themightyant

Looking forward to the whole interview. Cerny is a must watch/read for me his clarity of thought and distilling complex ideas down to their essence makes every talk engrossing.

Adjacently, after the initial fallout of DLSS 5s neural rendering I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I suspect after the initial shock of Gen-AI faces wears off and we actually see creative devs using it I am quite excited for the future of the technology. But as with all things Gen-AI also worried and cautious about the bad sides.

I do wonder if Xbox’s next gen “backwards compatibility” might feature some sort of neural processing and that’s why they’ve gone with such a monstrous APU with an NPU; and if neural processing is one of the reasons they felt confident calling it “the largest technological leap in a generation”. Food for thought.

@alpha54 no worries dude. We’re all guilty of that sometimes. You see a comment and you want to reply to it specifically.

@alpha54 I don’t really want to get into the weeds, but broadly I agree with most of what you say. I presented Rich’s own words back to him to give him the opportunity to clarify what he meant, as it could easily be misconstrued… and he has. (See above)

I agree I only ever saw their initial video as a first take - I can't comment on what anyone else thought. But I did think it was a little over enthusiastic and glossed over issues that many of us, including seemingly Alex and John, saw instantly. For example they only mentioned AI once in the whole video, about 10 minutes in. That all came across as a little too giddy for me. Whereas it was literally my first thought.

But that's fine, we don't all have to agree, as Alex said we don’t have to have consensus. It's a real shame far too many can't make their thoughts and complaints rationally and calmly without shooting the messengers. Sadly, as I said in my comments, far too many unhinged people out there, who need to do more than just touch grass.

To be honest I had no major issues with this on PS5 Pro, it's not that I couldn't see some of the issues if I looked hard, they just didn't bother me much. Fantastic looking game, even better art direction.

Couldn't disagree more with Alex's statement that previously it was "not looking very good at all", but that's opinions! Either way glad to see that Enhanced PSSR is ticking a lot of boxes.

@Granadico Yes exactly this. I remember when phone photo editing apps first popped up (e.g. Snapseed - pre-Google buyout) and I would massively over saturate or bring out certain details, overusing HDR in particular. The image was certainly punchy and to the untrained eye might look like an upgrade - it's a stylistic choice at least. But now I'm more aware of how to use and balance lighting, tone mapping etc. my 2015 edits look bold, but amateurish, this heavily reminder me of that.

They do actually cover some of this around 33:50 in the video and Alex talks about HDR photography etc. and someone has fixed the tone-mapping the images don't look as bad, or as starkly different.

While I have my issues with the tech as it is now, I have no doubt neural rendering will play a part in the future of games and I look forward to seeing where this tech ends up.

@Rich_Leadbetter Thanks. And re: second question I commented before seeing the end of the video (slaps wrist) and you do cover this a little, albeit with faces, where you cover tweaked tonemaps and Alix talked about quasi HDR photography etc. Either way it looked all wrong to my eyes! Wishing you all well, appreciate all you do.

Sorry second question. I agree that if they had run with environmental only and not faces it likely would have been better perceived. However I notice in almost all the environmental shots the shadows are often toned down or almost disappear almost as if the time of day or light intensity has changed. How do you feel about that aspect? While SOME of the environmental stuff looked great, I couldn't get past it looking more like some Lightroom preset.

One question Rich. When you say "I think it would have been prudent to wait to see the reaction from audience and developers to the keynote", I am not sure this is the right way. Surely you have to say it as you see it and not tell people only what they want to hear, right?

More than anything I hope you are all doing OK. Sadly there's too many unhinged people out there and while I don't like what DLSS 5 is doing much it's no reason to react the way some have reacted. Wishing you all well.

@dlamb2471 they should be available via the system level toggle… but we haven’t seen how that matches up to an official patch, which perhaps might be able to do more (else why are devs doing it themselves)

Hopefully DF gets some footage in between i.e. it would good to compare how games run

• using PSSR (1)
• using Enhanced PSSR (2) via the system level toggle
• using Enhanced PSSR (2) via dev patch

This would give us the best idea of how each benefits and what we can expect from games where devs don’t update them manually.

@StooMonster I think the two are linked. Uncanny valley and TikTok/Snapchat filter, it’s not a lack of articulation or understanding, this is what it looks like to me.

E.g. If you watch a filtered video made on those platforms you quickly see that it isn’t a real person anymore, it’s been “enhanced” (yassified) but also dehumanised. It may on first glance appear better in some way but on watching it in motion it just sets off an alarm in your head, that’s the uncanny valley.

This is exactly what these DLSS5 shots are doing to many of us, it just looks off. Yassified. But like AI models not everyone sees it.

@StooMonster Do you GENUINELY not see the AI filter / uncanny valley when you watch the faces in motion?

