DF left out an important aspect during NBA 2K21 analysis

rntongo · Dec 4, 2020

First off, I enjoyed the analysis video about NBA 2k21 from digital foundry.They were able to highlight the performance differences and overall similarities between the two major platforms. The part about the Series X dropping frames will hopefully enable developers to identify what was causing the issue and fix it. I also like how they highlighted how the SSD was important in enabling better UX by loading in a lot of data instantly.

Now the major thing they left out. The loading time comparison between the two systems for loading into a game(offline) are missing. All they showed was the PS5 loading in instantly(And also there's no clarification if the videos of the players warming up are a masked loading screen). The argument that its basically instant makes sense but since this is DF it would have been good for them to explain more as we're used to that.

The reason why this is so important is because the PS5 has twice the disk I/O throughput of the Series X. Yet in other youtube videos it has been shown that the Series X loads faster into the game for NBA 2k21. And this is one of the first truly optimized for next gen titles so this comparison would have been good to elucidate on how this discrepancy is happening and what it means for future titles.

This video clearly segments the loading time performance and other aspects of the game really well. But ofcourse it would have been great to hear from DF how the Series X is able to perform so well yet it has half the SSD speed. And maybe Sony would be able to invest more and figure out how to guide developers on better utilizing the SSD or something like that.

I hope for Fifa 21 and MK11(optimized for next gen) they could do a loading time comparison for an offline game. And even more so for future titles they don't leave this out. I'm not saying this in order to start a console war type thing but I think such comparisons shed more light on the performance of the SSD which is arguably the biggest upgrade this gen.

UPDATE:

Here's another video of loading time comparison. I initially left it out because it has some delay on the Series X side where it asks for account details but also since its not segmented, it doesn't show what a user will typically do when playing the game. Regardless both systems perform similarly which is impressive.

bonch00ski · Dec 4, 2020

It's probably deliberate.

that was meant to be sarcastic

bing · Dec 4, 2020

1.) It's a cross-gen gaming produced during COVID-19, they probably wouldn't have had enough time to fully optimize it.
2.) They probably didn't try playing the game offline.
3.) If the PS5 is loading at half the speed while offline, it's most likely a bug.
In reality, both consoles will likely be extremely close to each other in both graphical performance and loading times for multiplatform games, and that is a good thing.

Jaypah · Dec 4, 2020

I thought it was weird too but figured he didn't notice much discrepancy and as such didn't fully test it.

gozu · Dec 4, 2020

I would like to know the answer to this, just out of curiosity.

Perkin_Warbeck · Dec 4, 2020

All the differences I hear between the consoles seem like real nitpicks. How I miss the halcyon days of 900p vs 1080p...

rntongo · Dec 4, 2020

bingo said:
1.) It's a cross-gen gaming produced during COVID-19, they probably wouldn't have had enough time to fully optimize it.
2.) They probably didn't try playing the game offline.
3.) If the PS5 is loading at half the speed while offline, it's most likely a bug.

So both Series X and PS5 versions were not fully optimized! How can Sony fix the bug? These are the things I was hoping to hear from DF!!

TeenageFBI · Dec 4, 2020

bonch00ski said:
It's probably deliberate.

Yikes.

Filth_Flannigan · Dec 4, 2020

I am not sure, really, cause in this video, the PS5 does load a Quick Game from Cold Boot 3 seconds faster.

NBA 2K21 Load Time/Performance Analysis - Xbox Series X and PS5's drives are INSANELY quick!

Our next gen coverage continues right here - we've been taking a look at the upgraded versions of NBA2K21 on PS5 and Xbox Series X to see just how quickly th...

www.youtube.com

Ps5 26 Seconds
XBSX 29 Seconds

Who knows at this point. Obviously there are some things that devs can learn to take advantage of these drives, their speeds and outputs.

rntongo · Dec 4, 2020

Ser_Foxalot said:
All the differences I hear between the consoles seem like real nitpicks. How I miss the halcyon days of 900p vs 1080p...

