Digital Foundry: Star Citizen's Next-Gen Tech In-Depth

[Uhyve]

Why do some people on this forum have a problem with people discussing negative aspects of a game? Is it really surprising that when people see a Star Citizen thread that they're going to comment on the problematic development of the game? Do you want a bunker or an echo chamber where people just high-five and celebrate and repeat optimistic sentiments?

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Because you are in the wrong thread for that. This thread is about a tech channel showcasing cool features of a game engine. If you want to talk about something else, there are threads for that.

I can only assume ignorance when people are complaining about DF showing off tech features, it's literally the point of their channel.

 

[Lobster Roll]

People on this forum don't have a problem with others discussing negative aspects. But some have a problem (I know I do) when the discussion ALWAYS revolves around negativity. To the point it becomes toxic. Would it kill some posters to see positivity on this forum just for once ?

There's a metric tone of threads talking about the negative side of this project, so when a thread about its technical side pops up, it would be nice to talk about the actual subject of the video.

Don't play dumb.

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I agree with you, but to bellyache about the negativity seems really dumb to me. There's an above 0% chance that people are going to talk about Star Citizen's development woes in every thread relating to it. It's married to the game at this point.

 

[catswaller]

Yeez the sodium chloride regarding this game on this forum is insane. I even suspect many folks actually WANT this project to fail. You are going to hear "experts" worried about the susteinability of SCs business model or how the milestones were handled when there's a roadmap and you can play the game NOW
Curious nobody panics when:

1 Yet another entry of Japanese racing game takes eons to get to market and with substandard car models or without SP campaign. That's according to plan.

2 emotional game of a boy and his winged dog you can beat in a weekend takes a decade to be released. When it does comes with rudimentary controls and abysmal performance. That's according to plan

3 Billion dollars Cops and robbers/cowboy simulator franchises take between 6 to 8 years while having crunch levels that would make Charles DIckens blush. All that to have abysmal online capabilities and quest design straight from 2001.

But when there's an ambitious project to resurrect a dead (at the time) genre while pushing the medium forward tech wise everyone loses their minds!

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This is just as unproductive as the posts bashing the video. This is about the cool approach they're taking to rendering planets and clouds, not whether your space game will ever come out on its 1000000 million dollar budget, or be any good.

Those other games you called out also have cool tech, it's be fun to see behind the scenes videos about them too.

 

[Deleted member 34714]

This thread is a great example of how console minded this forum is. Same with all the other RTX stuff. None of this shit matters until their console features it.

 

[DirtyManos]

Cool video Dictator! Appreciate the work you guys are putting out. I think the biggest thing that I like is how concise and planned out your videos are. No rambling, nothing I need to sit for 30+ mins to watch. So big kudos on presenting information in an easily digestible but hearty manner.

Will any of the videos in the series cover the kind of tech or problems that they need to resolve once they have to increase server size? Or when capital ships etc come into play?



Side note: The fucking negativity is sucking the air out of anything fun in the forum, especially from thread derails from comments that are inane and seek to leech off the original topic. If you believe your concern is so huge about the game, maybe post a thread about it? Start a separate topic instead of choking away the chance for discussion about tech to appear? Or are you afraid the topic you make will quickly die and no one will hear your views? Maybe think about how depressing and sad that thread would be, and adjust your mode of communication accordingly.

 

[Deleted member 21709]

Great video. It's still crazy that this game is happening. Looking forward to give it another try when I upgrade my PC for next-gen.

Because it is perceived as somewhat biased to present all the good stuff while ignoring the giant amount of bad (it's like looking at a car that completely falls apart after one mile, but look at how great was the rear mirror).

All your videos have a certain goal of presenting the product for what it does best, it doesn't matter if it's Anthem, RDR2 or Star Citizen, so I guess it's fair. You make advestise-friendly videos in all cases, and even when you touch on the bad you make an effort to minimize it. But there's this side effect that makes who watches your videos realize that one can't trust them to get a balanced picture.

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This video is about the tech. Not the game systems or quality.

