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Digital Foundry: Alan Wake 2 Xbox Tech Review - Excellent On Series X, But What About Series S?

Ozriel

M$FT
There you go contorting stuff again with your daft self. Who was saying people who buy affordable GPUs expect the same visual performance as those who buy pricey GPUs?
I'm saying I don't see how this is a triumph in optimisation on series S that makes other devs like Capcom seem incompetent when Remedy have halved the framerate, lowered the settings considerably AND cut back resolution. How that half framerate has become normalised.

The cheek of you talking about expectations too when the expectation was "the same just at a lower resolution", now you're getting all three cutbacks, to framerate, to settings and to resolution. Even your own past posts thought differently.

Of course, my past posts assumed a dramatic lowering of the resolution and visual settings + same CPU meant we'd have similar framerate settings on the Series S as the larger consoles. But now we clearly have raw data that shows that devs are increasingly choosing to keep visual settings close to at least one of the next gen flagships, and then penalize the framerate. That's a choice too, and certainly one that also makes sense.

The clear point being made is that you get sacrifices when you buy the cheaper, affordable option with significantly weaker specs. And that's not something being 'normalized' in 2023. It was a thing when people bought the GTX 1050 vs the 1080Ti, for example.

lowered the settings considerably

Not according to DF :messenger_grinning_smiling:
 

Mister Wolf

Member
What about Callisto Protocol with better ray tracing and having a for more stable performance on the PS5 than the Series X? Alex was really quiet then. Isn't that a game requiring more compute?

Callisto Protocol is not utilizing mesh shaders which massively increase environmental geometry like we are seeing in Alan Wake 2.
 

azertydu91

Hard to Kill
What about Callisto Protocol with better ray tracing and having a for more stable performance on the PS5 than the Series X? Alex was really quiet then. Isn't that a game requiring more compute?
Friday Movie GIF
 

sinnergy

Member
What about Callisto Protocol with better ray tracing and having a for more stable performance on the PS5 than the Series X? Alex was really quiet then. Isn't that a game requiring more compute?
It’s not using meshshaders , and probably less bandwidth, and maybe even less parallel instructions , if it is an older engine , clock speeds matter more .. everyone who kept a eye on how engines evolved , could see why MS made series X the way it is .
 
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MarkMe2525

Member
Funny how when the PS5 loses its 12tf superiority, when it wins e tools and shit.

Not saying that the superiority we are seeing here isn't because of the Xbox advantages, it's just an observation. I hope that the performance can be fixed with patches.
What's funny is how it goes both ways, just like my cousin. It will continue to go both ways until the end of time..... just like my cousin.
 

Dunker99

Neo Member
This is the right choice. no need to ship a 60 fps mode when you have to drop resolutions to fucking 360p like lords of the fallen does or 480p like immortals. like have some self respect. People buying a $300 console know its not going to do 60 fps.

this is a game designed to run at 30 fps. I find it hilarious we are complaining about poor IQ in 60 fps modes. These games shouldnt even be shipping with 60 fps modes. you cant have industry leading visuals in $500 consoles running at 60 fps at higher resolutions.

Devs need to stop bending over to these people. most games if not all have been 30 fps. all the classics. all the gotys in the past 20-25 years have been 30 fps games. no one cares. make the game you want to make. i played FF16, zelda and now Spiderman 2 at 30 fps. they were smooth games. these silly compromised 60 fps modes are hurting the fidelity and artistic intent of these games and causing more drama thanks to DF than its worth.
I couldn’t disagree more.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I'm begging to all things holy that you guys are joking right now.

I could just imagine judge Corley saying "and what is this mesh shader that you're talking about, someone please explain it to me".

Would have been a hoot.


c2a6181f-de5b-4c3a-914d-f4404d4c89dc_text.gif
 

Md Ray

Member
Alex has said that a 3070 runs it better by over 40% better, according to this consoles absolutely wipe the floor with my 3070ti which went into the 30fps range at just 720p in multiple chapters (for very long sequences of time).

Are they testing just the first 2 hours or what?
You probably have texture resolution set to High or Ultra.
 