I understand. But to be fair, twice the PS5 SSD speed is a huge advantage so the question has consistently been how will this impact performance. Thus far on cross gen optimized games it hasn't shown a clear difference. Where is the all the extra badnwidth? Or is the Series X punching above its weight due to all the customizations? These are the questions I was hoping to be answered

Uzupedro · Dec 4, 2020

Reading the OP I thought it would be a big discrepancy but, at least in the 2 examples of the video you linked, it's less than 1 second on both testings.
lol

exodus · Dec 4, 2020

bonch00ski said:
It's probably deliberate.

Oh come on.

DMczaf · Dec 4, 2020

rntongo · Dec 4, 2020

Filth_Flannigan said:
I am not sure, really, cause in this video, the PS5 does load a Quick Game from Cold Boot 3 seconds faster.

NBA 2K21 Load Time/Performance Analysis - Xbox Series X and PS5's drives are INSANELY quick!

Our next gen coverage continues right here - we've been taking a look at the upgraded versions of NBA2K21 on PS5 and Xbox Series X to see just how quickly th...

www.youtube.com

I specifically left this video out because the loading times are not properly segmented like in the video I put in the OP. When you're normally playing a game you load into the menus, then choose a team then load into a game.

rntongo · Dec 4, 2020

gozu said:
I would like to know the answer to this, just out of curiosity.

Yes same, DF video was impressive but I was hoping for this comparison to really elucidate on the performance of the disk I/O

EggmaniMN · Dec 4, 2020

I really don't see how this couldn't just be posted in the thread for the video as none of this really needs to be "called out" like it's some big deal and we already have multiple people making conspiracy theory posts.

Like, there's nothing to explain with the consoles and why they perform as they do right now. They just do. No one needs some ultra nitty gritty detail on that because honestly, no one is going to have an answer, just a bunch of guesses, and in this case, it just continuously leads to a bunch of wild assumptions, people talking like they know more than they do and reddit conspiracies about "tools" and whatever.

Like damn can y'all just simmer down

Tagg · Dec 4, 2020

The differences look negligible and likely weren't worth talking about.

Please stop peddling this conspiracy nonsense that Digital Foundry is anti-Microsoft.

rntongo · Dec 4, 2020

Jaypah said:
I thought it was weird too but figured he didn't notice much discrepancy and as such didn't fully test it.

Yeah honestly was so disappointed when it was compared just to last gen. I was wondering why not show the two head to head?

Filth_Flannigan · Dec 4, 2020

rntongo said:
I specifically left this video out because the loading times are not properly segmented like in the video I put in the OP. When you're normally playing a game you load into the menus, then choose a team then load into a game.

It was basically them starting the game, hammering X, going to quick game and starting it on both machines. Just something else to check that was different than your example.

xenonium · Dec 4, 2020

Uzupedro said:
Reading the OP I thought it would be a big discrepancy but, at least in the 2 examples of the video you linked, it's less than 1 second on both testings.
lol

It's amusing that the weaker console is generally doing slightly better in FPS/res and the slower IO console is generally doing slightly better in load speeds.
It's like raw numbers mean nothing.

Bishop89 · Dec 4, 2020

rntongo said:
I understand. But to be fair, twice the PS5 SSD speed is a huge advantage so the question has consistently been how will this impact performance. Thus far on cross gen optimized games it hasn't shown a clear difference. Where is the all the extra badnwidth? Or is the Series X punching above its weight due to all the customizations? These are the questions I was hoping to be answered

From what I've heard, a lot of PS5 versions "perform" better on the ps5 despite the XSX power advantage.

This probably is a bug, or not fully optimised due to covid.
Also I think these comparisons are mostly useless for games designed around last gen consoles.

m29a · Dec 4, 2020

rntongo said:
(And also there's no clarification if the videos of the players warming up are a masked loading screen)

I've been playing on the PS5 and can confirm that you can hold the X button to skip all that.

