix a Console or a PC?
I think Project Helix will be a closed off PC that offers a very curated experience that compromises of Xbox emulation for older games not available on PC and native PC games available on the Microsoft Store.
I'd be very surprised if it supported Steam out of the box unless Microsoft have stuck a deal with Valve to pay them a cut to use it. Having Steam would mean that all PC ported PlayStation 4 and 5 games would be available on Xbox, something that I'm not sure Sony would be happy about. Then again they are rumoured to be no longer porting single player PS5 games over to PC so maybe that decision, if true, has something to do with Project Helix and it using Steam?
Regardless, not interested in this console at all. I have a PC which I can play the few Xbox games on so I no longer need to own the console (or hybird console/PC, whatever it turns out to be).
Re: Frame-Gen to 30fps? Lego Batman's "Bizarre" PC Specs Sheet Is a Case Study in How Not To Market a Game
No publisher should be listing specs with frame gen in my opinion as it just looks like they have not bothered to optimise the game properly. I'd argue that listing DLSS/FSR is fine for minimum and recommended specs for games that use ray-tracing otherwise even that can make the specs look suspect. Ideally, people, I would wager, want to see native resolutions and framerates listed, like they did for Crimson Desert, as this gives them a good idea of raw overall performance which they can then 'enhance' with upscalers and/or frame gen on their hardware according to personal preference.
These LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight specs are, quite frankly, shocking and Telltale Games should be deeply ashamed for even listing them.
As you said in the article, it would make far more sense to just be honest and list the proper hardware requirements to hit 1080 30 fps minimum without framerate and 4K 60 fps without framerate. Maybe they didn't do this because they knew it would show that the game was heavy but the current specs already implied that anyway.
Will not be touching this game until I've read/seen decent feedback on how it actually runs on consoles and PCs. I have watched some recent YouTube preview footage of the PS5 version and the framerate looked very wonky in the open world sections and only looked alright in the enclosed spaces. I actually would not be surprised to find out that the console versions are targeting 60 fps but using frame gen from a 30 fps base framerate like Black Myth: Wukong did (which was also a very heavy and not very well optimised UE5 game)
Re: It's Time To Say Goodbye To The Ryzen 5 3600
Still rocking an Intel Core i7-13600KF 14 core / 20 thread CPU here and, honestly, it's been one of the finest CPUs I've ever owned but then I upgraded from an Intel Core i7-4770K (which I owned for almost 9 years!). Despite the reported issues with the 13th and 14th Gen Intel CPUs, I have never experienced any issues and my system has been 100% stable even during hours of heavy gaming.
My next CPU will almost certainly be an AMD X3D one though with DDR5 memory as the primary use for my PC is gaming so it makes perfect sense to opt for that over anything from Intel. I just hope I'm not disappointed as I have always used Intel CPUs, mostly because of their previous long-established reputation for solid performance and reliability.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth: Switch 2 and Xbox Demo Analysis Suggests Promising Ports With a Few Obvious Flaws
You know it's almost criminal that the Switch 2 has such a lacklustre LCD screen because at 1080p, it would have been really awesome to have played Final Fantasy VII Rebirth that way with nice HDR and good motion clarity... on an OLED screen.
As it is, I keep my Switch 2 permanently docked and play the games on a 55" 4K OLED TV where at least the games now have passable to decent image quality versus the Switch. But being Nintendo, they always get something wrong, and in this case it is the omission of VRR support outside of handheld mode, which means that the best way to play Switch 2 games is still compromised if the game cannot lock to its framerate target properly, which is the case for this game.
Game looks great on Switch 2 considering though but definitely would not want to play this handheld on the current model.
Re: Pragmata Gets PS5 Pro Resolution Bump: Version 1.21 Comes With an Undocumented Upgrade
@Vince_Virtua - Alan Wake 2, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill f all exhibited issues with PSSR (shimmering and other artifacts) that were not present on the base PS5. Those issues might be lessened or improved now with the force PSSR2 toggle but all those games were visually inferior to PS5 for many months prior to that.
Also, Digital Foundry have documented a few PS5 games over the years that have slightly worse performance on PS5 Pro but I cannot remember exactly which ones. I think Metal Gear Solid Delta was one though (just checked and, yes, Tom Morgan confirms the Pro version ran worse at launch and still has framerate drops several patches later in a follow up video).
