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We Actually Do Need Pro Consoles Again

ergem

Member
What happened? I’ve been told about superior architecture, magical SSD powers, secret sauce and eating monsters for breakfast?
Imagine R&C Rift Apart's graphics without the magical SSD. The devs would have crammed so much in the RAM that it would have compromised on the quality of the textures. SSD contributes only so much. It's can't do everything. PS5 has lower flops than Series X and yet it outperforms it in a lot of games. How is that not eating monster for breakfast?
 

ergem

Member
What we need are slim versions which are cheaper to make and priced accordingly. We need a $250 PS5 slim that would sell like hot cakes.
We need both. Just like the PS4 era. There was never an issue in the PS4 era when it comes to optimization for the base model. The devs will always target the base model. It's what the 90% of users have.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Yes,

Wich pictures is 720p native, 720p FSR 2.2 (upscaled to 1440p) and 1440p native

sKKaB97.jpg


RoLvUye.jpg


SNhxyI9.jpg


People crying about resolution and dont knowing what and how about reconstruction works is very very tire to read.

FF16 don't fking run at 720p/1080p native.
Fsr2 is the worst on consoles. Is overused and looks terrible in motion. I would prefer softer but more stable res
 

01011001

Banned
Yes,

Wich pictures is 720p native, 720p FSR 2.2 (upscaled to 1440p) and 1440p native

sKKaB97.jpg


RoLvUye.jpg


SNhxyI9.jpg


People crying about resolution and dont knowing what and how about reconstruction works is very very tire to read.

FF16 don't fking run at 720p/1080p native.

first of all, why are you uploading JPEGs? wtf... literally introducing artifacts into something that's supposed to be a comparison shot.

secondly, FF16 doesnt use FSR2, it uses FSR1 (or an equivalent upscaler), which is basically like turning on an image enhancement setting on your TV.

lastly you don't specify what kind of AA you used for the Native image or the 720p image.
edge treatment in the first image looks bad, but it doesn't have the blob of disocclusion artifacts on display that image 3 shows, so I'd say 1 is native with FXAA or some shit, 2 is 720p also with a similar AA, and 3 is FSR2 which has better edge treatment than image 1 but stuff that moves leaves a clear pattern of fizzle behind as per usual with FSR2.

btw, if you actually started to move the fsr2 imge would immediately start to look way worse ;)
also FSR2 gets increasingly worse the lower the base resolution and the lower the framerate is as well.
making your stationary 165fps image a pretty dumb comparison to ff16... aside from the fact that ff6 doesn't use fsr2

make it 1440p, set FSR1 to balanced, and then take a screenshot ;)
 
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Fsr2 is the worst on consoles. Is overused and looks terrible in motion. I would prefer softer but more stable res

I've yet to see an FSR 2 game on console that doesn't already look soft ..

Speaking of FSR weirdness this gen. Why is it that last gen the Xbox One X was able to run Modern Warfare 2018 without upscaling and it looked amazing and pristine while almost running at a locked 60 fps, meanwhile this gen on more powerful hardware both CoD Vanguard and Modern Warfare 2 use FSR from a native 1080p image while both games look to have about the exact same underlying graphics to MW 1?

Goes without saying Vanguard and MW2 final image is softer and messier than MW 2018 was on Xb1X!

This is the kinda thing that really blows my mind and seems to show that not only are dev using FSR as a crutch this gen but that they're not taking advantage of the hardware either. I guess MW2 might be doing a couple things better than 2018 such as water rendering for instance, but not enough to justify 1080p/fsr which results in aliasing and artifacts all over the place.

Somehow MW2 got a pass from gamers too. Did nobody play MW1 on One X? It was one of the best looking games of last gen.
 
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We have to have mid gen because man, it made a world of difference having them last gen. It allowed games to have things like hdr and to be played on 4k tvs.

Imagine not being able to play games last gen in 4k (upscaled but still). That is what you guys who are adamant against this are saying essentially. The mid gen upgrades made for much better visuals and experience for me thats for sure. For some reason that is all of the sudden undesirable?

I see your arguments already "aha! But 4k tvs are ALREADY a thing this gen so we don't need them!". So what! That extra power will get channeled into other things then like higher more consistent fps, more stable resolution and higher settings!
 
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Mobilemofo

Member
We have like 6 years begging for Pro Switch, seems like pro consoles beggers family grew up.

