DF Direct Special: Gamescom 2023 Hands-On & Tech Deep Dives

Gamescom 2023 Impressions

In this special episode, the Digital Foundry team reports directly from Cologne, Germany, to share their exclusive hands-on experiences and technical insights gathered at the Gamescom trade show. The team discusses major industry updates, technical breakthroughs in upscaling, and initial impressions on highly anticipated upcoming titles.

Starfield First Impressions

The hosts detail their exclusive preview of Starfield, praising its geometric detail, illumination systems (noting that almost all lights are shadow-casting), and its minimalist interface. They addressed a widely noticed "jitter" issue in previous trailers, confirming that the game itself runs smoothly, and highlighted Enoch Hoare's atmospheric soundtrack as a standout feature.

AMD FSR 3 and Fluid Motion Frames

A major focus of the episode is the introduction of FSR 3. The team witnessed curated demos in Forspoken and Immortals of Avium. Key takeaways include:
• Cross-vendor compatibility: The technology operates as an async compute shader, making it usable by GPUs beyond AMD.
• Hyper-RX & Fluid Motion Frames: AMD showcased driver-level frame generation for DX11 and DX12 titles, potentially delivering significant performance boosts at the expense of needing to manage artifacts during rapid motion.
• Latency Mitigation: The team noted the importance of Anti-Lag Plus and stressed that further testing is needed to evaluate real-world input lag.

NVIDIA's DLSS 3.5 and Ray Reconstruction

The team discusses NVIDIA's DLSS 3.5 and its Ray Reconstruction feature. The technical consensus is highly positive:

"These are some of the best-looking visuals, period, that I've ever seen. It actually starts to look like real CGI with path tracing."

• Denoising Breakthroughs: Ray Reconstruction effectively replaces multiple specialized denoisers, leading to higher image clarity, especially in reflections and foliage.
• Path Tracing Optimization: They argue that ray counts can be scaled to allow more hardware to experience path tracing, rather than reserving it exclusively for flagship GPUs.

Additional Topics

• PlayStation Portal: The team shares skepticism regarding the limitations of Sony's Portal remote-play handheld, noting the lack of Bluetooth audio and cloud-streaming functionality.
• Night Dive Remasters: Positive reports on the upcoming remasters of Turok 3 and Star Wars: Dark Forces, praising the studio's commitment to preservation and modernization.
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Early impressions of a work-in-progress build running on Unreal Engine 5, highlighting excellent atmosphere but noting areas for further refinement in character interaction.