I don’t get this “raw pixels are the best pixels” sentiment come from, judging from the thread everyone has their own opinion but didn’t actually see the reason behind why people doing the upscalers. Well bad news for you, games have been using virtual pixels for all kinds of effects for ages. Your TV getting broadcast also using upscalers.(4k broadcast not that popular yet.)
I play Rocket Leauge with FSR from 1440p to 2160p and it’s practically looking the same to 2160p native AND it feels more visually pleasing as the upscale also serve as extra filter for AA to smooth out and sharpen “at the same time”. Frame rate is pretty important for older upscaler tech(or feature like distance field AO), as many tech relies information from previous frame(s) as well.
Traditionally, the render engine do the stupid way when we have more powerful GPU than engine demand where the engine allows you to render something like 4x resolution then downscale for AA, like sure it looks nice and sharp BUT it’s a bruteforce and stupid way to approach it and many follow up AA tech prove more useful for gamedev, upscaler tech is the same. It’s not intended for you to render 320x240 then upscale all the way to 4k or 8k, it will pave way for better post processing features or lighting tech like lumen or raytracing/pathtracing to actually become usable in game with decent “final output”.(remember the PS4 Pro checkboard 4k, that was a really decent and genuinely good tech to overcome PS4 Pro’s hardware limit for more quality demanding games. )
In the end, consumer vote with their wallet for nicer looking games all the time, that’s what drives developers gear toward photo real/feature film quality renderings. There are still plenty studio gears toward stylized, or pixel art and everyone flip their shit and praise while those tech mostly relies on the underlying hardware advance pushed by photo real approach, they just use the same pipeline but their way to reach their desired look, Octopath Traveler II used Unreal Engine.
Game rendering is always about trade-offs, we’ve come a LONG way and will keep pushing boundaries, would upscaler tech become obsolete somewhere down the road? I have no idea, maybe AI can generate everything at native pixels, right?
even at ideal condition there is about 1~2ms latency(streaming 1080p game), while hitting 90hz requires 11ms frame time. so you are asking the game to at least perform at 111fps or above to function under said ideal condition. I think if some manufacturer can put together a chip set where they do the frame gen tech on the head set side, so the game just need to run at 60fps it would be a better option.(like PS VR ) Frame gen does require some other buffers to generate the in between frames, so that’s more info to stream over the bandwidth.
Like which type of shooter is your thing?? For me it’s the quick arena/team shooter, my good shooter example would be Q3 and Tribes 2. I think it’s really satisfying when moving quickly and shoot people with actual projectiles, rocket/disc launcher in my examples. (not a fan of hit scan type)
I generally avoid denuvo and EA. I literally break this stance just to see what they did with UE5 but ended up enjoying the game as well. It sucks cause denuvo means I can’t hook up RenderDoc and see how they render a frame compare to stock UE5. The movement reminds me a lot of original Quakes(very close to Q3) where you can have lots of control mid air and really snappy movement speed with their mechanics(blinks and grapples). But yeah, if this game doesn’t have this “use all UE5 latest tech” tag I will probably not even know or touching it cause I don’t play shooters after like Battlefield 3. Cause I am old and I like fast arena shooter not modern slow pace CQB/battle pass shooter, I was quite disappointed after trying Halo Infinite. But, that said, any shooter fits my criteria, would probably fail in sales. ^^;
lol, I go take a look, yep, battlefield 3.(note, I have no idea when I added crysis, it’s probably from a bundle or something and it redeems directly. I had high hope when crysis 2 released. ) And yes, I did played 2042 open beta cause we had a company game day that picked the open beta.(and yep I don’t like it. )
You mean denuvo? I think it’s a money sinker now so might as well remove it at this point. But it’s EA’s call. Also, yes I have to download EA’s launcher as well.
I bought the game for science cause it was the only game so far using all major features of UE5 and is a good reference to see how they manage asset, etc to keep the game running at 60fps with provided spec.
I think it does have potential, the mechanic is tight enough(the kbm default binding is not good, needs some rebind to make the combat flow more fluid), frame pacing is smooth majority of time(you have jitter mostly when it switch between cutscenes<->game), pretty much checked all the boxes and doesn’t feel lacking when playing the game.
BUT, it does have poor marketing plan and kinda bad luck in releasing window. It’s a good “alt shooter game” IMO.
Many modern AAA games has become glorified toilet paper rolls. They tried to keep manufacture then in hopes to milk everything possible, then when you are at the end of roll they hype and sell you a new one. Make them feel like you absolutely have to play the next installment to get a closure or something new branching out.(prequel/sequel/reboot/timelines/etc.)
It was unsustainable at the pace and amount pre-covid, unhealthy for hardcore gamers as well. We have to actively not buying and playing new games cause I can play certain amount per day/week.
With covid and post covid, I actually finished more games compare to before. Well, the extra 2 hours not needed to commute I can do whatever I wanted.
I have slowly faded away from those daily meetings and my rate to address issues increased. Working and supporting 2 different projects while doing extra research topics to future proof our tech or migration path. I do still have those weekly meeting though but my work pace have been better without the daily ones.
Even my manager ask me today if I want to do the biweekly checkup or skip, “well, we did the weekly this morning so I see no point of doing the biweekly.” “Sure, let’s skip.”
Now if I can have my own status board and progress bar on a internal page and tag it with my slack profile, maybe I can skip all the meeting?
Lol, I bought on EGS cause I know developer will get more money out of that purchase.(12% and they don’t have to pay UE royalty for sales on EGS. I do this pretty much for all unreal engine games.)
But I think the honest hw spec probably scare off a lot of potential PC buyers of this type of game. If somehow they have a demo as show case + spec check then people might be more willing to try or even buy.
Well, it’s surprisingly an 8/10 game graphics aside. There is no mtx, they still fix their game despite low player count on steam. (no idea how many players on the EA play/Gamepass or console. But on PC if you meet the requirement you can run the game really smoothly. (I run 6800XT so at default 1440p/60fps no issue at all. )
I originally bought it for science and see how UE5 features run on my machine from a released game, and it does surpass my expectation. Also see what’s currently possible with those UE5 tech.
It does have kinda bad luck release timing wise, but it fits a good “alt” game you can play without any commitment. (no season pass, no battle pass, no grinding requirements/mission, semi open world but the main plot can be done without doing those exploration/puzzles. ) So I’d assume the sale can last longer people can play this game with more modern PC build.
I know, I wish we can config the priority of the type, so the more “useless” type are sorted to the bottom of stack, or even assign colored background for different type of things. As a hoarder that even collect rotten food early game it is annoying. (I did keep rotton stuff in a separate container and just sell the whole thing to merchant. )