To be fair as @Dort said some people don't seem to see it. It's like thousands of people following AI models and commenting to them as if they are real people. Some people just can't see it. For me the uncanny valley is strong with these, especially in motion, gives me the heebie-jeebies.

But it is impressive tech.

@NetshadeX FYI It's Oblivion remake not Skyrim. I think in a few shots it looks OK, impressive even in places, but it's also like someone has taken your shots and run them with their own Lightroom preset. People already complain that UE5 games look alike, that is only going to be amplified if they are all run through their AI lighting filter and yassified faces first.

@StooMonster Yet I agree if artists are using it then the artistic intent argument is moot. But it doesn't change the other issues with faces looking AI Filtered, and other issues that AI has whereby it changes shot to shot. E.g. Look at Grace in the first two RE9 side by side shots. In the two NON-DLSS5 versions she looks like the same person in different lighting conditions, but the two DLSS5 version she looks like an entirely different person.

Thankfully with this currently running on 2x (checks current pricing) £3,000+ 5090s (each!) most aren't in danger of having this inserted into games any time soon. And today I'm thankful consoles are running AMD for once!

@NetshadeX It is optional, but it basically says screw any artistic intent we are just going to put an AI filter over people's work.

I agree it looks OK, or maybe even good in a few shots, but the side by sides show how much it has altered the artists original intention. Tell me Grace doesn't look TikTok AI "Pretty" filtered.

Is that really the direction you want gaming going?

On a side note this is what it took to get some serious engagement in these comments sections! Negativity does sell! lol

This looks OK at first glance, but it's like a different artistic intent, like different characters in places. Not sure I like that at all.

What's the word the kids use when a face looks TikTok filtered... Yassified! That's what Grace looks like here, TikTok filtered to f**k!

Not Yass Rich, more Nooo Rich!

I remember that at launch I had to disable PSSR on some games because it caused so many bugs

@fatpunkslim Stop with the console war trolling! You don't even have a PS5 Pro. In fact you called it a "scam" on Pure Xbox, and said the Series X outperforms it. I don't want to have to keep calling you out, but this is just embarrassing.

Looking fantastic, PS5 Pro continues to look like a smart bet from Sony, not least they should be ahead of the game going into next gen, but in the meantime console enthusiasts have a meaningful upgrade. Barring a small handful of exceptions i've been very happy with mine.

Very interesting that, in your limited testing, it seems as performant or even slightly more performant than PSSR1 with a noticeable increase to quality. I look forward to seeing your more thorough testing on this when you have it in hand, especially with the console level toggle. It's looking fantastic so far.

UPDATE: also Cyberpunk 2077 PS5 Pro patch finally inbound!

@NetshadeX I did say take with a HUGE pinch of salt, but it will be on a newer process node and integrated APU, that will be a lot more efficient than a current PC, I don't think 350W for 5080 performance is outside the realm of possibility. Regardless i'm only passing it on.

Also bear in mind a 5080 is in many gamers eyes what the 5070 should have been, they have a huge gap in their product stack with the 5090 a long long way ahead.

@NetshadeX Take it with a huge pinch of salt but Tom of Moore's law is Dead estimated that it will perform at around the level of a 5080, possibly a bit more. For a non-bottlenecked PC at that level you are talking about $2000+ today, so they could still considerably come in cheaper, but it's still going to be a relatively low volume device.

@NetshadeX Moore's Law is dead estimated it was likely 250W - 350W TDP but stated that's not 100%.

It's still fixed hardware that can be optimised for. It's blurring the lines between console and PC. Additionally the leaks suggest there is going to be some custom silicon like the NPU which means, in theory, you can get more performance out of it than a similarly specced PC if, optimised for.

If I was Xbox I would want to make games run better on Helix from my own Xbox store than they do from Steam for example, give gamers a decent reason to pick their store. I don't think Play Anywhere is enough of a pull for most gamers, but "it looks and runs better" just might.

Looks fabulous. Looking forward to reviews but will probably pick up later this year. Too much to play right now.

Look forward to seeing "PSSR2" too.

Love the questions and in depth technical responses. Wish more devs would be this open.

Really interesting perspective Rich. I'll be honest I was getting a bit caught up in the Helix/Magnus specs and imagining the wide difference between the two, but this has bought me back to earth. What we actually perceive is all important, will there be much of a difference? And at what price differential? All interesting points.

Have Sony, and Cerny, played a blinder again? I wouldn't bet against them.

I'm still interested in the next Xbox, probably more than most players, but mostly if it can replace a gaming PC with the added convenience of console. IF it can do everything I want I will pay very good money for that - Steam Machine specs sadly left me cold.

