Until all games can run on SteamOS and at a performance level that is the same or better than Windows (some games do run worse on SteamOS than Windows from what I've read/seen) then I personally would not risk switching from Windows to SteamOS for any future PC.
My experience with SteamOS is only on Steam Deck where it seems to work well enough but there are still incompatibility issues that take months to address and in the meantime you end up having to mess around with different versions of Proton (the emulation layer).
That is less of an issue on Steam Deck, where I am mostly playing older games anyway that tend to mostly work fine, but it would become a big deal for me on a PC if I bought a new triple A game and was unable to play it properly because it didn't work properly on SteamOS.
Also, there is the fact that currently SteamOS only works with AMD GPUs. Apart from a brief stint with AMD GPUs and their awful CrossFire (their version of NVIDIA's SLI) in the early 2000s, I've always bought NVIDIA GPU for their features, usually better drivers and so on. NVIDIA are just two steps ahead of AMD when it comes to RT, DLSS and frame gen in my experience so I would only use SteamOS in a PC if I could use a NVIDIA GPU.
For some reason, I thought this redesign meant that the joycons and the main Switch 2 unit would have a removeable battery compartment like other accessories such as remote controls to make it easy to swap batteries. At worst, I thought I thought it would just be a case of removing four small screws to reveal the battery.
Just goes to show how naïve I was in that assumption because this battery replacement process still looks fiddly as hell and maybe benefits Switch 2 repair businesses more than the end user?
The post-release support for this game has been astonishing in my opinion to the point where the current build is significantly improved over the launch version.
I enjoyed my time with this game but had two gripes with it. One, the story is underwhelming and lead character, Kliff, is utterly forgettable. Two, the game looks nice enough visually but it falls apart as soon as you start moving as the engine's draw distance is poor with lots of distracting LOD issues and pop in, even when you completely max out the PC version on its inappropriately named Cinematic setting (I don't recall the last time I saw trees and grass popping into view in a movie, just mere feet in front of the actors!).
Seriously though, it is a great game besides those issues and I look forward to a much-improved (and inevitable?) sequel.
I will buy a Switch 2 OLED but I only use my current Switch 2 docked because I just cannot stand the LCD screen, especially after owning a Switch OLED.
Everything about the screen is just lacklustre except when looking at it direct with nothing moving. Motion, HDR, black levels, all are awful on the LCD screen and it just reminded me of why I ditched LCD in the first place to replace all my TVs and monitors with OLED (and QD-OLED) displays, including my original Switch 1!
The Switch 2's screen definitely felt like taking two steps forward - a lovely crisp 1080p resolutions, VRR support, nicer looking games - and one step back - everything else about the screen. It makes me laugh that Nintendo even have the balls to claim the screen supports HDR.
The game is fantastic but adding what looks like £90 worth of DLC outfits and equipment to what is a remake of a 13 year old game that is already missing the expansion from the original is a really scummy move but one that Ubisoft have sadly become renowned for.
Yes, you don't have to buy it but it is a reminder that the game you are playing is not really complete and, certainly in the case of this remake, it should damn well have everything included for the £49.99 they are charging for it.
I don't know what miracles Ubisoft have pulled off for the PS5 Pro version but the 30 fps Fidelity mode feels and looks much smoother, particularly when panning the camera, that most other 30 fps games out there. I tried this as well after playing the 60 fps Performance mode, which is usually extremely jarring.
Not yet tried the 40 fps Balanced mode yet as I wanted to see what the graphical differences were between the highest and lowest of the available presets.
The 60 fps mode is fine but it does look visually a bit cutback in terms of RT; I especially noticed that on the faces of the characters which has that uncanny valley look around the eyes without full RT (Resident Evil Requiem also had this issue).
I found this distracting so opted for the 30 fps mode which I found to be perfectly playable. Cutscenes are locked to 30 fps, I believe, regardless of the mode and do not have this issue; it is only apparent during gameplay so most people will either not see it - since you control Edward from behind - or won't care for the sake of the higher framerate.
I still find it strange though how 30 fps on consoles can feel and look fine but 30 fps on PC usually looks horrendous and feels horribly laggy, and that is when both games are played with the same controller and both are on OLED displays. I don't think viewing distance is the whole reason for the difference here.
I know Ubisoft get a lot of criticism for formulaic releases and overcluttered open world designs but I've always been impressed with how polished most of their games are, running on their own custom engines, especially compared with your typical Unreal Engine 5 stutterfest release.
And despite the repetitve gameplay, I've always managed to get my money's worth out of their games, usually around 30-50 hours, before I get bored and end up not finishing them...
... although I did finish Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag on PS4, believe it or not. I absolutely loved that game and it is funny looking back and being excited about the original disc version of the game getting a resolution bump from 900p to 1080p via a patch and beating the Xbox One version (which went from 720p to 900p, I believe). These days a mere 180p difference is nothing with dynamic resolution scaling and quality upscalers such as PSSR. Back then though it was a thing and it helped define the PS4 as the superior platform for third-party game releases,, much to Microsft's annoyance!
I bought Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced on Steam last night and look forward to playing it later today.
My RTX 4080 Founders Edition, which I bought for a staggering (to me anyway!) £1,100 back in January 2023, is still going strong and running every game I play at maxed out 1440p settings, including ray-tracing/path-tracing etc, using DLSS and frame gen. I play games on a 1440p 500 Hz QD-OLED monitor.
While upgrading to a 24 GB RTX 5080 Super (if the rumours are correct) sounds appealing, the reality is that I really don't need it as I don't see any game coming out this year or next that requires a graphics card upgrade. The PS5 and Xbox Series X are still the target platforms for games after all so there aren't really any cutting edge games due any time soon...
... except for GTA 6 but that is a console-exclusive for now and likely won't come to PC until late 2027 at the earliest and possibly not until 2028. That is the game that I expect will benefit a graphics card upgrade, especially if Rockstar add settings that scale beyond the console versions, such as path-tracing and whatnot.
@Wazzo - Switch 2 still has physical cart games though. Many might be game key cards but at least that is a physical product that you own and can resell even if ultimately it becomes a paper-weight (albeit a very, very light one!) once the servers go offline. There are also full releases on cart too. Star Fox is one recent example and Oblivion Remastered is going to be another (I'll be very curious to see how that game runs on Switch 2!).
PC is digital only and has been for 10-15 years now but you have a choice of where to buy games. I buy the majority of mine from third-party key sellers for much less than the RRP on Steam; sometimes I even buy the premium/deluxe edition that costs less than Steam. This more than makes up for the lack of actual ownership and resell value in my experience, plus I can backup the games to physical media if I want. PC has choice whereas a console without physical does not.
I feel that Steam are a much more secure platform that will honour my digital purchases for far longer than Sony will ever do. I simply do not trust Sony with an all-digital library which is why 95% of my PS4 and PS5 games are on disc. The few digital games I own were either cheap digital-only games or games I picked up really cheap in a sale.
@StooMonster - Yes, I've been seeing numerous mentions of this on various YouTube videos and media articles.
It seems that this spreadsheet that Sony apparently used to determine when it was the right time to drop physical media, is skewered in favour of digital purchases by virtue of the fact that there is over five times more digital content than games actually available on a disc. Digital-only releases (sometimes the physical disc is only available weeks or months later), DLC, micro-transactions and pretty much most indie game are not available on discs (or if they are then they arrive later).
I would not be surprised if there is some truth to this as corporations often twist things to fit their own agenda and I don't see Sony being any different.
It is also worth pointing out that there has been a big increase in digital orders where you get to play the game a few days or a week earlier if you pre-order the more expensive version of the game. This "offer" is not attached to the physical release and must presumably be popular because almost every major release seems to have one. This arguably publishers pushing consumers towards digital since you do not get to play the game early if you order a physical copy.
I will not be buying an all-digital PS6 so chances are that PS5 Pro will be my last PlayStation console.
I signed the petition... obviously... but I suspect nothing will come of it. Sony will have decided on this at least a year ago and were just waiting for the right moment to (very poorly) announce it, i.e. after it was revealed that GTA 6 will not be shipping on disc. They seem to be only concerned about keeping their shareholders happy and their share prices rose after the annoucement so no doubt they will see this as a success, customers be damned!
My guess is that Sony will have a tough next-generation anyway due to the high price of the PS6 hardware but maybe they intend to offset that by having a long cross generation period which would mean few exclusive PS6 games anyway.
One thing is clear though I will not be buying cross gen games on PS5 if they are only digital. I'll just continue to buy games as long as they are available on disc and then move on to PC and Switch 2.