Re: Yup, Oblivion Remastered Is Still Broken a Year After Release
I was initially excited to hear about the Oblivion Remaster last year, which for me came completely out of nowhere, then a couple of days later Microsoft announced it and then shadow dropped it the same day. Awesome!
Except it really wasn't. This was clearly a game that was unfinished and poorly optimised yet despite all that I persevered with the game on PC, where brute force on more powerful hardware than the consoles could address some of the issues with this remaster. However, the core issue remains that the game's stuttering is unfixable and despite 60 hours of playing the game, I ended up just using fast travel to zip around the map and avoid the worst stutters. That isn't how I wanted to play the game though.
Shame on Microsoft and Bethesda for releasing the game in this state then pretty much abandoning this iconic and much-loved classic three months after release with none of the major issues addressed. This should have been the definitive version of the game, lovingly brought up to date for a modern audience to enjoy again.
Will definitely not be buying any future Bethesda games; I'm sick of their buggy releases and the amount of time it takes for them to fix them properly (if they bother to even fix them at all!!!).
Re: Pragmata Gets PS5 Pro Resolution Bump: Version 1.21 Comes With an Undocumented Upgrade
Now all Capcom need to do is allow NVIDIA's ray reconstruction DLL be used in the standard RT mode and not be restricted to the path-tracing mode only. PC version, obviously!
Re: Pragmata Gets PS5 Pro Resolution Bump: Version 1.21 Comes With an Undocumented Upgrade
Good to have this confirmed because there was discussion in another comments section about whether the game was actually 864p or 1080p. It seemed to me like it was definitely the former because the RT reflections looked worst than on PS5 which does render at 1080p. RT resolutions are tied to rendering resolutions so that made sense.
Great to hear that the PS5 Pro version now has visual parity with the PS5 version, thanks to this small (136p) resolution bump. It always annoys me when I play a game on PS5 Pro and find out that it has worse visuals and/or performance than on the base system.
In this case, it may be trivial and likely something most people would not notice but the point remains that the PS5 Pro is supposed to offer the premium gaming experience so having anything, visuals or performance, worse than the base system is not a good look in my opinion.
Re: Dualsense on PC: This $16 Raspberry Pi Adds Wireless Adaptive Triggers and Haptic Feedback To The PS5 Controller
Long battery life?!? The DualSense? Get out of here!
I get around 3-5 hours out of the DualSense controller and less with the DualSense Edge. It might be a great controller in every other respect but the battery life is appalling in my opinion. You get 20-30+ hours with Nintendo's and Xbox's offerings.
Re: Review: Asus ROG Raikiri 2 Xbox Wireless Controller - A Better Elite Alternative
I've just bought this controller from Amazon when I saw it for £185 earlier this week. It was just delivered today although I am currently at work.
Can this controller be used wirelessly with the Xbox Elite wireless dongle or does it only work with the one it ships with as it looks much smaller than the Xbox Elite one?
Re: Review: Asus ROG Raikiri 2 Xbox Wireless Controller - A Better Elite Alternative
This will definitely be my next controller for my PC.
I have always used Xbox controllers with my PC as they are pretty much the standard in my experience so it makes sense to stick with them. I even bought an Elite controller for the paddles as I hate clicking down on the analogue sticks; it just feels so unnatural in my opinion.
However, Microsoft's quality control on their more 'premium' controllers is shocking. I've been through three Elite controllers (the original plus two V2 ones) and all of them have developed faults after less than six months of very careful use. I am the only user, I don't play games that require me to hammer the buttons (I always switch that to Hold anyway), I am the only user and I have never dropped them.
The bumper buttons broke on the original, the first V2 controller had stick drift after just two months - it was barely used being included as part of an Xbox Series X bundle - and the third had a LB bumper button that kept sticking and didn't always work properly. I am currently using a (white) Xbox Core controller, recycling the accessories and cases from the V2 Elites and so far that has been working fine and I've owned it 18 months.
That will be my last controller from Microsoft though as I have been burnt too often with their poor quality control. Will definitely be looking at buying a third-party option with higher-quality switches and much better build quality, etc, when the Core controller inevitably breaks...
Re: How To Run Pragmata At 1440p on PlayStation 5 - But Should You?
What confuses me is that the 1440p setting is from the PS5 Pro save file but that version of the game runs at 864p doesn't it?
Or is the Pro version 864p reconstructed using PSSR2 to 1440p, hence that particular setting, and then finally upscaled to 4K for the final output?
Otherwise, if the Pro version is upscaled from 864p to 4K then where does this 1440p setting come from?
