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God of War on PC - Digital Foundry Tech Review

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
There are situations, when if you try to shoehorn new features on top of existing pipeline, you will ended up with tons of problems. Or if something like shadows using some unoptimized approach, then for full quality (what you expect on PC), you are paying ridiculous cost. It's done by external team, so I am not surprised at this. Hopefully next time Nixxes will be porting stuff to PC...
Yeah, i know higher quality settings will undoubtedly incur additional cost, but both Horizon and GOW ship with 'Original' PS4 setting preset that basically defaults to medium settings which are identical to what the PS4 used.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Yeah, i know higher quality settings will undoubtedly incur additional cost, but both Horizon and GOW ship with 'Original' PS4 setting preset that basically defaults to medium settings which are identical to what the PS4 used.
True, but the rendering back end had to ported to Direct X or Vulkan, which always comes with additional cost. Especially with DX 11, if it would be for DX12, then it would be better. Not sure from all the Sony games, only Death Stranding had that on Launch...
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
True, but the rendering back end had to ported to Direct X or Vulkan, which always comes with additional cost. Especially with DX 11, if it would be for DX12, then it would be better. Not sure from all the Sony games, only Death Stranding had that on Launch...
But Batman AK like most games in the first half of last genwas running on directx 10 back then. I think you had to enable directx 11 for those fancy nvidia smoke and other physics. Is it because AK was primarily developed on PC while the Sony exclusives are developed on consoles? I thought all games were developed on PC first.

Mass Effect Andromeda came out pretty much a month after Horizon, and i played it at 1080p 30 fps on the PS4. Last year, I played it at 1440p 120 fps at high settings. I dont think it had directx 12 support either and probably didnt even run at directx11.
 

Zathalus

Member
I am surprised that a 6 tflops 580 and its Nvidia equivalent are struggling to hit 60 fps at 1080p using PS4 settings. They are over 3x more powerful than the 1.8 tflops PS4 without even taking into consideration the IPC gains, they have access to more RAM, and way better CPU than the shitty jaguar 1.6 ghz and 2.1 ghz CPUs in the PS4.

To me, this is just a bad port just like Horizon. I tried running Horizon at 1080p using original settings last night, and it topped out at like 85 FPS on a RTX 2080. Thats an 11.5 tflops card running the game on a 8 core 16 thread CPU that can hit 5.1 Ghz. And all I get is less than 3x more performance? Absolutely ridiculous.

It's clear they did the bare minimum porting this. It's a straight port. Back in the day, a 3.5 Tflops GTX 970 would run every PS4 game at 1080p 60 fps despite its controversial 3.5 GB of split vram. Today I can run it at native 4k 90 fps (the capped max) at ultra settings and have like 25-30% of the GPU still left to be utilized. And that port was trashed by everyone as one of the worst PC ports ever.

Unlike the PS3 and PS5, there is no secret sauce in the PS4. The only thing I can think of is the extra ACEs Cerny added that helped with asynchronous compute but every Polaris card including the 580 should have the same number of ACEs.
A 1060 looks to be performing exactly as it should (maybe a bit worse due to the DX11 abstraction overhead). A 4.4 TFLOPs card performing at roughly PS4 Pro level. If it's getting 55-65 FPS at 1080p then ~30FPS should be doable at 1512p.

AMD is unfortunately the one that can suck at DX11.
 

iHaunter

Member
It's a native PC game running on the DX11 native API. It is not running in an emulator.

On the PS5, it is running in BC mode, not natively. So it's essentially running the same as it would on the PS4Pro, other than the CPU on the PS5 brute forcing the unlocked framerate mode to be a smooth 60. There is no native PS5 version, unfortunately.

His comment was typical of him. Disingenuous at that, because gosh forbid.

I wish! Such a cute lil puppers.
Ah I see, I did not understand the first time.
 

Rheon

Member
This video convinced me to double dip. I'm really impressed at the improvements.

I played the (base) PS4 version and thought it was absolutely gorgeous so I can't wait to be blown away again on my 3070.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Sony should really patch some of these changes in the PS5 version, it's kind of crazy that they give preferential treatment to the PC release with better assets.
The game is literally free on ps+ for all ps5 owners. They have no incentive to do it other than to be pro consumer.