But Microsoft have a habit of ballsing things up, constantly stepping on rakes of their own making, fingers crossed they can make a compelling product, if so i'm there day 1.

This is brilliant, loving that it;s a system level toggle.

@Darren1967 Yes system level toggle should be great. The main issue I can see is that we don't know how much performance it takes compared to PSSR1. Those games that were optimised for PSS1 may not hit the same framerates if the PSSR2 frame budget is more. But in those cases we could always turn it off. But this might not even be an issue. Look forward to seeing more thorough testing in March.

But to me, this is further proof that next-gen consoles aren't necessary right now.

@Sp180 Developers are ALWAYS holding back, constrained by the hardware. Like a heavyweight boxer who is only using a fraction of their strength. If they had more power they could achieve even more.

But I can understand being happy with this level of fidelity for a bit too.

Seems like an impressive port with sensible cut backs. DLSS advantage clearly on display, with image quality from a base 540p looking better than the base 720p on Series S.

Though some of those frame rate dips aren't great. Personally i'd prefer fluidity over fidelity. How frequent are the dips?

Whoa! That outdoors in the rain street shot reminded me of the bullshots from Watch Dogs that never came to be.

Also as usual the 120fps modes on these consoles are too much of tradeoff for my liking. That's fine 60fps is fine in games like this.

I think we will still move away from 8GB in many cases, but it will be more slow than it was going to be. And I don't see moving above needing 12/16GB of VRAM happening any time soon, which it might have done faster with the next gen consoles rumoured to have 32GB+ of GDDR7. But I guess only time will tell.

I think we are more limited by Steam Deck, Switch 2 (probably Steam Machine if it ever releases) and sometimes mobile than anything else. These are usually the lowest spec targets for most devs.

The revamped Xbox management does have a crucial advantage. The most painful decisions have already been made

I don't think you make a change like this without changing strategy again so i'd expect some pretty major changes in the next 12+ months. Maybe it will work out, but also: Be careful what you wish for / better the devil you know and all that.

Almost gutted I sold my Switch 1 copy now. But I got what I needed out of it back in the day when a portable Skyrim seemed like a pipedream. Glad to see this fixed.

Ahahahaha! That Alex and the lamp shot had me rolling. Love it.

Well I’m guessing it’s not Bluepoint! RIP

@MemuAccount I feel this is two separate issues.

1) Saying standard consoles are running at 720p and comparing that to Series S is disingenuous because, as I said, the base resolution isn't all that important anymore, it's the final perceived resolve that is more important. E.g. if with AI upscaling we can have a 1440p - 4K-like final image from a base of 720p - 1080p, but with added effects over what we would have at 1440p - 4K and higher/ smoother frame rates then that will usually be preferable as it's a better perceived final image.

Hence comparing Series S at 720p with comparatively weak FRS upscaling vs DLSS 4.5 from 720p is a complete mismatch. They don't remotely resolve the same, one is visibly far better. As John succinctly put it (I paraphrase): "it's the quality of the pixels not the quantity that often matters now".

2) Re: 60fps, VRR, SSD etc. I agree that these didn't seem important to many gamers until they had them in their hardware, and now it's hard to go back. But this is entirely normal social behaviour. Until a threshold is reached where an idea is adopted by a significant majority it isn't perceived as a standard or often even necessary. Consoles with their fixed specs, releasing every 7ish years and selling upwards of 50 million units are usually a place for these thresholds to be changed and new standards to be adopted by players.

It's very hard to do a JPEG reveal and make it hit, but bringing out OG Kratos TC Carson was a smart move, he just about pulled it off through sheer charisma.

I do wonder how they will handle the remakes if they will stick to the fixed camera that was key to the artistry in many shots. I'm not sure I want a complete 'reimagining' that deviates too far from the originals, at that point just make a new game.

@Rich_Leadbetter I hadn't considered Bluepoint might be doing this as there was the Santa Monica logo at the start... but that could actually make a lot of sense, especially as they were working on God of War before and may even be able to reuse some assets. (Though that stabs me right in the heart for the much hoped for Bluepoint dual engine Bloodborne remaster/remake) Only time will tell.

This is utterly bizarre. I do have SOME sympathy for devs/publishers trying to prevent piracy - which is rampant on PC based on torrent snatch numbers, which is just one piracy avenue - especially for new games*.

(*)Not that every pirated game is a lost sale, but why should they enable thieves to steal? It's a tough one to solve, especially as @JJtheTexan said it does harm to paying customers. I don't know what the answer is for new games.

But adding new DRM to old games that are already cracked makes absolutely ZERO sense. The pirated game performs better, which only further pushes people towards that option.

@Anna_Rae Should be great for that. Enjoy!