@SprSynJn - Sony could not have timed this announcement at a worse time in my opinion, basically the same week that they announced that they were removing 551 digital movies from people's libraries from 1st September 2026! That is a great way to sell an all-digital future! Well done, guys!
@Biedls - Sorry, I was really having a rant about Microsoft's whole attitude to physical discs which really started with the Xbox One when they wanted to do that whole 24-hour DRM checking thing and lock disc games to the console thus killing off the second-hand market altogether.
They abandoned that, thankfully, but that meant all Xbox One's had a very long and slow firmware update on Day One. I remember how painful that was. The irony is that the licence on the disc has meant that they have a means to transfer the licence to the user's account for this dystopian all-digital future.
It does beg the question of why this wasn't available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X already so you could buy the disc game, install it then not need to insert the disc again to play the game. If selling the game transfers the licence to the owner of the disc then they could have done this years ago so why didn't they? I actually think that would have been a great option.
Many people love owning physical discs, right, but we all hate having to swap them and see the convenience of having a digital copy. I buy CDs for example but I rip them to my PC using an external DVD drive to listen to them from my media library. The CDs in essence are backup discs. By not having to play them every time I save wear and tear on both the discs and the DVD player.
@otolithe - PC is different because it has choices of where you can buy the games... Steam, Epic Store, EA, Battle.net, Microsoft (if you must!) and so on, as well as third-party key sellers who undercut those aforementioned storefronts.
I frequently buy PC games from the likes of Loaded where I can buy the more expensive deluxe/premium/whatever edition at less than the standard version on Steam! Steam also has regular sales and then there's abandonware where you can download old games that are out of licence. There are tons of options for games. All these make up for the lack of ownership and resell value, at least for me.
On PS6, the only option you will have will be the PSN Store where Sony can charge what they like. They can also keep prices high if they choose since there will be no competition. I can guarantee that PS6 will have £79.99 games, possibly higher.
And, honestly, does anyone trust Sony to honour your digital game purchases? This is the same company who this week announced that they were removing 551 digital movies from people's libraries without any mention of a refund. Games often have licenced music and cars and so on; what's to say that Sony won't remove those games at some point because they failed to renew the licence for them?
People argue that consumption of music and movies have moved over to digital too. That is true but both of those still have physical media available. Hell, vinyl records are still on sale for the purists. I still buy music CDs and BD/4K movie discs. I also buy printed books and graphics novels (it really isn't the same reading a graphics novel on an iPad in my opinion).
Let's be real here, Microsoft never really supported discs on Xbox Series X anyway. They stuck with cheaper 50 GB Blu-ray discs, whereas Sony moved up to the 100 GB 4K UHD disc, and they started to release a lot of Xbox games with just an installer on the disc.
It was also clear that they were trying to push their customers away from physical media, especially with the focus on the GamePass "rental" subscription. And if you're conditioned to play rented digital games then the next step is just to remove the discs altogether. Not a great loss on Xbox since few games actually shipped on the discs anyway.
The appeal of consoles for me is not just the convenience for gaming on a TV but also being able to buy the games on physical media and having a tangible collection of physical games on a shelf. I already have a gaming PC where I'm fine with digital-only but that is more to do with having more choice of where to buy games new cheaper which offsets the lack of ownership and resell value. Plus Steam is a very consumer-friendly storefont having frequent sales and a decent refund policy.
The idea of trusting Sony with my games collection is something that makes me uncomfortable, mostly because of their reputation for being hacked and also the recent news that they will be removing digital movie purchases from people's libraries. There is also the fact that I'd be tied to their storefront for games and at mercy of whatever pricing they choose. I expect PS6 games will rise to £80 or more as they will have no competition and people will either have to pay that or not be able to play the games.
An all-digital PS6 does not appeal to me at all and I would just just stick with Switch 2 for now and PC for gaming. I will not be buying the PS6. I'll just hold on to my PS5 Pro for as long as I can where I can play my existing PS4 and PS5 collection and then once done sell them on. Who knows, those disc games could well become highly sought after collectibles that attract high prices?
Also, collector's editions for games are going to be a hell of a lot less excitring/compelling to buy without the physical disc. I know some of these don't include the disc now but those are usually the ones that are heavily criticised for not including them.
No physical disc means that collector's edition really become pointless because the people's those are aimed at are the very people who want physical items for their collections.
I was just thinking about how bizarre it is for Sony to drop physical discs. They were after all an avid supporter of the disc format since the launch of PlayStation and games on the CD format. The PS2 launched the DVD format, the PS3 did the same for Blu-rays (and killed the rival HD-DVD in the process) and the PS5 adopted the 4K UHD format.
It really is sad to see them go with this decision. I expected it to happen eventually but hoped that the PS6 would continue to support physical media just because it would be backward compatible with PS5 and PS4 games which both use the disc format.
I cannot help but wonder if this decision is more driven by the need to keep the PS6 hardware costs down by subsidising it. The only way they can do that is if they have full control over the distribution and pricing of PS6 games where they can set whatever price they like since people will have no option but to pay for them. I expect Sony will bump up the price of games from £69.99 to £79.99 for the PS6.
The alternative is to sell an expensive piece of hardware in fewer numbers which in turn means lower game sales because the install base will not be anyway near as large as the PS5. Retail discounts on physical games and second-hand sales (the latter of which Sony don't get anything for) are damaging to Sony when the same game is full price digitally on their storefront.
An all-digital PS6 is something I absolutely do not want as I'd be locked into the pricing on the PSN Store with no choice but to pay full price for new releases (unless I wait months for sales) and I would be at the mercy of Sony who could remove games from my library any time they want (they already do this with digital movie purchases!).
The next generation sounds like it is going to suck hard anyway with the high price of the hardware and this announcement of digital-only PS6 games from 2028. The PS5 Pro is looking like it may be my last PlayStation console because if I upgrade then I sell the old hardware as I simply do not have space to keep multiple generations of hardware.
@Max_the_German - The game literally has a Switch to Switch 2 save transfer feature but no upgrade path from the Switch version!
If that isn't a sign of sheer greed then I don't what is since SEGA included that knowing that there would be a demand and a use case for it. However, the only way to use it currently is to buy the game again. That is what SEGA want people to do! That is greed!
@Tobility - Hades 2? Ori and the Blind Forest? Hollow Knight: Silksong?
Seriously though, the Steam Machine is not a 4K 60 fps machine and Valve damn well knew that which is why all mention of that has now been removed from the advertising.
I think the Steam Machine has already aged like milk, personally, as I was never that impressed with the specs when they announced it. I would have been just as disappointed if it had launched at half its current price.
The only positive things I can say about the Steam Machine is (a) I like the small-form factor and design; and (b) I like that it supports HDMI CEC so it turns on using a controller, something I cannot do on my PC.
Otherwise, the whole thing is just underwhelming and at the price they are asking, I'm confused as to who exactly it is aimed at. It's too expensive for the mainstream and it's too underpowered for the hardcore.
It's feasible that Rockstar are showing off GTA 6 with the highest fidelity visuals in its 30 fps mode on console. That doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be a 60 fps mode though if they choose to scale down the resolution, graphical settings and ray-tracing to achieve it.
That said, I'll be perfectly fine with a 30 fps GTA 6 as long as it is a smooth 30 fps on PS5 Pro. I've recently been playing Final Fantasy XVI at 30 fps on PS5 Pro and that looks and runs fine to me even though I only played the PC version at 120 fps the day before.
The difference is that I'm playing from further away on PS5 Pro, on a 55" OLED TV, whereas on PC I am sat much closer to a 27" QD-OLED monitor. 30 fps on PC looks and feels so much worse that in does on PS5 Pro, even with the same controller, and I can only conclude that is because I'm sat closer to the screen.
I just think the whole situation with the Switch 2 supporting VRR in handheld but with a sub-par HDR experience versus not supporting VRR in docked mode but where you can have a vastly superior HDR experience, depending on your TV, is just utterly bizarre and shows how inconsistent Nintendo are when it comes to embracing and supporting new technologies.
I thought Sony were pretty bad when they released the PS5 without VRR support but at least they did add it after 18 months and, while flawed (due to not supporting LFC at the system level), at least it is there for people to use.
@MattGPT - Is it possible to release an updated dock for the Switch 2 with support for VRR? It would cause an uproar for sure if people found out they had to pay more for extra hardware to use something that should have been there from Day One.
The second most disappointing thing about the Switch 2, after the lacklustre LCD screen itself, is that there is no support for VRR in docked mode. It just baffles me as to why Nintendo chose to overlook this, especially as the handheld experience itself is hardly the definitive way to play Switch 2 games since HDR is just basically non-existent.
