Is it backwards compatible on the SeriesX? I know it's not on the Xbox store, but it is on the 360 specific marketplace. I have no idea if it's even possible to buy stuff on the 360 store and download onto a SeriesX.
@Titntin There's no doubt that 4 is better. I prefer everything about it - the map design, the physics/handling, the plethora of animals. The world feels better, more alive, the map has a better flow to it, even the radio stations are better.
I wanted to love 5 as 4 is one of my favourite games, but man I found it pretty underwhelming overall. The spark from 4 is kind of missing.
Interestingly I played 2 and 3 recently and I actually prefer those to 5 too.
@NEStalgia Yes of course, that is true, but the point remains that insinuating a performance increase due to a few hundred more megs of RAM appears to be absolute nonsense, and misleading. As you said it's rendering a quarter of the amount of pixels anyway generally, so with the lower res textures and even lower res render textures/buffers, the RAM requirements are already significantly lower than the Series X, ie probably about 2 gigs less, tallying with the difference in RAM between the 2
Ergo - a few hundred extra megs of RAM will do absolutely nothing
Don't get me wrong, any extra available resources is still good, but much like a few hundred extra megs of RAM on the Switch won't magically make BOTW run at 60fps, or Mario Odyssey run at 1080p, the same applies here. At the most it would allow for some higher res textures or a few more assets crammed into a loaded level or pool of active assets in a streaming system etc.
It's a bit misleading to suggest this change would have any realistic boost to performance, I wouldn't want Series S owners to get the wrong idea and think existing games or even future games are now going to magically run better.
I think what the announcement was getting at by "enhanced performance" was a specific instance of memory constrained scenario, ie a scenario where the RAM use is at its limit, and in that case there's a few hundred extra megs of RAM to play with, and faster allocations.
@Titntin What possible relevance and connection could the 2d MegaDrive animation system have to later 3d entries? Was it essentially an abstract controller that was left over from the MegaDrive days?
@BrilliantBill As a matter of fact I played those 2 games recently, and yes they do stand out as having very solid voice acting by VG standards.
I'm really impressed by Mass Effect 1 actually, the overall package is definitely better than I expected. One of the games that lives up to its reputation, and expectations.
It's true voice acting is still generally horrendous even in games that are well received. I thought the voice acting and writing was pretty atrocious in Control, yet somehow everyone loved it.
The voice acting in GTA 5 is solid, and one of the reasons I love the Yakuza series is the Japanese voice acting is truly top tier for a game.
I also have a good PC, Ryzen 5800, RTX 3070, 32gb of RAM etc, and yet I also find myself playing the Series X 95% of the time.
The convenience and pick up and play factor is hard to beat, in addition to quick resume, which is one thing my PC can't offer. Given I'm generally not playing games all day, I love the convenience of being able to switch between games quickly.
Also funnily enough, the two games you mentioned are two of the games I choose to play on PC instead of SeriesX. Forza Horizon 5 and Cyberpunk. Two good examples of the PC version being a BIG upgrade. As you said the 60fps mode on Series X had incredibly distracting pop in, running it on PC at 60fps with max settings really is a much better experience. Same with Cyberpunk, 60fps with raytracing obviously looks much better than the console versions.
So while the Series X is my gaming machine of choice, the PC is still really useful for any games that aren't ideally optimised or suited to console, or indeed are capped at 30fps.
But regarding stutter, I am sensitive to it too, I love a solid 60fps, but I can't say I've noticed stutter in anything other than DX12 titles, which seems to be shader compilation issues. Most of the games I've played on my PC run at a solid 60fps just like Series X.
Absolutely. I loved the 360, easily my favourite console of that generation, I played it loads. Amazingly powerful given it came out a year before the PS3, and it had great games, great online. Just a really good console.
Then the Xbox One happened, and the TV TV TV / forced kinect thing, combined with the fact my PC was more powerful - put me right off that gen. The PS4 was better, but tbh still not good enough to make me want to buy one. That generation was weird, the hardware was underwhelming compared to even an average, affordable gaming PC, and games were becoming more and more available on PC. So I stick with PC and then Switch for that whole generation.
But now? The SeriesX is the first console that's wow'd me for a long time. Microsoft came out guns a blazin' this generation, I like everything about it. I knew I had to get one as soon as I saw it and realised what it was capable of.
The speed, the power, the immediacy, quick resume, and of course GamePass has quickly made it out of the best consoles ever imo. It's astonishingly quiet too, just a great piece of hardware.
I have a powerful PC with a GTX3070 - which is great, and select titles are obviously better on it - but I still play the SeriesX more. I love the back compatibility, I love FPS boost and the ability to retroactively enhance older games, and I love quick resume.
@BBB Agreed. Bear in mind Far Cry 3 ranks up there as possibly one of my favourite games ever, I enjoyed it from start to finish, this one, I just couldn't get into at all and stopped playing after a few hours.
I kind of wish it had been any other Far Cry added to GamePass
Super Street Fighter 4 / Ultra is the best fighting game ever made imo. Everything about it is just amazing, the pace, the precision of the moves, the range of characters and stages, the depth of the gameplay. I can understand the difficulty being offputting to fighting game newbs, but for long time fans the game is basically fighting game perfection.
I could never get into SF5, SSF4 just seemed better in every way.
It looks brilliant, but was anyone else a bit put off by the apparent immense size of it? In the quest to make bigger and bigger games it seems maybe they've gone a bit too far, this seems almost too big.
