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Digital Foundry: Stray PS5 vs PS4/PC: A Superb 4K 60FPS Rendition on PS5 - But What’s Up With PC?

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I understand why FIFA is popular. I mean what other choice foosball loving gamers have? COD on the other hand is a big head scratcher to me. How it keeps being so popular when theres so many better shooters out there.
And McDonald's sells the most shitburgers. I see the conundrum.
 
Cool, I'll pick up a PS5 disc on sale. Been wanting to buy most games on PC but it's nice to have a console for when PC gets the shaft.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
I understand why FIFA is popular. I mean what other choice foosball loving gamers have? COD on the other hand is a big head scratcher to me. How it keeps being so popular when theres so many better shooters out there.
There are many better shooters than COD?

What are they?
BF2042 disappointed me so looking for a shooter to migrate to.
 
Microsoft compiles them before playing in forza horizon, Metro Exodus does it before playing aswell. There's other examples but they are the ones that come to my mind recently. The fix isn't rocket science, they could just have an option in the graphics menu "compile shaders now" and then people who care can wait a few minutes before playing and everyone else can just hit start and put up with them.

This 300% has my support.

Put an option in the settings to compile shaders at game launch or some other point.

Easy, optional, basic practice for the industry.
 
The PS4 Pro version is surprising as it seems to have little or no enhancements over the base PS4 version. I would have expected at least 1440p at 30 fps and/or higher visual settings.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
Microsoft compiles them before playing in forza horizon, Metro Exodus does it before playing aswell. There's other examples but they are the ones that come to my mind recently. The fix isn't rocket science, they could just have an option in the graphics menu "compile shaders now" and then people who care can wait a few minutes before playing and everyone else can just hit start and put up with them.

I'm certain Halo Infinite does as well.
 

mansoor1980

Member
farcry 6 on PC compiles shaders everytime you start a game but it also has ingame traversal stutter , obviously not as bad as UE4 shader comp stutter
 

MikeM

Member
One of the reasons I sold my 3070, DX12 is shit and PC versions are filled with problems since it was released.

Game plays wonderful on PS5, but shame for no real PS4 Pro version...
You sold your 3070 build over stutters?

I am assuming you have a PS5. Did you also get a Series X?
 
The fix is very simple and many games adopt it already. Just pre-compile shaders after installation. Its a one time loading screen that only happens the first time you launch the game and after driver updates.

The issue here is some devs simply aren't doing it, most likely they either don't think much of it or believe run-time compilation with some stutters is preferable to that one-time compilation screen. There could also be a problem with third-party engines like UE, where they either don't have the feature available or don't make it easy to be implemented.

COD Cold War on PC...I've probably spent more time waiting for shaders to compile than I've spent playing the actual game. And holy hell is it slow. FH5--same thing. And they've recompiled way more often than I've updated my drivers or changed settings.
 

yamaci17

Member
You sold your 3070 build over stutters?

I am assuming you have a PS5. Did you also get a Series X?
its a perfecy valid reason, why wouldn't they? there's limit to patience, and there are enough good ue4 games to warrant it to become a reason. problem became too widespread and epic/microsoft or whoever responsible for the wide spread problem do not seem to care. it already had too much media attention

and nvidia wouldn't care either. they already got the smell of sweet mining money. their driver quality have been hugely degraded in recent months (hence i'm still not leaving my 2021 october driver). latest drivers of theirs reportedly broken forza 5 textures, "Game ready driver" for jurassic game literally broke jurassic and game works fine on older drivers. situation seems bleak for PC, i'm sad that it came to this but if nvidia, the brand that %80 of people have their GPUs of, won't care, devs won't care either.

after all, this situation will only end up diminish PC sales, by extension, Nvidia GPU sales made to gamers. but the problem starts there, nvidia does not care about gamers anymore. i can see that they make big strides in AI deep learning, and other several stuff and they're the lead in industry in terms of graphical processor units. i can see them not caring about gaming, or gaming sales. i can see and observe that with the dwindling driver quality.

what they care abot gamers nowadays are only games that are widely popular on "twitch", multiplayer games. they make stuff like reflex, 360 hz, marketing gimmicks build on those games. and most of those players of those games wont care about stray or horizon zero dawn having stutters or slowdowns. all they do is playing apex legends etc. all day and nvidia grants them enough stability and attention

i'm myself a pc person and i love pc for the freedom it grants, but i can %100 support a justification like this when someone decides to leave PC gaming for consoles. this is the single biggest reason I would suggest somone to stay away from pc gaming

at this point nvidia hates pc gaming / pc gamers so much so that they plan to postpone the release of 4000 series so that they wont be forced to sell their newgen GPUs to pc people for MSRP prices. they're at this point pathetic.
 