Star Fox has terrific HDR on my LG C3 OLED TV and it really pops in a way that it absolutely does not on the handheld screen (I briefly tried the demo this way).
Ah, Nintendo, 10 years behind everyone else in terms of adopting new graphical technologies and features - concepts like "good-quality anti-aliasing" and "anisotropic texture filtering" seem lost on most of their first-party developers for example - but they still manage to crack out great games.
I feel that releasing promotional screenshots that are not representative of the console game is likely to draw a lot of criticism when the game finally releases, or when we finally get to see more than a few minutes of actual gameplay running on the current systems to be able to compare them to.
That said, I am sure that this game will look astonishing good on consoles and likely one of the best-looking games of this generation, if not the best, and will only be one-upped by the future PC and next-gen console versions. Rockstar's games have really excelled visually since the release of GTA IV in my opinion and the switch to their in-house RAGE engine.
@MattGPT - To be honest, I would be absolutely fine with a 10 year life-cycle for the current consoles as I feel that due to COVID that we didn't really start this generation until 2-3 years in. There was a very long cross-over period which certainly wasn't a bad thing.
As you say, this is also beneficial for PC gamers as well as there would no less need to upgrade. I usually upgrade my PC when a new console generation arrives so ensure that I have approx. twice the performance (e.g. 32 GB system memory, 16 GB VRAM, a 2x faster GPU / CPU, etc).
I've seen mention that Micron have 16 big AI contracts for memory up until 2030 so unless the AI industry suddenly crashes in the next year then we could be looking at another three and half years of rising memory prices which in turn will affect not only current gen console and PC pricing but also next gen console pricing as well.
This could lead to the games industry crashing in my opinion if current and next gen console pricing becomes so expensive that few people can afford to buy them. And if people aren't buying the hardware then that would have a knock on affect on the games as player numbers potentially stagnate.
The so-called AI boom cannot end soon enough, if you ask me. While I can see its usefulness in certain areas, such as the Google search engine (which is the only place I actually use it personally), it is something that I suspect 99.999% of people have no use it at all outside of business use. That's what makes this so frustrating for the entertainment industry.
I am not pre-ordering - there really is no point - but I am glad to see that the game is £70 here in the UK, which is the same price that Sony sell their first-party releases for. Also, another £20 for the Ultimate Edition with extra content seems perfectly reasonable. I will buy this from the PS Store on 12th November, possibly the Ultimate Edition, we'll see, so I can pre-load for release on 19th.
All I want to see now is actual gameplay, at least 15-20 minutes, running on a PS5 Pro because what little I've seen so far looks so unbelievably good visually that I need to see it more of it to actually believe that what I've seen is real and not just a demo running on a high-end PC.
@BenWright - PC is a bit different as you have a choice of where to buy games; not just Steam, Epic, EA, Ubisoft, etc, but also third-party key sellers who often undercut the MSRP by quite a bit.
This makes the lack of resell value more palatable than on consoles where you would be tied into their storefront and MSRP pricing for new releases if digital becomes the only option.
I often buy PC games from third-party key sellers such as Loaded (CDKeys.com) and their discounts are usually such that I can buy the deluxe or premium-whatever-edition at less than the standard MSRP on Steam.
@Granadico - It is more likely about controlling second hand sales etc since Take-Two don't get a cut of those. Also, by making it a digital-only release they have full control of how long the game is available, the pricing, when it can be discounted for sales and by how much and so on.
Very, very, very disappointed to hear the so-called "physical" edition is just another waste of money and materials because it's a code in a box. Wow! Seriously, what is the point in buying a physical copy of a game that requires the internet anyway? I suppose it is possible that retailers like Amazon might discount the game a bit versus the Sony and Microsoft storefront prices but otherwise I can think of no other reason to buy or pre-order a physical copy.
I saw someone post on the Eurogamer forum that Take-Two have done this to ensure that there are no second hand sales which is kind of a scummy move really considering how rich they are and how much the game is rumoured to cost (between £70 and £80 in the UK).
I was planning to pre-order a PS5 copy from Amazon tomorrow for my collection and only because they do not take payment until dispatch so it's not like I'm giving Take-Two any money early. I normally only pre-order from Amazon for that reason and to own a disc copy of the game.
Otherwise, i do not pre-order digital-only releases; what's the point? Anyone pre-ordering GTA 6 is just a fool in my opinion and if you must buy it early then just get it the week before release so you can pre-load it (if, say, your internet is slow or something).
I will not be buying this game until release. It's digital so they're not going to run out of copies and I have a very fast and reliable unlimited 1 Gbps fibre connection so downloading it will be no issue. I certainly will not be giving those scumbags, Take-Two, my money early by pre-ordering a digital copy! I don't even do that on PC.
@themightyant - Fair point. I am forgetting that the Steam Machine is £879 here in the UK... so used to seeing it listed at 1,000+ but that's US Dollars, obviously.
TVs are 4K so for the best image quality targetting an upscaled resolution of 4K is going to look better than outputting at 1440p and then letting the TV upscale to 4K, as that will distort text and HUD elements which would be more noticeable the larger the TV is.
Of course, you can use the Steam Machine with a 1440p monitor, which is ideal for, say, a bedroom but personally I want one to use with my 4K TV so I am happy to wait for a more powerful future revision of the hardware, hopefully at a much more sensible price point.
I understand that the Steam Machine has a 300 W power supply but its small form factor design has meant that it is power constrained to around 175 W.
Much as I love the design - it is very nice indeed - the hardware itself is disappointing, not helped by the power/thermal limits in place, and the nail in the coffin is that price.
Yes, I get that Valve have no control over how the market moves and their decision not to subsidise the hardware makes sense given the open-source design but it doesn't change the fact that the hardware was dated back when it was announced and only sensible pricing would have redeemed it. The delay in releasing it has just made it even more dated and overpriced in my opinion. Selling the Steam Machine without a controller seems an odd decision, possibly done to make the price a little more palatable maybe?
Definitely interested in owning a Steam Machine but I'll wait for a 2nd or 3rd generation model with better specs and (hopefully) a lower price point in the future. I really would like to see one with a NVIDIA GPU personally for older games as FSR2/3 is not great in my experience.
Of course, that depends on how this initial model sells and it really could go either way. The Valve diehards will make it a sell out in the short term but it remains to be seen if this will sell in the long-term as it is too underpowered for the rest of the PC gaming diehards and it is too expensive for the mainstream who likely will just buy a PS5 or Xbox Series X console instead.
512 GB of internal storage for a PC build is not a good suggestion in my opinion. You need at least 1 GB unless you are playing smaller older games or only plan to install a few larger modern games.
@MattGPT - My guess is that manufacturers figure that gamer's maybe don't want keyboards with numeric keypads when they can release something smaller and compact and, therefore, potentially more appealing.
Personally, I would never buy a keyboard with a numeric keypad just because I am used to having one even though I admit about 90% of my PC gaming is using an Xbox controller. I still want a full sized keyboard for other stuff though.
Very nice looking keyboards, especially the Shadow one, but I like my RGB lit keys too much as well as numeric keypads so I can't see myself ever buying or using one of these.
My PC, bought pre-built from PC Speclialist in December 2022, has an Intel Core i5-13600KF, 32 GB DDR4 3600 RAM and a RTX 4080 Founders Edition and I could not be happier with it.
I use it with a 500 Hz 1440p MSI QD-QLED monitor and it is nigh on perfect still for running all the latest games. I pretty much play all the new releases with maximum settings, which includes ray-tracing/path-tracing at 60+ fps. I feel 4K gaming is overrated personally, especially as you end up having to upscale games from lower resolutions anyway to get decent framerates on anything but a £2,000+ RTX 5090 and even then those cards still need upscaling for many games.
If I was buying a new PC now I would go for newer components not old ones even if the lower pricing is tempting. My last PC, which I built myself, lasted me from 2015 to 2022 (Intel Core i7-4770K, 16 GB DDR3 3200 MHz RAM) so my own experience is that it is better to spend more now if you want a PC that can last 5 or more years.
My next PC will almost certainly have an AMD Ryzen X3D CPU in it and I understand that AMD are better for allowing CPU upgrades as they stick with the same chipsets for multiple generations unlike Intel. That said, my own experience is that the CPU is usually the least exciting part of any new PC build and usually the component that can last the longest without needing an upgrade so the ability to upgrade CPUs, for me anyway, is of limited use since by the time I need to upgrade then chances are that there will be a new chipset with faster memory modules etc anyway.
