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Digital Foundry: Star Wars Outlaws - PC Tech Review - The High-End Graphics Experience

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


Ubisoft Massive's Snowdrop engine is delivering some of the most cutting-edge visuals of the generation - and after the triumph of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Star Wars Outlaws does it again. Alex takes an extended look at the technology of Outlaws running at its absolute best and highlighting PC exclusive features such as Nvidia RTXDI and Ray Reconstruction. And there are some negative elements to factor into the discussion too, including issues to clear up in future patches.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:02 Snowdrop Engine Tech
00:06:47 PC Exclusive RTXDI
00:13:54 PC Exclusive DLSS Ray Reconstruction
00:20:54 Stuff That Is Not So Good
00:24:25 HIdden "Outlaw" Max Settings
00:26:05 Performance Considerations
00:28:30 Conclusion



No summary on PC stuff for me, let me enjoy my coffee. :messenger_smirking:
 
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winjer

Member
I get why people might hate his personality but when it comes to PC stuff he is very good. I have not seen this video yet but in previous ones he was very thorough.

Not really. He makes several mistakes and is extremely biased is his analysis.
And to make things much worse, he sounds obnoxious.
DF, was much better before he joined in. And mind you, I'm a PC gamers first and foremost.
 

winjer

Member
Who did you think it was going to be?

Besides, he’s the best on the team at PC stuff. Wasn’t going to be John and sure as shit wasn’t going to be Tom "The Blind Bandit" Morgan.

Sometimes, even for PC games, it's some other member of DF. I think Tom did a few recently.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Sometimes, even for PC games, it's some other member of DF. I think Tom did a few recently.
Can't recall last time Tom did one. Rich sometimes does, but Alex is a lot better than either of them. GN is very good but they seldom do guides. HU has one up and Tim is pretty solid too. Besides that, it's all smaller channels that are hit and miss and aren't consistent with the uploads, so Alex is really kind of the best we got on a regular basis.

Edit: Also, he's full of shit. The chick is ugly as sin in still shots and in motion.
 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
Even at the highest setting the game looks muddy and blurry. Low res textures and characters look like clay models without the shine.


this is one of the only times someone could say " looks like a ps3 game" and I would agree.
 
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Very bad analysis. Not even 0.1% has RTX 4090 to be fair. At least do a analysis on RTX 3060 and compare with PS5 performance than you can guess the quality of the port.
I miss old DF, where use to compare apple to apple with PS5 settings and equal GPU to see the quality of the port ,however, in this regard now at least of optimization side HUB as taken over DF.
 

mansoor1980

Gold Member
19fps with RTXDI on a 4090 and 7800x3d
is this going to be patched or do we need better specs?
 
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DanielG165

Member
This game is heavy as hell, and works my 2080 Super to the limit. But even at 1080p high, RT high, and DLSS performance, the game looks incredible in person. Definitely feels and looks like a current gen title in every way but certain faces, mainly human NPCs, and the odd shot of Kay.
 

mansoor1980

Gold Member
"IT'S BEEN NOIN YEARS."

I'm rolling. Glad he's improved a lot since.
noice-nice.gif
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Tim from HU does a better job, while not bring annoying.
I mentioned Tim, but that's one guy and Tim does it once in a blue moon. He did it for Wukong and Star Wars but skips most major releases. Alex can be trusted to cover pretty much every big game that comes out on PC.
 

winjer

Member
I mentioned Tim, but that's one guy and Tim does it once in a blue moon. He did it for Wukong and Star Wars but skips most major releases. Alex can be trusted to cover pretty much every big game that comes out on PC.

True. But he does a better job.
Besides, he also has to do Monitors Unboxed, which is some of the best monitor reviews.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
True. But he does a better job.
Besides, he also has to do Monitors Unboxed, which is some of the best monitor reviews.
Absolutely, I'm subscribed to Monitors Unboxed. Tim does a lot more than just analyze games which is all Alex does. As I said, there aren't many consistent youtubers when it comes to optimization guides and tweaks. The really good ones spend most of their time doing other stuff.

Edit: Also, it's not just the knowledge but quality and production values of the videos. Most smaller youtube channels don't have a fraction of DF's budget so their videos are often not as professional and well edited.
 
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Buggy Loop

Member
Not really, there are plenty of channels doing better work regarding PC tech.