Weird complaint I know, but when they revealed the 1000 planets, plus all the skill trees and crafting etc, I thought how TF am I going to even find the time to play this, alongside work and other games
@awp69 As someone who felt all GTs since GT4 look underwhelming visually, and very clinical, I think GT7 is a big step up.
Trial Mountain and the Tokyo tracks look excellent, the lighting model is very solid, weather effects good, and definitely has a less clinical look than previous entries.
I won't be surprised if this plays a lot better than GT7 though. I love the whole style and essence and content of Gran Turismo, but the gameplay and physics? That's another matter.
Most Gran Turismo's have a very stiff, understeer heavy physics model than tbh is not very realistic.
Most of the Forza's have a more realistic, weightier physics model without the horrendous understeer that plagues GT. Better drifting as a result. Hopefully this one continues like that, just with higher fidelity.
lol at GT7 being unimpressive visually. Some scenes look better than others according to the track/time of day/weather, but at its best GT7 is a stunning game, and tbh I'm more of an Xbox fan than PS. I love my Series X.
In this trailer I have to be honest, I think a bit too much fuss was made about the raytraced self reflections, and macrodetail type of stuff. The overall essence visually was not quite as convincing as GT7 to me.
I still think Forza Horizon 4 on max settings on PC running at 4k60 is the most realistic looking driving game.
I mean, I absolutely love quick resume as it gives me functionality beyond even my PC with RTX 3070, but ultimately yes FPS Boost is the most transformative of all.
Far Cry 3 is a good example. I also love that game, but had to stop playing it on the 360 as like you said it runs at 20fps making it basically unplayable. I started playing the PC version instead and the difference was night and day, a rock solid 60fps gave the game the framerate it deserved and completely transformed the experience for the better.
So yes it is an astounding feature - retroactively improving games and turning many games from unplayable to perfectly playable.
@Tharsman They make the effort to listen to player feedback and implement a performance mode, and you find it worthy of criticism? Bit weird tbh. I wish more devs made the effort, especially fairly quickly like this. I'm sure a lot of Series S owners will be happy about it.
And no they didn't find extra horsepower, performance/quality is always about compromise.
When the dev said that, he obviously meant it was incapable of running at 60 at the visual standard they are going for.
Of course the Series S was always capable of running this (or any other game) at 60, but at what cost? The Switch with its tiny mobile APU can run The Witcher 3 at a somewhat solid 60fps amazingly, but obviously at low settings and about 360p
In this case I'm guessing it was as simple as lowering the settings and min dynamic resolution.
@Banjo- Agreed, one of the best things about the SeriesX along with quick resume. I've bought a few games purely because of FPS Boost, the most recent one being Sonic Generations.
@Banjo- Yeah I forgot to say as for me it's a given - performance is king.
Some people who don't care about framerate would think I'm crazy, but I would take 720p60 over 4k30 without a second thought
BTW Cyberpunk is another game that is needlessly prioritising resolution and struggling because of it. I played the SeriesX version for the first time recently and tbh it's still pretty bad even after this supposed great next gen update. NPCs were still popping up right in front of me with a lot going on, and the framerate is too choppy. Lowering the resolution and increasing the settings would work wonders to make it look and play much better.
It's still worlds away from the PC version. To illustrate my point about resolution, the PC version at 1080p60 with high settings and all ray tracing active looks and plays much, much better than the next gen console versions, even with DLSS (internal 720p).
At least it sounds like Rockstar realise that, given the RT performance mode.
@Banjo- and @InterceptorAlpha I couldn't agree more.
I believe in doing more per pixel, than more pixels just for the sake of it. There are countless games out there that would be SO much better at say 1080p60 with ray tracing and solid AA, rather than 4k, or even 1440p60 with improved settings. 4k just feels like a waste of resources to me, to a large extent.
This is a pretty terrible list it has to be said, may as well just add Burnout Paradise and all the Need for Speeds
Love it or hate it Gran Turismo is fairly unique IMO, in its overall style, presentation, gameplay, events etc. Obviously Forza Motorsport is the closest thing.
I have to be honest, GT7 is the first Gran Turismo that I love the look of since the ground breaking original Gran Turismo. Looks like the spiritual successor.
I just hope it has good handling and physics, and not the horrific understeer that crippled the gameplay of most of the later games.
Just out of principle I couldn't bring myself to buy one at the current price. If they reduce close to half the price, or an adapter is released that allows off the shelf SSDs then sure.
I mean, they're over twice the price of a good WD NVME, it's absurd. As much as I like the SeriesX and GamePass, they are taking the piss with the storage.
Luckily storage has been surprisingly OK on my SeriesX, with the help of a 1tb USB drive. I have loads of older games and 360 games stored on the external drive, and the internal drive still has a good 250gb left for new games. Seems fine.
A Compute Unit is just a cluster of individual cores (which are essentially an FPU). NVIDIA just happen to give cores rather than CUs, as it's a bigger number.
Even though as you say different generation architectures will be able to do more per core per cycle (just like generations of CPUs), all I'm saying is cores/CUs are the heart of a GPU and are responsible for all the number crunching per vertex and per pixel.
Which is why despite the clear law of diminishing returns (even in identical architecture such as 3070 vs 3090) the 3090 still beats everything thanks to its massive core count.
But yeah I guess it's true the 3090 is a good example of how you can't expect TFLOPS to tell the whole story with performance, it seems the higher you go the more the law of diminishing returns applies. On paper, the 3090 should be almost twice as fast as the 3070, but in reality it's what, about 33% faster at 4k?
If anything it makes it surprising that in some games like Control and Hitman 3, the SeriesX does seem to come close to the 20% TFLOP advantage it has.