Re: Starfield PS5 Crashes: Bethesda Delivers Hotfix, Promises More Comprehensive Fix This Week
I was going to say that this is a pretty shocking state of affairs for any developer to ship a game that crashes on consoles... but then I realised that this is Bethesda Games Studio, a publisher notorious for releasing buggy games over the years, games that are typically poorly supported post-release, relying instead on the modding community to fix stuff, so I am really not that surprised. Just disappointed.
Seriously though, Bethesda need to get their act together and start actually testing their games prior to release. It is simply unacceptable to be shipping a game two and half years after the original release with issues like this. They clearly do not QA their games properly as even the Xbox Series X version now has issues.
How difficult can it be to test games on fixed console hardware anyway? These are not the PC with multiple variations of hardware and software to contend with, these are consoles that are all built the same!!!
Re: The Worst Idea Ever: Placebo Settings Menus For PS5, Series X and Switch 2
All I want in console games is, at most, a locked 30 fps Quality mode, a 40 fps Balanced mode and a 60 fps Performance mode with the visuals tweaked to hit those targets without the need for VRR although allowing the game to run above those targets with VRR is fine too.
If a 120 fps mode is available then great otherwise I am fine with 30/40/60 fps options.
What I don't want to see are tons of graphical options in a console game. It makes sense to have those on a PC where there is a multitude of different hardware configurations from low end handhelds to high end systems with RTX 5090s but it makes zero-sense on fixed console hardware in my opinion.
Re: Review: Pragmata On Switch 2: An Ambitious Port Held Back By Variable Performance
I half suspect that Capcom view Switch 2 owners as being incapable of selecting a toggle to lock a game's framerate and so have decided that it is best for everyone to not bother adding one!
It's the same kind of mentality that has left many first-party Nintendo games with barebones options, missing basics like volume and brightness settings. Don't want to confuse those kiddies with too many options, right?
All Switch 2 games should either be locked to a framerate target or at least have the option to do so in the options if the default has to be unlocked. There really is no excuse. Everyone is happy, right?
Are Nintendo ever going to support VRR in docked mode for Switch 2? I only ever use my Switch 2 docked because the screen is so poor but it annoys me that VRR is only available in handheld mode.
Re: Lexar: Gamers Are Willing to Sacrifice RAM, but 512GB SSDs Are a Step Too Far
I would not consider purchasing anything below a 2 TB SSD at this point and even then I would ideally be looking at 4 TB SSDs to replace existing ones... well, if it wasn't for the AI price hike. I haven't owned a 512 GB SSD in many years. My PC has drives with a minimum storage capacity of 1 TB.
I managed to pick up a 4 TB WD NVMe SSD for my PS5 Pro at launch for a decent price and I have four 2 TB NVMe SSDs in my gaming PC. I'm a bit of games hoarder and like to have a large "on-tap" library to dip in and out of when I feel like it instead of uninstalling games to make space for new ones.
Definitely would not considering buying 256 and 512 GB SSDs at this point, not with game installs being so large these days.
Re: PS6 Pricing: 41% of Digital Foundry Viewers Would Pay $699 or More for a Next-Gen PlayStation
The PS5 Pro at $699 was expensive but I would have been fine with playing that if the system had come with the disc drive attachment and stand as well.
A $699 PS6 is unlikely to come with those either as I suspect Sony will want to push people away from physical games next gen to being all-digital for PS7.
That's assuming the PS6 will even come with a disc drive but hopefully it will since it is likely to be backward compatibile with PS4 and PS5 games so anyone with a physical library would lose out if the PS6 was digital only.
I am happy to be all-digital on PC where third-party keys can be bought cheaply, offsetting the loss of having a physical game to sell on, but I would not like this on console where you are tied to a single store front and high prices unless you wait 6-12 months for the game to maybe turn up in a sale.
Re: Assassin's Creed Unity's 4K 60fps Patch Isn't 4K - But The Upgrade Is Still Worth It
I'm confused here. The Xbox Series S version runs at 960p and the Xbox Series X at 1620p but the PS5 and PS5 Pro both run at 1296p?
Why isn't the Pro version running at 1620p or higher?
Re: Review: Super Mario Bros Wonder's 4K Upgrade For Switch 2 Shines
This is a lovely looking game but sometimes I wonder if Nintendo are stuck in the late 1990s as their developers seem to have a real apathy for using modern techniques like 'anti-aliasing' and 'anisotropic texture filtering', which have been in use elsewhere for over three decades!
