Hi all, I've purchased a series x and cannot wait to play the updated version of the game when it's released. Currently, I play on a HD tv, but I'm aware series x can be played in 4K. I'm not very technical, but could please could someone advise if there is likely to be a noticeable difference if I was to play on a 4K tv or monitor when the series x version of the game is released? What sort of differences could I expect? Thanks
The series X version looked noticeably better, even on a normal HD TV. When I purchased an oled 4K it looked even better again and displayed in full HDR.
I use it on a 1080p TV, and all games are significantly better on my Series X, thanks to the supersampling from rendering at 4k.
It will basically take the 4K image, and downscale it to 1080p, resulting in noticeably fewer "jaggies".
On a 4K TV you can get better image quality due to the screen being higher resolution, so the image will be noticeably sharper than on the HDTV. Currently, on Series X, you can choose to run the game in "HD" mode (which is 1920x1080) or "4K" mode (which is 3840x2160). Even on an HDTV I recommend choosing the latter, because it provides a sharper image due to the supersampling technology (the console renders the image at 4K, then downscales it to HD, which results in a better image compared to rendering it in HD in the first place). When the new, Series X Optimized version of TSW 2 arrives, these two modes will go, and in their place there will be two new graphics options, one favouring graphics quality and the other favouring performance (framerate). Judging by the last developer stream, the "graphics" option will be 4K with much higher settings, like shadows and draw distance, with the cost of some framerate, while the other mode (let's call it "performance" for now) will use lower settings in order to reach max performance (60 frames per second). The resolution of this second mode wasn't mentioned in the stream, it could be either 4K or lower. Basically the game is going to look better after the update, regardless of what screen you use, but you can get the best quality by using a 4K screen, both now and after the Series X update. I hope this wasn't too confusing.
I just can't wait for the draw distances to be updated. I know the new consoles can do so much better than what we get. I'm tired of seeing the poles pop up after every 2 in GCC. And seeing the PC streams makes me a little jealous, but we are running a version optimized for Xbox One so I understand. Just hope we get close to PC graphics when the Series X comes. It will make it feel like a brand new game.
I am yet to experience 4K. I have a 4K UHD TV but no PS5 or Series X (stock is bad these days) so yep
It took me 15 minutes from hitting refresh on the page the minute of the preorders going live, to the "checkout complete" screen actually loading. Ten minutes after that, they ran out of the initial batch. Stunningly, the manufacture date on my console is less than 2 weeks before it was actually delivered to my door on launch day. This global supply shortage is hitting so many sectors reliant on electronics pretty hard. I blame the car manufacturers mostly, for their newfound insistence on all the unnecessary electronics that keep on bricking in the cars my partner's mother buys.
It's ridiculous there seems to be an amount of luck involved. I admit I must of spent 4 hours a day for 3 months calling stores to see if they received any. 2 hours in the am and 2 hours in the pm. One day the last store on my list, and of course the farthest away from me got some in the night before. I went right in as quick as I could. And the manager told me that they sent him only 6 units. Imagine 6 units for a city with over 1 million people. Just insane.
Oh, I know that feeling, I remember when Toys R Us was liquidated and suddenly one day a super rare store exclusive collector set (Thanks, Hasbro) that originally cost like £70 and went for several hundred on ebay started showing up in B&M bargains for like £25 each. My friends and I were in all our local branches (Thank you, Tyne and Wear Metro! *coughcoughPleaseAddThisDovetail*) scouring them for it, but only I managed to land on the one branch in a hundred miles that got them, and grabbed three for me and my friends.
I hope distance field shadows will be used in both graphics modes. I intend to play in 60 fps regardless of the compromises (45-50 fps they mentioned isn't sufficient for me), I hope the game will still look better than currently. I also hope they don't stick to 4K in the performance mode, lower the resolution and keep the higher settings if it needs to be for 60 fps.
I like how more games nowadays on console are giving us the full set of graphics options we have on their PC counterparts, with the ability to turn on and off individual postprocessing effects, decide on resolution, antialiasing level, etc. It lets us find a balance of FPS and quality that works for us, like how in many games I will turn off DoF effects, chromatic aberration, and motion blur, and in return be able to get 4k60 with most other effects that actually matter maxed.