It took them months to even add the 60 fps toggle. A feature that was already working on unpatched disc versions. The simplest of changes.

Creating the ps5 sku from scratch will require a full qa and several programming resources. It’s probably a $100k-500k expense. Money they won’t get back because everyone already has the game on ps5.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
They only published them.
So i take it you also count Flight Simulator as NOT an Xbox Games Studios game as even if they own the IP, funded the game and basically have creative control over the project they only funded and published it, much like they only funded and published Gears Tactics, Ori, Crackdown, Tell Me Why, Age of Empires 4 or Killer Instinct?
 

The Fartist

Gold Member
Annnnnndddd it's already cracked on pc wtf :messenger_tears_of_joy: :messenger_tears_of_joy:

arnold-schwarzenegger-movie.gif
 

Patrick S.

Banned
I almost fell asleep trying to watch this video. As time goes by, I notice how little of a damn I give about shimmering edges, aliasing, pixel counts, grass tufts, and all that stupid nonsense. I've been playing Battlefield 4 on my Xbox One S on my couch, for example. The worst, sub 900p version there is. Even though I could play it at 4k on my PC with an RTX 3080. I just don't care one single bit. I'm having fun, that's all that matters to me.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Agree. Better loading times would make the game on the Give me God of War so less frustated.
Ive brought this up before, but as someone who loves the combat in TLOU2, it is infuriating having to wait over a minute sometimes 2 to get into a combat encounter. The game does a great job masking loading times as you play through but the moment you bring chapter selection, let alone encounter selection into the mix, you start to see just how bad the loading is in this game.

Love the 60 fps patch, but the long loading killed any desire I had to play through some of the more intense combat sections in the game. I have never bothered playing mercenaries modes in RE games, but here because there was literally no loading, I played them over and over again not caring about how difficulty it was to get SSS rankings because of how quick it was to go back in.

it's pretty crazy to see pretty much every major third party dev go back and release PS5 SKUs for older games. Even the 4 person team who made Immortal Shell was able to get a PS5 SKU done. And yet only one Sony studio has bothered doing it and even they charged $30 for it.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
But Batman AK like most games in the first half of last genwas running on directx 10 back then. I think you had to enable directx 11 for those fancy nvidia smoke and other physics. Is it because AK was primarily developed on PC while the Sony exclusives are developed on consoles? I thought all games were developed on PC first.

Mass Effect Andromeda came out pretty much a month after Horizon, and i played it at 1080p 30 fps on the PS4. Last year, I played it at 1440p 120 fps at high settings. I dont think it had directx 12 support either and probably didnt even run at directx11.
No no, I meant that with DX12 you are going much lower with the code, which is more align with how you program on PS, so it's better than high level DX11. DX11 is basically DX10 in programming sense, just with more features. DX11 on the top, has zero support natively for GPU compute, DX12 has that build in and encouraged.
 

A.Romero

Member
I almost fell asleep trying to watch this video. As time goes by, I notice how little of a damn I give about shimmering edges, aliasing, pixel counts, grass tufts, and all that stupid nonsense. I've been playing Battlefield 4 on my Xbox One S on my couch, for example. The worst, sub 900p version there is. Even though I could play it at 4k on my PC with an RTX 3080. I just don't care one single bit. I'm having fun, that's all that matters to me.

Luckily sometimes you can have a technically competent or even awesome experience and have fun too. People like yourself that has access to more than one platform to enjoy games might find that information useful or even entertaining. It's just one more dimension to the hobby.
 

Patrick S.

Banned
Luckily sometimes you can have a technically competent or even awesome experience and have fun too. People like yourself that has access to more than one platform to enjoy games might find that information useful or even entertaining. It's just one more dimension to the hobby.
I thought that, too. But there comes a point where you care more about that technical stuff than wheter you're having fun. Digital Foundry has been telling me for so long how my Xbox One is shit, and I let that cloud my enjoyment of it. Now that I completely disregard these aspects, I'm having way more fun gaming. It really feels liberating to not care.
 