Are You Sure About That John Cena GIF by MOODMAN


Are you sure?

Honestly haven't seen as much peoples trying to explain in layman's terms the technology. His explanation of AA technology throughout the years, ray tracing tech, etc. He takes the time to make diagrams and so on. Yes you can probably find more detailed information from some obscure channel but overall? Alex is doing the work and he's good at it. Pure raw performance benchmarks and the like? Yea there's better. But literal graphic quality analysis and explanations? I can't think of one.
 
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winjer

Member
Are You Sure About That John Cena GIF by MOODMAN


Are you sure?

Honestly haven't seen as much peoples trying to explain in layman's terms the technology. His explanation of AA technology throughout the years, ray tracing tech, etc. He takes the time to make diagrams and so on. Yes you can probably find more detailed information from some obscure channel but overall? Alex is doing the work and he's good at it. Pure raw performance benchmarks and the like? Yea there's better. But literal graphic quality analysis and explanations? I can't think of one.

That is a good example of how bad some of his work can be. His explanations of RT, especially of bvh structures us very flawed. Sometimes erroneous.
 
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Buggy Loop

Member
That is a good example of how bad some of his work can be. His explanations of RT, especially of bvh structures us very flawed. Sometimes erroneous.

You would have to pinpoint that, never saw that.

I can't think of a better ambassador that spent so much time to explain RT and raise awareness on the why we should have RT than Alex.
 
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Senua

Gold Member
He just confuses terms, doesn't know what a bvh is and whats for.

If you want to know how graphics tech works, there are much better channels.
For example, Cem Yuksel. A researcher and college professor.
Yea but he makes like 4 videos a year and not on specific games like Alex, very different content. You just dislike Alex's personality so write off his work
 

winjer

Member
Yea but he makes like 4 videos a year and not on specific games like Alex, very different content. You just dislike Alex's personality so write off his work

I dislike his personality, but he also makes many errors, and is very biased.
He is not a good source for tech knowledge.
 

Senua

Gold Member
I dislike his personality, but he also makes many errors, and is very biased.
He is not a good source for tech knowledge.
He is very biased in his preference towards PC gaming but that doesn't affect PC tech videos does it. He seems to keep his rarer PC vs console comparisons rather neutral too tbh.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
He just confuses terms, doesn't know what a bvh is and whats for.

If you want to know how graphics tech works, there are much better channels.
For example, Cem Yuksel. A researcher and college professor.

Well no shit, there's more knowledgeable peoples out there that have 1h ~ 2h videos on these topics that will lose the attention of 99% of viewers, but they are not making graphic analysis of new upcoming games nor able to explain in layman terms the tech we see and why they are cool.
 

winjer

Member
Well no shit, there's more knowledgeable peoples out there that have 1h ~ 2h videos on these topics that will lose the attention of 99% of viewers, but they are not making graphic analysis of new upcoming games nor able to explain in layman terms the tech we see and why they are cool.

But Alex very often makes erroneous explanations of what is happening.
And it's not because he is simplifying it, it's because it's just wrong.

If you see his content just for the settings comparison, it's ok, there is not much he can screw up there.
But for explanations on what rendering systems and technologies do, he is a terrible source. Sometimes, being outright misinformation.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
But Alex very often makes erroneous explanations of what is happening.
And it's not because he is simplifying it, it's because it's just wrong.

If you see his content just for the settings comparison, it's ok, there is not much he can screw up there.
But for explanations on what rendering systems and technologies do, he is a terrible source. Sometimes, being outright misinformation.

Don't hesitate to @ me whenever it happens again, honestly, can't recall when that happened for BVH.
 
I've seen other YT comparison videos before and thought RTXDI didn't really make a difference in this game, but Alex's video is clearly on a different level and his EXTREMELY detailed analysis shows there are actually a number of places where RTXDI makes a big difference. I just wish developers would test these new high-end PC specific features before making them available to gamers, because these performance issues Alex pointed out are unacceptable and should not be present in any AAA game.
 

mansoor1980

Gold Member
I've seen other YT comparison videos before and thought RTXDI didn't really make a difference in this game, but Alex's video is clearly on a different level and his EXTREMELY detailed analysis shows there are actually a number of places where RTXDI makes a big difference. I just wish developers would test these new high-end PC specific features before making them available to gamers, because these performance issues Alex pointed out are unacceptable and should not be present in any AAA game.
giphy.gif
 

Zathalus

Member
Tim from HU does a better job, while not bring annoying.
Each have their strengths, HU has all the GPU benchmarks and decent optimized settings guides but is analysis of the actual technologies involved are pretty subpar. Compare Alex covering ray reconstruction in Outlaws vs the complete lack of it from HU, or the issues with RTXGI frame spikes that Alex described, once again missed by HU. The coverage of RTXGI basically boils down to it looks better and here is the performance cost, not exactly great if you want more detailed coverage.