If I was planning to buy this game digitally then, no, I would absolutely not be pre-ordering it on 25th June. Why would I want to pay for a game months ahead of release when it could get delayed again? That would be stupid. Also, they are certainly not going to run out of digital copies of the game, that is a fact! It's why I never pre-order games on Steam; I just Wishlist them and then buy them on release.
However, I will be pre-ordering a physical copy of the game for my PS5 Pro from Amazon as (a) there is no risk doing so as Amazon only take payment on dispatch so if the game is released then so be it, it doesn't cost me anything; and (b) I am a collector of physical games and unlike digital games there is finite number of copies available so it makes sense to pre-order for those so long as the retailer you are ordering from does not take money upfront.
There are also reports of a weird shimmering bug with foliage when using DLSS/DLAA on the level where James Bond fights his way up an air field to the plane that is taking off.
The issue is that the grass on the runway and certain trees in the section just before he enters through the broken pipeline shimmers badly unless the native resolution DLSS is using is below 1080p. So DLAA at 4K down to 1080p shimmer but not 720p. DLSS Quality at 1440p is fine because the native resolution is sub-1080p but DLSS Quality at 4K isn't because the native resolution is above 1080p. Not noticed this issue myself as I was pusing DLSS Quality at 1440p.
The YouTuber who discovered and tested this was zWORMz Gaming and he thought the issue might be because the developers only tested the game on PC at console resolutions since the console versions are certainly not pushing high native resolutions. Can Digital Foundry confirm this?
My biggest complaint with this game though is not the game or the graphics, both are excellent, but with the horrible menus that have all the graphics options hidden until you click on them. There is also no preset option so you have to go down each one, click them and then set them individually. Very tedious. Whoever designed that menu needs to go back to Basic Menu Design School in my opinion!
@TonyEgg - Really? I never knew that. Ubisoft must have implemented their own native support for DualSense. I am surprised that no-one else has mentioned this as it is news to me but I will certainly test this later. Thanks for the heads up.
I own a DualSense controller for my PC, which I bought specifically to use with the PS5 ports such as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. However, my initial excitement was soon replaced my disappointment when I discovered that the main features of the DualSense - the haptics, the adaptive triggers and the controller speaker - where all missing when using it wirelessly.
Enter DSX which I only found about from this article. I bought it this morning and briefly tried it with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and it seems to work perfectly, replicating the feel and features of the PS5 version.
Shame that this feature has taken so long to arrive and at a time when Sony is pulling back on PC ports of PlayStation games. Still, for the price this is worth having if you own a DualSense controller and all the PS4/PS5 ports to PC like I do.
Still don't understand though why Sony never released a proper DualSense driver for Windows, especially now that I know that the features can be handled by software.
@Mycrosys - I've never really had any allegance to NVIDIA but that is how things panned out for me.
The reason is simple: NVIDIA lead in technical innovations whereas AMD merely follow in my humble view, being typically 2-3 years behind. That made it near impossible for me to switch from NVIDIA when I had access to technologies like PhysX, DLSS, frame generation and ray/path-tracing.
Sure, AMD has caught up a bit but only now do they have something close to competing with DLSS after years of FSR2/3 and its sub-par upscaling. NVIDIA still offer a more compelling package though in my opinion due to the ease at which DLSS can be upgraded in older games. AMD currently only allows games that use FSR3.1, I believe, to be upgraded to FSR4 and then it is currently only on the latest GPUs. Yes, FSR4 for older cards is coming but it has taken so long that it comes across more like an afterthought. Also, AMD do not have multi-frame gen yet but I expect that will come along in a year or two.
NVIDIA graphics cards are expensive but in my experience they are worth it plus they have higher end offerings and that is why I will continue to buy them... for as long as I can afford to buy them!
Ironically, Microsoft are part of the problem as they are heavily invested in A.I. so maybe the Xbox division needs to have a quiet word with them and ask them not to buy so many memory chips and storage devices?
At this rate only the richest of the elite will be able to afford the hardware that these companies, who are so heavily invested in A.I., want us all to use!!!
Absolutely sick and fed up of the whole A.I. thing and cannot wait for the bubble to burst. It has to at some point, right?
We had an extended cross-gen period last time due to COVID and now we have to contend with rising hardware prices (which is bad because it means fewer sales) and possibly an even longer cross-gen period this time (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).
This is the first generation where console hardware prices have increased rather than decreased and signs are that things are only to get more expensive with the next gen consoles. This could potentially be very damaging to the games industry as a whole.
I wonder how this game will look on PS5 Pro as presumably it will use PSSR 2.0?
I almost want to buy this game for PS5 Pro just for giggles - I mean this is the first Halo game on PlayStation, right - but I suspect I'll end up buying it for PC, just because it'll run and look better on my hardware (RTX 4080).
The Nintendo showcase for me was the highlight if only for the confirmation FINALLY that a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is coming to Switch 2, and this year as well. This is perhaps the game I most want to replay as it is easily my favourite Zelda game by far and I haven't really played it since the N64 days (bar a brief play of the game on PC via the Dolphin emulator years ago). Yes, it's a remake but if any game deserves a modern remake, it is that game in my opinion. A true classic.
I thought the Xbox and PlayStation showcases were merely okay; too few exclusives and mostly third-party games that I will be playing on my PC anyway. Also, I wasn't that excited with the direction they've gone with God of War: Laufey... dislike the look of the main character, hate the title of the game (Kratos is the God of War not Feya!) and resent that it means waiting even longer for the true God of War successor, especially with how long triple A development takes these days.
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Re: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced: Our Optimised Settings For A Terrific PC Release
What are the PC equivalent settings for the PS5 Pro then, oddly omitted from this article?
Re: AMD's Ryzen 7 7700X3D is the heart of my new SteamOS gaming PC
Until all games can run on SteamOS and at a performance level that is the same or better than Windows (some games do run worse on SteamOS than Windows from what I've read/seen) then I personally would not risk switching from Windows to SteamOS for any future PC.
My experience with SteamOS is only on Steam Deck where it seems to work well enough but there are still incompatibility issues that take months to address and in the meantime you end up having to mess around with different versions of Proton (the emulation layer).
That is less of an issue on Steam Deck, where I am mostly playing older games anyway that tend to mostly work fine, but it would become a big deal for me on a PC if I bought a new triple A game and was unable to play it properly because it didn't work properly on SteamOS.
Also, there is the fact that currently SteamOS only works with AMD GPUs. Apart from a brief stint with AMD GPUs and their awful CrossFire (their version of NVIDIA's SLI) in the early 2000s, I've always bought NVIDIA GPU for their features, usually better drivers and so on. NVIDIA are just two steps ahead of AMD when it comes to RT, DLSS and frame gen in my experience so I would only use SteamOS in a PC if I could use a NVIDIA GPU.
Re: Nintendo Explains How to Replace Its New User-Serviceable Joy-Con Batteries in 12 (or 13) Easy Steps
For some reason, I thought this redesign meant that the joycons and the main Switch 2 unit would have a removeable battery compartment like other accessories such as remote controls to make it easy to swap batteries. At worst, I thought I thought it would just be a case of removing four small screws to reveal the battery.
Just goes to show how naïve I was in that assumption because this battery replacement process still looks fiddly as hell and maybe benefits Switch 2 repair businesses more than the end user?
Re: Crimson Desert Adds Cross-Save Support Between PS5, Series X/S and PC, Wins Technical Innovation Award at Develop
The post-release support for this game has been astonishing in my opinion to the point where the current build is significantly improved over the launch version.
I enjoyed my time with this game but had two gripes with it. One, the story is underwhelming and lead character, Kliff, is utterly forgettable. Two, the game looks nice enough visually but it falls apart as soon as you start moving as the engine's draw distance is poor with lots of distracting LOD issues and pop in, even when you completely max out the PC version on its inappropriately named Cinematic setting (I don't recall the last time I saw trees and grass popping into view in a movie, just mere feet in front of the actors!).
Seriously though, it is a great game besides those issues and I look forward to a much-improved (and inevitable?) sequel.
Re: Report: Nintendo mulling Switch 2 OLED with Samsung Display panel
I will buy a Switch 2 OLED but I only use my current Switch 2 docked because I just cannot stand the LCD screen, especially after owning a Switch OLED.
Everything about the screen is just lacklustre except when looking at it direct with nothing moving. Motion, HDR, black levels, all are awful on the LCD screen and it just reminded me of why I ditched LCD in the first place to replace all my TVs and monitors with OLED (and QD-OLED) displays, including my original Switch 1!