This game looks so pretty on PC. I don't know what's different from the PS5 version. But it sure does look good.
I'm not using DLSS as I think it makes the game uglier and I don't think it's needed. Everything on ultra and so far it runs at 90+ fps. RTX 3080, 1440p.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
Alex review:
No stutter due to shader compilation, thanks to DX11
No FOV option
Native support for Dual Sense
Nvidia Reflex at 60 fps has 11ms less than the PS5
PC loads 4 seconds faster than the PS5, regardless of CPU
PC has no artifacts due to checkerboarding, resulting in a cleaner image
PC has shadows with higher resolution and cast more shadows in the scene
Increased geometry reduces pop-in when objects change LOD
Much improved Ambient Occlusion adds many shadows and even some bounce light
Slight improvement for volumetric fog
SSR is improved but depends on the scene, because not all scenes use it
Textures load higher resolution at distance on PC
Shadows are very heavy. Ultra setting is 50% heavier than Original
I don't consider these enhancements with the exception of DLSS and Reflex as I believe they were already implemented in the game when they developed on the PC before compiling the game code to the PS4. DX11 is what they are using for their PC side of development so it's fitting that they'd not redo their entire graphics engine to use DX12 just yet.

Curious to see which features get removed/reduced from a native PS5 version game (i.e. GoW2) when the PC port eventually releases.
 
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skit_data

Member
Consoles are really going to be hurt this generation without it. It's something they *should* have instead of the PC tbh.
Well, I guess it comes down to keeping the price down. Having a DLSS equivalent (something AMD themselves haven’t even figured out on their own dedicated GPUs) would surely help but it would also make the consoles more expensive.

Edit: And of course; not all games support it.
 
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Dream-Knife

Banned
It's a native PC game running on the DX11 native API. It is not running in an emulator.

On the PS5, it is running in BC mode, not natively. So it's essentially running the same as it would on the PS4Pro, other than the CPU on the PS5 brute forcing the unlocked framerate mode to be a smooth 60. There is no native PS5 version, unfortunately.

His comment was typical of him. Disingenuous at that, because gosh forbid.

I wish! Such a cute lil puppers.

Native vs BC. PS5 is just brute-forcing its way as it seems in all of the benefits on PS5, including keeping it at 1800p checkerboarded to 4K.
How is the PS5 not running it natively? PS5 just cuts down on the power and retains the lower settings when running PS4 games.

Jetpack Interactive are a pretty good studio.
And now Sony also have Nixxes their ports should be monstrous.
It really depends who is doing the port job.
Horizon Zero Dawn was ported by Virtuos and that game was trash at launch.


1UDTNdC.png



Okay Ill bite:
Did you really just say Microsoft?
Gears 4, Gears 5, Horizon 3, Horizon 4, Horizon 5, both Ori games, Sea of Thieves, Gears Tactics hell even frikken Crackdown 3 will basically run well on a potato, MS ports are generally optimized out the ass, dare I say they actually have the best batting average when it comes to port jobs...sure there have been some duds in the past, but generally their ports are on point.
Since fill rarely has a MS port job been plagued with issues at launch....the last one I can think of is like MCC? I remember Quantum Break was also heavy at launch but i cant remember if that was a bad port or just a heavy game.
Halo Infinite on PC is a mess. Forza Horizon 5 had some issues too.

Actually, almost every AAA PC game in the last year has had issues.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
Well, I guess it comes down to keeping the price down. Having a DLSS equivalent (something AMD themselves haven’t even figured out on their own dedicated GPUs) would surely help but it would also make the consoles more expensive.

Edit: And of course; not all games support it.
They missed the boat on this tech (which requires AI cores) this generation. It's a wash. They will certainly bring that tech to the next-gen of consoles (i.e. PS6/XSX2). Console gamers just have to wait a long time unfortunately.
 
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winjer

Gold Member
I don't consider these enhancements with the exception of DLSS and Reflex as I believe they were already implemented in the game when they developed on the PC before compiling the game code to the PS4. DX11 is what they are using for their PC side of development so it's fitting that they'd not redo their entire graphics engine to use DX12 just yet.

Curious to see which features get removed/reduced from a native PS5 version game (i.e. GoW2) when the PC port eventually releases.

