General gaming discussion

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119914350#Comment_119914350

I think gamers like us on here, we forget that a lot of gamers don't really know much about performance or FPS, or anything like that. They just want to play games that they think they'll like, and don't bother reading reviews or anything like that.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119914473#Comment_119914473

Actually, from reading comments there's a lot of people that are noticing the performance issues and saying they're pretty bad but the game is so good that it's not that big an issue. I do think we get hung up a lot on graphics and performance, although I'm of the opinion that performance still has a massive impact on playability.

johnny_ultimate

It's a shame, because I do think Game Freak has a truly great Pokemon game in them if they weren't on the death march of having to release these games so rapidly. Having to release Arceus and Scarlet / Violet in the same year must have been a nightmare task, and clearly not enough time to feed the design lessons of the former into the latter. But when they keep selling like gangbusters, there's no incentive to slow down the release schedule.

The Digital Foundry analysis of the new games is really something to behold. There are games from the Gamecube / Xbox era that look and perform better than these. The comparison to other Switch games shows that you certainly can't blame the hardware for these failings.

https://youtu.be/pBZqt7D24Zc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119914157#Comment_119914157

It's not a great comparison to video game transactions. Video game transactions do not improve your performance. I'd most definitely pay to get a cool new skin on my car or maybe some sort of dynamic interior. That is more of an accurate comparison.

Retr0gamer

Game freak actually didn't develop arceus.

The main issue with gamefreak is they are a handheld game developer that's been thrown into triple A console development and the team is still built for handheld games. I say it's a management issue not wanting to build the team up for these bigger games.

Apparently it's still an amazing game despite the issues. Pokemon fans are just happy they are getting to finally play the open world pokemon game they have always wanted.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119914647#Comment_119914647

Thought they did develop it? They’re cited as the developer everywhere, although of course with modern game development there are usually several studios involved in any given game.

I haven’t played either game yet, but I’ve definitely read there are things Arceus gets right and things S/V get right. Between them it sounds like there’s a truly great open world Pokémon game, but both sound like they’re flawed in their own ways.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119914745#Comment_119914745

Sorry, got confused with pokemon snap which was a bamco game.

Mr.Saturn

Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl were outsourced as well, being the first mainline entries to not be developed by Game Freak. Arceus and Scar/Violet was the Game Freak office being split in two and working pretty much independently, which might go ways to explaining why the feel like they were produced by someone else.

How anyone can argue that 60fps should not be the standard this gen is beyond me. I've loved this gen consoles, Series X in particular. But talk of 30fps or even 40fps (its better than 30 but its not 60) becoming the standard is just baffling. Do the developers stare at screens so much that they can't tell the difference. It's even massive on my phone. Going 30fps to 60fps is simply game changing (no pun intended).

Do I really have to go through the expense of a PC upgrade again just to get 60fps. In 2022??

Greyfox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119921235#Comment_119921235

The issue is a lot of people are still use to 30fps. If these people got use to 60 and then went back to 30 they'd notice a big difference but for now they haven't got use to 60fps.

Grumpypants

I can't think of a game that can't hit 60fps. Most have a performance 60fps or visual 30fps settings that let you choose.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119921393#Comment_119921393

There’s been discussion around it recently because both Gotham Knights (30fps) and Plague Tale Requiem (30/40fps) don’t hit 60 on the next gen consoles. Two different cases though there: the former is clearly unoptimised due to a troubled development, whereas the latter does seemingly push more advanced visual features.

Epic has recently announced the latest build of UE5 allows developers to target 60 on consoles, which is positive news as the switch to UE5 remains one the big unknown when it comes to performance impact for the ‘true’ next-gen games. Interesting note from the Digital Foundry guys though recently that there is a possibility that means performance and quality modes might diverge more in terms of core visual features if the more advanced UE5 stuff like Lumen just can’t be achieved to the same quality at 60.

I will say though: God of War Ragnarok having a high frame rate mode and an excellent base resolution / upscaling solution really does show what can be achieved. Obviously not a totally cutting edge game graphically, but it does set quite the bar in terms of the performance that can be achieved compared to last gen.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119921393#Comment_119921393

Youngling, stay a while and listen to my tale. A tale of times long past. When walls looked slick with baby oil, colour was various shades of grey, music was nu-metal and screens tore at the strain of 15-20 frames per second.

Let me tell you the tale of the age of the PS360...

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119921491#Comment_119921491

I think we are going to see ray tracing pushed more and more now and the current consoles just aren't capable of it at decent speeds, they are another generation away from that. Hell, even the PC isn't quite there yet with the 4090 just getting to 4k full path tracing of simple games.

J. Marston

What I don't understand is the performance mode (60fps) and quality mode (better graphics) some games have.

