Digital Foundry is a problem, here's why

[Satoru]

Hello there,

Yesterday, Digital Foundry released a new video about The Last of Us Part II Remastered. While it is very much appreciated that they provided this content before the release, allowing people to make up their minds about the expansion, it was yet again very disappointing to see that they overlooked several improvements the remaster has - either due to not caring enough or due to more nefarious reasons. I want to believe it's the former, but based on past work, it could very well be the latter.

To prove my point, I will be providing their video:

This is what they noted:

• We don't see nearly as much pop-in with foliage during traversal, and areas further from the camera have better coverage.
• Shadow aliasing and flicker from the original release on the PS4 is replicated about the same here.
• Shadow presentation is nearly identical, and other than a hanging container, we could not spot significant differences elsewhere.
• We struggled to spot any differences in texture quality between the two versions, as the artwork is an exact match except for a shot where the dirt texture is somewhat higher resolution.
• Texture filtering is substantially improved.
• Some scene-by-scene tweaks to the look were made, with a lamp and the bar scene being provided as examples.
• There is a slight depth of field change in a couple of scenes.

Now, let's look at another comparison, much more in-depth, and where the reviewer Nick930 did provide evidence:

This is what they noted:

• Small enhancements to Ellie's model: The surface of her skin looks slightly sharper, texture maps for her clothing are sharper in select scenarios, and there's less pixelation to hair, brows, eyes, lips, and freckles.
• Animation sampling rate has been improved.
• Big improvement to draw distances.
• Most of the game's environmental textures have been bumped up as well, with examples provided for cement columns, scratch paint in a panel, and signs.
• Lighting doesn't look to have been changed all too much, with a couple of sections looking a little darker, but it's barely noticeable overall. Everything else looks almost the same as before.
• Reflections have been improved, with cubemaps benefiting from the bump in output resolution. SSR reflections reflect more of the scenery, and planar reflections used in mirrors see improvements in quality.
• Specular lighting has greatly benefited from the added environmental detail on some surfaces.
• Shadows have seen a slight improvement too. Shadow draw distances have been bumped, and small dithering shadows from things like wires or cables have been cleaned up.
• Alpha effects for splashes in waterfalls have a further draw distance, but the rest of the alpha effects look unchanged.

Now, what differences do we have based on the above?

• Digital Foundry found no differences in shadow aliasing or flickering; however, Nick930 provided evidence of both being improved.
• Digital Foundry found no differences in shadow quality other than a specific container; Nick930 provided evidence of quality being improved, if only in certain scenarios and only very slightly.
• Digital Foundry found no differences in texture quality other than a ground dirt texture; Nick930 provided evidence of texture quality being improved on Ellie's character model, as well as environmental textures.
• Digital Foundry did not point out any differences in reflections; Nick930 provided evidence of improvements to Cubemaps, SSR, and Planar Reflections.
• Digital Foundry did not point out any differences in alpha effects; Nic930 provided evidence if limited improvements to water effect splashes in waterfalls, related to their draw distance.

So, overall, what do you think? Was Digital Foundry lazy, or do they have ulterior motives to ignore this list of improvements which, even if small, does actually exist on a much larger scale than they noted?

 

[nongkris]

Digital Foundry is not above bias, as shown by them not including HFW Burning Shores in their end of the year best graphics list for made up reasons.

I'd attribute this case to laziness though instead of bias, as the differences are almost imperceptible unless heavily zoomed in, which they should be doing anyway.

 

[Bryank75]

They've always been manipulative, phrasing things to soften the criticism of Xbox, avoiding comparisons when it might create negativity for Microsoft and they are staffed mostly with pc and Xbox fanboys.

John used to get bullied anytime he was honest, so that generally stopped.

I haven't bothered with them in a long time.

I do wonder how Xbox's console collapse will impact them though...and media in general.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Yup, I saw both videos and beyond the other not having a proper tool to measure the frame rate it seems like DF failed to do their job again.

I think that they are used to have a list of changes and features with a prewritten PR text drom their handlers that they more or less repeating... Whenever there is a need for actual analysis they are not reliable.

 

[Satoru]

Digital Foundry is not above bias, as shown by them not including HFW Burning Shores in their end of the year best graphics list for made up reasons.