And while, yes, you can argue that a side-scrolling pseudo-2D platformer like Super Mario Wonder maybe does not really need anti-aliasing, it does mean that the game will not scale up as gracefully on future hardware should, say, 8K TVs ever become a thing. And when Nintendo do embrace some kind of anti-aliasing it is usually the worse kind: FSR1 upscaling or FXAA or something from the dark ages of gaming rather than DLSS or TAA!
As for the lack of 120 fps support, well, this just fits in with my theory that Nintendo are just 20+ years behind everyone else when it comes to embracing new technologies. The Switch 2 technically supports 120 Hz, VRR, HDR, DLSS and ray-tracing but they are barely used by Nintendo's first party developers with VRR still not supported in docked mode (which is really is where I need it because don't use the Switch 2 as a handheld due to finding the LCD screen so smeary and poor quality).
Re: Mark Cerny Confirms Frame Generation "Should Be Seen At Some Point On PlayStation Platforms"
I am fine with frame generation being used in consoles games but only if the base framerate is 60 fps or higher. Don't want to see being used to turn a 30 fps game into a 60 fps one like with that Black Myth Wukong game on PS5 and Xbox Series X.
Re: Nvidia's new DLSS 5 Brings Photo-Realistic Lighting To RTX 50-Series
@Sausages - But modders on PC do this all the time anyway... just check out Nexus Mods for any game. Tens of thousands of graphics mods to tweak character faces, game assets and textures as well colour tone and lighting etc etc.
DLSS5 is just another mod. I am fine with this as long it is an option and doesn't replace the original artistic intent. I mean common sense tells me it won't because the games still have to run on AMD consoles and GPUs.
As such, this will surely only ever be optional and hopefully NVIDIA will see sense and separate this 'filter' from actual DLSS which is used for image reconstruction/upscaling.
Re: Nvidia's new DLSS 5 Brings Photo-Realistic Lighting To RTX 50-Series
I think it is interesting use of AI technology that does make some games look better - Starfield for example which has pretty awful character models by default - and it reminds me of something like RTX Remix or those fan made mods on Nexus Mods that aim to change the visual look which are a matter of preference as to whether they actually look better or note.
I have two issues with DLSS5 right now:
1. This should NOT be called DLSS5. This technology is something completely different from image upscaling and should be called something else DLFX (Deep Learning Effects) or whatever to differentiate and avoid confusion.
A game with this effect should have DLSS as a separate option.
2. These demos are obviously being shoehorned into games that were not designed with DLSS5 from the onset so the results are somewhat mixed. Some games look fine, others look too different, uncanny even because the AI is striving for photorealism when the game was not designed that way, e.g. Hogwart's Legacy with its pleasant cartoonish looks.
Got to admit that I was surprised at the backlash against this. There is no way that this will replace the original artistic intent because the game still has to be designed to look good on AMD GPUs and consoles with don't use NVIDIA hardware (and the Switch 2 certainly isn't going to be running this either, let's face it, outside of a developer tech demo maybe).
Re: Crimson Desert PC: Nvidia And AMD ML Tech Delivers Vastly Improved Lighting
I think the ray construction just highlights how lacklustre the game's standard denoiser is.
I get that this is a low-cost feature to allow the game to scale across consoles and low-end GPUs but why is there no higher quality denoiser for medium and high options between the standard "low" setting and the "ultra" ray construction option?
For example, the game engine's denoiser by default uses 1/16 rays per pixel so why not 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and even 1 rays per pixel options on PC? These would still fall below the quality offered by ray reconstruction but surely would be less intensive to use for those us for not running RTX 4090/5090s? These would also bridge the gap between the low quality denoiser with its issues and ray reconstruction.
More choise is always better, right, especially on PC?
Re: Crimson Desert on PS5 Pro: This Is How Good It Looks And How Well It Runs
@JamieAnderson - I expect it will be included in a Day One patch but even if it isn't then the system level PSSR 2.0 firmware update is due for release this month anyway (so anytime in the next 18 days) so you would be able to force the game to use PSSR 2.0 even if the developers have not patched the game to use it.
Re: Crimson Desert on PS5 Pro: This Is How Good It Looks And How Well It Runs
@CorporalHicks - I have to agree with you about the excessive pop in and LOD issues visible in the PS5 Pro version.
If it was in the far distance then I would be fine with it but not when it occurs mid distance and even closer for foilage. It's not just pop in but also LOD transitions which are quite jarring. I found it quite distracting personally to the point where it would break immersion for me.