Three

Member
Of course, my past posts assumed a dramatic lowering of the resolution and visual settings + same CPU meant we'd have similar framerate settings on the Series S as the larger consoles. But now we clearly have raw data that shows that devs are increasingly choosing to keep visual settings close to at least one of the next gen flagships, and then penalize the framerate. That's a choice too, and certainly one that also makes sense.
Not according to DF

I see you're confused as always then

Series S gets
Framerate cut to 30fps with minor dips
Resolution cut to 720p
Foliage, grass, scattered foliage, terrain detail, texture filtering, volumetric lighting, fog quality and shadow filtering/coverage take a hit
LoD, pop-in, screen space reflections also take a hit.
certain textures (specifically in Mind Place) are lower quality.
SSR is a bit more grainy

The clear point being made is that you get sacrifices when you buy the cheaper, affordable option with significantly weaker specs.
1077.jpg


And that's not something being 'normalized' in 2023. It was a thing when people bought the GTX 1050 vs the 1080Ti, for example.

Now try understanding my original post instead of playing dumb. What's normalised is that you are getting a halving of framerate in addition to the resolution and graphical cutbacks and that this in no way shows how incompetent other devs like Capcom are who still aimed for 60fps with lowered settings.

 
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Md Ray

Member
The Medium preset is a lot more demanding than what the consoles are using in performance mode. In fact, the Medium preset has higher settings than consoles even in Quality mode. The biggest performance hog is the post-processing setting which using Medium defaults to High, meaning post-processing effects will be done at your native resolution which can massively tank your fps.
Also, IIRC, texture resolution is also 'High' when using the Medium preset.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
So mesh shaders are far more intensive than ray tracing?

Depends on the raytracing and how heavy they leverage it. I will tell you this. The only raytracing worth a shit and justifies the performance hit is raytraced global illumination. The rest don't mean much and certainly do not make a game look "next gen" like mesh shaders and raytraced GI with light and color bounce.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
I see you're confused as always then

Series S gets
Framerate cut to 30fps with minor dips
Resolution cut to 720p
Foliage, grass, scattered foliage, terrain detail, texture filtering, volumetric lighting, fog quality and shadow filtering/coverage take a hit
LoD, pop-in, screen space reflections also take a hit.
certain textures (specifically in Mind Place) are lower quality.
SSR is a bit more grainy

That's at complete variance with the Digital Foundry video, though. You're down to making up your own analysis now?
The DF video even points out the visual settings is very similar to the Performance mode on the flagship consoles, and talks about foliage and shadows being similar, and textures being a match aside from the memory palace.
Let's keep these conversations honest, shall we?

Resolution cut to 720p

Equivalent internal resolution on the flagships is 847p. Sneering about 720p vs 847p now?

that this in no way shows how incompetent other devs like Capcom are who still aimed for 60fps with lowered settings.

...And that's not an argument I've ever made. What Capcom did is fully in line with what i said earlier about 60fps with lower settings, and DF touches on that in the video too, with devs choosing to either prioritize framerate or visuals.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Explain in detail how you came to this conclusion.
'Series S:
- Visual settings are identical to PS5/SX's Performance mode
- Most textures resolution also identical, but certain textures (specifically in Mind Place) are lower quality.
- SSR is a bit more grainy but a biproduct of lower resolution.
- Internal 720p using FSR2 upscaled to 1440p. UI renders at 1440p.
- Series S does not have a 60 FPS mode, only one 30 FPS mode.
- Performance is very consistent 30 with minor drops. DF puts it between PS5 and SX in 30 FPS performances.'

Besides performance....
Yet another series s game that looks worse than last gen games.
 
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S0ULZB0URNE

Member
I see you're confused as always then

Series S gets
Framerate cut to 30fps with minor dips
Resolution cut to 720p
Foliage, grass, scattered foliage, terrain detail, texture filtering, volumetric lighting, fog quality and shadow filtering/coverage take a hit
LoD, pop-in, screen space reflections also take a hit.
certain textures (specifically in Mind Place) are lower quality.
SSR is a bit more grainy


1077.jpg




Now try understanding my original post instead of playing dumb. What's normalised is that you are getting a halving of framerate in addition to the resolution and graphical cutbacks and that this in no way shows how incompetent other devs like Capcom are who still aimed for 60fps with lowered settings.