The Switch 2's screen definitely felt like taking two steps forward - a lovely crisp 1080p resolutions, VRR support, nicer looking games - and one step back - everything else about the screen. It makes me laugh that Nintendo even have the balls to claim the screen supports HDR.
Re: "We really squeezed the PS5 as much as we could": Ubisoft talks tech on Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced
The game is fantastic but adding what looks like £90 worth of DLC outfits and equipment to what is a remake of a 13 year old game that is already missing the expansion from the original is a really scummy move but one that Ubisoft have sadly become renowned for.
Yes, you don't have to buy it but it is a reminder that the game you are playing is not really complete and, certainly in the case of this remake, it should damn well have everything included for the £49.99 they are charging for it.
Re: Review: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced: One of the Most Effective Remakes We've Ever Seen
I don't know what miracles Ubisoft have pulled off for the PS5 Pro version but the 30 fps Fidelity mode feels and looks much smoother, particularly when panning the camera, that most other 30 fps games out there. I tried this as well after playing the 60 fps Performance mode, which is usually extremely jarring.
Not yet tried the 40 fps Balanced mode yet as I wanted to see what the graphical differences were between the highest and lowest of the available presets.
The 60 fps mode is fine but it does look visually a bit cutback in terms of RT; I especially noticed that on the faces of the characters which has that uncanny valley look around the eyes without full RT (Resident Evil Requiem also had this issue).
I found this distracting so opted for the 30 fps mode which I found to be perfectly playable. Cutscenes are locked to 30 fps, I believe, regardless of the mode and do not have this issue; it is only apparent during gameplay so most people will either not see it - since you control Edward from behind - or won't care for the sake of the higher framerate.
I still find it strange though how 30 fps on consoles can feel and look fine but 30 fps on PC usually looks horrendous and feels horribly laggy, and that is when both games are played with the same controller and both are on OLED displays. I don't think viewing distance is the whole reason for the difference here.
Re: Review: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced: One of the Most Effective Remakes We've Ever Seen
I know Ubisoft get a lot of criticism for formulaic releases and overcluttered open world designs but I've always been impressed with how polished most of their games are, running on their own custom engines, especially compared with your typical Unreal Engine 5 stutterfest release.
And despite the repetitve gameplay, I've always managed to get my money's worth out of their games, usually around 30-50 hours, before I get bored and end up not finishing them...
... although I did finish Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag on PS4, believe it or not. I absolutely loved that game and it is funny looking back and being excited about the original disc version of the game getting a resolution bump from 900p to 1080p via a patch and beating the Xbox One version (which went from 720p to 900p, I believe). These days a mere 180p difference is nothing with dynamic resolution scaling and quality upscalers such as PSSR. Back then though it was a thing and it helped define the PS4 as the superior platform for third-party game releases,, much to Microsft's annoyance!
I bought Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced on Steam last night and look forward to playing it later today.
Re: PSU maker Seasonic adds RTX 50-Series Super graphics cards to its website - but don't expect a reveal any time soon
My RTX 4080 Founders Edition, which I bought for a staggering (to me anyway!) £1,100 back in January 2023, is still going strong and running every game I play at maxed out 1440p settings, including ray-tracing/path-tracing etc, using DLSS and frame gen. I play games on a 1440p 500 Hz QD-OLED monitor.
While upgrading to a 24 GB RTX 5080 Super (if the rumours are correct) sounds appealing, the reality is that I really don't need it as I don't see any game coming out this year or next that requires a graphics card upgrade. The PS5 and Xbox Series X are still the target platforms for games after all so there aren't really any cutting edge games due any time soon...
... except for GTA 6 but that is a console-exclusive for now and likely won't come to PC until late 2027 at the earliest and possibly not until 2028. That is the game that I expect will benefit a graphics card upgrade, especially if Rockstar add settings that scale beyond the console versions, such as path-tracing and whatnot.
Re: "Don't Kill the Disc": Petition Against Sony PS5 and PS6 Digital Media Plans Reaches 120,000 Signatures
@Wazzo - Switch 2 still has physical cart games though. Many might be game key cards but at least that is a physical product that you own and can resell even if ultimately it becomes a paper-weight (albeit a very, very light one!) once the servers go offline. There are also full releases on cart too. Star Fox is one recent example and Oblivion Remastered is going to be another (I'll be very curious to see how that game runs on Switch 2!).
PC is digital only and has been for 10-15 years now but you have a choice of where to buy games. I buy the majority of mine from third-party key sellers for much less than the RRP on Steam; sometimes I even buy the premium/deluxe edition that costs less than Steam. This more than makes up for the lack of actual ownership and resell value in my experience, plus I can backup the games to physical media if I want. PC has choice whereas a console without physical does not.
I feel that Steam are a much more secure platform that will honour my digital purchases for far longer than Sony will ever do. I simply do not trust Sony with an all-digital library which is why 95% of my PS4 and PS5 games are on disc. The few digital games I own were either cheap digital-only games or games I picked up really cheap in a sale.
Re: "Don't Kill the Disc": Petition Against Sony PS5 and PS6 Digital Media Plans Reaches 120,000 Signatures
@StooMonster - Yes, I've been seeing numerous mentions of this on various YouTube videos and media articles.
It seems that this spreadsheet that Sony apparently used to determine when it was the right time to drop physical media, is skewered in favour of digital purchases by virtue of the fact that there is over five times more digital content than games actually available on a disc. Digital-only releases (sometimes the physical disc is only available weeks or months later), DLC, micro-transactions and pretty much most indie game are not available on discs (or if they are then they arrive later).
I would not be surprised if there is some truth to this as corporations often twist things to fit their own agenda and I don't see Sony being any different.
It is also worth pointing out that there has been a big increase in digital orders where you get to play the game a few days or a week earlier if you pre-order the more expensive version of the game. This "offer" is not attached to the physical release and must presumably be popular because almost every major release seems to have one. This arguably publishers pushing consumers towards digital since you do not get to play the game early if you order a physical copy.
Re: "Don't Kill the Disc": Petition Against Sony PS5 and PS6 Digital Media Plans Reaches 120,000 Signatures
I will not be buying an all-digital PS6 so chances are that PS5 Pro will be my last PlayStation console.
I signed the petition... obviously... but I suspect nothing will come of it. Sony will have decided on this at least a year ago and were just waiting for the right moment to (very poorly) announce it, i.e. after it was revealed that GTA 6 will not be shipping on disc. They seem to be only concerned about keeping their shareholders happy and their share prices rose after the annoucement so no doubt they will see this as a success, customers be damned!
My guess is that Sony will have a tough next-generation anyway due to the high price of the PS6 hardware but maybe they intend to offset that by having a long cross generation period which would mean few exclusive PS6 games anyway.
One thing is clear though I will not be buying cross gen games on PS5 if they are only digital. I'll just continue to buy games as long as they are available on disc and then move on to PC and Switch 2.
Re: "PS5 Will Be My Last Console": After 45K Votes, 86% of DF Viewers Say Sony Should Reconsider Killing Physical Games
@SprSynJn - Sony could not have timed this announcement at a worse time in my opinion, basically the same week that they announced that they were removing 551 digital movies from people's libraries from 1st September 2026! That is a great way to sell an all-digital future! Well done, guys!
Re: Report: Xbox Disc-to-Digital Feature in Testing, Microsoft "Likely" to Stop Disc Production Too
@Biedls - Sorry, I was really having a rant about Microsoft's whole attitude to physical discs which really started with the Xbox One when they wanted to do that whole 24-hour DRM checking thing and lock disc games to the console thus killing off the second-hand market altogether.
They abandoned that, thankfully, but that meant all Xbox One's had a very long and slow firmware update on Day One. I remember how painful that was. The irony is that the licence on the disc has meant that they have a means to transfer the licence to the user's account for this dystopian all-digital future.
It does beg the question of why this wasn't available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X already so you could buy the disc game, install it then not need to insert the disc again to play the game. If selling the game transfers the licence to the owner of the disc then they could have done this years ago so why didn't they? I actually think that would have been a great option.
Many people love owning physical discs, right, but we all hate having to swap them and see the convenience of having a digital copy. I buy CDs for example but I rip them to my PC using an external DVD drive to listen to them from my media library. The CDs in essence are backup discs. By not having to play them every time I save wear and tear on both the discs and the DVD player.
Re: "PS5 Will Be My Last Console": After 45K Votes, 86% of DF Viewers Say Sony Should Reconsider Killing Physical Games
@otolithe - PC is different because it has choices of where you can buy the games... Steam, Epic Store, EA, Battle.net, Microsoft (if you must!) and so on, as well as third-party key sellers who undercut those aforementioned storefronts.