 

[KKRT]

And then you have this collection of broken systems, all held together with duct tape (plus they started with a horrible engine, for a game that was horribly suited for that type of game, and they'll never recover from this genesis).

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I'll take a bite. Which engine is, even now let alone years ago, better suited for this game?

 

[Lashley]

Why do some people on this forum have a problem with people discussing negative aspects of a game? Is it really surprising that when people see a Star Citizen thread that they're going to comment on the problematic development of the game? Do you want a bunker or an echo chamber where people just high-five and celebrate and repeat optimistic sentiments?

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Because this:

You think it is constructive to post "This is an ad" for the game?

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In every thread.

 

[Grimminski]

I reiterate, if ERA wants to keep industry people here, they need to moderate the conversation better, then have user say this is ad for the game and so on.

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People used to catch bans for accusing or implying other members were industry shills, so I'd like to know what exactly changed.

 

[Secretofmateria]

Omg at the whiners...the scale of this game is pretty crazy, i hope to see this tech get utilized by more studios to make some more truly massive and detailed worlds.

 

[curiouscharles]

Both are indeed very much so a tech novelity. The size of the volumetric clouds make their implementation pretty darn different from volumetric clouds that you would see in something like red dead redemption, Horizon or else where.

And yes, Object Containers as implemented in SC are in fact pretty different from standard loading done in other "open" world games, precisely do to the type of objects that are loading. A ship, like a larger transport, is a floating game level...

A player controled game level floating toward your position, that you need to load on the fly.


You know, we report on the tech of a lot of games - and we rarely get the opportunity to interview or actually peel back the development process to see how the workflows are. And finally when we can go to a place and explain how it works, people call it an "advertisement".

Yeah - ResetEra - you disappoint me.

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Yup, I'm finding these criticisms quite boring to be honest, and I'm ashamed of this community as well.

Fucking 'ell RE.

 

[Kadath]

Which we most certainly do. You just don't seem to like this video Alex made due to issues with Star Citizen. You can't throw out a blanket statement like this without evidence. You mention Anthem and RDR2. We were super harsh on Anthem and RDR2 is a technical masterpiece but we still demonstrated how it ran poorly on certain consoles while discussing its flaws.

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The blanket statement was thrown because I was trying to reason about the reactions that people have, and that I expect to keep happening. Especially when others have pointed out this happens frequently and not just in threads about Star Citizen.

I'm not going to personally engage because I wasn't directly involved, and because I'm not going to write in detail about other games in a thread about Star Citizen.

The main issues with Star Citizen seem unrelated to the technology to me. They have no place in a video like this.

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Well, I personally disagree here because I see Star Citizen problems as deeply dependent on tech. Right when it started by licensing CryEngine, and moving on through a string of bad decisions.

This is essentially a brand new, unproven studio with too much money. That decided to start with a project that would be extremely challenging even for an AAA studio with top notch tech expertise with many titles released in the same style, so hypothetically starting from a very solid foundation. You can't compensate this by simply throwing money at the problem. Nor you can expect to go from 0 to 1000 without going through all the steps.

Imo Star Citizen has the tech competency of a small indie studio that for some reason got a bottomless pool of money. They try to do lots of things with the tech, they are just hugely overestimating their expertise.

Maybe Star Citizen 3 will be what Star Citizen 1 originally promised, but right now they rather never release Star Citizen 1 until it magically becomes Star Citizen 3. I don't think it's going to work.

It's like someone who never wrote a page that decides his first book will be "War and Peace" or "Infinite Jest." I will be skeptical.

 

[Sabin]

Great video as usual Dictator and Dark1x . Really appreciate it to have you guys onboard despite the ongoing negativity.

Also SC threads really need some moderation. It's impossible to discuss the game outside of the OT without having it derailed within minutes.

 

[Secretofmateria]

Cool video Dictator! Appreciate the work you guys are putting out. I think the biggest thing that I like is how concise and planned out your videos are. No rambling, nothing I need to sit for 30+ mins to watch. So big kudos on presenting information in an easily digestible but hearty manner.

Will any of the videos in the series cover the kind of tech or problems that they need to resolve once they have to increase server size? Or when capital ships etc come into play?