@Moto5 Yeah cores do have diminishing returns, but at the same time they are the core horsepower of a card, and don't need to be specifically programmed for like CPU cores do.
The 3090 is a prime example - it has a slower core clock than both the SeriesX and PS5, yet its mammoth 10000 cores lead it to be somewhere close to twice as fast as both of them
@Savage_Joe Yes it is interesting quite what a huge advantage iOS has over Android, despite fewer cores etc. I mean now Apple CPUs do have 6 cores and generally higher clockspeeds, but still, on paper they shouldn't have this massive advantage.
By system architecture I thought you meant hardware, but in this case you're more talking about kernel efficiency, in which case yeah the iOS kernel is clearly much faster than Android.
So yes it is possible the PS5 has a more efficient kernel, but that would affect CPU performance more than anything - so primarily games that are very physics or draw call heavy, or even streaming assets.
Which might be the case I guess, leading to slightly more consistent performance in some games, yet in some games that come down to GPU power like Control and Hitman 3, the SeriesX comes close to the advantage it has on paper.
@Moto5 CPU I agree, none of these games are going to be pushing their very good CPUs to their limit, especially at 60fps.
Memory bandwidth on the other hand? It should be significant. Take the 2080ti for example, it's still a beast, able to match or often exceed the performance of the 3070, despite the 3070 having a whopping 50% TFLOP advantage. I think this is in large part due to the 2080ti's own big VRAM bandwidth advantage, almost 40%.
Regarding clockspeed and the XSX having unique hardware, not sure there's any truth to that tbh. I mean, the processing power of GPUs is simply cores * clockspeed * 2. So the SeriesX more than makes up for the clockspeed differential by having way more cores. And it's not like developers need to specifically program for extra cores, like with CPUs. Graphics APIs do that.
For example, my 3070 actually has a slower clock speed than one of my older GPUs, the 1660 Super, yet is obviously much, much faster, due to having literally 4 times as any cores. And clearly older games benefit from those extra cores, it's not just newer games that specifically take advantage of the newer hardware.
That's why it's so surprising the PS5 does often have the edge, I wonder if it's API related or?
@Savage_Joe Well, we know for a fact the SeriesX has a faster memory bus/bandwidth, and a faster CPU. So what are the advantages you think the PS5 has? As far as I see it, it's a GPU clockspeed advantage, and that's really it. Which obviously wouldn't come close to overriding the huge core advantage, plus memory bandwidth, CPU etc.
That's why it's strange, and can maybe be explained by a more efficient API, or some optimisations that for some reason benefit the PS5 more than XSX.
I know all things being equal in Control for example, the SeriesX had about a 20% advantage, so tallying exactly with the on paper specs.
@Savage_Joe The SeriesX is no more "PC parts just bundled together" than the PS5.
In fact the SeriesX and PS5 are very, very similar architecture wise. Both have an AMD CPU resembling a Ryzen 7 3700x, and both have an AMD RDNA2 GPU - with the key difference being the SeriesX having 45% more cores, and the PS5 having a clockspeed advantage.
Similar architecture, yet the SeriesX has a solid 20% TFLOP advantage, and not only that, but a 25% memory bandwidth advantage. Definitely makes it strange that the PS5 ever does perform better, tbh, unless they have clearly different settings/resolution for a given game.
@Spaceman-Spiff I think that's recency bias at play, as several notable recent games run better on PS5 - like Cyberpunk 1.5 and Elden Ring.
The truth is in one of the 1 yeaer retrospective videos, they found the SeriesX on average had about a 15% advantage over the PS5, ie close to its 20% on paper advantage.
As for Elden Ring and Cyberpunk? I can't explain that. I would have thought it was as simple as the SeriesX having higher resolution targets to take advantage of the extra horsepower, but that doesn't appear to be the case. It must be API related, as the architecture is similar enough that you'd think optimisations would work both ways.
Admittedly the handling does look absurdly arcadey and NFS esque though, which is unsurprising as it's now under EA.
It's a shame because I'm a big fan of the original GRID, and imo it's the original "simcade" racer. It was really great for its day and still holds up pretty well now. Codemasters' rally games have always been amazing too.
But I feel like their games are starting to lag behind the competition a bit now tbh, their visuals and physics now seem several levels below Forza Horizon for example.
@Banjo- Interesting, first I heard about the 9.2 TFLOP figure too. Where did you read that?
It does surprise me whenever the PS5 does have the edge in a game, because on paper the hardware difference is fairly significant in favour of the Series X. Not only does it have a solid 20% TFLOP advantage (or 32% if your figure is correct) but it also has a 25% VRAM bandwidth advantage too. I mean, it's not like it trounces the PS5 but those are solid numbers, like going up a tier in the GPU world (say from a 2070 super to 2080 super).
Also, we're not in the 360/PS3 era where they had vastly different architectures - the hardware is nigh on identical, and surely the APIs are too. So it is weird when you see some recent games favour the PS5, not sure if it's as simple as more ambitious resolution targets on the SeriesX or something more random.
I agree it'll be interesting to see what happens when the generation in in full swing. It's no surprise the PS5's best looking game is a PS5 exclusive rather than cross gen.
What would you say is the best looking SeriesX game? I still think FH4 and 5 are unmatched, running at 4k60 both look superb. Flight Sim is good too.
@StylesT Digital Foundry - on one of their 1 year retrospective type videos - tallied up the Xbox Vs PS5 performance differential so far and the SeriesX did come out ahead by about 15% as I recall, so fairly close to the 20% advantage it has on paper. And there was a recent game where the SeriesX trounced the PS5 handily, I think that Tales game.