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Bojji

Member
You sold your 3070 build over stutters?

I am assuming you have a PS5. Did you also get a Series X?

Stutters are one of the reasons, other than that:

- with Series X there was no need for gaming GPU
- GPU mining was no longer worth it (GPU was on 24/7)
- I sold it for x2 the price I bought it after over a year of using it, this was in February before mining crash

PC versions more often than not are not up to par, something is fucked and right now most console games have 60 FPS modes so gaming on them is quite good.

When devs decide to go 30FPS only again I will just buy Lovelace or RDNA3 and go back to PCMR and let's hope stutters are fixed by then :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 

Guilty_AI

Member
COD Cold War on PC...I've probably spent more time waiting for shaders to compile than I've spent playing the actual game. And holy hell is it slow. FH5--same thing. And they've recompiled way more often than I've updated my drivers or changed settings.
? try checking your nvidia settings (or whatever amd equivalent) for the shader cache size value, theres a chance it might be set too low.
 
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? try checking your nvidia settings (or whatever amd equivalent) for the shader cache size value, theres a chance it might be set too low.
I also found moving the shader folders to your fastest drive to help as well. Practically eliminated stutter in Elden ring after moving them from SSD to sn850
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
UMM...

Not sure, I played through the whole game on PC (steam) just fine...

png-clipart-handsome-sign-illustration-agar-io-kuso-miso-technique-internet-meme-t-shirt-know-your-meme-thinking-man-face-manga.png
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
The shader comp stutter from the video seemed really incospicuous, doubt 90% of players would notice.
What suprised me, if true, that basically game told me that it will only take like 1GB VRAM on ultrawide 3440x1440p display.
 

MrA

Banned
nah, just small stutters here and there due to UE shader compilation.


Always wondered the same thing. My guess is that in the head of some devs, having to wait a bit one time at the start is somehow worse than having these micro-stutters in the game.
If you want that idea taken to next level odd, mortal kombat 2 on the Saturn doesn't load special move animations at the match start, instead it freezes for like a quarter of a second and loads them in on their first use , like they broke the flow of the matches to save on probably a second of loading per match
 

Skifi28

Member
No offence but why they should care about ps4 pro version in 2022? I know it's tough to hear but OneX and Pro are practically pointless today.
They're as pointless as base PS4 and that version seems like it got the care it deserved.
 

Ev1L AuRoN

Member
Damn I've been looking forward to upgrading my PC for what seems like forever now. I have a 2080 so I'm still doing good, but with this shader compilation stutter plaguing recent PC games I think it may be easier to stick with console for new releases this gen and keep my PC as it is for my current library and the odd purchase that runs well on it with DLSS.

There's no way in hell I'm spending a bunch of money to get a stuttering experience. Fanboy wars aside we should all want our machines and the machines other people choose to purchase to run well at max potential regardless.
I'm playing the steam version and honestly didn't perceive any shader stutter until now, I don't think it is as big of a problem as with many other UE4 titles. I was able to play at 4k60 high settings with resolution scaling in 70% on my RTX 2060 6Gb.
Probably it isn't rock solid, but even I that actively look for stuff like that barely notice. If you don't own a PS5 I recommend the PC version.
 

Bojji

Member
Many DX12 games and pretty much every UE4 game with DX12 mode has stuttering problem. I can't comprehend how 120fps\8k eagle eyes pc players can't see that...

😉
 

winjer

Gold Member
As far as I can tell, the game defaults to DX11 so these stutters are not caused by shader compilation. But rather by streaming asset data.
Probably if the devs were to set bigger texture pool sizes on the memory, it could fix these stutters.
 

assurdum

Banned
They're as pointless as base PS4 and that version seems like it got the care it deserved.
No because sony restocked more ps4 to cover the ps5 stock issue. Practically the new generation is become the new premium hardware. Blame sony for such choice not the developers with limited resources.
 
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Skifi28

Member
No because sony restocked more ps4 to cover the ps5 stock issue. Practically the new generation is become the new premium hardware. Blame sony for such choice not the developers with limited resources.
I'm not sure why I would blame Sony for the developer not taking advantage of hardware that millions of people they want to sell to own.
 

nkarafo

Member
The shader compilation issue gets on my nerves. More and more PC games have it lately, it's like a new problem we didn't know we needed.