Side note: The fucking negativity is sucking the air out of anything fun in the forum, especially from thread derails from comments that are inane and seek to leech off the original topic. If you believe your concern is so huge about the game, maybe post a thread about it? Start a separate topic instead of choking away the chance for discussion about tech to appear? Or are you afraid the topic you make will quickly die and no one will hear your views? Maybe think about how depressing and sad that thread would be, and adjust your mode of communication accordingly.

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I agree, if these people dissagree with the way df does their analysis so vehemontley they should go make their own videos then. My ignore list always seems to grow a little bigger when digital foundary threads pop up.

 

[Deleted member 55966]

Congrats on ignoring all the other aspects (and examples!) of how this kinda 'in-house showcase' situation can get sketchy I've given in that post.

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More like highlighted the important part. You're using language like sketchy, journalistic integrity, and PR to describe a video showcasing tech from a channel that is claiming to do tech analysis. The events surrounding said tech fall under journalism which this channel is not claiming to do.

Eurogamer or any of the other multiple games journalism websites are supposed to be doing more of what you're describing.

 

[ShiningBash]

Both are indeed very much so a tech novelity. The size of the volumetric clouds make their implementation pretty darn different from volumetric clouds that you would see in something like red dead redemption, Horizon or else where.

And yes, Object Containers as implemented in SC are in fact pretty different from standard loading done in other "open" world games, precisely do to the type of objects that are loading. A ship, like a larger transport, is a floating game level...

A player controled game level floating toward your position, that you need to load on the fly.


You know, we report on the tech of a lot of games - and we rarely get the opportunity to interview or actually peel back the development process to see how the workflows are. And finally when we can go to a place and explain how it works, people call it an "advertisement".

Yeah - ResetEra - you disappoint me.

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Pshaw! If you're so impressed by the Beijing subway system, you should check out the light rail in St. Louis. That's a real system full of impressive engineering./s

In any case, I hope you continue to weather the storm of Resetera posters who hate-follow videogames. I'm looking forward to the next entry in the series.

 

[Twenty7kvn]

...Or "expect", given the information available and observation of certain patterns.

I personally don't think in terms of what I "want" or "don't want" in regards to things I have no powers on. Star Citizen eventually becoming a good or bad game won't depend on what I want.

But I can say I will be very surprised if they can pull it off. If they can, great. I just don't see it probable.

And my opinion depends *especially* on the tech, because I think there's a lot of tech in this game, none of which is well done. So I see it primarily as a tech problem. The tech itself is very poor. The game does too many things, and not a single one that is well done. And then you have this collection of broken systems, all held together with duct tape (plus they started with a horrible engine, for a game that was horribly suited for that type of game, and they'll never recover from this genesis).

If it survives, even in the current shape, it's because it essentially has no competition. So everything is bleeding edge simply because there's a lack of direct comparison. But not because it's "well done and well executed."

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Can you please give us some examples of how bad the tech is implemented in this game?

 

[Kadath]

I'll take a bite. Which engine is, even now let alone years ago, better suited for this game?

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You have your answer already.

Since it's basically a new genre with no proven engines, you won't get away by simply licensing something someone else made. Either you have a HUGE experise to make your tech brand new, or you'll keep struggling.

You can't just make Star Citizen in Unity. You can't cut corners if your goal has this type of scope. You either go all in, or you don't.

Or: you do something like Elite Dangerous, where you start with a small goal in the hope you build that expertise in order to then expand the scope once you have what it takes to deliver it.

 

[molnizzle]

You have your answer already.

Since it's basically a new genre with no proven engines, you won't get away by simply licensing something someone else made. Either you have a HUGE experise to make your tech brand new, or you'll keep struggling.

You can't just make Star Citizen in Unity. You can't cut corners if your goal has this type of scope. You either go all in, or you don't.

Or: you do something like Elite Dangerous, where you start with a small goal in the hope you build that expertise in order to then expand the scope once you have what it takes to deliver it.

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That's essentially what they've done. The CryEngine/Lumberyard underneath Star Citizen is not the CryEngine/Lumberyard used by other games. That's kinda why videos like this one exist in the first place.