Also regarding them playing offline or online, I don't think it'd matter that much here. But I believe the footage recorded was quick play AI vs AI and that doesn't really connect online per se compared to an actual online match.

rntongo · Dec 4, 2020

EggmaniMN said:
I really don't see how this couldn't just be posted in the thread for the video as none of this really needs to be "called out" like it's some big deal and we already have multiple people making conspiracy theory posts.

Like, there's nothing to explain with the consoles and why they perform as they do right now. They just do. No one needs some ultra nitty gritty detail on that because honestly, no one is going to have an answer, just a bunch of guesses, and in this case, it just continuously leads to a bunch of wild assumptions, people talking like they know more than they do and reddit conspiracies about "tools" and whatever.

Like damn can y'all just simmer down

Tagg said:
The differences look negligible and likely weren't worth talking about.

Please stop peddling this conspiracy nonsense that Digital Foundry is anti-Microsoft.

I'm not making conspiracy theories. I enjoy DF, just pointing out something that they underlooked that would have been great for us viewers to see!! How do the two SSDs stack up. DF is already counting frames between the two. As I said, not trying to support any console war baiting thing. Both systems are capable

RedHeat · Dec 4, 2020

rntongo said:
I'm not making conspiracy theories. I enjoy DF, just pointing out something that they underlooked that would have been great for us viewers to see!! How do the two SSDs stack up. DF is already counting frames between the two. As I said, not trying to support any console war baiting thing. Both systems are capable

Besides BC games, PS5's SSD has so far shown to be faster in all comparisons so does it really matter?

Spork4000 · Dec 4, 2020

Tagg said:
The differences look negligible and likely weren't worth talking about.

Please stop peddling this conspiracy nonsense that Digital Foundry is anti-Microsoft.

I'm old enough to remember when people thought DF were paid Microsoft shills. The ancient times of *checks notes* three months ago.

BadAss2961 · Dec 4, 2020

Hold up.

1. This guy's video loads two different arenas in his comparison. Loading games is practically instant regardless, but this obviously makes a difference.

2. In booting the game, the XSX only seems to be ahead because it's missing a splash screen for some reason. The PS5 actually boots the game a couple seconds faster.

Deleted member 50658 · Dec 4, 2020

Ffs they are within a second and even less so why should DF do a big piece about it especially since it's just a cross gen game. You guys seriously have to stop nitpicking at shit not worthwhile when DF is probably 500% overworked as it is and bombarded with conspiracy theories.

Jaded Alyx · Dec 4, 2020

..could you not have just posted this in the thread?

ZeroX · Dec 4, 2020

Like honestly OP are you trying to fuck with John's mental health even more than everyone on Twitter and YouTube? Come on.

mikeys_legendary · Dec 4, 2020

It is probably worth a mention, but it isn't really a big deal. We know the PS5 has a faster SSD, but when the difference is less than a second or two I don't think it should get a whole section dedicated to it.

I don't think Digital Foundry is shilling for anyone.

Absolute · Dec 4, 2020

Nice videos. So far from what I've seen this will be a very close gen visually. Maybe you guys can see the difference but my middle aged eyes just see identical graphics and loading so close it doesn't matter. Hoping to be able to pick up a XSX when it's available to play with my friend but it seems like you can't go wrong from a hardware choice pov!

Vinc · Dec 4, 2020

What's with the conspiracies against DF lately?

the-pi-guy · Dec 4, 2020

There are more factors at play than just raw I/O speed. If the only factor was ever just I/O speed, the PS5 would never have load screens longer than 3 seconds and the XSX would never take longer than 6 seconds or so.

These processes are going to be affected by the CPU (what does the system actually do during loading screen, it's not usually a simple load from memory), the API (are the APIs or the game versions themselves optimized?).

stryke · Dec 4, 2020

Oh now load time comparisons are important.

rntongo · Dec 4, 2020

ZeroX said:
Like honestly OP are you trying to fuck with John's mental health even more than everyone on Twitter and YouTube? Come on.