It's especially bad now that more and more people (like me) invest on a fast, VRR monitor. We finally fixed all the stutters from unstable frame rates or frame times and now this happens?
 

assurdum

Banned
I'm not sure why I would blame Sony for the developer not taking advantage of hardware that millions of people they want to sell to own.
It's an indie even the pc version is not the state of the art. If the main company doesn't care to push anymore the marketing for the ps4 pro, you think a tiny studio would care more about the pro optimization?
 

Skifi28

Member
It's an indie even the pc version is not the state of the art. If the main company doesn't care to push anymore the marketing for the ps4 pro, you think a tiny studio would care more about the pro optimization?
They most certainly should. It's the developer that wants to sell the game and make money, it's in their best interest to support the hardware millions of people have. Otherwise nobody would have ever optimised games for PS4 pro or One X other than first parties.
 
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yamaci17

Member
Many DX12 games
this is not correct

here's a list of dx12 games that work perfectly with minimal stutters (stutters that also happen on consoles such as traversal stutters)

hitman 3 (no idea what it does but it is smooth)
ac valhalla (compiles secretly in main menu)
halo infinite (precompiles)
forza 5 (precompiles)
aoe 4 (sort of precompiles)
borderlands 3 (precompiles)
practically all recent cod games = buttery smooth, no stutters, just like consoles, they all precompile now
cyberpunk 2077 (if you run it on a decent ssd, the game will not hitch)
death stranding (precompiles)
diablo 2 resur (kind of precompiles)
far cry 6 (no idea what it does but it only exhibits traversal stutter, which is specific to dunia engine, which also happens on all consoles. outside of that, no shader compilation stutters)
f1 2022 (precompiles. played it with ea play 10 hr trial a couple days ago. runs buttery smooth, even with ray tracing)
gears 5 (the prime example of a perfect dx12 game and a perfect ue4 game. proof of concept that stutterless ue4 experience can be achieved on PC)
horizon zero dawn initial release. it run like a dream on my old 1080 when it was first released. it was compiling shaders on launch. then people got bitter and they returned to normal on the fly shader compiling. it now stutters more frequently. initial launch proved that the base game with precompiled shaders ran like a dream
metro exodus enhanced edition (precompiles. run like a dream. 65 hrs of gameplay. maybe had a hitch or two here)
rdr 2 (no idea what it does but it does not have shader compilation stutters)
re village (drm stutters were fixed and game now runs like smooth as butter)
guardians of the galaxy (no stutters or whatsoever. no idea what the game does. i dont remember precompiling but game runs fine. probably compiles stutter in a async way)

i've listed tons of AAA games released in recent years. most devs already got the quirks of dx12. their games perform excellent and scale very well across new hardware and match console level performances with equivalent hardware thanks to the low level API advantages brought out by them. UE4 games have a wide spread problem. I myself will never deny that. But other AAA games? other engines? MOST of them run fine. outliers such as elden ring (probably because their first rodeo on dx12) do not change the fact. initial years, most games with dx12 really sucked. battlefront 2 sucked in dx12 mode. still sucks to this day. bf5 too. upwards of 2018, things have improved immensely. if you deny the games i've listed above, or do not care about them, i have nothing to tell you or explain you about.

most of the games I've listed above are native dx12 games with no dx11 modes. they mostly run fine. ue4 games with borked dx12 usually also packaged with a decent dx11 alternative. if you exclude the problematic ue4 games from the equatiation, most dx12 games released in past 3-4 years run perfectly fine.
 
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Erebus

Member
No offence but why they should care about ps4 pro version in 2022? I know it's tough to hear but OneX and Pro are practically pointless today.
Ι'm not asking for anything too elaborate but surely increasing the resolution from mere 1080p on the Pro wouldn't require that much effort or time. It's an UE4 game, it comes inherently with such scalability.
 