You don't seem to know very much about what you're talking about.

 

[low-G]

Kids spending thousands of dollars on Fortnite to get new dances or Pay to Win mobile games. Microtransactions riddle every AAA title

Every backer knows the deal. As of right now you basically pay $45-65 for an elaborate Space sandbox game that is quite frankly well worth that money as is. The fact they are developing and building on it releasing new stuff is only making your investment more worth it. In times when creativity is beaten the hell out of any games and sacrificed for rushed production and money grabs I will gladly support an ambitious endavour however it might pan out. SC could abandon further development tomorrow and my only though would be "man what a bummer I really wanted this to pan out" and not "what a waste of money that was". It's a risk I am taking just like the developers are. We kind of in this together with them all hoping and working towards a goal that it will pan out.

Are they in it to make money? Of course they are! Is that wrong? No! Because they are going about it the right way.

If you feel scammed by Star Citizen I have no idea how do you play any other video games. I bought Black Ops for $70 or so and played that thing for like 10hours for that new Blackout mode until I realized there is no plans of adding more to the mode. That was a fucking scam. Destiny? Was hyped out to be WoW of space shooters. That was a fucking scam. So for once we get this gem that's already head and shoulders above a lot of AAA titles and Forbes going to shit on it? Because some rich dudes spent $2k on a virtual ship? Pretty sure that person can afford it and if they can't and still do it that's mainly on them. It literally says $2k for this exact ship, nothing else on it. Meanwhile Clash of Clans still racking up bank charging $5 so people don't have to wait 40 hours for things to build making the game unplayable not knowing that they already racked up those small charges to a $5k bill. You tell me which version is a scam or what should we be focusing on.

BTW this is a great video from DF and Im happy they showed the more technical achievements.

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I don't think it's good to normalize this behavior. The mobile environment is a shitshow. Some of the big mainstream games are a shitshow, too. How do I play games? I don't play garbage like the newest CoD or Fortnite.

I think the Star Citizen packs that give you a ship, Squadron 42, and Star Citizen for $35 or $45 are fair even for what you get now. Paying thousands? That's not normal and will never be normal. So there is a lot of really odious behavior from Star Citizen that should be reviled. We can also complain about a single player mode that has been promised for years and still has no release date.

We can also celebrate the interesting game tech Star Citizen employs.

 

[sandweed]

I'll take a bite. Which engine is, even now let alone years ago, better suited for this game?

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When you are going to build a MMO like SC it would be much better to create a custom engine that can do what you need it to do, instead of taking a FPS engine like cryengine and jury rigging it into hopefully being able to do what you need. They are not there yet and unless a miracle happens they are never going to get there.

 

[borntoulouselautrec]

More like highlighted the important part. You're using language like sketchy, journalistic integrity, and PR to describe a video showcasing tech from a channel that is claiming to do tech analysis. The events surrounding said tech fall under journalism which this channel is not claiming to do.

Eurogamer or any of the other multiple games journalism websites are supposed to be doing more of what you're describing.

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This is a part of Eurogamer, though. It literally was published on their site: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-star-citizen-tech-focus-alpha-3-point-8

One of us does not know what journalism is, that's for sure.

 

[KKRT]

You have your answer already.

Since it's basically a new genre with no proven engines, you won't get away by simply licensing something someone else made. Either you have a HUGE experise to make your tech brand new, or you'll keep struggling.

You can't just make Star Citizen in Unity. You can't cut corners if your goal has this type of scope. You either go all in, or you don't.

Or: you do something like Elite Dangerous, where you start with a small goal in the hope you build that expertise in order to then expand the scope once you have what it takes to deliver it.

Click to shrink...

So your answer that there is no other engine and they could make it themselves? Yeah, it would actually take longer to develop new engine than refit existing to their needs, especially when they hired Crytek's engine team and developers that worked on CryEngine in the past.
Elite's is not good example, as they still did not deliver many features they promised in the campaign. Why? Because its harder to adapt existing game and its assets to completely new tech, than codebase that is still in development.

