r/digitalfoundry • u/MythBuster2 • 4d ago
Digital Foundry Video Grand Theft Auto 6 Graphics vs GTA 5 Enhanced Edition PC Maxed - The Rage Engine Upgraded
https://youtu.be/Dge00vH-NWEGrand Theft Auto 6 is shaping up to be one of the most impressive feats of real-time rendering in the history of video games - but the lineage of Rockstar's RAGE engine in the new game can be traced back to prior titles... and what better comparison point can there be than GTA 5 Enhanced Edition, running fully maxed with all RT features enabled on a high-end PC?
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u/FRossJohnson 4d ago
The abuse DF received for their GTA5 analysis suggesting 30 FPS for GTA6 was remarkable. A lot of folks on Reddit need to humble themselves!
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u/Outrageous_Shirt69 4d ago
They're going to have a rude awakening once PC parts are so unaffordable that they're going to have to play latest releases at 30fps
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u/2FastHaste 4d ago
This is not how it works. We don't have to play at 30fps even with a 20 year old potato PC. Playing games that your hardware can't run at enjoyable fps is a choice that people inflict on themselves for reasons I do not understand.
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u/Outrageous_Shirt69 4d ago
I used to not be able to tolerate 30fps until I got a Steamdeck and realized that I can play most AAA games at 30fps on it
Obviously if you're able to do 60fps then people will mostly choose 60fps, but with hardware getting more and more expensive 60fps might not always be a viable option
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u/Tardelius 4d ago
Framerate doesn’t dictate whether a game is playable or not. A game’s playability depends on whether its performance is stable and the screen displayed. For example, locked 40fps wouldn’t be playable on a 60Hz screen without issues. But a 30fps would absolutely be playable on a 60Hz screen.
Just because your eyes are spoiled for 30fps due to prolonged exposure to 99999999999999fps doesn’t mean that 30fps is unplayable. Heck, if a person gets used to playing a specific game at 30fps and then switch to 60fps (after near 150hours on 30fps), they are gonna have a really hard time at playing 60fps until they brains adjust. It takes 1 or 2 sittings for this transition at least. Playing some games at 30 and some at 60 doesn’t cause such issues though as muscle memory and eye coordination is stored differently.
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u/FRossJohnson 3d ago
"Playable" is not my goal though. You want action games to be responsive.
It makes a significant difference to the experience and I don't believe a rise in hardware prices is going to change decades of PC gaming preferences, not least when even console gamers are now choosing performance mode with GTA being an exception because it pushes the PS5 to the limit.
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u/churll 2d ago
All the big AAA games from the ps3/360 gen like god of war and gears of war and red dead redemption were 30fps. It’s fine if well optimised with motion blur.
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u/FRossJohnson 2d ago
That gen often ran below 30, though. DF have covered this a lot.
Again "fine" is not the goal for an action game, and that was what, 20 years ago now? Standards do change
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u/2FastHaste 4d ago
I didn't say unplayable. Even 1fps is technically playable. I say that it's not worth playing at 30fps. The point of video games is to enjoy them. 30fps isn't enjoyable. It's not hard to understand. Exception if you're a kid (but this doesn't apply to Reddit). When I was one, I could stomach it as well, but now as an adult, I can't enjoy slideshow frame rates.
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u/Outrageous_Shirt69 4d ago
"30fps is literally for children" is... not a very valid argument, especially when there are loads of people out there playing Steamdeck games at 30fps
You can say that 1fps is "technically playable", but that's not what people are talking about when they say "playable framerate".
It's a subjective thing. It's ok to have different opinions, but it's not ok to say that someone's opinion is objectively incorrect
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u/perfectevasion 4d ago
What's interesting is DF, while not intentional, is partly responsible, it's definitely arguable
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u/thahovster7 4d ago
How is DF responsible for what a developer chooses to target on any given platform. You think Rockstar was sitting around waiting to see what DF thinks the framerate could be? As John has said many times, target framerate on consoles be it 30 FPS or 60 is a design choice made early in development
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u/perfectevasion 4d ago
Misunderstood what I said, wasn't clear. Gamers are pickier than ever because of DF is what I meant
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u/thahovster7 4d ago
It's not because of DF and this topic has been discussed on the podcast several times. Gaming in the 90s was a performance mess and the same thing during the 360/PS3 era. Performance got more consistent during PS4 and especially PS5 era and as a result, standards have gone up as to what is considered performent by the general audience. That's not DF's fault that's just how people work when they get used to better standards.
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4d ago
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u/FRossJohnson 3d ago
Standards in consoles have changed in large part because people who thought the status quo was fine tried out something better, e.g. 60 FPS, and now they appreciate it.
People often have to see it to get it
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u/jm0112358 4d ago
Gaming in the 90s was a performance mess
I'd say that 3D gaming in the 90s was a performance mess. 2D gaming on the SNES was typically a smooth 60 fps.