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Found your alt script account. 🤭




TLDR;
  • PS4: 1920x1080 @30fps
  • PS4 Pro: 1920x1080 @30fps
  • PS5: 3360x1890- 3840x2160 60fps (Dynamic Resolution)
  • Best platform to play on PS5
--------
  • 7GB on PS5 vs 13GB on PS4
  • made for PS4
  • ps4 - 1080p/30, no seen DRS
  • pro - 1080p/30
  • ps5 - 1890p to 2160p / 60fps
  • ps5 uses a high grade bokeh
  • everything else is the same
    • mesh quality and draw distances are improved
  • 3060Ti - max settings at 4K is doable at 60fps, very similar to PS5
    • max shadows is higher than PS5
  • 30fps cap is stable 99% of the time
    • some loading/save hitches
    • fewer 120ms hitches
  • pro slightly minimizes hitching
  • some pre-rendered movies at 30fps
  • ps5 has practically no save hitching, or at worse, greatly minimized
  • the 120ms scene still hitches, just drops less
  • pc
    • suffers from shader compilation issues
    • infrequent but noticable
    • every new thing causes a spike
    • *note* Ars Technica spoke to devs and they said they are looking into a fix
  • ps5 is the best system to play on
  • ps4 is a really good platform to play
  • ps4 pro has practically no improvements

This shows that a 1080p 30 game in base ps4 can scale up to 4k 60 on ps5 on top of higher settings despite what is popularly said. This just makes the uncharted remasters look more pathetic
 

assurdum

Banned
They most certainly should. It's the developer that wants to sell the game and make money, it's in their best interest to support the hardware millions of people have. Otherwise nobody would have ever optimised games for PS4 pro or One X other than first parties.
What part of limited budget of an indie studio it's complicate to grasp.
Ι'm not asking for anything too elaborate but surely increasing the resolution from mere 1080p on the Pro wouldn't require that much effort or time. It's an UE4 game, it comes inherently with such scalability.
You think if it was that easily feasible, they won't do it? Probably it required too much investment for them. Keep in mind ps4 pro has very limited bandwith. And honestly I don't know so many games on UE4 with higher res than 1080p on ps4 pro. UE4 has been always fucking expensive for the pro hardware.
 
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Skifi28

Member
This shows that a 1080p 30 game in base ps4 can scale up to 4k 60 on ps5 on top of higher settings despite what is popularly said. This just makes the uncharted remasters look more pathetic
Not all games/engines scale in a linear fashion. The biggest issue with the Uncharted reamsters was not using a dynamic resolution up to 4k instead of a "safe" 1440p , that would have made a big difference.
 
Cool, I'll pick up a PS5 disc on sale. Been wanting to buy most games on PC but it's nice to have a console for when PC gets the shaft.
I want to get into pc how come I never see discs anywhere for it. I come from console and almost exclusively buy my games physically (especially steel books as of late) I don’t really like digital media
 
its a perfecy valid reason, why wouldn't they? there's limit to patience, and there are enough good ue4 games to warrant it to become a reason. problem became too widespread and epic/microsoft or whoever responsible for the wide spread problem do not seem to care. it already had too much media attention

and nvidia wouldn't care either. they already got the smell of sweet mining money. their driver quality have been hugely degraded in recent months (hence i'm still not leaving my 2021 october driver). latest drivers of theirs reportedly broken forza 5 textures, "Game ready driver" for jurassic game literally broke jurassic and game works fine on older drivers. situation seems bleak for PC, i'm sad that it came to this but if nvidia, the brand that %80 of people have their GPUs of, won't care, devs won't care either.

after all, this situation will only end up diminish PC sales, by extension, Nvidia GPU sales made to gamers. but the problem starts there, nvidia does not care about gamers anymore. i can see that they make big strides in AI deep learning, and other several stuff and they're the lead in industry in terms of graphical processor units. i can see them not caring about gaming, or gaming sales. i can see and observe that with the dwindling driver quality.

what they care abot gamers nowadays are only games that are widely popular on "twitch", multiplayer games. they make stuff like reflex, 360 hz, marketing gimmicks build on those games. and most of those players of those games wont care about stray or horizon zero dawn having stutters or slowdowns. all they do is playing apex legends etc. all day and nvidia grants them enough stability and attention

i'm myself a pc person and i love pc for the freedom it grants, but i can %100 support a justification like this when someone decides to leave PC gaming for consoles. this is the single biggest reason I would suggest somone to stay away from pc gaming

at this point nvidia hates pc gaming / pc gamers so much so that they plan to postpone the release of 4000 series so that they wont be forced to sell their newgen GPUs to pc people for MSRP prices. they're at this point pathetic.
Im a console gamer and was planning to build my first pc for both 3d modeling and animation as well as a 2ndary gaming platform I was looking into the 4090/7900xt (likely 7900xt at this point) are there really all these problems on pc? I was supposed to have the halo series x from last year but my order convienelty got canceled and I got screwed
 
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