---

When you are going to build a MMO like SC it would be much better to create a custom engine that can do what you need it to do, instead of taking a FPS engine like cryengine and jury rigging it into hopefully being able to do what you need. They are not there yet and unless a miracle happens they are never going to get there.

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You do realize how big undertaking creating new engine from the ground up is? And they are almost there, they just need two technologies to finish their core tech iCache and Server Meshing, everything else is already done.

 

[Candescence]

Bloody hell the whinging and moaning about irrelevant bullshit is absolutely ridiculous. There are better-suited threads for that stuff. If you have problems with Star Citizen, this is not the thread for that.

But yeah, this is delightfully insightful, as was the previous Star Citizen video. In particular, I was legitimately surprised by the camera facial tracking that maps your facial expressions to your avatar in a surprisingly realistic way.

Dark1x, Dictator, you guys are doing incredible work.

 

[Dark1x]

The blanket statement was thrown because I was trying to reason about the reactions that people have, and that I expect to keep happening. Especially when others have pointed out this happens frequently and not just in threads about Star Citizen.

I'm not going to personally engage because I wasn't directly involved, and because I'm not going to write in detail about other games in a thread about Star Citizen.

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Nah, you're the one that mentioned Anthem and RDR2, right? What was the issue. It's not cool to specify something yet refuse to clarify. Why did you mention them again?

 

[metalslimer]

Man some of you are genuinely embarrassing to even read. I feel like we need a staff post at this point. Great Video guys!

 

[Deleted member 10612]

Great video. I hope this game finds its way to next gen consoles... I don't have a beefy enough PC to play this.

 

[Uhyve]

You have your answer already.

Since it's basically a new genre with no proven engines, you won't get away by simply licensing something someone else made. Either you have a HUGE experise to make your tech brand new, or you'll keep struggling.

You can't just make Star Citizen in Unity. You can't cut corners if your goal has this type of scope. You either go all in, or you don't.

Or: you do something like Elite Dangerous, where you start with a small goal in the hope you build that expertise in order to then expand the scope once you have what it takes to deliver it.

Click to shrink...

When you are going to build a MMO like SC it would be much better to create a custom engine that can do what you need it to do, instead of taking a FPS engine like cryengine and jury rigging it into hopefully being able to do what you need. They are not there yet and unless a miracle happens they are never going to get there.

Click to shrink...

The amount of work that goes into tools and systems that are completely unrelated to level streaming tech is immense. You both think it would have been faster to create an entirely new engine, all of it's tools and pipelines, than to retrofit a modular engine for their needs?

 

[Lausebub]

You have your answer already.

Since it's basically a new genre with no proven engines, you won't get away by simply licensing something someone else made. Either you have a HUGE experise to make your tech brand new, or you'll keep struggling.

You can't just make Star Citizen in Unity. You can't cut corners if your goal has this type of scope. You either go all in, or you don't.

Or: you do something like Elite Dangerous, where you start with a small goal in the hope you build that expertise in order to then expand the scope once you have what it takes to deliver it.

Click to shrink...

But that is exactly what they have done. Their version of the cryengine is heavily customised and the tools have evolved over tge years because of the things they learned.

 

[Kadath]

Nah, you're the one that mentioned Anthem and RDR2, right? What was the issue. It's not cool to specify something yet refuse to clarify. Why did you mention them again?

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The issue is emphasis. For example I still believe that one key aspect that pulled Anthem back isn't solely design, but also a heavy, taxing engine that isn't suited for a game you're supposed to play for many, many hours. I believe for example part of the success of Destiny 2 is because it has a great engine that is smooth and tight. Anthem was not, even despite the huge downgrades to make performance acceptable, and still not good. The engine (or implementation) just didn't offer enough room to let the game breathe.

RDR2 I mentioned in the context of the PC port, that from what I read is still having lots of technical problems. While in your videos you explained that performance issues were justified, they still weren't entirely justified.

It's just the way you present the tech, and what to put emphasis on. Yes, you've touched on the negative of these games... Usually very lightly and partially.