I'd attribute this case to laziness though instead of bias, as the differences are almost imperceptible unless heavily zoomed in, which they should be doing anyway.

I understand that, but is it not their job to point those differences? And worse, the cases where they said they see no difference, when it in fact exists are pretty terrible. It misrepresents the product, and quite honestly, should leave them open to liability.

As for their bias, and this is my opinion, they have shown time and again that they are biased against Playstation.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

I'd attribute this case to laziness though instead of bias, as the differences are almost imperceptible unless heavily zoomed in, which they should be doing anyway.

This is their job, they can zoom in, tell you what's there and say that they don't think you'll see it unless you have your face on the TV.

 

[Nhomnhom]

DF has no credibility to begin with, they are too cozy with Xbox and too concerned about the narrative.

They don't seem to like the idea of a PS5 Pro but they were championing the Series S/Series X strategy, makes no sense. All they talked about for a long time was the big VRR advantage on Xbox, all while ignoring Xbox recurring problem of torn frames that has been a thing the entire gen. It took them ages to come up with a video of GT7 vs Forza.

MS strategy is always to control the narrative instead of fixing the issues and early on in this gen they got together with DF to make sure they would be biased towards Xbox as much as they could. If Xbox was consistently beating the PS5 DF would be acting in a complete different way, since Xbox wasn't able to do it they decided that it wasn't important to focus so much on head to heads or on the small details.

They never question Xbox marketing points, for example, they talked a lot about VRS early on, but never go on it in detail and don't seem bothered that it seems to never work properly (as in it actually reduces quality for little to no apparent performance gain). PS5 gets compared directly with Xbox while Xbox is torning frames and using VRS and in the end the focus is that for a few frame Xbox reached a higher pixel count.

 

[Satoru]

I found it @nongkris an example of their... Selective observations

You can clearly tell at 5:54 that the PS5 has the edge in draw distance, but then at 7:18 they say both PS5 and Series X have matching graphics

There have been other circumstances before and since then, but I have no patience to go through all their videos.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Hello there,

Yesterday, Digital Foundry released a new video about The Last of Us Part II Remastered. While it is very much appreciated that they provided this content before the release, allowing people to make up their minds about the expansion, it was yet again very disappointing to see that they overlooked several improvements the remaster has - either due to not caring enough or due to more nefarious reasons. I want to believe it's the former, but based on past work, it could very well be the latter.

To prove my point, I will be providing their video:

This is what they noted:

• We don't see nearly as much pop-in with foliage during traversal, and areas further from the camera have better coverage.
• Shadow aliasing and flicker from the original release on the PS4 is replicated about the same here.
• Shadow presentation is nearly identical, and other than a hanging container, we could not spot significant differences elsewhere.
• We struggled to spot any differences in texture quality between the two versions, as the artwork is an exact match except for a shot where the dirt texture is somewhat higher resolution.
• Texture filtering is substantially improved.
• Some scene-by-scene tweaks to the look were made, with a lamp and the bar scene being provided as examples.
• There is a slight depth of field change in a couple of scenes.

Now, let's look at another comparison, much more in-depth, and where the reviewer Nick930 did provide evidence:

This is what they noted:

• Small enhancements to Ellie's model: The surface of her skin looks slightly sharper, texture maps for her clothing are sharper in select scenarios, and there's less pixelation to hair, brows, eyes, lips, and freckles.
• Animation sampling rate has been improved.
• Big improvement to draw distances.
• Most of the game's environmental textures have been bumped up as well, with examples provided for cement columns, scratch paint in a panel, and signs.
• Lighting doesn't look to have been changed all too much, with a couple of sections looking a little darker, but it's barely noticeable overall. Everything else looks almost the same as before.
• Reflections have been improved, with cubemaps benefiting from the bump in output resolution. SSR reflections reflect more of the scenery, and planar reflections used in mirrors see improvements in quality.
• Specular lighting has greatly benefited from the added environmental detail on some surfaces.
• Shadows have seen a slight improvement too. Shadow draw distances have been bumped, and small dithering shadows from things like wires or cables have been cleaned up.
• Alpha effects for splashes in waterfalls have a further draw distance, but the rest of the alpha effects look unchanged.

Now, what differences do we have based on the above?

