SplooshDmg

@WallyWest I'm not really sure why I can buy Lightyear, The Rings of Power, and Stranger Things season 4 all on Blu-ray then. None of them are forcing me to pay for their subscription for these major releases, and these are all relatively new releases, of course. So I'm not sure what you're really getting at here, but I don't think your point is entirely factual.

Plus, considering ABK has some of the most predatory MTX in the industry, I don't see how MS buying that would make it worse than it already is. So, I don't think this point is anything but knee jerking for the sake of it.

@NEStalgia REDACTED

@UltimateOtaku91 Honestly, good. I like the attitude. For one, even with ABK MS probably wouldn't have nearly the ability to put PS out of business, and most regulators have seemed to agree on that. It's high time people at Xbox had a little confidence again. These are pretty unfriendly competitors, I'd prefer they all being trying to wipe each other off the map at all hours of the day, that's how I know they're trying.

This is it, folks! The real final boss battle! The CMA is like, the optional boss battle in the post game.

I got this for free on EGS a while back. Still haven't tried it, but it does look pretty good.

@PJOReilly They're such lovely games. It's a shame PoE2 just absolutely bombed sales-wise. What could have been a glorious return to ye olde Infinity Engine gaming just wasn't meant to be.

I thought you almost snubbed Pillars of Eternity entirely, then I found PoE2 in the honorable mentions. I guess I'll let it slide, this time.

Obviously, I will award it with 11 Todd's out of 10. I'll give it 12 Todd's if he throws in some extra bugs.

@Fenbops I'm truly an advocate of Masahiro Sakurai's stance. 30 is adequate and 60 is optimal. Of course, not everyone will agree with that (nor are they required to), and as our friend NES points out, there really does seem to be some issues around really snappy displays and lower framerates. But even still, not all 30fps is made the same. Trying to play one of Gust's JRPGs on PC at 30 is basically just a slideshow. I'm assuming it's the rubbish engine and the game's complete lack of post-processing effects to try and smooth it out. It looks utterly awful. Then you get some of Nintendo's 30fps offerings that by comparison are just excellent. It's truly a weird issue I guess because software is different and not every 30fps is as unpleasant as another.

@NEStalgia I've actually done a lot of digging on this since you have been bringing it to my attention. I guess a lot of people in the forums I've looked at have basically said where some of these newer displays have these near instant response times, it's essentially just making the transition between frames harsher because on older slower displays the frames were sort of smearing together. Some people claim they notice it, others don't. It's definitely a bizarre phenomenon, but you aren't just rambling drunk like a mad man, there's apparently something to it. I guess I'm glad I opted for a QLED as my main gaming display rather than an OLED.

The words true and RPG used next to each other in a sentence warms my soul. But really, I wouldn't expect inXile to make anything else.

@S1ayeR74 You can stick to whatever you want, because at this point in the game I don't care anymore, because this is a waste of both our time.

This seems to keep happening. I'll admit, I'm definitely not one to personally get as bent out of shape about this as others do. However, I really don't think any $70 game with a single player component should be always online. F2P live service, that's one thing, but ehhh, I don't like this.

Oh! Neon White you say!?

@S1ayeR74 My dude, it's not a theory. You are 100% ignoring the core point of what the CPU actually does. The GPU does not exist to take the load off the CPU. The GPU handles processes given to it by the CPU. The CPU compiles the needed information and then sends the commands to the GPU to be rendered. I'm not saying you couldn't reduce Starfield to 1440 and see the framerate increase maybe somewhat, but you likely are not going to hit 60fps or even close to it constantly, which is why the decision was made to cap at 30. If the CPU is already working to the maximum at 30, then the CPU simply has no overhead left to double the order for the GPU to achieve a solid 60fps. The graphical details and resolution have zero impact on what the CPU is doing. That doesn't mean there isn't also a heavy load on the GPU though, and the determination to go with 4K was simply a choice of we can hit 4K at 30, but we can't hit 60 at 1440/1080. So, we're just sticking with 4K and 30. We're already seeing all sorts of games releasing with pretty shaky performance modes. 60fps is hard work and the CPUs in these consoles are already getting old. It's not always just turn the resolution down and 30 more frames magically appear. It's just more complicated than that, because there's a lot more to these devices than just a monster GPU.