I just opted to stay PC though, whenever I think on getting a console reality hits me with the compromises I'd be getting with them. I'll still eventually get PS5 for generations of PS exclusives I haven't played, but for everything else PC is just on its own league.
That's cool. Equally, alot of us came from pc gens ago, and know what we're getting with a solid state box at a set price which is appealing if you don't want to take one up the ass on a 4090 etc, and be fuckin about with "settings" and so forth.

Just thinking about pc gaming again makes me shudder. 😄
 
It has been a mere 2 years and a sliver since the PS5 and the XBOX:SX released, yet both consoles have, or will soon have, exclusive games running at 30FPS. That's astonishing considering what a massive leap in capability they were compared to their predecessors. In 2020, I was convinced there would be zero demand for Pro versions, now it's becoming obvious that we absolutely do need them.
 

vkbest

Member
Maybe polls asked in fan forums, that consist of die-hard players.

Back in the PS3 days, Insomniac polled people on 30fps with better visuals vs 60fps which was toned down. People overwhelmingly choose 30fps with better-looking graphics.

It's odd seeing the frame-rate obsessed people now on consoles complaining for more power. While on PC, the Steam Deck is the latest hotness with people sharing how to get locked 30/40 at lower detail settings.

In PS3 days, games were sub 30fps, some even sub 20fps. Standards change.
 

vkbest

Member
I thought Plague tale was the perfect example why we don't need new consoles, we need developers making their job.
 

Elysium44

Banned
It has been a mere 2 years and a sliver since the PS5 and the XBOX:SX released, yet both consoles have, or will soon have, exclusive games running at 30FPS. That's astonishing considering what a massive leap in capability they were compared to their predecessors. In 2020, I was convinced there would be zero demand for Pro versions, now it's becoming obvious that we absolutely do need them.

That sounds like a non-sequitur and self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm sure game developers are hoping you get your wish though. So much easier to get more powerful hardware to brute force your lazy work than put the effort in to make it work better.

This mid-gen refresh thing needs to be consigned to history, it's a horrible idea and never happened before until last gen. It just gives devs another crutch to rely on (like FSR) rather than code efficiently to the hardware. The consoles are very powerful already and good developers would be producing incredible looking games with great performance which dwarfs anything we saw last gen. We aren't seeing that though. That doesn't prove we need faster consoles, it proves the devs need to work harder or smarter.
 

Corndog

Banned
Hey, I'm always up for a more powerful console, so sign me up.
However, devs have yet to take advantage of everything that both the PS5 and XSX have to offer.
For far too long devs have just relied on increases in raster to provide their improvement game to game. A few more high level textures, a few more polygons in each character, a bit better animations, then release that baby.

We have Medh and Primitive Shaders that are not being utilised by any third party devs. The use of these will add to performance. XSXS has Sampler Feedback Streaming which will absolutely help with RAM utilisation, yet not being used.

I think maybe if we don't have an upgrade we will see devs adopt this stuff quicker.
Ya. Making pro consoles gives them a get out of jail card. Not having them forces developers to spend more effort on improving efficiency.

That said I don’t blame people for wanting pro versions.
 

JCK75

Member
Personally I think they should release more powerful upgrades every 5 years, games can support older consoles so long as it's possible but games should list on the box which models are supported and just keep it as a single ecosystem where the newest model can play everything.
 

Ultra Donny

Member
We need less focus on numbers in gaming that's my opinion. There are options if you are interested in the technical aspect of gaming. Pc is your saving grace. I'm completely fine with what the 500$ boxes we got can do. Starfield 30fps, that's fine. The greatest gaming experiences I had has nothing to do whit the framerate or the resolution. I rather see game makers focus on the soft values like atmosphere and breathing life into the game.
 
Make consoles modular, like PC but with presets. Or keep it as it is. If you want more power you go and build a beefy PC. Simple as that.

Nonetheless, developers should learn to keep their project within the range of the consoles capabilities. It doesn't matter being over-ambitious if your game can barely run on the targeted machines.
 

Stare-Bear

Banned
Over the past 20 years developers have come up with so many alternative solutions for reflections and shadows, that RT now feels a bit like a waste of performance resources.

We don’t need Pro consoles when most first party devs are still delivering cross-gen games. Give me a year or two of ps5 exclusives and see how much power the machine really has.
 
Consoles have always been fixed hardware platforms that last, typically, 6-7 years before being replaced by a new generation of improved hardware. What made last-gen different was that we had 4K TVs being introduced mid-generation so that was why we got a PS4 Pro (even if that ended up being more 1440p than 4K) and Xbox One X to fill the gap.