It's just there's been several notable titles that for some reason the PS5 has had an advantage in recently, namely Cyberpunk 1.5 and Elden Ring.
@Titntin Thanks for the info, indeed I had no idea the materials etc would be different, and even the triggers.
Interestingly you did list 2 of my gripes with the pad - the nasty stippled plastic, and the sticky triggers, with the third being the pretty loose analog sticks. So pretty good that 2 of them are better.
@Banjo- agreed, I was in a bit of a rush reading and replying, I glossed over the engineer part
That is very interesting, I would have thought there would be a bigger performance differential between them, but maybe it's more about featureset than performance.
@Dezzy70 Actually no I have not tried, I've seen it though and like the design of the d-pad. £150 though, oof
I do like the sound of adjustable tension analog sticks though. That's one of the things that surprised me actually, the sticks on the SeriesX controller feel quite loose and wallowy, kind of how DualShocks used to feel.
I love the higher firmness of the 360 sticks, they feel much nicer and more accurate.
@Titntin I love my SeriesX - it's overall much better than I expected, and made me love console gaming again.
Apart from the controller That's the one thing that did not meet my expectations at all, especially given the fairly lofty public opinion of it. I also think it feels quite cheap and plasticky, just not very nice to hold or use. I was genuinely surprised it's so well liked.
The 360 controller feels weightier and better made and more comfortable. I still think the 360 controller is the best all round controller, and is my preference for PC gaming. It would be perfect if it had a better d-pad and 6 face buttons. It has better battery life too.
About the Forza controller - how is it better exactly? To me it looks identical to the standard one, just colourful.
Might be time to try another FromSoftware game, as usually they are not my cup of tea.
This does look spectacular though, no doubt.
As an aside, the odd instance where the PS5 performs better (Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 1.5 as 2 recent examples) surprises me. The consoles have such similar architecture, yet the Series X is about 20% more powerful. Only thing I can think of is developers try to make use of that 20% with higher dynamic resolution targets or higher settings, and push things slightly too far, leading to less consistent performance.
Might have to get this one on PC for perfect performance.
@Medic_Alert I hate to be a negative nancy, but I completely agree.
I was taken aback by the staggering amount Microsoft paid for Activision, because they're not a developer that's ever been on my radar at all really. I mean, looking at the list - objectively there are some very big games, but most of them don't appeal to me at all, so just from my own perspective it seemed absolutely nuts they are worth that much. Even objectively, only Call of Duty seems like the only real big hitter now.
Do you think they overpaid? I wonder at what point this deal will be profitable for Microsoft. I thought it was probably just to make COD exclusive, but they seem to suggest it will be multiplatform.
Comments 194
Re: Five Criterion Games You Should Try Before Need For Speed Unbound
Burnout 3 is one of the best games ever made.
Is it backwards compatible on the SeriesX? I know it's not on the Xbox store, but it is on the 360 specific marketplace. I have no idea if it's even possible to buy stuff on the 360 store and download onto a SeriesX.
Re: Forza Dev Confirms Horizon 4 Won't Be Delisted Anytime Soon
@Titntin There's no doubt that 4 is better. I prefer everything about it - the map design, the physics/handling, the plethora of animals. The world feels better, more alive, the map has a better flow to it, even the radio stations are better.
I wanted to love 5 as 4 is one of my favourite games, but man I found it pretty underwhelming overall. The spark from 4 is kind of missing.
Interestingly I played 2 and 3 recently and I actually prefer those to 5 too.
Re: These 12 Games Are Leaving Xbox Game Pass Today (September 30)
@Banjo- I recently played Forza Horizon 3 for the first time, and it's really good, better than I expected. I would rank it as a close second after 4.
I really like that one of the radio stations is more Burnout 3 esque too, rather than the usual electro.
Re: Bonnie Ross, The Head Of Halo, Is Leaving 343 Industries And Microsoft
I've never understood what people's problem with Bonnie Ross is. The phrase "they need to get rid of Bonnie Ross" gets parroted a lot.
But why?
Re: Xbox Series S Becomes More Powerful Thanks To New Console Update
@NEStalgia Yes of course, that is true, but the point remains that insinuating a performance increase due to a few hundred more megs of RAM appears to be absolute nonsense, and misleading. As you said it's rendering a quarter of the amount of pixels anyway generally, so with the lower res textures and even lower res render textures/buffers, the RAM requirements are already significantly lower than the Series X, ie probably about 2 gigs less, tallying with the difference in RAM between the 2
Ergo - a few hundred extra megs of RAM will do absolutely nothing
Don't get me wrong, any extra available resources is still good, but much like a few hundred extra megs of RAM on the Switch won't magically make BOTW run at 60fps, or Mario Odyssey run at 1080p, the same applies here. At the most it would allow for some higher res textures or a few more assets crammed into a loaded level or pool of active assets in a streaming system etc.
It's a bit misleading to suggest this change would have any realistic boost to performance, I wouldn't want Series S owners to get the wrong idea and think existing games or even future games are now going to magically run better.
I think what the announcement was getting at by "enhanced performance" was a specific instance of memory constrained scenario, ie a scenario where the RAM use is at its limit, and in that case there's a few hundred extra megs of RAM to play with, and faster allocations.
Re: Xbox Series S Becomes More Powerful Thanks To New Console Update
Yeah I don't think a few hundred megs of RAM is going to do much to bridge the gap with a machine that has 3 times more horsepower
Re: Video: Starfield Analysis Breaks Down Xbox Games Showcase Demo
@Titntin What possible relevance and connection could the 2d MegaDrive animation system have to later 3d entries? Was it essentially an abstract controller that was left over from the MegaDrive days?