I tried it on God of War and I don't see the quality of quality mode. What graphics are being improved? Even if they are, it still looks worse because everything is moving at 30fps.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119921706#Comment_119921706

Its usually just resolution that is improved in quality and some games drop ray tracing on performance to help. But honestly unless you are looking for it, rasterisation has gotten so good there's not much difference when ray tracing is off.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119921706#Comment_119921706

It's the great lie of 4k. There are likely quality upgrades, but depending on your tv, how far away you are etc, the difference can be very difficult to see. Digital Foundry and the likes always do graphical comparisons and analysis, but I'd very rarely see the differences, unless it's something I'm paying a lot of attention and focus on trying to see. But if I'm doing that rather than enjoying the gameplay, somethings very wrong. It's why I always opt for performance.

B.A._Baracus

I managed to pick up Cyberpunk today in GameStop of all places for 20 euro brand new. Xbox One.

What's the craic with cross gen should I get an series x. Free upgrade?

johnny_ultimate

Upscaling on modern displays and GPUs has gotten so good too. I cannot tell the difference between native 1440p and 4K on an OLED display. They both look great (1080p you can tell though). And on PC DLSS is basically just a ‘free’ performance boost for very minimal drawback. I also think HDR can really boost the visual quality, and VRR can make even inconsistent frame rates better. Lots of good tech out there make the raw resolution count less important.

Ive certainly never been tempted on any new-gen game to pick quality over performance. Outside of the wizards at Insomniac, ray-tracing on console games has been so limited it’s not worth the performance hit. So far virtually all games suffer no significant visual impact - even on DF they often have to zoom in to show the difference, and it’s borderline unnoticeable in the course of normal play. But I am curious to see what happens when we get cutting edge games more akin to what we saw in The Matrix demo.

Retr0gamer

Christmas videogames buyers guide:

https://twitter.com/theretrobyte/status/1595924717755662337?t=uxLZzERMZXS4xKFQ_Cu5QA&s=19

The irony is that performance mode graphically enhances the game in a much more noticeable way than quality mode. The smoothness of 60fps makes everything pop.

It doesn't matter what they do in quality mode, they could have the most advanced graphics that are physically possible on the consoles and it wouldn't matter. It still looks like utter shyte in 30fps.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119922015#Comment_119922015

Yep. It's a free next gen upgrade. I managed to get the game for 10 stg yesterday on amazon UK. Total fluke.

Wasn't that bothered, but that's a good deal and they've improved the game a lot since launch. Supposed to look great on Series X now.

Word of warning. Supposed to be awful on last gen consoles. But if you do start playing it there, your game saves and game is updated seamlessly to series S/X.

OptimusTractor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119924297#Comment_119924297

Runs brilliantly on PS5

https://youtu.be/5ipqsX9BAno

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119923492#Comment_119923492

6 grand for a PC. A 50 quid phone would have much more power and features today. Shocking how far things have come.

B.A._Baracus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119924297#Comment_119924297

Thanks Man!

Optimalprimerib

Not sure if this was brought up yet but got into vampire survivors. 5 mins in and its the worst game I have ever played. 20 game hours later, still playing it, it is goddamm genius. Such a simple concept but so addictive and fun.

Game of the year for me. Terrible, terrible name though.

Zero-Cool

Anyone familiar with roblox? Thinking of getting my niece's rubux, the ingame currency, but no idea if the money can be used on anything good or not. Any advice on it?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119928207#Comment_119928207

They love to dress their characters. One thing to be careful with depending on her age is the in game microtransactions. My little one blew through a load of robux because she was clicking things in game and clicking through the purchase confirmation unaware she was spending her robux. So what I do now is get her to spend it all while I'm there.

It's always clothes for her character or pets and "flying potions" in the game Adopted Me.

Penn

Anyone playing Evil West? Started it last night, maybe about 2 hours in.

It's fun. Very linear and you're really just going from combat area to combat area. Combat feels pretty good but still very early in the game so will have to see what further upgrades/weapons/abilities get unlocked, as it can start to feel quite samey quite quickly.

Camera isn't always great with no lock-on that I found, which can make it annoying to dodge enemies and have to swing the camera around.

But it's fun so far. Design feels very much like a throwback to PS2/PS3 games but feels very fluid and looks great.

The game seems to be set to Quality rather than Performance from the start, so it starts off as 30fps which is really horrible. However even after you change it in the settings, you have to exit and close the entire game for it to take effect (ie. not even to main menu of the game, but you have to close the game entirely). Performance mode makes a huge difference though and still looks great.

Doubt it'll be a late GOTY contender or anything, but so far I'm kinda enjoying it.

Retr0gamer

Hearing it and gungrave gore feel like they are action games from the PS2 era and in the best way possible