Post-processing effects have more of an aesthetic effect rather than performance cost in most cases (like chromatic aberration, motion blur or film grain), so having them as options is always welcome. I don't mind not having the other options on a fixed hardware, though. I believe it's the developers' job to properly optimise a game for consoles, whereas on PC we get all the graphics settings because every PC configuration is different, so it would be impossible for the developers to decide what to prioritise. On consoles, I'm perfectly fine with having a "graphics" and a "performance" mode. But when it says performance, it should be configured to really provide 60 fps, making resolution and graphical settings secondary. So when I choose such a graphics mode it means I'm willing to sacrifice pixel count and anything else (within reasonable boundaries of course) in order to have a stable performance. I'm most sensitive to that. I also understand that there are many consoles around now, 6 if I count correctly (Xbox One X & S, Xbox Series X & S, PS4, PS5) so it's harder than ever to optimise for all of them. Yet it's still leaps and bounds easier than on PC with literally thousands of possible configs. So for console games I would still prefer more constrained settings, "what do you favour"-style, tailor-made for the different consoles rather than leaving all the settings up to the players. On PC it makes sense because no one could possibly know your personal config, but on console everyone has the exact same hardware (out of only 6 possibilities) so the developers could (and should) get the most out of them. It was the developers of DIRT 5 who said it was actually quite easy - they basically have a setup for every console that just works, set exactly to the abilities of the various consoles. If the players had to set every graphics setting themselves then I'm afraid many would get a subpar experience and they would have to investigate themselves how to make it better (a good example of this is PSO2: New Genesis). And that's something console gaming should avoid in my opinion. Aesthetic post-process effects are a different story, they're good to have as toggles.
I get very frustrated when there's a "performance mode" preset on the console version of a game which chooses to turn on barely noticeable graphical options I have no interest in, which have like a 12fps overhead when I test them on an equivalently specced PC, and turns off a bunch which I tend to have on all the time on PC with barely any performance cost. Like, in many games I'd take shadows on the PC medium setting instead of ultra as a tradeoff for still being able to dial up the reflections from low to high and maintain the same 60FPS performance, but it's so arbitrary which ones devs pick as a priority to retain in their performance modes on the console ports sometimes. Maybe I *want* the option to turn just SSAO off in certain circumstances but not others! Now if *I* were working on that UI design for console, I'd have a "Budget suggestion" option in the menus, where it tells you, on average, like those in-depth Digital Foundry settings analysis videos do, roughly how much you can expect each setting to impact your performance by, and less tech-savvy players can budget the sliders accordingly, with a general idea of what to expect. I'd not be surprised to see many who genuinely can't notice the difference be absolutely satisfied with their game running at 24FPS with everything maxed out (Incidentally that's about how PSO2 NGS runs any time I fire it up on my base XBox One, as my cloud save always imports my Series X graphical settings XD - which is also why you should NEVER IMPORT A CP77 CLOUD SAVE ON XBOX ONE FROM SERIES X unless you like playing at like 2FPS, as it saves the Series X graphics settings).
I thought I had heard Matt say there were going to be 2 settings performance or visual. Visual will be full ultra on everything but FPS on Series X is 35-45 FPS and the Series S a little lower than that (perhaps 30-40FPS ?). And performance will be 60FPS with a very minimal drop in graphic fidelity on both. Either way it sounds like its going to almost feel like a new game. And hopefully GCC wont have 2 sets of poles you can see set far apart and then 2 more sets slowly pop in between those. The draw distance is killing me! If only I never saw what my friends copy of TSW2 looked like on his PC. I would never have noticed and been happy with what I've got. Oh well C'est la vie!
We need that 60fps since next gen console are capable of double that. Would be cool if we got ray tracing at some point in the future too.
This is why I opted for series S as there is a plentiful supply. In say 6 months I will upgrade to series X and pass the S onto my kids which means the One S moves to the youngest and the original one will go.
I got both because when there's not a pandemic going on, I spend a bunch of time away from home, and once I can safely travel again, I plan on grabbing an Asus ROG Strix XG17AHPE, which can neatly slip inside the laptop slot of my backpack. Between that and my Series S, they should come to no more than 3Kg. And thanks to the inbuilt battery in the screen, I could literally play the console version of TSW2 *while on a train*, using only one power socket. The S is a really good choice for a whole bunch of reasons, and Sony totally missed a trick, in not going for multiple different markets at once.
Well I am currently expatriated in France but ordered my Series X from Amazon Germany, just when they had some stock. It can be pot luck but you can use online resources such as Dealabs and other web sites to give you a heads up on available stock in your country. I’m a bit of a tech junkie and have TSW2 on PC, PS5, and now Xbox SX, so I am in a fortunate position of being able to compare. It has been confirmed in the streams that next-gen graphics will be updated to “near-PC levels”, including draw levels and textures. Matt has hinted at a 60hz performance mode at least for Series X, but what has not yet been confirmed is the audio, which on the XB One build is of an unbelievably sh***y quality (why?). I’m hoping (praying) this will be fixed on the Series X build, which has the potential to be the superior console experience.