I don’t even really care for this game, but the coverage from Alex going over everything RTX impacts in detail is fun to watch, despite his annoying character quirks.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
It happened so many times, with him mistaking proxy geometry with a bvh.
He doesn't even know that a bvh is a data structure and not real geometry.

  • Bounding Volume Hierarchy (BVH) is a popular ray tracing acceleration technique that uses a tree-based “acceleration structure” that contains multiple hierarchically-arranged bounding boxes (bounding volumes) that encompass or surround different amounts of scene geometry or primitives. Testing each ray against every primitive intersection in the scene is inefficient and computationally expensive, and BVH is one of many techniques and optimizations that can be used to accelerate it. The BVH can be organized in different types of tree structures and each ray only needs to be tested against the BVH using a depth-first tree traversal process instead of against every primitive in the scene. Prior to rendering a scene for the first time, a BVH structure must be created (called BVH building) from source geometry. The next frame will require either a new BVH build operation or a BVH refitting based on scene changes.



Why would Alex need to explain it is a data structure? Almost everything in a pipeline is a data structure, I don't see the point. The tree structure in the end is replicating a form of simplified scene geometry / primitives. It is testing if a ray will hit a geometry. The bounding box is literally based on geometry, not thin air. Once it hits a box and it is a leaf node (if not then it will test the children), it will test the triangles in that node for a hit.



Alex says so here too in his simplified version of it @ 4:10.

"so a ray shot into a scene goes through these layers of boxes until it finally hits and enters one and registers a hit against geometry so the more rays that are shot out here the further that ray travels or the more boxes that that ray touches the more milliseconds this step will need"

It's the same fucking thing in the end unless you want to police jargon and even between university and paper literature on ray tracing it varies.



Seems more like an

43d0fd1c4b9c3f0746b6f358c3fab28f009b702a_full.jpg


I don't get the hate.
 
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winjer

Member
  • Bounding Volume Hierarchy (BVH) is a popular ray tracing acceleration technique that uses a tree-based “acceleration structure” that contains multiple hierarchically-arranged bounding boxes (bounding volumes) that encompass or surround different amounts of scene geometry or primitives. Testing each ray against every primitive intersection in the scene is inefficient and computationally expensive, and BVH is one of many techniques and optimizations that can be used to accelerate it. The BVH can be organized in different types of tree structures and each ray only needs to be tested against the BVH using a depth-first tree traversal process instead of against every primitive in the scene. Prior to rendering a scene for the first time, a BVH structure must be created (called BVH building) from source geometry. The next frame will require either a new BVH build operation or a BVH refitting based on scene changes.



Why would Alex need to explain it is a data structure? Almost everything in a pipeline is a data structure, I don't see the point. The tree structure in the end is replicating a form of simplified scene geometry / primitives. It is testing if a ray will hit a geometry. The bounding box is literally based on geometry, not thin air. Once it hits a box and it is a leaf node (if not then it will test the children), it will test the triangles in that node for a hit.



Alex says so here too in his simplified version of it @ 4:10.

"so a ray shot into a scene goes through these layers of boxes until it finally hits and enters one and registers a hit against geometry so the more rays that are shot out here the further that ray travels or the more boxes that that ray touches the more milliseconds this step will need"

It's the same fucking thing in the end unless you want to police jargon and even between university and paper literature on ray tracing it varies.



Seems more like an

43d0fd1c4b9c3f0746b6f358c3fab28f009b702a_full.jpg


I don't get the hate.


You missed the point. He thinks that a BVH is geometry. Not a data structure.
And yes, this distinction is important in explaining how RT works. And it's not some hidden knowledge, because a simple Google search will explain it.
 
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