Re: Here's Your First Look At 16 Minutes Of Gotham Knights Gameplay
@BrilliantBill As a matter of fact I played those 2 games recently, and yes they do stand out as having very solid voice acting by VG standards.
I'm really impressed by Mass Effect 1 actually, the overall package is definitely better than I expected. One of the games that lives up to its reputation, and expectations.
Re: Here's Your First Look At 16 Minutes Of Gotham Knights Gameplay
It's true voice acting is still generally horrendous even in games that are well received. I thought the voice acting and writing was pretty atrocious in Control, yet somehow everyone loved it.
The voice acting in GTA 5 is solid, and one of the reasons I love the Yakuza series is the Japanese voice acting is truly top tier for a game.
Re: Two Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (July 19)
@Titntin
I also have a good PC, Ryzen 5800, RTX 3070, 32gb of RAM etc, and yet I also find myself playing the Series X 95% of the time.
The convenience and pick up and play factor is hard to beat, in addition to quick resume, which is one thing my PC can't offer. Given I'm generally not playing games all day, I love the convenience of being able to switch between games quickly.
Also funnily enough, the two games you mentioned are two of the games I choose to play on PC instead of SeriesX. Forza Horizon 5 and Cyberpunk. Two good examples of the PC version being a BIG upgrade. As you said the 60fps mode on Series X had incredibly distracting pop in, running it on PC at 60fps with max settings really is a much better experience. Same with Cyberpunk, 60fps with raytracing obviously looks much better than the console versions.
So while the Series X is my gaming machine of choice, the PC is still really useful for any games that aren't ideally optimised or suited to console, or indeed are capped at 30fps.
But regarding stutter, I am sensitive to it too, I love a solid 60fps, but I can't say I've noticed stutter in anything other than DX12 titles, which seems to be shader compilation issues. Most of the games I've played on my PC run at a solid 60fps just like Series X.
Re: Talking Point: Did The Series X|S Bring You Back To Xbox? If So, How Come?
Absolutely. I loved the 360, easily my favourite console of that generation, I played it loads. Amazingly powerful given it came out a year before the PS3, and it had great games, great online. Just a really good console.
Then the Xbox One happened, and the TV TV TV / forced kinect thing, combined with the fact my PC was more powerful - put me right off that gen. The PS4 was better, but tbh still not good enough to make me want to buy one. That generation was weird, the hardware was underwhelming compared to even an average, affordable gaming PC, and games were becoming more and more available on PC. So I stick with PC and then Switch for that whole generation.
But now? The SeriesX is the first console that's wow'd me for a long time. Microsoft came out guns a blazin' this generation, I like everything about it. I knew I had to get one as soon as I saw it and realised what it was capable of.
The speed, the power, the immediacy, quick resume, and of course GamePass has quickly made it out of the best consoles ever imo. It's astonishingly quiet too, just a great piece of hardware.
I have a powerful PC with a GTX3070 - which is great, and select titles are obviously better on it - but I still play the SeriesX more. I love the back compatibility, I love FPS boost and the ability to retroactively enhance older games, and I love quick resume.
Re: Far Cry 5 Is Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (July 1)
@BBB Agreed. Bear in mind Far Cry 3 ranks up there as possibly one of my favourite games ever, I enjoyed it from start to finish, this one, I just couldn't get into at all and stopped playing after a few hours.
I kind of wish it had been any other Far Cry added to GamePass
Re: Pick One: Which Of These Upcoming Game Pass Launches Are You Most Excited About?
Really surprised Plague Tale is neck and neck with Forza in the poll, didn't realise it was that popular.
Re: Xbox Wins Daytime Emmy Award For 20th Anniversary Documentary
I really enjoyed this documentary, surprisingly engaging and interesting.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (June 18-19)
@Bobobiwan
Super Street Fighter 4 / Ultra is the best fighting game ever made imo. Everything about it is just amazing, the pace, the precision of the moves, the range of characters and stages, the depth of the gameplay. I can understand the difficulty being offputting to fighting game newbs, but for long time fans the game is basically fighting game perfection.
I could never get into SF5, SSF4 just seemed better in every way.
Hopefully SF6 is good
Re: Gallery: Feast Your Eyes On These Brand-New Starfield Screenshots
It looks brilliant, but was anyone else a bit put off by the apparent immense size of it? In the quest to make bigger and bigger games it seems maybe they've gone a bit too far, this seems almost too big.
Weird complaint I know, but when they revealed the 1000 planets, plus all the skill trees and crafting etc, I thought how TF am I going to even find the time to play this, alongside work and other games
Re: Forza Motorsport Is The Most 'Technically Advanced' Racer Ever, Says Turn 10
@awp69 As someone who felt all GTs since GT4 look underwhelming visually, and very clinical, I think GT7 is a big step up.
Trial Mountain and the Tokyo tracks look excellent, the lighting model is very solid, weather effects good, and definitely has a less clinical look than previous entries.
Re: Forza Motorsport Is The Most 'Technically Advanced' Racer Ever, Says Turn 10
I won't be surprised if this plays a lot better than GT7 though. I love the whole style and essence and content of Gran Turismo, but the gameplay and physics? That's another matter.
Most Gran Turismo's have a very stiff, understeer heavy physics model than tbh is not very realistic.
Most of the Forza's have a more realistic, weightier physics model without the horrendous understeer that plagues GT. Better drifting as a result. Hopefully this one continues like that, just with higher fidelity.
