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Digital Foundry: Remnant 2 - An Unreal Engine 5 Nanite Showcase? PS5 vs Xbox Series X/S DF Tech Review

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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?


Up until now, it's only Fortnite that's seen Unreal Engine 5's Nanite micro-geometry system deployed on the current generation consoles. Remnant 2 changes all of that, with both Nanite and virtual shadow maps deployed. Can the current-gen consoles handle it? Is 60fps viable in performance and balanced modes? What about Xbox Series S? We had questions and Oliver Mackenzie provides answers.

00:00 Overview
01:04 Visual features
06:58 Image quality and performance
13:55 Analysis and conclusion
 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
I found the design color rules they used for the game...

3cba5cf1f8980f851ec5165db5c828d4.jpg
 

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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
- Current gen only, UE5 title.
- The game generates areas randomly each run so no two runs will have you go in the exact same places.
- UE5 usage is limited to Nanite, which prevents LoD pop-in. No RT or Lumen.
- Unreal's shadow map tech also present.
- SSR is used and the occlusion effects are noticeable
- Production values aren't quite on par with the top tier games.

- PS5 has unique issue where graphical artifacts appear on screen after camera cuts.


Visuals:

- PS5|SX have 3 modes.
- Quality @ 30 FPS, Balanced Targeting 60 FPS and Performance which unlocks FPS (see perf. segment)
- Mostly graphical features are different, resolution is more or less the same, between these modes.
- Quality has higher foliage, better shadows, better SSR.
- Balanced and Performance look nearly identical.
- Performance runs with full screen tearing

- PS5 and SX: Quality renders at 1296p. Balance at 792p average. Perf at 720p.
- DRS is in play in Quality and Balanced. Performance sticks to the 720p.
- All modes up-sample to 1440p.
- Consoles use Unreal's Temporal Super Sampling which provides a better result than PC at 1440p using FSR. Though DF could not nail Unreal's TSR 100%
- All modes look roughly identical but Quality is the most stable with the least visual breakup.

- Series S only has one mode. 900p @ 30 FPS which up-samples to 1080p.
- Series S also doesn't have motion blur.


Performance:

- PS5: Balance targets 60 FPS with V-Sync. Dips to 40s and worst dips at high 30s seen
- Quality targets 30 FPS with occasional single frame drops, one area noted with mid 20 drops.
- Performance: No V-sync, incredible tearing with similar frame rate dips like Balanced.
- DF does not recommend Performance mode

- Series X is identical to PS5 with similar runs of play with same kind of drops and lack of performance consistency.
- Series X, when the system is set to 120hz, is the only version where the performance can exceed 60 FPS. PS5's 120hz mode is still locked in a 60hz container.
- However, VRR does not seem to work in the 120hz mode, with tearing still present.

- Series S only has only the 30 FPS mode, it has a bit more extended dips compared to PS5|SX in their respective 30 F{S Quality modes.
- Lack of motion blur is noticeable and makes it feel choppier than it should.
 
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Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Performance mode was a mistake. It gave console gamers false hope that it would be great all generation.

Come back the go 30 fps goodness with higher resolution and stable frame rate.
Just play Quality Mode. You have that 30fps goodness there.

Also, no wonder it takes a 4090 to maintain 60fps at native 4K, that's 9x the amount of pixels on consoles.
 

winjer

Member
- Consoles use Unreal's Temporal Super Sampling which provides a better result than PC at 1440p using FSR. Though DF could not nail Unreal's TSR 100%

Yes, the game is using TSR on consoles.
I tried enabling TSR on PC and it works. But it has a lot of ghosting artifacts in moving particles, like those around the red stones. FSR2 does not have these ghosting artifacts.
So the moment I saw those ghosting trails on DFs video, I knew it was using TSR and not FSR2.
 

Mr.Phoenix

Member
- Consoles use Unreal's Temporal Super Sampling which provides a better result than PC at 1440p using FSR. Though DF could not nail Unreal's TSR 100%
Also, note they said it looks identical/on par to PC running 1440p native. While better than PC doing FSR 1440p
 
playing the game its a really pretty game, I'm playing on ultra and havent experienced the console version but the different environments are all vastly different and beautiful in their own rights and the image is extremely crisp. I was surprised when people were calling it ugly. It looks about as good as GOW 5 IMO, which gives credit to GOW5 considering its from 2019 but this is still a good looking game.
 

analog_future

Resident Crybaby
Internal resolution yes, looks much better on your screen after the upscale tech, than your native 792p game. Its the same discussion everytime with these DF videos and raw internal resolution numbers.

Regardless, the performance is really odd considering the raw pixels being pushed, upscaling tech or not. If modern games are going to be rendering at sub 1080p resolutions, you'd think they'd look absolutely mind blowing, not just "pretty solid" like Remnant 2 does.