With this generation, we don't have this as 4K is already well-established and 8K was pretty much dead on arrival (Sony advertise 8K support on the PS5 box but the console still does not have any support for it) so there isn't really any need for a mid-gen console refresh in my opinion. The PS5 and Xbox Series X CPU is already decent - 8-threads / 16 cores at approx. 3.2 GHz - and both have decent GPUs, using upscaling to achieve 4K targets. Both consoles also use SSD storage for fast loading so what real improvements could they add to a Pro model to justify the costs? Do AMD even have an APU at this point that is suitable for Pro consoles?

I would personally prefer to see developers optimise the games properly for the current platforms, especially now that support for the last-gen platforms have been dropped. Otherwise, developers will again have to contend with supporting another two SKUs, which I believe is the reason why we get so many poorly optimised games, and this could lead to them to brute forcing games for the more powerful systems such that the games run poorly on the base hardware.
 
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vkbest

Member
I agree. While playing FFXVI all I can think of is "Man, I wish I was playing this on PS5 Pro with a locked 60fps."
The game could have a bottleneck in some part where PS5 Pro being more powerful is not 60fps locket yet.

That is the reason that kind of wishing is dumb. PS4 pro didn't fix anything
 

MaKTaiL

Member
We do not need them. 30fps will ALWAYS come back into the generation. As consoles get more powerful devs will always push the graphics harder and harder.
 
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Regarding Final Fantasy 16: I believe that this game could easily have ran at a locked 60 fps and 1440p-1800p with visuals on a par with what we have now if the game had been properly built for the current gen hardware.

FF16 is a very linear game with very small areas loaded via a hub map. There aren't dozens of enemies or NPCs on screen at one - the opening cinematic showing hundreds of characters in battle was a high quality pre-rendered cutscene according to Digital Foundry interspersed between two real-time ones - so there really isn't anything here that we haven't seen before in other games. Horizon: Forbidden West runs at a locked 60 fps using a 1800p checkerboard upscale and that game looks just as good visually as FF16 in my opinion and that is an open-world game nor a linear "corridor" game like FF16.

Much as I am enjoying FF16, I do feel the developers could have done more with the game despite claims that it was built from the ground up for PS5. Maybe they were limited by the technology/engine they were using?
 
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CGNoire

Member
As if that gonna change anything. You guys still whine blah blah blah blah the graphics are not good enough wish Playstation 6 gets released then more blah blah blah blah blah wishing P6pro gets released……same fucking shit.

Man just get PC if you guys are this damn obsess with high tech graphics.
It doesnt work that way and hasnt going on 16+ years now. Since 2007 ita very rare for pc to have a huge upgrade across rhe board.
 
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Azurro

Banned
Ya. Making pro consoles gives them a get out of jail card. Not having them forces developers to spend more effort on improving efficiency.

That said I don’t blame people for wanting pro versions.

That's not how things work, most of the revenue would come from base consoles, so they have every incentive to make them run well on them.
 

Elysium44

Banned
That's not how things work, most of the revenue would come from base consoles, so they have every incentive to make them run well on them.

Do they? Maybe on paper but in practice the people on the lower tier console have the choice of like it or lump it. There are many examples of where a game's base version is the very poor relation because the devs are like 'well if you want decent performance, buy the One X / PS4 Pro, lol - don't look at us if you're too stupid or poor to do that'.

Whereas if the base console was the ONLY version then they would have to do better. And they could, if they wanted. Necessity is the mother of invention. But too many devs today are spoiled with powerful hardware and their skill / effort level has decreased from devs of yesteryear.
 

Azurro

Banned
Do they? Maybe on paper but in practice the people on the lower tier console have the choice of like it or lump it. There are many examples of where a game's base version is the very poor relation because the devs are like 'well if you want decent performance, buy the One X / PS4 Pro, lol - don't look at us if you're too stupid or poor to do that'.

Whereas if the base console was the ONLY version then they would have to do better. And they could, if they wanted. Necessity is the mother of invention. But too many devs today are spoiled with powerful hardware and their skill / effort level has decreased from devs of yesteryear.

I'd love you to show me a single example where the devs literally told people "Buy a Pro or One X, don't look at us if you are too stupid or poor to do that".

Really, your take is rather strange and not well thought of, 90% of their console revenue would come from base consoles, why would that not be an incentive to make their game run well? Or are you going with the age old meme of "devs are lazy" which is one of the biggest fallacies that the hardcore audience somehow still believes in.

Again, I'd love to know a different argument than "my feelings would get hurt" if a mid gen refresh is launched. It's simply an option for the more hardcore audience that wants more advanced visuals but still wants to play at 60 FPS.
 