I frequently buy PC games from the likes of Loaded where I can buy the more expensive deluxe/premium/whatever edition at less than the standard version on Steam! Steam also has regular sales and then there's abandonware where you can download old games that are out of licence. There are tons of options for games. All these make up for the lack of ownership and resell value, at least for me.
On PS6, the only option you will have will be the PSN Store where Sony can charge what they like. They can also keep prices high if they choose since there will be no competition. I can guarantee that PS6 will have £79.99 games, possibly higher.
And, honestly, does anyone trust Sony to honour your digital game purchases? This is the same company who this week announced that they were removing 551 digital movies from people's libraries without any mention of a refund. Games often have licenced music and cars and so on; what's to say that Sony won't remove those games at some point because they failed to renew the licence for them?
People argue that consumption of music and movies have moved over to digital too. That is true but both of those still have physical media available. Hell, vinyl records are still on sale for the purists. I still buy music CDs and BD/4K movie discs. I also buy printed books and graphics novels (it really isn't the same reading a graphics novel on an iPad in my opinion).
Re: Report: Xbox Disc-to-Digital Feature in Testing, Microsoft "Likely" to Stop Disc Production Too
Let's be real here, Microsoft never really supported discs on Xbox Series X anyway. They stuck with cheaper 50 GB Blu-ray discs, whereas Sony moved up to the 100 GB 4K UHD disc, and they started to release a lot of Xbox games with just an installer on the disc.
It was also clear that they were trying to push their customers away from physical media, especially with the focus on the GamePass "rental" subscription. And if you're conditioned to play rented digital games then the next step is just to remove the discs altogether. Not a great loss on Xbox since few games actually shipped on the discs anyway.
Re: "PS5 Will Be My Last Console": After 45K Votes, 86% of DF Viewers Say Sony Should Reconsider Killing Physical Games
The appeal of consoles for me is not just the convenience for gaming on a TV but also being able to buy the games on physical media and having a tangible collection of physical games on a shelf. I already have a gaming PC where I'm fine with digital-only but that is more to do with having more choice of where to buy games new cheaper which offsets the lack of ownership and resell value. Plus Steam is a very consumer-friendly storefont having frequent sales and a decent refund policy.
The idea of trusting Sony with my games collection is something that makes me uncomfortable, mostly because of their reputation for being hacked and also the recent news that they will be removing digital movie purchases from people's libraries. There is also the fact that I'd be tied to their storefront for games and at mercy of whatever pricing they choose. I expect PS6 games will rise to £80 or more as they will have no competition and people will either have to pay that or not be able to play the games.
An all-digital PS6 does not appeal to me at all and I would just just stick with Switch 2 for now and PC for gaming. I will not be buying the PS6. I'll just hold on to my PS5 Pro for as long as I can where I can play my existing PS4 and PS5 collection and then once done sell them on. Who knows, those disc games could well become highly sought after collectibles that attract high prices?
Re: Sony Kills Physical PS5 Games, Starting in January 2028: A Gigantic Hint That PS6 Will Be "Adorably All-Digital"
Also, collector's editions for games are going to be a hell of a lot less excitring/compelling to buy without the physical disc. I know some of these don't include the disc now but those are usually the ones that are heavily criticised for not including them.
No physical disc means that collector's edition really become pointless because the people's those are aimed at are the very people who want physical items for their collections.
Re: Sony Kills Physical PS5 Games, Starting in January 2028: A Gigantic Hint That PS6 Will Be "Adorably All-Digital"
I was just thinking about how bizarre it is for Sony to drop physical discs. They were after all an avid supporter of the disc format since the launch of PlayStation and games on the CD format. The PS2 launched the DVD format, the PS3 did the same for Blu-rays (and killed the rival HD-DVD in the process) and the PS5 adopted the 4K UHD format.
It really is sad to see them go with this decision. I expected it to happen eventually but hoped that the PS6 would continue to support physical media just because it would be backward compatible with PS5 and PS4 games which both use the disc format.
I cannot help but wonder if this decision is more driven by the need to keep the PS6 hardware costs down by subsidising it. The only way they can do that is if they have full control over the distribution and pricing of PS6 games where they can set whatever price they like since people will have no option but to pay for them. I expect Sony will bump up the price of games from £69.99 to £79.99 for the PS6.
The alternative is to sell an expensive piece of hardware in fewer numbers which in turn means lower game sales because the install base will not be anyway near as large as the PS5. Retail discounts on physical games and second-hand sales (the latter of which Sony don't get anything for) are damaging to Sony when the same game is full price digitally on their storefront.
Re: Sony Kills Physical PS5 Games, Starting in January 2028: A Gigantic Hint That PS6 Will Be "Adorably All-Digital"
An all-digital PS6 is something I absolutely do not want as I'd be locked into the pricing on the PSN Store with no choice but to pay full price for new releases (unless I wait months for sales) and I would be at the mercy of Sony who could remove games from my library any time they want (they already do this with digital movie purchases!).
The next generation sounds like it is going to suck hard anyway with the high price of the hardware and this announcement of digital-only PS6 games from 2028. The PS5 Pro is looking like it may be my last PlayStation console because if I upgrade then I sell the old hardware as I simply do not have space to keep multiple generations of hardware.
Re: DF Weekly: The GTA 6 60fps Debate Returns: Is There a Route Forward on Current-Gen Consoles Like Series X, PS5 or PS5 Pro?
@MichaelPearn - GTA V on PS5 has three modes from memory, including 30 fps and 60 fps modes with and without ray-tracing.
Or are you referring to the PS4 version of GTA V running on the PS5 in back-compat mode which is 30 fps?
Re: Review: Sonic Frontiers Definitive Edition on Switch 2 is a comprehensive technical upgrade, but buying twice stings
@Max_the_German - The game literally has a Switch to Switch 2 save transfer feature but no upgrade path from the Switch version!
If that isn't a sign of sheer greed then I don't what is since SEGA included that knowing that there would be a demand and a use case for it. However, the only way to use it currently is to buy the game again. That is what SEGA want people to do! That is greed!
Re: Will the Steam Machine Age Like Fine Wine? Anti-Cheat, FSR 4, Driver Optimisation, Remote Play and More
@Tobility - Hades 2? Ori and the Blind Forest? Hollow Knight: Silksong?
Seriously though, the Steam Machine is not a 4K 60 fps machine and Valve damn well knew that which is why all mention of that has now been removed from the advertising.
Re: Will the Steam Machine Age Like Fine Wine? Anti-Cheat, FSR 4, Driver Optimisation, Remote Play and More
I think the Steam Machine has already aged like milk, personally, as I was never that impressed with the specs when they announced it. I would have been just as disappointed if it had launched at half its current price.
The only positive things I can say about the Steam Machine is (a) I like the small-form factor and design; and (b) I like that it supports HDMI CEC so it turns on using a controller, something I cannot do on my PC.
Otherwise, the whole thing is just underwhelming and at the price they are asking, I'm confused as to who exactly it is aimed at. It's too expensive for the mainstream and it's too underpowered for the hardcore.
Re: DF Weekly: The GTA 6 60fps Debate Returns: Is There a Route Forward on Current-Gen Consoles Like Series X, PS5 or PS5 Pro?
It's feasible that Rockstar are showing off GTA 6 with the highest fidelity visuals in its 30 fps mode on console. That doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be a 60 fps mode though if they choose to scale down the resolution, graphical settings and ray-tracing to achieve it.
That said, I'll be perfectly fine with a 30 fps GTA 6 as long as it is a smooth 30 fps on PS5 Pro. I've recently been playing Final Fantasy XVI at 30 fps on PS5 Pro and that looks and runs fine to me even though I only played the PC version at 120 fps the day before.
The difference is that I'm playing from further away on PS5 Pro, on a 55" OLED TV, whereas on PC I am sat much closer to a 27" QD-OLED monitor. 30 fps on PC looks and feels so much worse that in does on PS5 Pro, even with the same controller, and I can only conclude that is because I'm sat closer to the screen.
Re: Review: Star Fox On Switch 2 Is a Refined Return to an Iconic Game - and the Rail Shooter Genre
I just think the whole situation with the Switch 2 supporting VRR in handheld but with a sub-par HDR experience versus not supporting VRR in docked mode but where you can have a vastly superior HDR experience, depending on your TV, is just utterly bizarre and shows how inconsistent Nintendo are when it comes to embracing and supporting new technologies.