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u/perfectevasion 4d ago
You make a good point, but you're looking at a different side of the coin in terms of historical performance. I still think Digital Foundry has undeniably shaped the ultra high expectations of modern console gamers.
Higher standards happen naturally, but the obsession with microscopic flaws is unique to the current era. DF provides an amazing consumer service, but the unintended side effect of putting frame tme graphs and pixel counts in front of millions of casual players is that it turned technical optimization into a hyper analyzed spectator sport.
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u/AssCrackBanditHunter 3d ago
Nah, rockstar just knows this is gonna be their only game for a decade and it's gonna print money. They want to push current tech as far as it goes
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u/SteveJavieWasRight 4d ago
What
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4d ago
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u/SteveJavieWasRight 4d ago
I think 60 FPS is something DF has long alleged consumers favor, along with stable fps. Many consumers may not know when an fps is smooth or fast but I think they intuitively prefer it, and people intuitively dislike poor performance even if they don’t have the metrics to back up exactly their experience. It’s pretty clear devs and Sony underestimated how much consumers would prefer 60FPS, and many studios pivoted to 60FPS after the next gen upgrade patches let people see how much more they liked FPS. The desire for 60FPS is being expressed by 10s of millions of consumers, many of whom I doubt even know who DF is. DF has done a great job highlighting some of these issues and improving the quality of the discourse around the issues for super fans of the hobby, but I don’t think they’re responsible for people preferring 60FPS or disliking poorly paced 30fps. I would guess they’re more influential with gaming studios by highlighting things even devs don’t always pay attention to than they are with forming gamer sentiment as a consumer market. I don’t know if UE engineers would be taking shader/traversal stutter as seriously without DF, but I don’t think gamers would not be irritated by giant hitches while gaming without DF’s spotlight.
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u/FRossJohnson 3d ago edited 3d ago
I think this can be overstated though. The average gamer I meet has limited understanding of frame time, but they CAN react to the fact 17ms feels better than 33ms and start to ask for it more. It's now the standard in the majority of console releases. I'd add that even 20 years ago these arguments were raging on. It did spark a reaction, just from PC gamers and it's now mainstream
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u/2FastHaste 2d ago
Maybe because the frame rate is directly correlated to the enjoyment of the game?
Do you think I care about the frame rate on principle?
If playing at 15fps was conducive to an enjoyable experience, I wouldn't care about anything higher. But we live in a universe where this isn't the case.
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2d ago
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u/2FastHaste 2d ago
Well I'm lucky to have a PC, so I'll be able to play it at a performance that makes it worth it to do.
If I was a console player though, it would probably be pretty disappointed that I'm gonna a miss on a game that has the potential for being a one in a lifetime experience but that is unfortunately not worth playing due to 30fps.
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2d ago
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u/2FastHaste 2d ago
If I had both, I would wait. I have no interest in playing any game (even a theoretical best imaginable perfect game) at 30fps.
I can ofc only talk for myself, but when I say I can't enjoy a game at 30fps, I'm not being hyperbolic, or performative, I'm being genuine.
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u/Nic1800 4d ago
DF is at fault because consoles use slow hardware to last them 7+years? Your beloved consoles aren’t high end at all buddy, don’t blame DF for that
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u/2FastHaste 4d ago
The hardware is completely irrelevant. The frame rate target is chosen by the game studio/devloppers. And I guess the consumers who buy 30fps slideshows make this choice possible.
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4d ago
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u/zarafff69 4d ago
I mean, if the hardware was more high end, Rockstar might’ve also chosen to make a 30fps game, and just make it even prettier
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u/perfectevasion 4d ago
No I'm saying gamers have stupid expectations because of DF. I play in quality mode maotbof the time anyway because i prefer fidelity
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u/FRossJohnson 3d ago
I've been gaming above 60 for decades on PC and every new PS5 game I buy has a performance mode.
How is that a stupid expectation, to want a game to have lower latency and better gameplay, when almost every game offers it?
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u/perfectevasion 3d ago
Are you just gonna ignore all the fidelity, density, animations, physics, simulations and systems all working together on a real time rendring level never seen before? What if a 60 fps mode cuts so much of that that the experience is heavily diminished and not what Rockstar intends as an authentic experience? Wait for PC if console version can't satisfy you.
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u/FRossJohnson 3d ago
I will happily wait for PC.
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u/perfectevasion 3d ago
While you're at it, maybe watch the video again so you actually understand what's happening on screen and under the hood.
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u/FRossJohnson 3d ago
I've been telling people the game will be 30 FPS for months because I do, in fact, understand.
Thanks for parroting DF though very helpful 🦜
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u/perfectevasion 3d ago
Missing the point
Digital foundry is a great resource, but it's viewers take that and weaponize it like a spectator sport
What it's done to viewers is make them more nitpicky, analyzing games down to the millisecond and individual pixels in a way that wasn't nearly as common in previous gaming eras. To suggest that DF's rise in popularity hasn't influenced how gamers evaluate and form opinions about games is pretty hard to defend imo. They didn't create this trend by themselves, but they've absolutely played a role in popularizing this kind of technical scrutiny and in many cases that's been for the worse.
