Digital Foundry Direct: GTA V, Elden Ring, and FSR 2.0

Overview

This episode of Digital Foundry Direct dives into current technical achievements and controversies in the gaming industry. Key discussions range from the technical upgrade of Grand Theft Auto V on new consoles to the ongoing performance challenges in Elden Ring and the announcement of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0.

Key Topics

Grand Theft Auto V Upgrades

The discussion covers the updated version of GTA V on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.
• Performance Improvements: Transition to a stable 60 FPS and better visual fidelity compared to last-gen hardware.
• Technical Critique: While the ray-traced shadows and overall performance are superior to the original console releases, the team highlights frustration with the outdated, heavy character movement and animation systems.
• Platform Comparison: Despite some issues, the console experience is deemed more polished than the current PC version.

Elden Ring Patch 1.03

The focus shifts to the latest patch for Elden Ring.
• Performance Boost: Improvements were noted, particularly on Xbox Series consoles, showing roughly an 8% boost in open-world performance.
• Persistent Issues: Despite partial improvements, frame pacing and stuttering remain significant issues, especially on base consoles, noting the vital importance of VRR for a smoother experience.

"It's better, but you definitely really feel it."

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2.0)

A deep dive into AMD's latest upscaling technology announced for Deathloop.
• Technological Shift: Unlike FSR 1.0, FSR 2.0 is built from the ground up as a temporal upsampling solution.
• Industry Impact: The panel expresses optimism about its potential as a vendor-agnostic alternative to DLSS, aiming to bring high-quality reconstruction to all GPU hardware without needing proprietary machine learning cores.

Gran Turismo 7 and Online DRM

The episode addresses the controversy surrounding Gran Turismo 7's requirement for an online connection.
• Accessibility: The panel strongly criticizes the always-online DRM model, particularly as server outages for maintenance leave a single-player game unplayable.
• Preservation: Strong concerns are raised regarding the long-term preservation of digital games when servers are eventually shut down.