We were told series would do the same things as the current gen consoles at a lower resolution.
Yet we get worse performance and more than resolution being different with visuals in numerous cases.

Notice how DF points it out and then tries to soften the blow?
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
How is the Series S version underwhelming again?
'Series S:
- Visual settings are identical to PS5/SX's Performance mode
- Most textures resolution also identical, but certain textures (specifically in Mind Place) are lower quality.
- SSR is a bit more grainy but a biproduct of lower resolution.
- Internal 720p using FSR2 upscaled to 1440p. UI renders at 1440p.
- Series S does not have a 60 FPS mode, only one 30 FPS mode.
- Performance is very consistent 30 with minor drops. DF puts it between PS5 and SX in 30 FPS performances.'

Cherry picking gets you nowhere
 

Three

Member
That's at complete variance with the Digital Foundry video, though. You're down to making up your own analysis now?
The DF video even points out the visual settings is very similar to the Performance mode on the flagship consoles, and talks about foliage and shadows being similar, and textures being a match aside from the memory palace.
Let's keep these conversations honest, shall we?
Man, you're clueless. How can it be in complete variance or made up? Try reading adamsapples summary and apply even an ounce of logic.
Equivalent internal resolution on the flagships is 847p. Sneering about 720p vs 847p now?
And that's exactly what I mean by normalising 30fps by comparing it to the 60fps mode. Halving the framerate AND lowering the resolution is something more. you're comparing resolution of two different modes making it seem like not a lot of difference to their bigger brothers but in actual fact the cutbacks are even more significant.
...And that's not an argument I've ever made. What Capcom did is fully in line with what i said earlier about 60fps with lower settings, and DF touches on that in the video too, with devs choosing to either prioritize framerate or visuals.
So why are you replying to me with a "you tried" gif without even understanding what you're replying to? That was the argument somebody else was making and I asked what's going on to.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
It’s not a weird take at all, like I said multiple times , when engines are rewritten for modern times , more parallel instructions , benefit more CU’s, and take into account more bandwidth, all RDNA 2.0 features like full meshshaders and SFS, we are going to see this more.
Well, the tflops difference is 18% so in a 60 fps game, that amounts to around 8-9 fps. Look at the comparison they themselves posted in the most intensive area of the game. 53-56 fps on ps5 vs locked 60 fps on xsx. Thats a 9-18% difference literally in line with the tflops difference.

There is no RDNA2.0 magic giving xsx an advantage because it is using the same exact settings, running at the same exact resolution and offering a 9-18% boost in performance.

Timestamped: It is typically a 10% difference with a 5 tflops delta. Drops to 53 fps for a second and jumps up to 56 fps. So less than 10%. What does that mean? that PS5 is taking full advantage of mesh shaders?



Tflops are tflops. People really need to stop putting so much importance on marketing buzzwords like SFS, mesh shaders, Cerny IO etc. Graphics are rendered by compute units and their performance depends on clock speeds. Thats how you arrive at tflops. XSX has a more powerful GPU and thus is able to get a higher framerate. Thats all there is to it.
 

Vergil1992

Member
What about Callisto Protocol with better ray tracing and having a for more stable performance on the PS5 than the Series X? Alex was really quiet then. Isn't that a game requiring more compute?
Callisto Protocol was a clear example that in XSX the game was less optimized.

And I say this because it is not like the case of AW2. AW2 is a game that has been released with the same visual quality on both platforms, and in fact, according to Remedy, it is Xbox that is the most behind in terms of patches:


These are the latest update notes for Alan Wake 2:
With this latest Xbox update there is now parity across PC, PS5 and Xbox versions.


This game has not come out with problems on PS5. Callisto Protocol, on the other hand, DF confirmed that as they released patches it improved massively in XSX when it was already stable on PS5, it was even launched with "ray tracing mode" but the RT was broken. The game was later updated and added RT in the XSX. It was obvious that it was not a question of power, but rather that the main platform had better optimization at the launch of the game.