This is clearly how they've got the game running (relatively) well on consoles with ray-tracing. After years of Unreal Engine 5 games that use Nanite I have become used to seeing little to no pop in so this is quite a step back in my opinion. Game looks fantastic otherwise, no doubt, but there is no denying this is a weak aspect of the visuals on PS5 Pro.
I will be getting the game on PC anyway and hope that the higher settings allow the draw distance and LOD transitions to be pushed out much further.
One of the great things about the previous Unreal Engine 4 is that you could very easily tweak the games on PC using Engine INI variables to massively push out the foliage, shadow and draw distance in most games as well as basically remove LOD transitions. Maybe this is also possible with this engine too?
Re: Crimson Desert on PS5 Pro: This Is How Good It Looks And How Well It Runs
Not watched the video yet but from reading the article it sounds like the PS5 Pro is very good.
However, I am disappointed to read that the game has screen tearing when it drops outside of the VRR range. Since owning a VRR capable TV in 2019, I cannot remember the last time I actually saw a game with screen tearing which has been a blessing. Screen tearing is something that takes me completely out of a game if I see it as I'm very sensitive to it, unfortunately. In some cases, this issue can ruin a game for me.
Hope that the developers can address this quickly and in time for release. I see no reason why the current build cannot use the 120 Hz container and LFC seeing as it is part of the console's development kit.
Maybe this indicates that the console versions have perhaps been getting less attention than the PC build?
Re: Crimson Desert: Pearl Abyss Answers Every Tech Question We Could Think Of
Honestly cannot say I understood every word of what was said but it sounds impressive all the same!
Really looking forward to playing this on PC and possibly on PS5 Pro as well. I understand that the PS5 Pro version will be using the new PSSR 2.0 which should (hopefully) yield good results if Resident Evil Requiem is anything to go by.
Re: Review: Resident Evil 7 Shines On Switch 2, But Village Falls Short
I also picked up the physical Resident Evil Generations triple pack bundle for Switch 2 last week and have been impressed with the quality of all three games so far, particularly Resident Evil 7 and Requiem.
However, Village felt a bit jerky when I briefly tested in handheld mode last night, which I found surprising considering the handheld mode isa supposed to use VRR. I was expecting the game to feel jerky when played docked as that mode does not support VRR and the game does not lock to 60 fps for extended periods of time.
I hope Capcom can either optimise the game to improve perfornace, fix VRR (and include it for the docked experience) or add a 40 fps mode for a smoother gameplay experience.
Shame that the Switch 2's screen is so dreadful - all these games showcase the LCD screen's poor black levels and sub-par HDR - and everything looks smeary in motion, thanks to the slow pixel response. Makes me want the Switch 2 OLED all the more as the games otherwise look really imrpressive visually considering the low-powered hardware running them.
Re: It's Official: Resident Evil Requiem Uses Sony's Brand-New PSSR Upscaler
@themightyant - That's a very good point about the potential performance hit of using PSSR2. After all, DLSS4 has a performance hit over DLSS3.
Maybe Sony have considered this and forcing PSSR2 at a system level uses the next preset down but still offers superior results to the higher PSSR1 version?
The system level setting is presumably just a fallback for games that don't get updated and Sony will no doubt be encouraging developers to patch their games with PSSR2 where they have more control over what settings that can use etc etc?
Re: It's Official: Resident Evil Requiem Uses Sony's Brand-New PSSR Upscaler
This is great news.
I played the PS5 Pro version of Resident Evil Requiem last night on my LG C3 OLED TV and was blown away by how good the game looks visually, especially after hearing that it is upscaling from a base resolution that is only slightly higher than 1080p.
After the initial excitement and then disappointment of PSSR 1.0, I have been eagerly awaiting the release of PSSR 2.0. I was hoping it would be part of the current beta firmware, which I am currently testing, but sadly it isn't.
That PSSR 2.0 can be forced at a system level, I assume in similar way to how DLSS3/4 and FSR4 work on PC, is surely a blessing?
Even if it isn't perfect, it means that we finally have an option to fix all those lacklustre early Pro PSSR enhanced games that were never fixed by the developers. I'm thinking of Star Wars Jedi Survivor and Silent Hill f here.
Also, this may resolve issues with games like Star Wars Outlaws and Silent Hill 2 which were patched with options to turn off PSSR but now may actually look good with it enabled when forcing PSSR 2.0 at a system level.