@NEStalgia Yeah, I mean, I'll tell anyone. I love Creation Engine. It's janky, but I love what it does. I do kinda wonder if Starfield truly will be the most polished Bethesda game to date, like Phil claims. Like you said, in past games there has been a myriad of stuff running that probably shouldn't have been, but with the way the scripting handles all the variables, etc. Q&A for these games has to be nightmarish. Even a huge game like Rockstar makes, it's huge, but everything mostly has fixed outcomes, so you aren't testing for all of these crazy combinations and what ifs. Everything being modular and having its own physics, resulting in goofy things like a fly launching the horse drawn cart in the intro into the sky and no one being able to figure out what was happening for months. It's truly just... The best.

@S1ayeR74 Your entire paragraph is funny, because it's wrong. Lol

If the problem is the CPU as even outlets like DF suspect, turning the GPU intense settings down doesn't just magically fix the CPU bound issues. The CPU calculations have to be doubled when you double the framerate. If the CPU can't calculate that much, then you aren't doubling the framerate.

OH GOD. This is the trailer I've been looking for.

@NEStalgia See, ironically, I see Bethesda games as simulators sort of disguised as RPGs. Because in the truest sense, that's what an RPG is supposed to be. Me essentially roleplaying by simulating a character in different world. Somehow, it's come around to this idea if a game has something resembling a plot, then it must be an RPG. How far we have strayed from God's plan.

Where I live, you basically have AT&T or Verizon, because everything else is just is terrible.

Please, don't toy with my heart, Phil.

@Tharsman Yeah, it comes in the form of monthly bill credits, so you basically have to keep the phone until the payment plan matures, or you are going to have to pay the remaining balance. I was fortunate my 4a5G was already paid off, so I just handed it over and now I have a 7 Pro for the next 30 months. Lol

@Tharsman I got lucky over Christmas and for some reason AT&T took my Pixel4a5g in as a trade-in and covered the entire cost of a Pixel 7 Pro. I'd have never paid $940 for a phone, because I don't care that much. But with a trade-in like that, sign me up.

@NEStalgia I'll sell my junk to any unsuspecting sap I can. No refunds sign is hanging in the window.

As to the DF take, I don't know, really. I don't see them defending it unless they see a reason to. You are obviously no dummy, but well, I mean, they're DF. So, we'll certainly find out a lot more once they actually get their hands on the game.

@Tharsman Lolololol I had forgotten about that. But yeah, that was 100% a thing. That dragon was just bloating save files into Oblivion. Or that's the way I recall it anyway. It's been a minute. It was the same issue with New Vegas that once the save file grew over something like 12MB the performance just absolutely fell out the bottom.

@Tharsman Papyrus is the object-oriented scripting language that makes that happen. Papyrus is basically constantly writing interactions into a txt format based on what you have done and interacted with. That's why the saves continuously grow, because that file from Papyrus is just growing and growing the more you play.

@NEStalgia I've got a little over 2K in this one. Ironically my wife's MacBook cost a heck of a lot more, and well... Yeah... MY PC could take a CPU upgrade and more RAM, but I've not seen any reason yet that it actually needs one. I am in no way an always chasing maximum performance type of person. People do that, but I don't. I just want a really good machine, and I have one that will hold up for at least the entirety of this generation. Like I said the other day, if my 3700x somehow isn't up to snuff for Starfield, I'll buy a 5800x for a couple hundred bucks and sell the 3700x.

@NEStalgia When it comes to these things, money isn't an issue. I literally just don't care. If I have the money to blow to satisfy what I want out of my hobbies, I'm doing it, because YOLO, I guess. Or FOMO. Or some other stupid acronym the children use these days. I've worked hard in this life to one day be able to afford at least a handful of stupid things that my soul desires. I'm not denying myself that.

@NEStalgia I'm not necessarily saying that. My point with that tracking is me just pointing out that Bethesda can't just switch to UE5 all of a sudden and keep making the kind of games they make, because UE5 does not script the same way. It's a hallmark of a Bethesda game and it requires an inhouse engine to do it. As you said above, they use Creation Engine basically because they have to. Creation Engine at this point is a crux of what makes a Bethesda game a Bethesda game. The Outer Worlds showed us exactly what that type of game looks like on UE, and it's not even close to the same type of depth.

DF has basically flat out said Starfield is unquestionably CPU bound, even Alex Battaglia defends that idea, and that dude does not do 30fps. It's the same situation as Flight Sim. I don't care if the engine performs poorly. Bethesda games on consoles have been bad since always. They've always been PC games, and they are still PC games. I bought the PC I bought because I've said this was coming from the start.

@NEStalgia In reality what TotK is somewhat similar, but it's still not even close to the same. I can't place a stick in a box at the start of TotK and go back and collect it 80 hours later because the game doesn't script that way. Zelda is tracking A LOT for a Switch, there's no doubt about it. It's a technical marvel. The way it handles the recall ability is crazy impressive for the hardware, but it's a very short-term memory compared to what Bethesda does. I'll die on the hill of Creation Engine because it's basically my favorite engine. I don't care if the performance is lacking, the engine has the tools to build the games I want where others don't.