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REDRZA MWS

Member
I'd love you to show me a single example where the devs literally told people "Buy a Pro or One X, don't look at us if you are too stupid or poor to do that".

Really, your take is rather strange and not well thought of, 90% of their console revenue would come from base consoles, why would that not be an incentive to make their game run well? Or are you going with the age old meme of "devs are lazy" which is one of the biggest fallacies that the hardcore audience somehow still believes in.

Again, I'd love to know a different argument than "my feelings would get hurt" if a mid gen refresh is launched. It's simply an option for the more hardcore audience that wants more advanced visuals but still wants to play at 60 FPS.
Pretty sure his comment "Buy a Pro or One X, don't look at us if you are too stupid or poor to do that", was sarcasm.

Yet is undeniable fact that even if a game is optimized on both base and pro models, the same game will look and perform better on more advanced hardware, thats not even arguable. Also, i think the pro consoles have a slighlty bigger market share than 10%.

PS5 Pro day 1 for me.
 
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Elysium44

Banned
I'd love you to show me a single example where the devs literally told people "Buy a Pro or One X, don't look at us if you are too stupid or poor to do that".

Really, your take is rather strange and not well thought of, 90% of their console revenue would come from base consoles, why would that not be an incentive to make their game run well? Or are you going with the age old meme of "devs are lazy" which is one of the biggest fallacies that the hardcore audience somehow still believes in.

Again, I'd love to know a different argument than "my feelings would get hurt" if a mid gen refresh is launched. It's simply an option for the more hardcore audience that wants more advanced visuals but still wants to play at 60 FPS.

Lazy and/or incompetent, yes I am going with that because that's what I see. And they love the idea of mid-gen refreshes.
 

Azurro

Banned
Lazy and/or incompetent, yes I am going with that because that's what I see. And they love the idea of mid-gen refreshes.

REDRZA MWS REDRZA MWS you can see that what he wrote wasn't sarcasm.

Elysium, I'd love for you to qualify that statement, show me your extensive studies of the schedules of game developers and show me where they spend their days partying, drinking and fooling around instead of working. There are many challenges in software development, particularly in entertainment: budget, design, asset creation, development time, manpower, project management. "Lazy" developers, given how most quit after 5-7 years due to burnout and crazy schedules, is not one of those.
 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
That's cool. Equally, alot of us came from pc gens ago, and know what we're getting with a solid state box at a set price which is appealing if you don't want to take one up the ass on a 4090 etc, and be fuckin about with "settings" and so forth.

Just thinking about pc gaming again makes me shudder. 😄
I don't think 4090 users care about settings lol. That's for us, mid range users. I'm happy that I don't need more than high settings in 1440p-4K (native or using FSR) at around 65-70 fps. That's how I play all games, basically console Quality settings at 60+ fps. My wallet appreciates that since that's already at consoles prices these days.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
If pro consoles come out and it's around the same price as current consoles, I'd probably bite. Assuming it's a good boost. I can sell my X and probably get at least half my money back.

When X came out ($600 cdn), I sold my One X with an extra controller and 5-6 old games (which most were on GP already) for $450.

X is now $650 cdn I think (price increase). Add tax and you're at $750. X Pro comes out for $800 and I can probably sell my X for at least $400-500 straight up at that time. Right now, they are selling used for $500-550 on ebay.ca
 

REDRZA MWS

Member
REDRZA MWS REDRZA MWS you can see that what he wrote wasn't sarcasm.

Elysium, I'd love for you to qualify that statement, show me your extensive studies of the schedules of game developers and show me where they spend their days partying, drinking and fooling around instead of working. There are many challenges in software development, particularly in entertainment: budget, design, asset creation, development time, manpower, project management. "Lazy" developers, given how most quit after 5-7 years due to burnout and crazy schedules, is not one of those.
I was talking about the exact quite from that post, where the implication was devs were telling games they were broke or stupid for not upgrading to a pro console.
 

REDRZA MWS

Member
During the Xbox vs FTC trial, Phil Spencer said he expects the next gen to start in 2028. thats 8 years after the base ps5 xbox series consoles launched. A mid gen bump is more than welcome.
 

Belthazar

Member
No, we just need better developers. After Horizon Forbidden West, an open-world cross-gen game, looked that good at a damn basically locked 60fps... I honestly can't see why power would be the issue for games to look/perform in a subpar manner.

Hell, even the PS4 version of that game puts some supposedly AAA PS5 games to shame, lbr.
 
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