DF: A Plague Tale: Requiem Graphics Review[OT]

[Deleted member 51]

I'm surprised to see all the fps drops on ps5. I'd imagine it would run better than series x, with higher clocks? What happened here??

 

[arvfab]

I'm surprised to see all the fps drops on ps5. I'd imagine it would run better than series x, with higher clocks? What happened here??

Was it confirmed if the PS version really has more rats? Might be the cause.

Also Asobo for sure have more experience with Xbox.

It is also a well known fact that Xbox is the home of rats

 

[Deleted member 51]

It is also a well known fact that Xbox is the home of rats

Makes sense, but they weren't green.

 

[Deleted member 13]

It was time some 3rd party game joined R&C and HFW in the very short "it looks next-gen" list of games. GOW is next.

True.. don't forget FS2020.. even though people don't claim it a game, it's still running in realtime.

 

[Deleted member 13]

I'm surprised to see all the fps drops on ps5. I'd imagine it would run better than series x, with higher clocks? What happened here??

It's the pixel density. What do I mean by that?

Pixel density is a term I use when describing the "expense" of a pixel. It's the combination of all the iterations done on the frame in order to output that final pixel color. An example is the 3-layered environment detail. Using 3 techniques (normal mapping, parallax occlusion mapping and displacement mapping) for the terrain alone is very costly.. that's why lowering the pixel count won't help much on increasing performance.

 

[Deleted member 13]

Was it confirmed if the PS version really has more rats? Might be the cause.

The quantity of the rats is a CPU-based feature. It's not a rendering feature. 1 rat is instanced 300,000 times. But in memory the GPU only sees 1 rat that behaves in a "crowd-like" fashion.

Also Asobo for sure have more experience with Xbox.

True.

The game was definitely design with high-end PC hardware (similar to FS2020). They lowered the resolution and a few other features but not enough to cause an impact. I would consider this game's complexity on the level of that UE5 Matrix demo running at 1080/30FPS too. It's just that these games and demos push the next-gen hardware to it's peak (yup, already).

 

[Darth Vader]

The game was definitely design with high-end PC hardware (similar to FS2020). They lowered the resolution and a few other features but not enough to cause an impact. I would consider this game's complexity on the level of that UE5 Matrix demo running at 1080/30FPS too. It's just that these games and demos push the next-gen hardware to it's peak (yup, already).

• OS: Windows 10 (20H1 64 bits)
• Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K (3.7 GHz) / AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (3.6 GHz)
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: 8 GB, GeForce RTX 3070/Radeon RX 6800 XT
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 55 GB available space (SSD storage recommended)

High-end - hexacore processor and a RTX3070. Yes, it's GPU bound, but it's a poorly optimized title.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

No disagreements there but it's never been because of tech reasons contrary to popular belief. We can't have it both ways. Sony has never been known for pushing lighting/rendering tech in their games but always receive props for it simply because of it's artistic style and consistent level design. But that can't always be the narrative every single time something is compared.


Optimization doesn't really go into weighting a game's graphics features in my book. It's something that will get hashed out over the long run with patches (as most games).


Are you trying to say that HFW is the best looking next-gen game even though it's cross-gen?

Currently? Yes. But it's due to a multitude of factors on my part. Some are technical, some are subjective. It's also me taking the game's scope into account and all the things they are doing in that respect.

I don't think the delta between it and other games I'd consider among the best-looking currently out this gen (FH5, Flight Sim, PT:R, Rift Apart, Demon's Souls Remake, Cyberpunk 2077 (on PC), etc.) is that large tbh, but HFW does enough to where for me it's the best-looking game out currently, even if it is cross-gen.

I haven't seen character models in HFW so I can't say one way or the other how good they look but I would be comparing in-game models and not cinematic ones. Idle animations isn't a standout for me although I can see people weighing them in. Facial animations again is something that is a "nice to have" but not something that would make/break a judgement call like "best graphics" imo.

That's where we differ in big ways then; those kind of things like facial animations, idle animations etc. make the characters feel more alive and help lend a sense of the world being lived-in. It's the culmination of objective and subjective features that weigh towards something having "best graphics" IMO.

Geometry density and pixel density aren't the same. For example, the rock formations in HFW isn't as detailed as UE5/PTR simply because it's not using Nanite nor is it approximating nanite with combining 3 layers of detail for the props (normals, parallax and displacements combined). In that regard, it simply can't produce the amount of per-pixel detail as PTR which is what I'm judging.

Has it even been confirmed PTR is using UE5? I've heard Asobo have their own in-house engine and could be using that for this game instead. Anyway, maybe on a technical level you are correct and I wouldn't be surprised (though I think as an engine Decima is very much capable of doing the things you attribute to UE5 in terms of detail level, we would just need to see a PS5-only game using the engine to see it in practice), but again there is a subjective element to this and I tend to judge on the whole visually, not parts.