(example: I haven't checked, have you made insight videos on how broken the DRM implementation was in Monster Hunter and how half the CPU was busy to NOT run the game? That would have been a informative tech video and good consumer advocacy. The type of video i DON'T expect from Digital Foundry, because... It's "politically" problematic, in the sense it might create you disagreements with Capcom. So why should you go there? But of course be quick to cover Denuvo in those cases the performance accusations weren't actually confirmed... If you want me to accuse of something more concrete, I guess)

But if you read what I wrote you see that I didn't mention specific games to make a point. My point was that ALL your videos align to a style, whether you cover something hugely criticized like Anthem or something more popular and seen positively. You still primarily emphasize everything the game does well. You cover, generally, some negatives too. But there's an overall slant toward the positive and "throw more hardware" to fix the problem. Or the "enthusiast" type of audience who wants to feel their money well spent and justified.

In fact, if I have to be honest, your videos are more advertisement for hardware rather than for games.

But hey, I watch your videos and continue to appreciate them. I also know they don't usually tell the whole (tech) picture. It's like watching videos from a huge Nintendo fan. You know they have the bias of the enthusiast, and so keep this context in sight. But it doesn't mean those videos can't be informative or interesting. You are "tech enthusiasts", and so one has to step back to reconstruct the context in order to properly evaluate that tech that you overly praised.

 

[bsigg]

What is with this trend of people going after DF in every thread about their videos? If you don't like their content, don't watch it but don't be a fucking asshole.

 

[Dark1x]

The issue is emphasis. For example I still believe that one key aspect that pulled Anthem back isn't solely design, but also a heavy, taxing engine that isn't suited for a game you're supposed to play for many, many hours. I believe for example part of the success of Destiny 2 is because it has a great engine that is smooth and tight. Anthem was not, even despite the huge downgrades to make performance acceptable, and still not good. The engine (or implementation) just didn't offer enough room to let the game breathe.

RDR2 I mentioned in the context of the PC port, that from what I read is still having lots of technical problems. While in your videos you explained that performance issues were justified, they still weren't entirely justified.

It's just the way you present the tech, and what to put emphasis on. Yes, you've touched on the negative of these games... Usually very lightly and partially.

But if you read what I wrote you see that I didn't mention specific games to make a point. My point was that ALL your videos align to a style, whether you cover something hugely criticized like Anthem or something more popular and seen positively. You still primarily emphasize everything the game does well. You cover, generally, some negatives too. But there's an overall slant toward the positive and "throw more hardware" to fix the problem. Or the "enthusiast" type of audience who wants to feel their money well spent and justified.

In fact, if I have to be honest, your videos are more advertisement for hardware rather than for games.

But hey, I watch your videos and continue to appreciate them. I also know they don't usually tell the whole (tech) picture. It's like watching videos from a huge Nintendo fan. You know they have the bias of the enthusiast, and so keep this context in sight. But it doesn't mean those videos can't be informative or interesting. You are "tech enthusiasts", and so one has to step back to reconstruct the context in order to properly evaluate that tech that you overly praised.

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With Anthem, I said all that and more. It was horribly broken and has so many problems. I covered them all in detail. That's why you mentioning it confused me.

As for RDR2, I've never played the PC version - I only covered the console versions - so I can't speak to that. I don't usually make PC videos at all, really, which is sounds like you're mainly talking about here.

 

[Yerffej]

The issue is emphasis. For example I still believe that one key aspect that pulled Anthem back isn't solely design, but also a heavy, taxing engine that isn't suited for a game you're supposed to play for many, many hours. I believe for example part of the success of Destiny 2 is because it has a great engine that is smooth and tight. Anthem was not, even despite the huge downgrades to make performance acceptable, and still not good. The engine (or implementation) just didn't offer enough room to let the game breathe.

RDR2 I mentioned in the context of the PC port, that from what I read is still having lots of technical problems. While in your videos you explained that performance issues were justified, they still weren't entirely justified.

It's just the way you present the tech, and what to put emphasis on. Yes, you've touched on the negative of these games... Usually very lightly and partially.