Re: Forza Motorsport Is The Most 'Technically Advanced' Racer Ever, Says Turn 10
lol at GT7 being unimpressive visually. Some scenes look better than others according to the track/time of day/weather, but at its best GT7 is a stunning game, and tbh I'm more of an Xbox fan than PS. I love my Series X.
In this trailer I have to be honest, I think a bit too much fuss was made about the raytraced self reflections, and macrodetail type of stuff. The overall essence visually was not quite as convincing as GT7 to me.
I still think Forza Horizon 4 on max settings on PC running at 4k60 is the most realistic looking driving game.
Re: 46% Of US PlayStation Owners Interested In Xbox Game Pass Due To Activision Deal, Says Poll
It's probably more like 99%, with only 46% admitting it
Re: Soapbox: FPS Boost Is The Most Underrated Xbox Series X|S Feature
Agreed 100%.
I mean, I absolutely love quick resume as it gives me functionality beyond even my PC with RTX 3070, but ultimately yes FPS Boost is the most transformative of all.
Far Cry 3 is a good example. I also love that game, but had to stop playing it on the 360 as like you said it runs at 20fps making it basically unplayable. I started playing the PC version instead and the difference was night and day, a rock solid 60fps gave the game the framerate it deserved and completely transformed the experience for the better.
So yes it is an astounding feature - retroactively improving games and turning many games from unplayable to perfectly playable.
Re: Xbox Adds Automatic Downloads To Energy Saver Mode On Series X|S
Superb. The background downloads were the only reason I ever used the standby mode.
Re: Dying Light 2 Patch Adds 60FPS For Xbox Series S, New Mode For Series X
@Tharsman They make the effort to listen to player feedback and implement a performance mode, and you find it worthy of criticism? Bit weird tbh. I wish more devs made the effort, especially fairly quickly like this. I'm sure a lot of Series S owners will be happy about it.
And no they didn't find extra horsepower, performance/quality is always about compromise.
When the dev said that, he obviously meant it was incapable of running at 60 at the visual standard they are going for.
Of course the Series S was always capable of running this (or any other game) at 60, but at what cost? The Switch with its tiny mobile APU can run The Witcher 3 at a somewhat solid 60fps amazingly, but obviously at low settings and about 360p
In this case I'm guessing it was as simple as lowering the settings and min dynamic resolution.
Re: Rockstar Details GTAV On Next-Gen, Including 3 Performance Modes
@Banjo- Agreed, one of the best things about the SeriesX along with quick resume. I've bought a few games purely because of FPS Boost, the most recent one being Sonic Generations.
Re: Rockstar Details GTAV On Next-Gen, Including 3 Performance Modes
@Banjo- Yeah I forgot to say as for me it's a given - performance is king.
Some people who don't care about framerate would think I'm crazy, but I would take 720p60 over 4k30 without a second thought
BTW Cyberpunk is another game that is needlessly prioritising resolution and struggling because of it. I played the SeriesX version for the first time recently and tbh it's still pretty bad even after this supposed great next gen update. NPCs were still popping up right in front of me with a lot going on, and the framerate is too choppy. Lowering the resolution and increasing the settings would work wonders to make it look and play much better.
It's still worlds away from the PC version. To illustrate my point about resolution, the PC version at 1080p60 with high settings and all ray tracing active looks and plays much, much better than the next gen console versions, even with DLSS (internal 720p).
At least it sounds like Rockstar realise that, given the RT performance mode.
Re: Rockstar Details GTAV On Next-Gen, Including 3 Performance Modes
@Banjo- and @InterceptorAlpha I couldn't agree more.
I believe in doing more per pixel, than more pixels just for the sake of it. There are countless games out there that would be SO much better at say 1080p60 with ray tracing and solid AA, rather than 4k, or even 1440p60 with improved settings. 4k just feels like a waste of resources to me, to a large extent.
But people are obsessed with it, so it be
Re: Eight Great Alternatives To Gran Turismo 7 On Xbox Game Pass
This is a pretty terrible list it has to be said, may as well just add Burnout Paradise and all the Need for Speeds
Love it or hate it Gran Turismo is fairly unique IMO, in its overall style, presentation, gameplay, events etc. Obviously Forza Motorsport is the closest thing.
I have to be honest, GT7 is the first Gran Turismo that I love the look of since the ground breaking original Gran Turismo. Looks like the spiritual successor.
I just hope it has good handling and physics, and not the horrific understeer that crippled the gameplay of most of the later games.
Re: Talking Point: Have You Bought An Xbox Series X|S Expansion Card Yet?
Just out of principle I couldn't bring myself to buy one at the current price. If they reduce close to half the price, or an adapter is released that allows off the shelf SSDs then sure.
I mean, they're over twice the price of a good WD NVME, it's absurd. As much as I like the SeriesX and GamePass, they are taking the piss with the storage.
Luckily storage has been surprisingly OK on my SeriesX, with the help of a 1tb USB drive. I have loads of older games and 360 games stored on the external drive, and the internal drive still has a good 250gb left for new games. Seems fine.
Re: Digital Foundry's Elden Ring Verdict Shows How Important VRR Is On Xbox
I'm not confusing them
A Compute Unit is just a cluster of individual cores (which are essentially an FPU). NVIDIA just happen to give cores rather than CUs, as it's a bigger number.
Even though as you say different generation architectures will be able to do more per core per cycle (just like generations of CPUs), all I'm saying is cores/CUs are the heart of a GPU and are responsible for all the number crunching per vertex and per pixel.
Which is why despite the clear law of diminishing returns (even in identical architecture such as 3070 vs 3090) the 3090 still beats everything thanks to its massive core count.