First of all, his video was amazing. I'm just saying I wish he would have done some analysis comparison of both systems. Not even criticism. As I said the video was very good. Just want to see more analysis on the SSD performance.

rntongo · Dec 4, 2020

xenonium said:
It's amusing that the weaker console is generally doing slightly better in FPS/res and the slower IO console is generally doing slightly better in load speeds.
It's like raw numbers mean nothing.

Exactly! A huge surprise so far

kambaybolongo · Dec 4, 2020

xenonium said:
It's amusing that the weaker console is generally doing slightly better in FPS/res and the slower IO console is generally doing slightly better in load speeds.
It's like raw numbers mean nothing.

...are there other next gen games with faster loading on Xbox?

KORNdog · Dec 4, 2020

It's likely that in the case of loading, and the case of performance. Third party Devs simply aren't actually optimising anything for next gen on a system by system basis. They'll have a set config file for "next gen" and whichever system happens to run it better in certain aspects will simply run it better.

It's why we're seeing minimal differences between each console. And will likely continue to see minimal differences until the generations end.

I just don't see any third party title utilising the additional power advantage of the series X and I don't see any third party developer utilising the SSD or IO advantage for the PS5 either...it's wasted time and money in the grand scheme of things because it doesn't actually benefit anyone.

Basically stop paying attention to terms like "fully optimised for next gen" when we're only a couple weeks into it. Lol.

henhowc · Dec 4, 2020

What percentage is this. :jokes:

Also how is a cross-gen game the first fully optimized game.

darthpaxton · Dec 4, 2020

I play A LOT of 2K and they have weird development issues all the time (on top of all the micro-transaction garbage). It's not surprising that they seemingly couldn't optimize either console very well.

RivalGT · Dec 4, 2020

The tools must not be ready, so expect better performance, and load times next year. I personally wouldn't expect much difference in a multiplat game from launch, these games typically dont take full advantage of the hardware.

Jade1962 · Dec 4, 2020

They are also ignoring all the voter fraud in that video👀

Cyclonesweep · Dec 4, 2020

All the load time thing shows is that devs are still learning how to optimize for these consoles. Which is why any doom and gloom on either side or trying to draw conclusions that Xbox is doomed or needs to go back to the drawing board are way too soon.

In theory the PS5s harddrive should be loading much faster and isn't. Which is literally no big deal, just like the Xbox being behind framerate wise is really not a big deal at this point either.

Too early to tell period

rntongo · Dec 4, 2020

Vinc said:
What's with the conspiracies against DF lately?

Why that view? Put aside that view and read what I wrote in the OP. it has zero to do with what you're talking about.

the-pi-guy said:
There are more factors at play than just raw I/O speed. If the only factor was ever just I/O speed, the PS5 would never have load screens longer than 3 seconds and the XSX would never take longer than 6 seconds or so.

These processes are going to be affected by the CPU (what does the system actually do during loading screen, it's not usually a simple load from memory), the API (are the APIs or the game versions themselves optimized?).

I agree. Clearly its early days and devs will figure these things out.

Absolute said:
Nice videos. So far from what I've seen this will be a very close gen visually. Maybe you guys can see the difference but my middle aged eyes just see identical graphics and loading so close it doesn't matter. Hoping to be able to pick up a XSX when it's available to play with my friend but it seems like you can't go wrong from a hardware choice pov!

I agree. You will definitely enjoy your XSX. The instant on feature for me is the most impressive thing besides BC.

Transistor · Dec 4, 2020

This can be discussed in the existing DF NBA 2K21 thread

Digital Foundry | NBA 2K21 - A Proper Generational Leap? Plus PS5/ Series X/ Series S Analysis

Written version: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-nba-2k21-the-next-gen-difference

www.resetera.com

DF left out an important aspect during NBA 2K21 analysis

One Winged Slayer

Attempted to circumvent ban with an alt-account

What Are Ya' Selling?

Hollowly Brittle