Personally I prefer the Steam Deck for emulation because anything before HDMI I think looks better on a small screen than blown up onto a massive 4K screen, those games were never designed for that. Whereas they still look fantastic on a smaller screen, especially Steam Deck OLED.

I still slightly regret selling my original Steam Controller... but I did make good money on it, and I didn't actually use it much.

@MemuAccount Final perceived resolve matters more than base resolution and this varies game by game. It's also subjective. I frequently see DF say things are "unplayable" that I enjoyed playing.

RAM prices are nuts, but it's the speed of change on the pricing that is so difficult to judge. They will likely have to lock down pricing both with suppliers and for us consumers for a time before confirming. Not an enviable task in the current market.

I am intrigued to see what the hardware can actually do outside of the specs, as on paper it doesn't seem to quite match up with their claims of 4K @ 60fps. Although a lot of people are only considering the very latest AAA titles which is a _tiny proportion of the (currently) 25,302 games verified or playable for Proton on Steam Deck. The vast majority will work at high framerates and resolutions.

I'm also really looking forward to are reviews on the Steam Controller. Just going by looks I can't imagine it's very comfortable to use all 3 control options with 3 very different thumb positions for D-pad, Analogue and track pad. It looks uncomfortable and unwieldy, but perhaps it's not.

@NandoCalrissian Which is why Oliver doesn't like all the settings! It's just nice to just play games and not have to worry about which mode looks best.

@Ukigumo I think it's complicated because it is still a FromSoft game even if Sony owns the IP. Shuhei Yoshida suggested, while also claiming he didn't know for certain, that the ball was in FromSoft / Miyazaki's court.

But I also suspect Sony will want to, understandably in my view, cash in on the demand for Bloodborne and do an entire Bluepoint remake like Demon's Souls. The trouble is they were busy with another project and it's if they actually want to do it. While I'd be happy with a 60fps / upscaled res / QoL patch as a consumer, I do understand from a business perspective Sony wanting more. If I was in their shoes i'd do the same frankly. PS6 launch title?

Wow! I'm not usually a fan of lighting mods as for all the good they can do they usually change the vibe and artistic intent of the devs too much, but this looks sublime (except the crushed blacks).

I don't need a Bluepoint Bloodborne remake, just a 60fps remaster with adjusted lighting like this and a couple of QoL features like not having to farm blood vials!!! It looks utterly GLORIOUS.

Nice write up. Especially appreciate all the comparison images. Much appreciated Oliver!

@Rich_Leadbetter Sure, but you usually pair a GPU with a top of the line CPU, RAM, MB etc. in those reviews. As you said in yourself in the B570 review:

"...while benchmarks on a best of the best CPU show no issues with the B580, or the new B570, the situation changes radically on older or less capable systems, that's something Intel needs to address...

It's something I have an issue with on reviews as they are often (understandably) are benched with hardware they will almost never be paired with, and we won't actually get that performance with a lesser CPU, RAM, MB etc. That's a hard nut to crack.

Either way I appreciate the article, nice to see a budget gaming PC can still be built, just about.

Nice article Rich, however it would probably be useful to know what sort of performance we could expect from such a system so we could weigh up the pros and cons of these concessions.

What a bizarre way to check for DLC, constantly checking rather than just storing it as a simple global at launch. Awful programming.

Posts like this always make me glad I’m not sensitive to this sort of thing. New tech is good, but it’s not really an important issue for me, I’ll spend my cash on things that are. But glad this exists for those that are.

While I have major issues with Nvidia's product stack, particularly on pricing and RAM allocation, DLSS continues to be the thing that makes me want to pick up an Nvidia GPU as a gamer. AMD are always several steps behind here.

This is why I love individual lists, far more interesting than a homogenised list. We've got Metacritic, Steam reviews and The Game Awards for that. It's also far more likely to shine a light on games that might have been overlooked.

@ramu-chan It is divisive, but if you like it it's fantastic. I thought it was 80% brilliant, but 20% let it down.

Yet the online discourse makes it sound like a terrible game and GROSSLY over exaggerates things like the team chatter - which hardly happens - or green crystal collection - which as long as you don't leave it all to the end isn't really a chore.

Most of the game is just classic Metroid Prime - oodles of atmosphere, clever design and plenty of fun. But I can see why some won't like it as much.

Great write up. I've often used the phrase "yesterday's technology tomorrow" to describe Nintendo's hardware in the past (though I am fond of ol'Ninty in other ways) so reading "tomorrow's technology today" was exciting to see.

It is a glimpse into the future and I can imagine a docked Strix Halo giving PS5-like visuals when docked on AC power, but then being able to pick up and play as a handheld with reduced settings. That's exciting. Though for now a RRP starting from around £1650 for this 395 model is outside my budget. Regardless I am excited about the future possibilities.