But yeah I guess it's true the 3090 is a good example of how you can't expect TFLOPS to tell the whole story with performance, it seems the higher you go the more the law of diminishing returns applies. On paper, the 3090 should be almost twice as fast as the 3070, but in reality it's what, about 33% faster at 4k?
If anything it makes it surprising that in some games like Control and Hitman 3, the SeriesX does seem to come close to the 20% TFLOP advantage it has.
Re: Digital Foundry's Elden Ring Verdict Shows How Important VRR Is On Xbox
@Moto5 Yeah cores do have diminishing returns, but at the same time they are the core horsepower of a card, and don't need to be specifically programmed for like CPU cores do.
The 3090 is a prime example - it has a slower core clock than both the SeriesX and PS5, yet its mammoth 10000 cores lead it to be somewhere close to twice as fast as both of them
Re: Digital Foundry's Elden Ring Verdict Shows How Important VRR Is On Xbox
@Savage_Joe Yes it is interesting quite what a huge advantage iOS has over Android, despite fewer cores etc. I mean now Apple CPUs do have 6 cores and generally higher clockspeeds, but still, on paper they shouldn't have this massive advantage.
By system architecture I thought you meant hardware, but in this case you're more talking about kernel efficiency, in which case yeah the iOS kernel is clearly much faster than Android.
So yes it is possible the PS5 has a more efficient kernel, but that would affect CPU performance more than anything - so primarily games that are very physics or draw call heavy, or even streaming assets.
Which might be the case I guess, leading to slightly more consistent performance in some games, yet in some games that come down to GPU power like Control and Hitman 3, the SeriesX comes close to the advantage it has on paper.
Re: Digital Foundry's Elden Ring Verdict Shows How Important VRR Is On Xbox
@Moto5 CPU I agree, none of these games are going to be pushing their very good CPUs to their limit, especially at 60fps.
Memory bandwidth on the other hand? It should be significant. Take the 2080ti for example, it's still a beast, able to match or often exceed the performance of the 3070, despite the 3070 having a whopping 50% TFLOP advantage. I think this is in large part due to the 2080ti's own big VRAM bandwidth advantage, almost 40%.
Regarding clockspeed and the XSX having unique hardware, not sure there's any truth to that tbh. I mean, the processing power of GPUs is simply cores * clockspeed * 2. So the SeriesX more than makes up for the clockspeed differential by having way more cores. And it's not like developers need to specifically program for extra cores, like with CPUs. Graphics APIs do that.
For example, my 3070 actually has a slower clock speed than one of my older GPUs, the 1660 Super, yet is obviously much, much faster, due to having literally 4 times as any cores. And clearly older games benefit from those extra cores, it's not just newer games that specifically take advantage of the newer hardware.
That's why it's so surprising the PS5 does often have the edge, I wonder if it's API related or?
Re: Digital Foundry's Elden Ring Verdict Shows How Important VRR Is On Xbox
@Savage_Joe Well, we know for a fact the SeriesX has a faster memory bus/bandwidth, and a faster CPU. So what are the advantages you think the PS5 has? As far as I see it, it's a GPU clockspeed advantage, and that's really it. Which obviously wouldn't come close to overriding the huge core advantage, plus memory bandwidth, CPU etc.
That's why it's strange, and can maybe be explained by a more efficient API, or some optimisations that for some reason benefit the PS5 more than XSX.
I know all things being equal in Control for example, the SeriesX had about a 20% advantage, so tallying exactly with the on paper specs.
Re: Digital Foundry's Elden Ring Verdict Shows How Important VRR Is On Xbox
@Moto5 I'll try and find the video, I'm pretty sure it be, and that I didn't imagine it
Another recent one where the SeriesX had a big lead was um, the Tales game maybe?
Re: Digital Foundry's Elden Ring Verdict Shows How Important VRR Is On Xbox
@Savage_Joe The SeriesX is no more "PC parts just bundled together" than the PS5.
In fact the SeriesX and PS5 are very, very similar architecture wise. Both have an AMD CPU resembling a Ryzen 7 3700x, and both have an AMD RDNA2 GPU - with the key difference being the SeriesX having 45% more cores, and the PS5 having a clockspeed advantage.
Similar architecture, yet the SeriesX has a solid 20% TFLOP advantage, and not only that, but a 25% memory bandwidth advantage. Definitely makes it strange that the PS5 ever does perform better, tbh, unless they have clearly different settings/resolution for a given game.
Re: Digital Foundry's Elden Ring Verdict Shows How Important VRR Is On Xbox
@Spaceman-Spiff I think that's recency bias at play, as several notable recent games run better on PS5 - like Cyberpunk 1.5 and Elden Ring.
The truth is in one of the 1 yeaer retrospective videos, they found the SeriesX on average had about a 15% advantage over the PS5, ie close to its 20% on paper advantage.
As for Elden Ring and Cyberpunk? I can't explain that. I would have thought it was as simple as the SeriesX having higher resolution targets to take advantage of the extra horsepower, but that doesn't appear to be the case. It must be API related, as the architecture is similar enough that you'd think optimisations would work both ways.
Re: Pick One: Which Of These FromSoftware Games Is Your Favourite?
Frame Gride
Re: Review: GRID Legends - A Solid Arcade Racer That's Missing A Bit Of Flair
Arcade racer? I don't think any track based racer with realistic visuals can be considered "arcade".
This is an arcade racer http://ps2media.gamespy.com/ps2/image/article/708/708791/outrun-2006-coast-2-coast-20060515014418490.jpg
Admittedly the handling does look absurdly arcadey and NFS esque though, which is unsurprising as it's now under EA.