Remnant 2 doesn't look all that different from something like, say, Gears 5, which ran at a much higher resolution on much slower hardware.
 
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If developers will use the option between performance and quality mode to half-ass the ports with minimum effort, then they better stick to one thing. This whole 720p thing is embarrassing.
 

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Quality mode 1296p
Balance mode 792p
Perf mode 720p
And people keep parroting that we don't really need Pro consoles... UE5 seems to be heavy af with nanite and if you add lumen on top of that, oh boy!

Edit: An no, mid-sized dev studios don't have the experience, man power and talent that Epic Games have at their disposal to optimize UE5 titles as much the latter did with Fortnite.
 
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Mr.Phoenix

Member
Another 720p game in performance mode on PS5 just like FF16. I'm sensing a trend here in 2023...

720p is a fucking joke. Maybe decent on a 27" monitor but not on a 55" TV or larger.

These resolutions are insane. We're back to early Xbox One / PS4 days.

Balanced mode is 792p lol


back to ps3 days with the sub 1080p resolutions
Is this some sort of group selective ignorance thing or just the new kinda trolling?

Reconstruction is by now, a consistent and proven tech and we all should know how that stuff works. Its not 720/792/12xx whatever. It's a reconstructed 1440p with any of those internal resolutions.

Anyone coming in these threads and saying what you guys are saying like you guys are saying it, are just trolling. Because the end product doesn't in any shape or form look like a 720p game....

In the fucking video they used a 4090 with high settings and the game running a native 1440p on PC to show this fact for crying out loud.
 

analog_future

Resident Crybaby
Is this some sort of group selective ignorance thing or just the new kinda trolling?

Reconstruction is by now, a consistent and proven tech and we all should know how that stuff works. Its not 720/792/12xx whatever. It's a reconstructed 1440p with any of those internal resolutions.

Anyone coming in these threads and saying what you guys are saying like you guys are saying it, are just trolling. Because the end product doesn't in any shape or form look like a 720p game....

In the fucking video they used a 4090 with high settings and the game running a native 1440p on PC to show this fact for crying out loud.

Again, upscaling tech is great and I love that it's a thing, but it still doesn't explain why performance is so poor at sub 1080p rendering resolutions.

I said it above:

Regardless, the performance is really odd considering the raw pixels being pushed, upscaling tech or not. If modern games are going to be rendering at sub 1080p resolutions, you'd think they'd look absolutely mind blowing, not just "pretty solid" like Remnant 2 does.

Remnant 2 doesn't look all that different from something like, say, Gears 5, which ran at a much higher resolution on much slower hardware.

I would've thought that the whole benefit of modern upscaling tech is being able to render at much lower resolutions to further push visual effects/physica/lighting/detail etc.. Not to get away with being able to have a game run like ass and be saved by AI upscaling.
 
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Celcius

°Temp. member
Is this some sort of group selective ignorance thing or just the new kinda trolling?

Reconstruction is by now, a consistent and proven tech and we all should know how that stuff works. Its not 720/792/12xx whatever. It's a reconstructed 1440p with any of those internal resolutions.

Anyone coming in these threads and saying what you guys are saying like you guys are saying it, are just trolling. Because the end product doesn't in any shape or form look like a 720p game....

In the fucking video they used a 4090 with high settings and the game running a native 1440p on PC to show this fact for crying out loud.
Upscaling, frame generation, all that is fine and well but we're talking about what the machines are able to natively render given their power.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Quality mode 1296p
Balance mode 792p
Perf mode 720p
Well yes but these are his suspected numbers before upscaling.
He shows that end result looks native 1440p on pc. And resolution is dynamic so it's not always 720p lol or whatever.
tbh, the screen space everything would be more distracting. Just bake shadows in and use cubemaps. SSR stuff is crap.

And THANKFULLY the game is not using that shitstain upscaler fsr2. I hate it so much. I would prefer to play 720p TAA, more stable image quality game than that pixelated, shimmering fsr2 crap. yes forspoken - I am looking at your fucking terrible fsr2 use (yes, I am this serious with fsr2 hate)

I never played the first game and this one is kinda interesting?

edit: You can see the consoles are treated as pc + epic presets. Using consoles as budget pc's is not the way
 
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Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Also, note they said it looks identical/on par to PC running 1440p native. While better than PC doing FSR 1440p
Lol, no, he didn't say that. He said that in still shots, they look similar, and even then, you can use your eyes to clearly see that the console version is blurrier. It's also better than 1440p using FSR Performance mode which reconstructs from 720p, but FSR sucks at that level, so not surprising.

Image reconstruction tends to fall apart in motion, not in stills.
 
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