@S1ayeR74 It has nothing to do with what it looks like. The framerate isn't determined just by what it looks like. CPUs and GPUs have to render frames in tandem. If the CPU is busy handling a billion other calculations in the background, then there isn't enough CPU overhead left for the CPU to handle the extra frames the GPU is trying to render, thus creating a bottle neck. If you lower the resolution, then the GPU is rendering even more frames and the bottleneck becomes even bigger because the GPU is running too fast. It's not about visuals, it's about things like tracking the individual physics of every single item you can interact with, which is not a feature UE5 has.

EG seems like a company that spent a whole lot of money they didn't have to buy things they... Probably needed.

Oh? How exciting. The sooner this hits a real judge, the better. C'mon US gubbernment. Give the FTC that injunction!

@Tharsman I'm not saying he straight up denied it could happen, but I'm also not as confident as most people. I ended my own comment with, "So, who knows really". There is of course always a door of possibility that it happens, but I'm not convinced hardware manufacturers really, really want to.

@Tharsman Take it however you will. You can't conveniently leave out the "That’s not the feedback we’re getting right now." Even enthusiast sites like this aren't really clamoring for one, because no one even feels like this gen has really started yet. The PS4 Pro and Xbox One X were both handily outsold by base models last gen. There's not a particularly strong argument for why one really needs to happen, and I'm sure they know that. Not saying they won't, but I'm not really sure many people actually want one.

@Ralizah I'm about 100 hours into TotK and I think I'm going to finally go mop up Ganondorf. I somehow have gotten sunk into Tokyo Mirage Session FE# Encore, as well. Pretty soon Pikmin 4 will be out and I'll surely get stuck on that for a while. I'll use my PC again someday. Right now, fuzzy Nintendo games are doing it for me.

I think this is the thing. I think a lot of current gen games will still offer 60fps, but I think we will see more and more that don't. A lot of these games entered development 5-6 years ago, long before consoles gamers at large were really clamoring for 60fps. Like a lot of actual devs have pointed out, 60fps usually has to be decided early in production. People were plenty happy playing 30fps at the time, but now the goal post has moved on a lot of these games that were already deep in development.

@Green-Bandit Tom Henderson, who is a pretty reliable leaker, and maybe possibly even The Snitch, has good info and he's the one really reporting on the PS5 PRo. However, Phil is on record just today saying there won't be a mid gen upgrade from Xbox.

Phil Spencer says he doesn't feel an imperative to release an Xbox with a major upgrade in mid-cycle

“That’s not the feedback we’re getting right now. Right now, we’re pretty set on the hardware we have.”

So, who knows, really. It could be done as easily as just slapping a more powerful GPU in there and calling it a day. However, it does create a new SKU for devs to optimize for and Sony's advantage this gen seems to be less SKUs to optimize for.

@S1ayeR74 Unreal Engine behaves nothing like Bethesda's engine though. Creation Engine handles scripting in a way that very few engines do. People can take shots at Creation Engine for being rickety or whatever, but the engine does things that Bethesda needs it to do, that aren't just options with a licensed engine like UE. Creation uses a scripting language called Papyrus that is an object-oriented scripting language. It allows for the tracking of all the variables that make Bethesda games Bethesda games. Developers choose to use proprietary engines for a reason, often because a licensed engine is a one size fits most solution, and that engine might not fit the ambitions for their game. Unreal Engine is the biggest flaw of The Outer Worlds. The game was great, but it felt absolutely shallow compared to New Vegas, and the difference was the lack of Creation Engine.

@NEStalgia Bear in mind, I'm an aspie. Mentally torturing myself through over analysis is my specialty.

I'm actually skeptical about how most PC's will handle this even. Sure, super high-end CPUs will have no issue. However, the recommended CPU listed on Steam right now is a Ryzen 5 3600x, which is a shade slower than what is loaded in the current consoles. This also does not specify the settings that hardware is targeting, so it's not particularly useful information. I kinda suspect the game will support stuff like FSR and DLSS though. My PC only has a Ryzen 3700x, which is pretty equivalent to the consoles, but my board could take a Ryzen 5900x. I'll upgrade it if I absolutely need to. A 5800x usually only runs like $200 right now.