What AW2 shows are performance differences, but it is a game that is equally or more solid on PS5 than on XSX (in fact the bugs have taken longer to fix on Xbox), but on PS5 it did not have completely broken graphic effects, nor on areas without load the framerate dropped dramatically. In AW2 we are seeing how in the most demanding areas for the GPU the XSX simply shows more muscle. It doesn't seem like a question of optimization. In the same way as A Plague Tale: Requiem, although it received many updates, the performance of the PS5 never matched that of the XSX.


Maybe I'm wrong and after a few patches PS5 will match the performance of PS5, but I honestly don't think it'll be that easy. It has been the platform with the most marketing, the codes that Remedy delivered were all for PS5, the updates arrive later to Xbox... if there is a platform favored by Remedy, that is PS5. According to John Linneman, Remedy did not provide the Xbox codes because they were still behind on updates that were on PC/PS5.



In the case of Callisto Protocol it is very different. The game was broken on Xbox, with missing graphical effects and serious, nonsensical performance issues, the marketing was completely PS5. If Callisto Protocol was more problematic on Xbox, it couldn't be the fault of its hardware, because with the updates the difference was practically nil. We can even say that the performance mode was 1:1 between PS5 and XSX. In AW2 we see a consistent difference in areas that are very demanding on the GPU. I don't think it's the same case.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Well, the tflops difference is 18% so in a 60 fps game, that amounts to around 8-9 fps. Look at the comparison they themselves posted in the most intensive area of the game. 53-56 fps on ps5 vs locked 60 fps on xsx. Thats a 9-18% difference literally in line with the tflops difference.

There is no RDNA2.0 magic giving xsx an advantage because it is using the same exact settings, running at the same exact resolution and offering a 9-18% boost in performance.

Timestamped: It is typically a 10% difference with a 5 tflops delta. Drops to 53 fps for a second and jumps up to 56 fps. So less than 10%. What does that mean? that PS5 is taking full advantage of mesh shaders?



Tflops are tflops. People really need to stop putting so much importance on marketing buzzwords like SFS, mesh shaders, Cerny IO etc. Graphics are rendered by compute units and their performance depends on clock speeds. Thats how you arrive at tflops. XSX has a more powerful GPU and thus is able to get a higher framerate. Thats all there is to it.

tflops are tflops if you are just brute forcing your games on these consoles like if they were low budget pcs.
Maybe if they utilized some smarter techniques and special optimizations this hardware uses, the results would be better.
But why do that if they can just slap it with fsr and change preset to low.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Man, you're clueless. How can it be in complete variance or made up? Try reading adamsapples summary and apply even an ounce of logic.

It's in complete variance because you made it up. Are we talking about the same adamsapple adamsapple summary that clearly says it has the same visual settings as the performance mode on the flagships?

And that's exactly what I mean by normalising 30fps by comparing it to the 60fps mode. Halving the framerate AND lowering the resolution is something more. you're comparing resolution of two different modes making it seem like not a lot of difference to their bigger but in actual fact the cutbacks are even more significant.

It's running the settings of the Performance mode of the Flagship consoles at half the framerate. Resolutions are being compared across the exact same visual mode/settings.

How is this difficult for you to understand? How do you expect similar framerates at relatively similar visual settings?

So why are you replying to me with a "you tried" gif without even understanding what you're replying to? That was the argument somebody else was making and I asked what's going on to.

The final result on Series S is quite commendable, considering its specs. An observation shared by DF in the video. Not sure what the logic behind your snide comments about 'normalization' and dragging in an unrelated game.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
And that's exactly what I mean by normalising 30fps by comparing it to the 60fps mode. Halving the framerate AND lowering the resolution is something more. you're comparing resolution of two different modes making it seem like not a lot of difference to their bigger but in actual fact the cutbacks are even more significant.

I take it that you haven't compared a screenshot between XSS and XSX Performance, 99.9% of the population would never be able to tell the difference without a magnifying glass (outside of that one area with the Polaroids).

No need to blow a gasket over the framerate difference. In games where the PS5 and XSX are running native 1440p or higher, the XSS typically has no issue with the 60fps modes. Obviously when the big boys are down to 850p, the GPU with one third the performance isn't going to be in good shape, and most developers opt to drop the 60fps mode to preserve image quality. In quality mode the difference in render resolution between the two is what should be expected.

