EpicRandy said:
Yes mostly, There will be some extreme cases, but such extreme cases will also affect Series X and PS5 way out of their standard zone. I use a lot of Immortals of Aveum as an example because it's very recent and one of the most extreme cases, if not the most extreme, which creates a great tangible example of what we could expect of series S in such a scenario and probably what's closest right now to your "near-broken state". When you require Series X and PS5 to internally render at 720P there isn't much leeway left to create an acceptable console experience altogether. yet the S, despite being way down in resolution and preset, and it shows, still manages great draw distance, stable fps, and delivers the full experience of the game so the most "near-broken state" up to date is still not that bad. The "Anger" that will come out of such a title is pretty likely not to be reserved for a Series S owner, being a Series X owner I question the design choice Ascendant Studios made that produced an experience requiring Series X/PS5 to render as low as 720P way lower than my expectation for a 9th gen title. So when people point fingers and say Look at the poor Series S performance with Title X, the reality is it's probably a poor experience across the board anyway. The Series S experience delivery will always be tied to the one its most powerful siblings can achieve. Have a game that delivers on the expectation of a Series X/PS5 owner, it will deliver on the expectation of a Series S owner, deliver a game subpar to X/ps5 owner, it will also be sub-par to Series S owner expectation. At the end of the day, it's up to the devs to design their games the way they want and I want them to have the leeway they desire, but it's also their responsibility to remain within reason. If devs go berserk trying to create the next visual benchmark at the expanse of the overall game experience on all but the very high-end PC rigs while the vast majority of their customer will be bound to a substandard resolution and presets then what's the point of even targeting such demanding graphics even in the first place? |
I agree on a lot of this, but we practically just entered this painfully slow generation. Sooner or later, I don't know if cases like Aveum would remain rare among AAA games. Anyone who insisted those consoles were [insert resolution/framerate] machines have no understanding of game development whatsoever, but I can't entirely blame them when we had literal developers misinforming people that midgen upgrades were "Not happening, because PS5 is a 4K machine as is".
There is no such thing as "4K machine". Even the PS4 Pro was 4K capable, but in the end it's the workload that decides the resolution or framerate. Like in workout terms the weight you're lifting determines your reps.
The anger should be more common towards the Series S, because Microsoft emphasized early into the generation on 1080p-1440p and 60-120fps being the expected experience. And FSR is useless at scaling from resolutions as low as sub 500p. To top the resolution and framerate reductions, Series S is also seeing huge visual cutbacks including more limited Nanite and Lumen utilization. Aveum Series S vs X is borderline generational difference.
But the average complainer will blame the developers, using silly arguments like Series S running indies at 4K.
"but it's also their responsibility to remain within reason"
720p at 60fps is acceptable imo, if barely. FSR helps the final image looking at lot crisper. "4K machines" not reaching their expected 4K image quality (which is an overkill anyway) is not as problematic as Series S rendering in native 400p-500p, where FSR is pretty much useless. We both know that high-end PC's won't be targeted as the primary systems to develop for, because their userbase is tiny. PS5 and midrange PC's were always going to be the default platforms for obvious reasons, the first of which is popularity/adoption rate.
Last edited by Kyuu - on 04 September 2023
