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God of War Ragnarök on PS5 - The Digital Foundry Tech Review

blastprocessor

The Amiga Brotherhood
It's finally here! John Linneman presents the DF Tech Review for God of War Ragnarök, focusing on improvements vs God of War 2018, a complete run-down of all of the various performance and quality modes, and much, much more.




+ There are some spoilers in the video. You have been warned, no spoilers below.
+ Resolution of pre-baked lighting increased significantly (helps minimise lighting leaking)
+ Inclusion of SSDO (a feature first included on the PC version of GoW) is used to approximate a single bounce of indirect illumination and screen space complete with colour transfer. Helps better ground character objects.
+ Detail levels in general have received a significant boost
+ Inclusion of tessellation for PS5 increased level of detail within the ground surface. Produces far more details and realistic results
+ Snow deformation with tessellation quality increased allows more detailed trails
+ Lights scatters through ice (!)
+ Superior cube map reflection
+ Improved implementation of screen space reflections
+ Level of detail remains consistently high throughout the game
+ Shows a nice improvement in lighting, surface of the snow is clearly more nuanced, features more details in general, features largely familiar from a tech standpoint. Improvements clearly evident but GoW still holds up surprisingly well
+ Somewhat mixed feelings between the original and Ragnarok, doesn't necessarily feel a gigantic leap forward from a pure tech standpoint
+ Feels unbelievably polished no stutters, hitches, bugs or visual glitches
+ Modes: 60 fps, 30 fps, HFR (High Frame Rate), 40 FPS
+ Performance mode (1440p - 2160p spends most of the time in 1872p range)
+ New TAAU (TAA with up sampling to 4K) image quality is greatly improved
+ Completely different LOD settings between quality and performance (shadows and ambient occlusion differs too e.g., there's an axe shadow on Kratos in quality mode)
+ Quality mode has contact hardened shadows
+ Gives the nod to the 60-fps mode, boost in quality mode doesn't make up for the lower level of performance if you don't have VRR supported TV
+ Shutter speed for motion blur not adjusted for 60 fps mode
+ 40FPS quality mode targets native 4K but this time DRS is used can dip to 1800p but uncommon
+ HFR is capped at 1440p
+ Quality and 40FPS mostly seem to share the same settings
+ 60FPS and HFR share the same exact visual setup just difference in resolution
+ HFR removed the 60fps cap (mostly 80 to 90 fps) stick to 60fps performance if your TV doesn't support VRR (judder otherwise)
+ 40FPS mode is locked fantastic option if you prefer the quality mode
+ Loading times average around 10 seconds (about 20 seconds faster than PS4 Pro)
+ Controller feedback doesn't transform the experience but a nice improvement over dual shock 4

Article: https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfo...a-maxed-out-pc-port-with-flawless-performance
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Here is the NX Gamer review.

Some notes if you dont want to get spoiled. I only listened myself.

  • Performance Mode is 85-90 fps in action. 120 fps while exploring.
  • Fidelity mode is in the 40-50 range. Barely any difference in visual quality between performance and fidelity.
  • PS5 has better tesselation, better AO, shadows, level of detail, better GI etc.
  • PS5 used machine learning to upscale DRS in Performance mode which is why it looks better.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
SSM has had a lot of time to iterate and improve the engine while having the extra time to add depth. Those side mission tweets got me more excited.
 

jorgejjvr

Gold Member
Here is the NX Gamer review.

Some notes if you dont want to get spoiled. I only listened myself.

  • Performance Mode is 85-90 fps in action. 120 fps while exploring.
  • Fidelity mode is in the 40-50 range. Barely any difference in visual quality between performance and fidelity.
  • PS5 has better tesselation, better AO, shadows, level of detail, better GI etc.
  • PS5 used machine learning to upscale DRS in Performance mode which is why it looks better.

So no brainer for performance then
 
Well it looks almost identical to the ps4 version in my eyes - but it still is a great looking game. I just can’t wait until they make a game for ps5 only
 
Lined up with what that SSM VFX artist said about a year ago on the MLiD podcast, that the PS5 version was using tessellation and they were using the SSD to hot swap in 4K textures on the fly.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Here is a summary of NX Gamer's chat with the SSM dev on the machine learning used to enhance the performance version to amazing results.

New upscaling technique switching from checkerboarding to TAA on all consoles that produces better results than the original 2018 game.

On PS5 they used machine learning alogritm to resample and up sample the texture detail, and add another sharpening pass while the DRS is in use which makes it look better than the native 4k version. crazy.

This is straight from the devs. NX Gamer does no speculation or guessing here.
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
+ Resolution of pre-baked lighting increased significantly (helps minimise lighting leaking)
+ Inclusion of SSDO (a feature fist included on the PC version of GoW) is used to approximate a single bounce of indirect illumination and screen space complete with colour transfer. Helps better ground character objects.
+ Detail levels in general have received a significant boost
+ Inclusion of tessellation for PS5 increased level of detail within the ground surface. Produces far more details and realistic results
iT lOoKs iDeNtIcAl tO tHe lAsT gAmE
virgins meme GIF by Death From Above 1979
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Cool, sounds like its a given to play it like this right?
yep. i will give 40 fps vrr mode a shot to make sure, but if its anything like DLSS which looks better than native 4k on PC in some games, I will take the performance mode.
 

rofif

Banned
Oh yeah I am playing in quality mode.
There are plenty of small differences and res is 4k (although res is almost identical to an eye as performance mode).
I am playing close to my tv, so it seems obvious.

But at the same time.. the modes are confusing and are not what they exactly seem based on their in-game descriptions.... I still think they should make 1 mode and perfect it + offer vrr unlock for it.... having these modes with drawbacks seems weird.
Nobody would be angry if the fidelity mode not existed and performance mode received greater focus... without direct comparison, it is hard to say.
That said - now I've seen the difference and I choose FIDELITY. but I will test all modes next week, depending on how much vrr flicker will these modes cause on my c1.

and FINALLY A PS GAME with 40hz mode and vrr on release and not after I fucking finished the game. FINALLY

edit: Can you unlock fps in VRR mode or is it 30 or 40 ?
 
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Flabagast

Member
Disappointed that the visual set up is different between Quality and Performance.

Would have prefered lower resolution on Performance to have the same shadows as Quality
 

sncvsrtoip

Member
Here is a summary of NX Gamer's chat with the SSM dev on the machine learning used to enhance the performance version to amazing results.

New upscaling technique switching from checkerboarding to TAA on all consoles that produces better results than the original 2018 game.

On PS5 they used machine learning alogritm to resample and up sample the texture detail, and add another sharpening pass while the DRS is in use which makes it look better than the native 4k version. crazy.

This is straight from the devs. NX Gamer does no speculation or guessing here.
John didnt notice better graphics in performance mode ;d Quaity still better (better lod in far distance, more preciese cubemaps reflection and some other minor things) tough they are close (60fps mode mostly in 1800p area).
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
John didnt notice better graphics in performance mode ;d Quaity still better (better lod in far distance, more preciese cubemaps reflection and some other minor things) tough they are close (60fps mode mostly in 1800p area).
Just read his review. Yeah, he doesnt say it looks better, but mostly the same, but in the DF direct two days ago he did say that performance mode looks better.
 
Feels unbelievably polished no stutters, hitches, bugs or visual glitches

People saying they were worrying about the game being rushed for 2022 can feel at eased.
Can't wait to play. Not watching due to spoilers. Are there really bad spoilers?
What the best mode to play?
 
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