I'm not sure how anyone figures user posts from three years ago are a gotcha either. Yeah, we assumed most of the 60fps modes would be there, but we also assumed that devs would be at least at 1080p (most figured 1440p) for these 60fps modes on XSX.

Great result for the XSS here on a game this heavy. The XSS build probably went a long way in optimizing a nice locked 60fps on the XSX, so that's obviously a nice bonus.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
tflops are tflops if you are just brute forcing your games on these consoles like if they were low budget pcs.
Maybe if they utilized some smarter techniques and special optimizations this hardware uses, the results would be better.
But why do that if they can just slap it with fsr and change preset to low.
smart techniques like using mesh shaders to improve performance? Literally no one else is doing that. that is as next gen a technique to improve performance as you can get. just look at how poorly the 5700xt runs this game without mesh shaders.

And they are using a mixture of medium to high settings in the quality mode on PS5 with only reflections set to low. Post Processing is a nonsense setting on PC that everyone is recommending you set to low even on mid range PCs. Theu didnt just slap low settings on the PS5.

At the end of the day, the GPU power is what reigns supreme. You cant expect every third party developer to max out the PS5 which is why more powerful GPUs are so important and why Sony is investing in a PS5 Pro. More tflops.

8MgUCmO.png
 

winjer

Gold Member
smart techniques like using mesh shaders to improve performance? Literally no one else is doing that. that is as next gen a technique to improve performance as you can get. just look at how poorly the 5700xt runs this game without mesh shaders.

And they are using a mixture of medium to high settings in the quality mode on PS5 with only reflections set to low. Post Processing is a nonsense setting on PC that everyone is recommending you set to low even on mid range PCs. Theu didnt just slap low settings on the PS5.

At the end of the day, the GPU power is what reigns supreme. You cant expect every third party developer to max out the PS5 which is why more powerful GPUs are so important and why Sony is investing in a PS5 Pro. More tflops.

UE5 is doing Mesh shaders, and considering it's probably going to be the most used game engine of the generation, then a ton of games will use Mesh Shaders.
And the 5700Xt runs the game poorly because this game engine has no support for Primitive Shaders, unlike what UE5 does. So it has to emulate Mesh shaders through compute.
 

Darsxx82

Member
What about Callisto Protocol with better ray tracing and having a for more stable performance on the PS5 than the Series X? Alex was really quiet then. Isn't that a game requiring more compute?
Currently the XSX version already has RT the same as PS5 and the performance is also the same. Some patch I don't know when (Curious that not even the Studio itself publishes it officialy) fixed the blurring of the reflections.

Callisto Protocol was the most flagrant case of a Studio's neglect and prioritizing the PS5 version over the XSX version, leaving the latter to be fixed post-launch.

A Xbox version that was launched running at 20fps without RT and that after a week it worked with the same stability as the PS5 and with RT (but blurry) and that after a month it was already 1:1.... It simply means that the optimization for XSX did not exist. Not to mention that it didn't exist for PC either.

 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
UE5 is doing Mesh shaders, and considering it's probably going to be the most used game engine of the generation, then a ton of games will use Mesh Shaders.
And the 5700Xt runs the game poorly because this game engine has no support for Primitive Shaders, unlike what UE5 does. So it has to emulate Mesh shaders through compute.
nanite leverages primitive shaders, but we havent seen UE5 games completely crush pascal and old AMD GPUs do. Maybe the rdna 1.0 gpus can get primitive shader support in the future but pascal, vega and polaris GPUs are shit out of luck with this game. Whereas UE5 games run more or less according to their tflops specs on those older GPUs.

This is basically the first game to offer such a drastic performance increase by leveraging mesh shaders.
 
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winjer

Gold Member
nanite leverages primitive shaders, but we havent seen UE5 games completely crush pascal and old AMD GPUs do. Maybe the rdna 1.0 gpus can get primitive shader support in the future but pascal, vega and polaris GPUs are shit out of luck with this game. Whereas UE5 games run more or less according to their tflops specs on those older GPUs.

This is basically the first game to offer such a drastic performance increase by leveraging mesh shaders.