I expect that most developers will not bother to patch there games with PSSR 2.0 officially as it wouldn't make sense for them to spend money on older games that are only enhanced for a niche console with a small user base.
Fingers cross that this will actually be as good as I am hoping it will be.
Re: Xbox Under New Management - But What Can Actually Change?
The problem is that Microsoft have damaged the Xbox brand and reputation with too much interference from the higher ups. They've diluted the brand to the point where I no longer see Xbox as a console worth owning but as a publisher of the handful of decent games each year that I can buy on my PC.
Long gone are the exciting Wild West days of the original Xbox and the excellent (if somewhat unreliable) Xbox 360. Xbox One should have been the next step in console gaming dominance but instead it flopped with a disastrous TV! TV! TV! unveilling and Xbox has never really recovered since. The hardware isn't selling and as a result Game Pass subscriptions have stagnated.
Can Xbox come back from this?
It would be sad to see it go completely - Sony need competition - but at the same time it is hard to see anything positive from all the years of mismanagement, u-turns and lies. I would not be at all surprised if Microsoft switch Xbox over to just being a games publisher over the next few years and abandon the hardware market completely.
Whatever they do, I will not be buying future Xbox hardware.
Re: Tested: Resident Evil 4 Remake's New PC DRM Impacts CPU Performance
I've started to really dislike Capcom's slack business practices.
On the one hand, they do release consistently good games but on the other, more worryingly, is their complete apathy for releasing their games with issues that either take months to fix (the infamous stuttering bug in Resident Evil Village on PC for example) or releasing their games with serious performance issues (such as Monster Hunter Wild which was a complete disaster on PC).
Now we have this. I cannot say that I am surprised that they've degraded the performance in Resident Evil 4 on PC with a DRM replacement update but I will say that this is another massive disappointment to join all the other disappointments.
Honestly, at this point I'm seriously wondering if buying any Capcom game at launch on PC is a good idea. Seems like the prudent thing to do is to wait a couple of years in the hope that the various issues are fixed. By then the game will likely be cheap in a Steam sale anyway so it's a win-win for me really.
Re: Review: GRID Legends on Switch 2: An Excellent Racer, Stacked With Graphics Options
I am disappointed that the Switch 2 TV experience lacks VRR support not to mention poor support for 120 Hz which would be great for this game's 40 fps Balanced mode in the absence of VRR support in docked mode.
I only use my Switch 2 in docked mode as I find the LCD screen such a massive letdown compared with the Switch OLED. That wouldn't be an issue if more games supported 120 Hz/40 fps modes and VRR in docked mode.
But then this is Nintendo who are about 5-15 years behind when it comes to adopting technologies that others have used for years. "Anti-aliasing" is still an alien concept to many of their first party developers for example.
Re: Review: Metroid Prime 4 Proves Retro Studios' Prowess On Switch 2
@ramu-chan - Kind of agree that this is definitely a game that looks like it was designed first and foremost for the Switch and then "uprezzed" for the Switch 2. It looks kind of like the upgrade we saw from the Super Mario Odyssey patch on Switch 2 in my opinion. Looks sharper and clearer but definitely not a generation leap in graphical fidelity over the Switch version which I saw a comparison of on YouTube this morning.
As such, it looks nice enough for a Switch 2 game but at the same it is disappointing that it isn't doing more with the hardware beyond offering a higher resolution and a 120 Hz mode.
I think we are going to see a very long cross gen period on Switch 2 as it seems clear that Nintendo are absolutely not going to be turning their backs on the those 100+ million original Switch owners any time soon. I kind of get it but at the same time without the exclusives then there is less incentive for those people to upgrade to a Switch 2 if almost all the major first-party releases on both consoles.
Also, it is funny to think that the game likely looks better on the Switch OLED in portable mode than it does on the Switch 2 by virtue of it having a superior screen! I hate the LCD screen on my Switch 2 so much that mine has been permanently docked to my 55" OLED TV since I bought it in June!
Re: Proof That Recent Windows Update Harms Gaming Performance
I loaded up AC Shadows a few weeks ago and noticed that the performance was surprisingly bad but at the time I just put it down to it being the result of a bad patch or something. Good to know that this is fixed but it does annoy me just how many things Microsoft break with Windows updates.
I had an issue with Star Wars Outlaws crashing to the desktop with no error or event log entry when I updated to Windows 11 24H2 last year and it took almost six months for that issue to be fully fixed at which point I had lost interest in playing the game.