I thought Sony were pretty bad when they released the PS5 without VRR support but at least they did add it after 18 months and, while flawed (due to not supporting LFC at the system level), at least it is there for people to use.
Re: Review: Star Fox On Switch 2 Is a Refined Return to an Iconic Game - and the Rail Shooter Genre
@MattGPT - Is it possible to release an updated dock for the Switch 2 with support for VRR? It would cause an uproar for sure if people found out they had to pay more for extra hardware to use something that should have been there from Day One.
The second most disappointing thing about the Switch 2, after the lacklustre LCD screen itself, is that there is no support for VRR in docked mode. It just baffles me as to why Nintendo chose to overlook this, especially as the handheld experience itself is hardly the definitive way to play Switch 2 games since HDR is just basically non-existent.
Star Fox has terrific HDR on my LG C3 OLED TV and it really pops in a way that it absolutely does not on the handheld screen (I briefly tried the demo this way).
Ah, Nintendo, 10 years behind everyone else in terms of adopting new graphical technologies and features - concepts like "good-quality anti-aliasing" and "anisotropic texture filtering" seem lost on most of their first-party developers for example - but they still manage to crack out great games.
Re: Rockstar Just Released 63 New GTA 6 Screenshots - Here's What We Spotted
I feel that releasing promotional screenshots that are not representative of the console game is likely to draw a lot of criticism when the game finally releases, or when we finally get to see more than a few minutes of actual gameplay running on the current systems to be able to compare them to.
That said, I am sure that this game will look astonishing good on consoles and likely one of the best-looking games of this generation, if not the best, and will only be one-upped by the future PC and next-gen console versions. Rockstar's games have really excelled visually since the release of GTA IV in my opinion and the switch to their in-house RAGE engine.
Re: Valve Would "Love to Make the Steam Machine More Affordable" - Just Don't Expect It "Any Time Soon"
@MattGPT - To be honest, I would be absolutely fine with a 10 year life-cycle for the current consoles as I feel that due to COVID that we didn't really start this generation until 2-3 years in. There was a very long cross-over period which certainly wasn't a bad thing.
As you say, this is also beneficial for PC gamers as well as there would no less need to upgrade. I usually upgrade my PC when a new console generation arrives so ensure that I have approx. twice the performance (e.g. 32 GB system memory, 16 GB VRAM, a 2x faster GPU / CPU, etc).
Re: Valve Would "Love to Make the Steam Machine More Affordable" - Just Don't Expect It "Any Time Soon"
I've seen mention that Micron have 16 big AI contracts for memory up until 2030 so unless the AI industry suddenly crashes in the next year then we could be looking at another three and half years of rising memory prices which in turn will affect not only current gen console and PC pricing but also next gen console pricing as well.
This could lead to the games industry crashing in my opinion if current and next gen console pricing becomes so expensive that few people can afford to buy them. And if people aren't buying the hardware then that would have a knock on affect on the games as player numbers potentially stagnate.
The so-called AI boom cannot end soon enough, if you ask me. While I can see its usefulness in certain areas, such as the Google search engine (which is the only place I actually use it personally), it is something that I suspect 99.999% of people have no use it at all outside of business use. That's what makes this so frustrating for the entertainment industry.
Re: GTA 6 UK Pre-Order Price Confirmed
I am not pre-ordering - there really is no point - but I am glad to see that the game is £70 here in the UK, which is the same price that Sony sell their first-party releases for. Also, another £20 for the Ultimate Edition with extra content seems perfectly reasonable. I will buy this from the PS Store on 12th November, possibly the Ultimate Edition, we'll see, so I can pre-load for release on 19th.
All I want to see now is actual gameplay, at least 15-20 minutes, running on a PS5 Pro because what little I've seen so far looks so unbelievably good visually that I need to see it more of it to actually believe that what I've seen is real and not just a demo running on a high-end PC.
Re: Physical Editions of GTA 6 Will Come with "A Download Code Inside the Box", Pre-Loads Begin on November 12th
@BenWright - PC is a bit different as you have a choice of where to buy games; not just Steam, Epic, EA, Ubisoft, etc, but also third-party key sellers who often undercut the MSRP by quite a bit.
This makes the lack of resell value more palatable than on consoles where you would be tied into their storefront and MSRP pricing for new releases if digital becomes the only option.
I often buy PC games from third-party key sellers such as Loaded (CDKeys.com) and their discounts are usually such that I can buy the deluxe or premium-whatever-edition at less than the standard MSRP on Steam.
Re: Physical Editions of GTA 6 Will Come with "A Download Code Inside the Box", Pre-Loads Begin on November 12th
@Granadico - It is more likely about controlling second hand sales etc since Take-Two don't get a cut of those. Also, by making it a digital-only release they have full control of how long the game is available, the pricing, when it can be discounted for sales and by how much and so on.
Re: Physical Editions of GTA 6 Will Come with "A Download Code Inside the Box", Pre-Loads Begin on November 12th
Very, very, very disappointed to hear the so-called "physical" edition is just another waste of money and materials because it's a code in a box. Wow! Seriously, what is the point in buying a physical copy of a game that requires the internet anyway? I suppose it is possible that retailers like Amazon might discount the game a bit versus the Sony and Microsoft storefront prices but otherwise I can think of no other reason to buy or pre-order a physical copy.
I saw someone post on the Eurogamer forum that Take-Two have done this to ensure that there are no second hand sales which is kind of a scummy move really considering how rich they are and how much the game is rumoured to cost (between £70 and £80 in the UK).
I was planning to pre-order a PS5 copy from Amazon tomorrow for my collection and only because they do not take payment until dispatch so it's not like I'm giving Take-Two any money early. I normally only pre-order from Amazon for that reason and to own a disc copy of the game.
Otherwise, i do not pre-order digital-only releases; what's the point? Anyone pre-ordering GTA 6 is just a fool in my opinion and if you must buy it early then just get it the week before release so you can pre-load it (if, say, your internet is slow or something).
I will not be buying this game until release. It's digital so they're not going to run out of copies and I have a very fast and reliable unlimited 1 Gbps fibre connection so downloading it will be no issue. I certainly will not be giving those scumbags, Take-Two, my money early by pre-ordering a digital copy! I don't even do that on PC.
Re: Build Your Own Steam Machine with Four Configurations, from Budget to Premium
@themightyant - Fair point. I am forgetting that the Steam Machine is £879 here in the UK... so used to seeing it listed at 1,000+ but that's US Dollars, obviously.
Re: Why the Steam Machine's Sweet Spot Is Native 1440p, 60fps and Optimised Settings
TVs are 4K so for the best image quality targetting an upscaled resolution of 4K is going to look better than outputting at 1440p and then letting the TV upscale to 4K, as that will distort text and HUD elements which would be more noticeable the larger the TV is.
Of course, you can use the Steam Machine with a 1440p monitor, which is ideal for, say, a bedroom but personally I want one to use with my 4K TV so I am happy to wait for a more powerful future revision of the hardware, hopefully at a much more sensible price point.
Re: The Steam Machine Proves That Tiny Cubes Are the Best Console Form Factor
I understand that the Steam Machine has a 300 W power supply but its small form factor design has meant that it is power constrained to around 175 W.
Much as I love the design - it is very nice indeed - the hardware itself is disappointing, not helped by the power/thermal limits in place, and the nail in the coffin is that price.
Yes, I get that Valve have no control over how the market moves and their decision not to subsidise the hardware makes sense given the open-source design but it doesn't change the fact that the hardware was dated back when it was announced and only sensible pricing would have redeemed it. The delay in releasing it has just made it even more dated and overpriced in my opinion. Selling the Steam Machine without a controller seems an odd decision, possibly done to make the price a little more palatable maybe?
Definitely interested in owning a Steam Machine but I'll wait for a 2nd or 3rd generation model with better specs and (hopefully) a lower price point in the future. I really would like to see one with a NVIDIA GPU personally for older games as FSR2/3 is not great in my experience.
Of course, that depends on how this initial model sells and it really could go either way. The Valve diehards will make it a sell out in the short term but it remains to be seen if this will sell in the long-term as it is too underpowered for the rest of the PC gaming diehards and it is too expensive for the mainstream who likely will just buy a PS5 or Xbox Series X console instead.
Re: Build Your Own Steam Machine with Four Configurations, from Budget to Premium
512 GB of internal storage for a PC build is not a good suggestion in my opinion. You need at least 1 GB unless you are playing smaller older games or only plan to install a few larger modern games.