UE5 has much larger support for hardware than Northlight engine. That's why it runs so poorly on anything that does not have native support for Mesh Shaders.
 

Three

Member
It's in complete variance because you made it up. Are we talking about the same adamsapple adamsapple summary that clearly says it has the same visual settings as the performance mode on the flagships?
And what did I list that wasn't a listed cutback of the performance mode?
It's running the settings of the Performance mode of the Flagship consoles at half the framerate. Resolutions are being compared across the exact same visual mode/settings.
It's not the exact same "visual mode" because the performance mode is not the same "visual mode".
How is this difficult for you to understand? How do you expect similar framerates at relatively similar visual settings?
Who is saying you should expect similar framerates at the same visual settings? When you halve the framerate though you can maybe expect similar settings and even maybe a similar res.
The final result on Series S is quite commendable, considering its specs. An observation shared by DF in the video. Not sure what the logic behind your snide comments about 'normalization' and dragging in an unrelated game.
I wasn't the one who dragged in a Capcom game you fool. Do you have trouble reading? Why don't you still get that? I posted in relation to somebody else mentioning capcom and how they're incompetent in comparison. You just took it upon yourself to reply to me with nonsense though.
I take it that you haven't compared a screenshot between XSS and XSX Performance, 99.9% of the population would never be able to tell the difference without a magnifying glass (outside of that one area with the Polaroids).

No need to blow a gasket over the framerate difference. In games where the PS5 and XSX are running native 1440p or higher, the XSS typically has no issue with the 60fps modes. Obviously when the big boys are down to 850p, the GPU with one third the performance isn't going to be in good shape, and most developers opt to drop the 60fps mode to preserve image quality. In quality mode the difference in render resolution between the two is what should be expected.

I'm not sure how anyone figures user posts from three years ago are a gotcha either. Yeah, we assumed most of the 60fps modes would be there, but we also assumed that devs would be at least at 1080p (most figured 1440p) for these modes.

Great result for the XSS here on a game this heavy. The XSS build probably went a long way in optimizing a nice locked 60fps on the XSX, so that's obviously a nice bonus.
Nobody is blowing a gasket.
The differences in a screenshot are smaller but you're talking about half the framerate in motion. That's my point about how that hit in optimisation has become normalised. Unless you think halving the framerate, lowering resolution and having settings cutbacks are great optimisations.

My initial post was regarding somebody's comparison of capcoms optimisation vs remedy's on the XSS. I said that people have normalised halving of the framerate along with reducing both res and settings even though that is by far the least triumphant thing to have done in terms of optimisation vs some others who still aimed for 60fps but just lowered settings or res.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
And what did I list that wasn't a listed cutback of the performance mode?

It's not the exact same "visual mode" because the performance mode is not the same "visual mode".

Who is saying you should expect similar framerates at the same visual settings? When you halve the framerate though you can maybe expect similar settings and even maybe a similar res.

I wasn't the one who dragged in a Capcom game you fool. Why don't you still get that? I posted in relation to somebody else mentioning capcom and how they're incompetent in comparison. You just took it upon yourself to reply to me with nonsense though.

Nobody is blowing a gasket.
The differences in a screenshot are smaller but you're talking about half the framerate in motion. That's my point about how that hit in optimisation has become normalised. Unless you think halving the framerate, lowering resolution and having settings cutbacks are great optimisations.

My initial post was regarding somebody's comparison of capcoms optimisation vs remedy's on the XSS. I said that people have normalised halving of the framerate along with reducing both res and settings even though that is by far the least triumphant thing to have done in terms of optimisation vs some others who still aimed for 60fps but just lowered settings or res.

Not really reading all that. Filing this away as an unproductive conversation. Cheers!
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The game will get patches over the next few weeks locking all consoles to their framerate targets and most of this thread will become irrelevant.

Of course, that's the state of 99% of game releases.

But the odd thing out here is that Alan Wake 2 was *behind* updates on Xbox compared to PS5/PC. The patch they put out on Monday specifically says now it's in parity with PS5 and PC.

Their Northlight engine, or this being one of the first big games to extensively use mesh shaders, or a combination of both, seems to suit the Xbox architecture more.
 
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