@S1ayeR74 I'm just not convinced that Starfield isn't optimized. If anything, it seems TOO polished for a Bethesda game. We saw with Flight Simulator that 60fps on consoles just isn't happening. It can hit 60fps in open areas, but the second you hit a populated area the framerate just chugs. I kind of imagine it's the same story for this game. Massive scale is the killer of framerates, and this is massive in scale. I've been saying it for years now, to the point I upgraded my PC just for this game and I apparently wasn't wrong to.

@Green-Bandit I'm not buying those rumors for a second. Dual CPU's makes little to no sense whatsoever. In a sense they already have multiple CPUs because they are running CPUs with 8x cores. They aren't going to change the fundamental design philosophy of a console midway through a generation. AMD is currently into Zen 4 and these consoles are loaded with Zen 2. There's plenty of room already for a simple upgrade, if it's economical and doesn't create nightmares for dev teams. Sony went through their phase of doing silly things with CPUs and they learned a harsh lesson from it.

@NEStalgia I mean, I know that. OLED's are allegedly something like 1000x faster than an LED. I'm just saying that even on my LG OLED, I've never seen what you're talking about. I'm not saying I don't believe you, but I just have never experienced anything similar to what you're talking about on hardware new or old. I'm also not sure I care as much as you. This is a personal thing, and I appreciate that it is. Which is why I'm a champion of options, but sometimes circumstances maybe don't always allow for those options.

To your point about Pro consoles, if this really is as CPU limited as DF is suggesting, then a Pro console probably wouldn't change the framerate because the CPU's in consoles aren't going scale well and it'd probably just have nearly thr same CPU. A newer Xbox would probably only have an upgraded GPU, similar to the Xbone X. So, really I'm not sure an XSX Pro would solve this issue, if the issue is what we think it is.

@belmont Yeah, I'm not sure what the issue on FF7R on Deck is. For what it's worth, the HDR on FF7R for PC has been broken since day one and is STILL broken. I had to go to SDR and just use ReShade to make the game look halfway decent. It's definitely a troubled port, but it was plenty playable.

Gust has a history of just grueling bad optimization, basically on any platform. Consoles usually fare better than PC, but even the PS5 version of Ryza 3 leaves a lot to be desired, which is the version I ended up buying. But the games are pretty low budget, so I imagine they just aren't getting the best optimization in the world. Blue Reflection: Second Light absolutely worked my 3080ti at 4K60 on PC, even though really, it's not a visually demanding game at all. So, I wouldn't call it a bad port, exactly. It's just... A Gust game.

@belmont The shader compilation stutter in FF7R is real, especially in the slums. UE is basically completely borked on PC until Epic reworks parts of the engine, which they are supposed to be doing, but it might take a minute. The unholy combo of DX12 and UE have just created some nasty shader issues over the last couple years. So a lot of the super broken games are ones built on UE, which is a fair share of games.

@Ralizah We did it! We predicted the future! My obnoxious graphics card has now been proven necessary! Take that buyers remorse!

@NEStalgia Can I be devils advocate and suggest that if 30fps is breaking this new display that bad, that maybe the dumpy budget display was kind of... A better display.

I dunno. My brand new QLED set works fine. Our OLED set works fine. Zelda just runs somewhat poorly, but I'm really, really just fine with it. But again, I can tolerate a 1st person game at 30, I did it for years, but today I'm not going to tell you I'm wild about it, which is why I took out a second mortgage and gave Nvidia some money. But you are right about the camera panning. Those quick turns in 1st person games are a lot more yucky that a slower camera pan in 3rd person. There's just no reality where I own a box capable of playing Starfield in some capacity and I don't find a way to make it work.

@NEStalgia I'll take your word for it, because I have never ever encountered such a thing. Really though, I like 60fps as much as the next guy. Which is WHY I bought the PC I did. Obviously it's pretty important to me, but I'm also not going to not play a game because it isn't 60fps. I don't care that much.

@Tharsman I mean, you don't have to explain to me. I'm being a bit tongue in cheek when I say that. I put a 3080ti in my PC last year specifically because I just knew Starfield was going to be 30fps on consoles. I'll play any 3rd person game in 30fps, no question. 1st person I genuinely prefer 60.

@GuyinPA75 People would shudder to think that I just chose to play the new Ratchet and Clank in the 30fps Fidelity mode. I know, it's sounds crazy, I'm a real mad man. But really, I think most games should have options, because most games are plenty capable of it. I'm pretty convinced Starfield is an exception, though, because the scope of the game is just colossal. However, a game only being playable in 30fps or maybe even lower, won't stop me from playing it if it's something I'm surely going to enjoy.

@NEStalgia 100 hours or so later, I've just gotten used to it, I guess. I mean, it's better than XC2, I think?

@Suda52 I mean, yeah, basically.