On the PS4 God of War uses a completely different OS and API. It doesn't use DX11 nor DX12.
On the PS4 it uses a low level API, custom made by Sony. But one would suppose that this game being ported to PC, it would also use a lo level API, like DX12 or Vulkan.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
They missed the boat on this tech (which requires AI cores) this generation. It's a wash. They will certainly bring that tech to the next-gen of consoles (i.e. PS6/XSX2). Console gamers just have to wait a long time unfortunately.
It's a shame consoles went with AMD because with DLSS, we could get much better performance on consoles.
Last gen, Sony at least tried their own checkerboarding with "not so bad" reuslts
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
It's a shame consoles went with AMD because with DLSS, we could get much better performance on consoles.
Last gen, Sony at least tried their own checkerboarding with "not so bad" reuslts
nVidia did not have an affordable APU setup at the time. Nor would they be cheap if they did.

You're not getting discrete in consoles at this time, if ever.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
I really think Sony should bring their own DC/Marvel-like super heroes with comics, anime, movies, and most importantly games. Starting with Kratos, the god of war, the most epic gaming figure ever, it's a solid ground to start at. Well, they can keep them separated as well, and can't wait to see the new Ghost of Tsushima and Uncharted movies!
 
Another boon for DLSS. Game looks great.

Less GPU usage to achieve better visuals at a higher framerate is wizardry. I had planned on replacing my 2080ti when the 4080ti releases but at the rate things are going I won't have to as I'm getting 144Hz in games with higher settings than I ever dreamed I'd be using with this card at this stage.

It's an absolute shame Microsoft isn't taking advantage of DLSS for their PC releases. Forza Horizon, Gears and Halo would all benefit greatly from the added overhead and clean-up DLSS offers. I get they have a partnership with AMD on consoles, but nobody on PC gives a shit about that, we just see a missed opportunity.
 

Shai-Tan

Banned
in the future they should let you copy your save from playstation. I played like 60% of the game on PS4 Pro. not starting again with how much annoying collecting and other garbage is in that game (open world-itus)
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
Another boon for DLSS. Game looks great.

Less GPU usage to achieve better visuals at a higher framerate is wizardry. I had planned on replacing my 2080ti when the 4080ti releases but at the rate things are going I won't have to as I'm getting 144Hz in games with higher settings than I ever dreamed I'd be using with this card at this stage.

It's an absolute shame Microsoft isn't taking advantage of DLSS for their PC releases. Forza Horizon, Gears and Halo would all benefit greatly from the added overhead and clean-up DLSS offers. I get they have a partnership with AMD on consoles, but nobody on PC gives a shit about that, we just see a missed opportunity.

Maybe because Microsoft as a whole has a beef with nVidia snatching ARM and putting their future at their mercy as everything is headed to ARM architecture eventually? You know, they don't like to be at the receiving end.
 

Mr Moose

Member
So i take it you also count Flight Simulator as NOT an Xbox Games Studios game as even if they own the IP, funded the game and basically have creative control over the project they only funded and published it, much like they only funded and published Gears Tactics, Ori, Crackdown, Tell Me Why, Age of Empires 4 or Killer Instinct?
It's an indie game by an indie studio, Microsoft are not the only publishers of the game.
8ea58b37-2dca-4326-93f6-109df8945061.7b751820e5415c1987fdce1128d0ea43.jpeg

Apparently they own the IP, is that what that Moon Studios guy was pissed about not long ago? lol
 
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Kenpachii

Member
Another boon for DLSS. Game looks great.

Less GPU usage to achieve better visuals at a higher framerate is wizardry. I had planned on replacing my 2080ti when the 4080ti releases but at the rate things are going I won't have to as I'm getting 144Hz in games with higher settings than I ever dreamed I'd be using with this card at this stage.

It's an absolute shame Microsoft isn't taking advantage of DLSS for their PC releases. Forza Horizon, Gears and Halo would all benefit greatly from the added overhead and clean-up DLSS offers. I get they have a partnership with AMD on consoles, but nobody on PC gives a shit about that, we just see a missed opportunity.

Reason i didn't bought halo campaign. Saw no DLSS couldn't bother.
 

Mr Moose

Member
Please dont share "fake news" shit like this

People will believe that this is an actual review (they already are)
 
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How is the PS5 not running it natively? PS5 just cuts down on the power and retains the lower settings when running PS4 games.

I think he means this.



GOW on PS5 is the same thing as HFD and The Last of Us 2 running on the PS5. Basically they are just the PS4 versions with frame rate unlocks. Once you put in more work and make a PS5 version of the game you can exploit the hardware a lot more rather than just getting a BC Plus effect.
 
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