There's a concept in painting called 'relief areas', where you can intentionally reduce the amount of detail on one part of a painting so that the viewer's eyes zero in on a specific element of the painting instead. It's something a lot of people who look at paintings don't take into consideration when viewing them, but it's there. That's how I see it with HFW; okay on a technical level let's say the rock formations aren't as detailed as the ones in PT:R..for me though it's about the whole of the shot.

The character models are more detailed in HFW, character animations are better. The color palettes can't really be directly compared but I'd say HFW's palette helps accentuate or give the impression of details in some environment features that may not actually technically be there, but to the majority of players, they aren't going to care whether those details are actually there, or if their brain perceives the details being there due to a combination of technical & artistic choices. So on and so forth.

I also don't think HFW has energy conserving PBR materials as the GI system still introduces way too much ambient lighting whereas PTR normalizes the equations using more advanced form of ambient occlusion to reduce the constant illumination. Art style is of course subjective but many gamers use that as a main metric for judging what game looks the best. Unfortunately it's so subjective, it shouldn't even be compared.

You might have a point on the lighting, but I think that's more a reflection of its nature as a cross-gen game and needing solutions that can serve two generations of hardware where one lacks a lot of feature support at the hardware level the successor has. The Decima Engine itself? I think it's capable of normalizing things and having more appropriate illumination levels, but it's something we'd probably see with future games in the engine that don't have to account for PS4.

Btw, I'm also judging graphics with the PC version as it's the best iteration. I'm including ALL hardware in my claim as opposed to just consoles. The PC gives the most noteble differences running 4k/60FPS with all approximations at their highest levels.

Well that would explain a bit xD. I'm looking at PT:R and HFW on what they can both provide console-wise, where the hardware is largely similar in power. Bringing PC into the mix means bringing in GPUs magnitudes more capable than the consoles, same with the CPUs. It's a great way to see the absolute peak of the game's visuals at a technical level, indeed, but I'm looking at it more along the means most people would be playing, which is through the consoles.

Since PT:R doesn't have a 60 FPS option on console I'm just comparing it with HFW's 30 FPS mode which, technically means I can also throw the PS4 version in there too, but I'm mainly looking at it from the PS5 version of that game, and the Series X version of PT:R.

Lastly, I find it hard to believe that this game was designed around the Series S. There is no proof that that is the case and Asobo never mentioned it. I believe their graphics engine was designed around agnostic hardware and their techniques are pushing current hardware to the limit because of it.. clearly showing that their techniques were designed with more high-end hardware in mind.

I mean, if they did it anyway, they aren't going to say it. No developer's going to come out and say "Yeah, we scoped the project out for this baseline and scaled things up for more powerful hardware". Given PT:R is a pretty linear game, and it doesn't have a lot of complex game systems operating in tandem or complex calculations beyond the rat simulations (from what I've seen; i.e no environmental destruction physics, or game mechanics focused on dynamic cloth physics), I don't think a game like that NEEDS to be scoped for significantly higher-end hardware and then scaled down in areas to run on lower-end devices to avoid losing out in features or realizing original ambitions.

Something like Series S spec-wise is still a lot more than the baseline a studio like Naughty Dog had to use for TLOU Part 2 (PS4), and I wouldn't say (ignoring visuals here) PT:R is doing anything mechanics-wise, animation-wise etc. that TLOU Part 2 didn't do or in various instances, didn't do better. And again, PT:R is a largely linear game, so I don't think it's unrealistic that Series S level hardware could have been something they maintained the scope of the game design around.

I think maybe we're focusing on two different things here, then; the techniques you're referring to sounds largely visual in nature, and for THOSE yes I can see that they didn't keep the scope for those centered around Series S-level hardware. You can be hardware agnostic with those, for the most part, and scale to the capabilities of the target hardware. But things like graphics, graphical techniques, resolution, framerate etc. scale up and down rather easily, especially with optimized engines.

Usually when I focus on my worries with Series S (or minimum PC requirements) holding back a game, it's to do with the scope of game systems and their level of complexity, AI, animation systems (which aren't necessarily tied to graphics), general game logic etc. In that regard, I would never say PT:R is "held back" by something like Series S because given what the game clearly aims to be, it already would have had a better baseline spec to work with anyway compared to AAA releases from certain 1P devs in similar genre templates the previous generation (again, TLOU Part 2 having to keep its scope focused with the base PS4 in mind as one example).

 

[Deleted member 13]

• OS: Windows 10 (20H1 64 bits)
• Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K (3.7 GHz) / AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (3.6 GHz)
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: 8 GB, GeForce RTX 3070/Radeon RX 6800 XT
• DirectX: Version 12
• Storage: 55 GB available space (SSD storage recommended)

High-end - hexacore processor and a RTX3070. Yes, it's GPU bound, but it's a poorly optimized title.