Re: Cherry Xtrfy's New K5 Pro Keyboard Proves Fancy TMR Switches Alone Are Not Enough
@MattGPT - My guess is that manufacturers figure that gamer's maybe don't want keyboards with numeric keypads when they can release something smaller and compact and, therefore, potentially more appealing.
Personally, I would never buy a keyboard with a numeric keypad just because I am used to having one even though I admit about 90% of my PC gaming is using an Xbox controller. I still want a full sized keyboard for other stuff though.
Re: Review: Higround's Official Sonic Adventure 2 Mechanical Keyboards Are Pretty Great, Actually
Very nice looking keyboards, especially the Shadow one, but I like my RGB lit keys too much as well as numeric keypads so I can't see myself ever buying or using one of these.
Re: What's the Best "Good Enough" Console-Beating Gaming CPU?
My PC, bought pre-built from PC Speclialist in December 2022, has an Intel Core i5-13600KF, 32 GB DDR4 3600 RAM and a RTX 4080 Founders Edition and I could not be happier with it.
I use it with a 500 Hz 1440p MSI QD-QLED monitor and it is nigh on perfect still for running all the latest games. I pretty much play all the new releases with maximum settings, which includes ray-tracing/path-tracing at 60+ fps. I feel 4K gaming is overrated personally, especially as you end up having to upscale games from lower resolutions anyway to get decent framerates on anything but a £2,000+ RTX 5090 and even then those cards still need upscaling for many games.
If I was buying a new PC now I would go for newer components not old ones even if the lower pricing is tempting. My last PC, which I built myself, lasted me from 2015 to 2022 (Intel Core i7-4770K, 16 GB DDR3 3200 MHz RAM) so my own experience is that it is better to spend more now if you want a PC that can last 5 or more years.
My next PC will almost certainly have an AMD Ryzen X3D CPU in it and I understand that AMD are better for allowing CPU upgrades as they stick with the same chipsets for multiple generations unlike Intel. That said, my own experience is that the CPU is usually the least exciting part of any new PC build and usually the component that can last the longest without needing an upgrade so the ability to upgrade CPUs, for me anyway, is of limited use since by the time I need to upgrade then chances are that there will be a new chipset with faster memory modules etc anyway.
Re: Grand Theft Auto 6 Pre-Orders Begin June 25th, Cover Art Revealed
If I was planning to buy this game digitally then, no, I would absolutely not be pre-ordering it on 25th June. Why would I want to pay for a game months ahead of release when it could get delayed again? That would be stupid. Also, they are certainly not going to run out of digital copies of the game, that is a fact! It's why I never pre-order games on Steam; I just Wishlist them and then buy them on release.
However, I will be pre-ordering a physical copy of the game for my PS5 Pro from Amazon as (a) there is no risk doing so as Amazon only take payment on dispatch so if the game is released then so be it, it doesn't cost me anything; and (b) I am a collector of physical games and unlike digital games there is finite number of copies available so it makes sense to pre-order for those so long as the retailer you are ordering from does not take money upfront.
Re: Review: 007 First Light: PC Review and Optimised Settings Guide
There are also reports of a weird shimmering bug with foliage when using DLSS/DLAA on the level where James Bond fights his way up an air field to the plane that is taking off.
The issue is that the grass on the runway and certain trees in the section just before he enters through the broken pipeline shimmers badly unless the native resolution DLSS is using is below 1080p. So DLAA at 4K down to 1080p shimmer but not 720p. DLSS Quality at 1440p is fine because the native resolution is sub-1080p but DLSS Quality at 4K isn't because the native resolution is above 1080p. Not noticed this issue myself as I was pusing DLSS Quality at 1440p.
The YouTuber who discovered and tested this was zWORMz Gaming and he thought the issue might be because the developers only tested the game on PC at console resolutions since the console versions are certainly not pushing high native resolutions. Can Digital Foundry confirm this?
My biggest complaint with this game though is not the game or the graphics, both are excellent, but with the horrible menus that have all the graphics options hidden until you click on them. There is also no preset option so you have to go down each one, click them and then set them individually. Very tedious. Whoever designed that menu needs to go back to Basic Menu Design School in my opinion!
Re: DSX PC App Beta Adds Haptic Support, Bluetooth Audio to Sony DualSense Controllers Connected Wirelessly
@TonyEgg - Really? I never knew that. Ubisoft must have implemented their own native support for DualSense. I am surprised that no-one else has mentioned this as it is news to me but I will certainly test this later. Thanks for the heads up.
Re: DSX PC App Beta Adds Haptic Support, Bluetooth Audio to Sony DualSense Controllers Connected Wirelessly
I own a DualSense controller for my PC, which I bought specifically to use with the PS5 ports such as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. However, my initial excitement was soon replaced my disappointment when I discovered that the main features of the DualSense - the haptics, the adaptive triggers and the controller speaker - where all missing when using it wirelessly.
Enter DSX which I only found about from this article. I bought it this morning and briefly tried it with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and it seems to work perfectly, replicating the feel and features of the PS5 version.
Shame that this feature has taken so long to arrive and at a time when Sony is pulling back on PC ports of PlayStation games. Still, for the price this is worth having if you own a DualSense controller and all the PS4/PS5 ports to PC like I do.
Still don't understand though why Sony never released a proper DualSense driver for Windows, especially now that I know that the features can be handled by software.
Re: Latest Steam Hardware Survey Shows AMD Radeon at New 19% High, 9060 XT and 9070 XT Chart for First Time
@Mycrosys - I've never really had any allegance to NVIDIA but that is how things panned out for me.
The reason is simple: NVIDIA lead in technical innovations whereas AMD merely follow in my humble view, being typically 2-3 years behind. That made it near impossible for me to switch from NVIDIA when I had access to technologies like PhysX, DLSS, frame generation and ray/path-tracing.
Sure, AMD has caught up a bit but only now do they have something close to competing with DLSS after years of FSR2/3 and its sub-par upscaling. NVIDIA still offer a more compelling package though in my opinion due to the ease at which DLSS can be upgraded in older games. AMD currently only allows games that use FSR3.1, I believe, to be upgraded to FSR4 and then it is currently only on the latest GPUs. Yes, FSR4 for older cards is coming but it has taken so long that it comes across more like an afterthought. Also, AMD do not have multi-frame gen yet but I expect that will come along in a year or two.
NVIDIA graphics cards are expensive but in my experience they are worth it plus they have higher end offerings and that is why I will continue to buy them... for as long as I can afford to buy them!
Re: Xbox Memo Predicts over 5x Increase in Storage and Memory Costs by Holiday 2027
Ironically, Microsoft are part of the problem as they are heavily invested in A.I. so maybe the Xbox division needs to have a quiet word with them and ask them not to buy so many memory chips and storage devices?
Re: Xbox Memo Predicts over 5x Increase in Storage and Memory Costs by Holiday 2027
At this rate only the richest of the elite will be able to afford the hardware that these companies, who are so heavily invested in A.I., want us all to use!!!
Absolutely sick and fed up of the whole A.I. thing and cannot wait for the bubble to burst. It has to at some point, right?
We had an extended cross-gen period last time due to COVID and now we have to contend with rising hardware prices (which is bad because it means fewer sales) and possibly an even longer cross-gen period this time (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).
This is the first generation where console hardware prices have increased rather than decreased and signs are that things are only to get more expensive with the next gen consoles. This could potentially be very damaging to the games industry as a whole.
Re: Halo: Campaign Evolved Is a Fascinating Preview of the Series' Unreal Engine Future
I wonder how this game will look on PS5 Pro as presumably it will use PSSR 2.0?
I almost want to buy this game for PS5 Pro just for giggles - I mean this is the first Halo game on PlayStation, right - but I suspect I'll end up buying it for PC, just because it'll run and look better on my hardware (RTX 4080).
Re: Where Would You Rank Nintendo Direct vs The Other Summer Showcases?
The Nintendo showcase for me was the highlight if only for the confirmation FINALLY that a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is coming to Switch 2, and this year as well. This is perhaps the game I most want to replay as it is easily my favourite Zelda game by far and I haven't really played it since the N64 days (bar a brief play of the game on PC via the Dolphin emulator years ago). Yes, it's a remake but if any game deserves a modern remake, it is that game in my opinion. A true classic.
I thought the Xbox and PlayStation showcases were merely okay; too few exclusives and mostly third-party games that I will be playing on my PC anyway. Also, I wasn't that excited with the direction they've gone with God of War: Laufey... dislike the look of the main character, hate the title of the game (Kratos is the God of War not Feya!) and resent that it means waiting even longer for the true God of War successor, especially with how long triple A development takes these days.