It's a shame because I'm a big fan of the original GRID, and imo it's the original "simcade" racer. It was really great for its day and still holds up pretty well now. Codemasters' rally games have always been amazing too.
But I feel like their games are starting to lag behind the competition a bit now tbh, their visuals and physics now seem several levels below Forza Horizon for example.
Re: Forza, Age Of Empires And Deathloop Win At The 2022 DICE Awards
@pip_muzz I am really surprised Psychonauts 2 didn't do better at awards.
It seems EXACTLY the type of game that would sweep loads of awards - the originality, creativity, premise, and also simply the studio behind it.
If anything racing games seem like the kind of games that get taken for granted, even though they're the best
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Are Saying About Elden Ring
@Banjo- Interesting, first I heard about the 9.2 TFLOP figure too. Where did you read that?
It does surprise me whenever the PS5 does have the edge in a game, because on paper the hardware difference is fairly significant in favour of the Series X. Not only does it have a solid 20% TFLOP advantage (or 32% if your figure is correct) but it also has a 25% VRAM bandwidth advantage too. I mean, it's not like it trounces the PS5 but those are solid numbers, like going up a tier in the GPU world (say from a 2070 super to 2080 super).
Also, we're not in the 360/PS3 era where they had vastly different architectures - the hardware is nigh on identical, and surely the APIs are too. So it is weird when you see some recent games favour the PS5, not sure if it's as simple as more ambitious resolution targets on the SeriesX or something more random.
I agree it'll be interesting to see what happens when the generation in in full swing. It's no surprise the PS5's best looking game is a PS5 exclusive rather than cross gen.
What would you say is the best looking SeriesX game? I still think FH4 and 5 are unmatched, running at 4k60 both look superb. Flight Sim is good too.
Re: Elden Ring Analysis Video Compares Xbox Vs PS5 Performance
@StylesT Digital Foundry - on one of their 1 year retrospective type videos - tallied up the Xbox Vs PS5 performance differential so far and the SeriesX did come out ahead by about 15% as I recall, so fairly close to the 20% advantage it has on paper. And there was a recent game where the SeriesX trounced the PS5 handily, I think that Tales game.
It's just there's been several notable titles that for some reason the PS5 has had an advantage in recently, namely Cyberpunk 1.5 and Elden Ring.
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Are Saying About Elden Ring
@Titntin Thanks for the info, indeed I had no idea the materials etc would be different, and even the triggers.
Interestingly you did list 2 of my gripes with the pad - the nasty stippled plastic, and the sticky triggers, with the third being the pretty loose analog sticks. So pretty good that 2 of them are better.
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Are Saying About Elden Ring
@Banjo- agreed, I was in a bit of a rush reading and replying, I glossed over the engineer part
That is very interesting, I would have thought there would be a bigger performance differential between them, but maybe it's more about featureset than performance.
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Are Saying About Elden Ring
@Banjo- wtf, first I've heard of that. Do you think that's really true? I mean, even AMD have seemingly always claimed the PS5 is RDNA2
https://twitter.com/Radeon/status/1403079595696480259
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Are Saying About Elden Ring
It's nuts the PS5 doesn't support VRR tbh. I know it's more of a PC gaming thing, but seeing as the tech is there and TVs now have it, why not use it?
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Are Saying About Elden Ring
@Dezzy70 Actually no I have not tried, I've seen it though and like the design of the d-pad. £150 though, oof
I do like the sound of adjustable tension analog sticks though. That's one of the things that surprised me actually, the sticks on the SeriesX controller feel quite loose and wallowy, kind of how DualShocks used to feel.
I love the higher firmness of the 360 sticks, they feel much nicer and more accurate.
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Are Saying About Elden Ring
@Titntin I love my SeriesX - it's overall much better than I expected, and made me love console gaming again.
Apart from the controller That's the one thing that did not meet my expectations at all, especially given the fairly lofty public opinion of it. I also think it feels quite cheap and plasticky, just not very nice to hold or use. I was genuinely surprised it's so well liked.
The 360 controller feels weightier and better made and more comfortable. I still think the 360 controller is the best all round controller, and is my preference for PC gaming. It would be perfect if it had a better d-pad and 6 face buttons. It has better battery life too.
About the Forza controller - how is it better exactly? To me it looks identical to the standard one, just colourful.
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Critics Are Saying About Elden Ring
Might be time to try another FromSoftware game, as usually they are not my cup of tea.
This does look spectacular though, no doubt.
As an aside, the odd instance where the PS5 performs better (Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 1.5 as 2 recent examples) surprises me. The consoles have such similar architecture, yet the Series X is about 20% more powerful. Only thing I can think of is developers try to make use of that 20% with higher dynamic resolution targets or higher settings, and push things slightly too far, leading to less consistent performance.
Might have to get this one on PC for perfect performance.
Re: 50+ Best Games On Xbox Game Pass (February 2022)
Yakuza 3, 4, 5 and 6 say hello.
Re: 10 Activision Blizzard Games We're Hoping To See On Xbox Game Pass
@Medic_Alert I hate to be a negative nancy, but I completely agree.
I was taken aback by the staggering amount Microsoft paid for Activision, because they're not a developer that's ever been on my radar at all really. I mean, looking at the list - objectively there are some very big games, but most of them don't appeal to me at all, so just from my own perspective it seemed absolutely nuts they are worth that much. Even objectively, only Call of Duty seems like the only real big hitter now.
Do you think they overpaid? I wonder at what point this deal will be profitable for Microsoft. I thought it was probably just to make COD exclusive, but they seem to suggest it will be multiplatform.