OK. Whatever you say.

 

[PlacidusaX]

Game runs on hhd's therefore isn't current gen.

 

[DynamiteCop]

Have you played R&C Rift Apart? Because that game is head and shoulders above anything I've played so far. Haven't played Requiem, may be better, but ignoring one of the most visually stunning games this gen so far is just... lol.

It looks good, but VFX is right. It's not trying to portray any form of reality. It's simple shapes, cartoonish vistas and blown out colors.

It looks great for what it is, but it's a much simpler form of graphical creation.

 

[Darth Vader]

It looks good, but VFX is right. It's not trying to portray any form of reality. It's simple shapes, cartoonish vistas and blown out colors.

It looks great for what it is, but it's a much simpler form of graphical creation.

On the new astroturfer takes - Stylized / non-"realistic" games can't look next gen.

Congratulations.

 

[Deleted member 13]

On the new astroturfer takes - Stylized / non-"realistic" games can't look next gen.

Congratulations.

He's talking about the tech behind the game. It's clearly artistic direction. You seem to want to give 'next-gen' props to games with advanced rendering techniques like UE5 demo but also want to label artistic games that has no advanced tech 'next-gen' too. At the end of the day, you want to label whatever you want as 'next-gen'. We can do the same and it shouldn't get ridiculed.

 

[PropellerEar]

--snip--

He's talking about the tech behind the game. It's clearly artistic direction. You seem to want to give 'next-gen' props to games with advanced rendering techniques like UE5 demo but also want to label artistic games that has no advanced tech 'next-gen' too. At the end of the day, you want to label whatever you want as 'next-gen'. We can do the same and it shouldn't get ridiculed.

Read that post again he clearly talks about artistic choices!

Don't twist people's words, to fit your narrow minded narrative.

 

[Deleted member 13]

--snip--

Read that post again he clearly talks about artistic choices!

Don't twist people's words, to fit your narrow minded narrative.

I know he was talking about artistic choices. That's why I made the comment that either artistic or tech doesn't matter - it can all be considered next-gen from his perspective.

 

[Darth Vader]

I know he was talking about artistic choices. That's why I made the comment that either artistic or tech doesn't matter - it can all be considered next-gen from his perspective.

Ok, simple question then. Can R&C run on a PS4 with the same quality? Can it keep the instant world switching while presenting a decent enough graphical quality that equals or surpasses R&C 2016?

The answer to all of the above is no, therefore the logical conclusion is that the game is next generation (and looks next generation). Ratchet could have ray traced pubic hair shadows and you'd be claiming that it's shit because you can see the edges.

 

[PlacidusaX]

Ok, simple question then. Can R&C run on a PS4 with the same quality? Can it keep the instant world switching while presenting a decent enough graphical quality that equals or surpasses R&C 2016?

The answer to all of the above is no, therefore the logical conclusion is that the game is next generation (and looks next generation). Ratchet could have ray traced pubic hair shadows and you'd be claiming that it's shit because you can see the edges.

No 3D platformer on any platform comes close.

 

[Deleted member 13]

Ok, simple question then. Can R&C run on a PS4 with the same quality? Can it keep the instant world switching while presenting a decent enough graphical quality that equals or surpasses R&C 2016?

I started a thread series on what is considered next-gen from a tech perspective but felt it would end up being a matter of opinion from many people.

Of course the PS4 can't run R&C with equal graphics features. That's a no-brainer. My question to you is where do you want to draw the line between next-gen and last-gen? Is it a matter of simply the way Insomniac implemented the level switching? Or the amount of graphics features that won't run on the PS4 at a good FPS? Technically Gotham Nights is a next-gen title since it won't run on last gen systems but looks like crap compared to the last gen version of AK.

The answer to all of the above is no, therefore the logical conclusion is that the game is next generation (and looks next generation). Ratchet could have ray traced pubic hair shadows and you'd be claiming that it's shit because you can see the edges.

Not true. I love new tech and crave for it. I'm not a hater.

 

[PropellerEar]

I know he was talking about artistic choices. That's why I made the comment that either artistic or tech doesn't matter - it can all be considered next-gen from his perspective.

Let's see what he wrote...

It's not trying to portray any form of reality. It's simple shapes, cartoonish vistas and blown out colors.

And then you...

He's talking about the tech behind the game.

Get a grip man.

 

[Darth Vader]

Of course the PS4 can't run R&C with equal graphics features. That's a no-brainer. My question to you is where do you want to draw the line between next-gen and last-gen?

If the PS4 can't runt it, you have answered your own question. Additionally, I mentioned gameplay / level design as well (with the rapid world switching).