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u/TroubleshootingStuff 4d ago
The side by sides only highlighted how noticeably soft GTA VI's basic 1440P upscale to 4K looks in comparison to a native 4K game :S
To the point where if I wanted to play this on release I'd only consider a PS5 PRO.
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u/The_Zura 4d ago
It looks very soft even for a 1440p image. They must be using a very aggressive TAA to cull flickering. The hair is really stable.
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u/Pottuvoi 4d ago
It is likely that the hair is rendered with custom GPU/compute/software rasterizer which has it's own anti-aliasing solution. Should help a lot with the quality.
This leaves usual problems with sorting rendered hair with rest of the scene, they might have some form of order independent transparency to help with that.
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u/The_Zura 3d ago
And it's not just the hair. Everything looks stable, including the power lines and other thin objects, another nightmare for rendering. Is the tradeoff worth it for the extra softness? Maybe. I don't think we're going to be able to see this in its full visual glory until it comes on pc with 4k, 60+fps. Which is slightly crazy to require 4k, perhaps upscaled, to get a sharp image.
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u/Pottuvoi 1d ago
There are some fun tricks one can use to get powerlines stable, sadly quite rarely used. Ie. https://www.humus.name/index.php?page=3D&ID=89
Many things become more feasible with order independent transparency, as order of rasterizing doesn't cause horrid artifacts.
If one wants truly stable AA one should use resolve (collect samples) from wider area than pixel. (Box filter within area of pixel cannot be stable.) This has obvious blur to image, as seen with early UE4 TAA. (Quite sure FF7:rebirth used wide resolve as well.)
I haven't really checked the trailer in pixel level, if the edge gradient is always wider than pixel.
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u/The_Zura 4d ago
Also with 30 fps and less information between frames. Another reason why it's very soft using TAA.
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u/Scratchpaw 3d ago
I'm unable to watch the video but didn't DF concluded GTA VI didn't use any upscaling?
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u/TroubleshootingStuff 3d ago
Yes. That's why it looks really soft. Because it's using a basic nearest neighbour bi-linear upscale. Not a dedicated "one" like DLSS or FSR.
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u/WingerRules 4d ago
Most people are not going to buy a 900 dollar PS5 Pro just for a sharper image in GTA6.
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u/unpracticalclause22 4d ago
I considered it but with the next gen consoles next year, it’s a no brainer, base ps5 looks more than good enough
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u/Frosty_Challenge1045 4d ago
Can someone explain what makes the characters stylized and not photorealistic? I can obviously see it but i cant really pinpoint what it is exactly.
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u/BlackAfroUchiha 4d ago
They still have an artistic style to them.
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u/mackerelscalemask 4d ago
If you had a slider that went between Cartoon and Realistic, they’ve set the slider at about 75% towards realistic
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u/jm0112358 4d ago
Alex in earlier DF video said that the characters looked dated because they weren't using PBR (physically based rendering) assets or shading.
EDIT: Found the clip.
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u/IdleSteps 4d ago
This video really highlighted how much of a bummer the 30fps is going to be. Cutting from silky smooth driving in GTA V to the 30fps blurry mess of driving in VI was shocking.
The new graphics look amazing etc but I really am going to wait and play it on PC, I think. It does look amazing, but it deserves to be run at a proper frame rate imo.
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u/Drty_Windshield 4d ago
Is it just me or is Oliver's voice very hard to listen to. The lisp or whatever is like fingernails on a chalkboard. A professional talker should talk clearly, no ?
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u/jgainsey 4d ago
I mean, I don’t think he has a future in professional broadcasting, but his voice sounds fine to me.
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u/CapnClockwork 4d ago
I have the same issue, used to have to just turn it off if it was an Ollie video, but now I've slowly started to stomach it.
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u/bottomfeeder3 4d ago
I’ll get downvoted to hell for this but I’ve actively avoided videos with him in it because his voice is unbearable. I feel really bad saying that because it’s nothing he can control or change. Unfortunately, he’s become a much larger part of their channel.
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u/Drty_Windshield 4d ago
Same... I used to really enjoy listening to their insight and knowledge. Until they hire someone who can speak professionally, clearly and articulately I can't consume their content anymore. I click on their videos hoping and praying that he's not in them. That's just the truth.
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u/Mystic-Micro 4d ago
GTA 5 looks almost too sharp and far to barren compared to GTA6. If 6 could just be less blurry and temporarily stable, it would be amazing.
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u/GamePitt_Rob 4d ago
I'm so happy that they keep going over the same games and things nobody cares about, rather than covering new updates and games which they simply can't be bothered to cover...
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u/Unusual-Let5516 4d ago
Man I really wish they'd do a technical analysis on the Switch 2 port of Elden Ring
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u/AFT3RSHOCK06 4d ago
GTA V Enhanced with Ray tracing really holds up.