• Digital Foundry found no differences in shadow aliasing or flickering; however, Nick930 provided evidence of both being improved.
• Digital Foundry found no differences in shadow quality other than a specific container; Nick930 provided evidence of quality being improved, if only in certain scenarios and only very slightly.
• Digital Foundry found no differences in texture quality other than a ground dirt texture; Nick930 provided evidence of texture quality being improved on Ellie's character model, as well as environmental textures.
• Digital Foundry did not point out any differences in reflections; Nick930 provided evidence of improvements to Cubemaps, SSR, and Planar Reflections.
• Digital Foundry did not point out any differences in alpha effects; Nic930 provided evidence if limited improvements to water effect splashes in waterfalls, related to their draw distance.

So, overall, what do you think? Was Digital Foundry lazy, or do they have ulterior motives to ignore this list of improvements which, even if small, does actually exist on a much larger scale than they noted?

Good thread and very true.

 

[nongkris]

I found it @nongkris an example of their... Selective observations

You can clearly tell at 5:54 that the PS5 has the edge in draw distance, but then at 7:18 they say both PS5 and Series X have matching graphics

There have been other circumstances before and since then, but I have no patience to go through all their videos.

Yep, they did a similar thing with another game where the Series X version was much blurrier than the PS5 but they never mentioned it, I think it was immortals of aveum.

The bias problem with Digital Foundry is made worse because their views on graphics is taken as the gospel and parroted across social media and even devs listen to them. While smaller graphics channels like the one you posted don't have that same influence.

 

[On Demand]

Are y’all really surprised? These clowns are basically PC and MS employees.

 

[Sircaw]

Nice thread,

I will go with them just being incompetent; they harped on about the Xbox being better because of having more Tflops for how long?

I personally think they are a bunch of pseudo-experts blagging their way through a lot of stuff.

I used to love their videos a long time ago, but now I don't watch them at all; the trust is just not there anymore.

 

[Box]

Does anyone outside of enthusiast forums even watch their videos?

 

[Old Gamer]

Richard has *always* been lying to people through his teeth. It was even worse in the 360/PS3 generation, because back then there were few alternative outlets that people were even aware of, if any, that would expose their lies.

Nowadays, they try to be less obvious in their comparisons, but they still are on a mission to provide marketing to MS, hence the amount of podcasts and editorial content (resolution is everything -> doesn't matter -> 4K advantage, etc.)

It has to be said, though. You can still easily notice how they never compare PC (sorry, Windows) to Xbox ports of the games - I'd guess a contractual impediment, considering the way the windows logo is now so proeminent in their videos - or the sensationalism when trying to portray MS in a positive light.

The lies and propaganda are obvious to anyone with a minimal amount of technical knowledge and discernment, of course, and too numerous to list.

 

[Ezekiel]

It's been clear to me for a while now that Digital Foundry poses like an objective tech channel, but really is another marketing wing from Eurogamer and the parent company.

 

[Kx11]

Yeah we all need to zoom in x10 to see it

 

[historia]

Promising thread.

I don't know why people watch these cunts zoom in and out 10 times to conclude shit everyone already know but whatever. Professionals, right?

 

[DeadPGN]

I remember them talking about the news that PlayStation sold more consoles in 2023 than Xbox, 3:1, and all John talked about was how Sony aren’t what they used to be and wishes they were more like they were in the PS2 years.
Eventually implying that Xbox had a chance this gen to capitalize on PlayStations slow start, and then banged on how PS had no games.
Said NOTHING about Xbox and offered no reasons for them not doing things right. Quite shocking really.

 

[Gamernyc78]

I remember them talking about the news that PlayStation sold more consoles in 2023 than Xbox, 3:1, and all John talked about was how Sony aren’t what they used to be and wishes they were more like they were in the PS2 years.
Eventually implying that Xbox had a chance this gen to capitalize on PlayStations slow start, and then banged on how PS had no games.
Said NOTHING about Xbox and offered no reasons for them not doing things right. Quite shocking really.

It's been same song and dance for over a decade. No one should listen to any of these ppl on Twitter, fake professionals on the payroll, etc...

They have an agenda on hand and will push it no matter the results. I just laugh and move on.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Just posted a tweet link to Nick's video in the DF comments section of their video on Twiter