(example: I haven't checked, have you made insight videos on how broken the DRM implementation was in Monster Hunter and how half the CPU was busy to NOT run the game? That would have been a informative tech video and good consumer advocacy. The type of video i DON'T expect from Digital Foundry, because... It's "politically" problematic, in the sense it might create you disagreements with Capcom. So why should you go there? But of course be quick to cover Denuvo in those cases the performance accusations weren't actually confirmed... If you want me to accuse of something more concrete, I guess)

But if you read what I wrote you see that I didn't mention specific games to make a point. My point was that ALL your videos align to a style, whether you cover something hugely criticized like Anthem or something more popular and seen positively. You still primarily emphasize everything the game does well. You cover, generally, some negatives too. But there's an overall slant toward the positive and "throw more hardware" to fix the problem. Or the "enthusiast" type of audience who wants to feel their money well spent and justified.

In fact, if I have to be honest, your videos are more advertisement for hardware rather than for games.

But hey, I watch your videos and continue to appreciate them. I also know they don't usually tell the whole (tech) picture. It's like watching videos from a huge Nintendo fan. You know they have the bias of the enthusiast, and so keep this context in sight. But it doesn't mean those videos can't be informative or interesting. You are "tech enthusiasts", and so one has to step back to reconstruct the context in order to properly evaluate that tech that you overly praised.

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Hoo boy...

 

[Firefly]

Between this thread and the ray tracing one, this forum is so fucking embarrassing anymore.

Bunch of maladjusted fuckwits coming out the woodwork in every single DF thread.

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Come to think of it, the commonality is that Star Citizen and ray tracing both are not available on consoles at the moment. Coincidence?

 

[FoolsMilky]

And here we go again... We have the privilege of not only having a group of passionate people who are able to give us detailed tech analyses of various games, sometimes even flying out to get the information from developers themselves, but also the privilege of having them on our forum so we can share our excitement and our reaction is to respond with increasing hostility and skepticism.

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I also was going to refrain from posting anything here, but reading the thread actually distracted me from watching the video.

I really appreciate the videos that Digital Foundry make which educate people in an understandable way. It allows for people of general backgrounds to understand some pretty complicated stuff, and I always value that kind of resource.

I'm a bit disappointed with this thread though. People are concerned that a tech video talked about tech in an Alpha(?) game, and the video-makers didn't share their opinions about Star Citizen's development woes and other potential concerns. I can only assume the best of intentions, and that people are concerned that everyone has a right to know all they can about Star Citizen before putting money towards it. Except they already kind of have that. There's tons of both facts and opinions to read about Star Citizen's development.

To put that "responsibility" on Digital Foundry is very strange, especially since they clearly haven't said all that they want to say about the game. It's even more strange because this video came out today, and there are dozens of other sources one could have watched for the past several months(years?) to learn about development issues.

Maybe if Digital Foundry was the ONLY source for any news about Star Citizen, and the game came out, and they NEVER made a video about any development issues, or any false promises, or any huge bugs (Which they usually do, as they've stated) then these claims of bias would have incidental ground. But that isn't the case at all.

tl;dr: It's a tech video, it's about tech. They're allowed to be excited about it. If you wanted a sterile video, then you're trying to dictate how they make videos. If you wanted information about Star Citizen development and "drama", there's a dozen other sources you can get it from that have been out for quite awhile.

Dictator Dark1x
Great video, and great videos in general. I appreciate that you guys come in here to answer questions, even though it gets tangled with some other (probably more draining) conversations.

OT: The Voxel Fog stuff was really interesting. The tools that they use to make this look really complicated, and I'll be surprised if you can get such clean looking real-time shadowing with those asteroids in the final game.

My biggest takeaway is that asset streaming with SSDs really is going to change quite a lot. Excited for the next videos (especially those weird particle effects around the gun at the end).

 

[--R]

In fact, if I have to be honest, your videos are more advertisement for hardware rather than for games.

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This is a joke, right? DF has no issue in saying the hardware is bad in multiple occasions. What is wrong with you?

 

[gabdeg]

Where RT GI

 

[Dremorak]

I've played around 8 hours all up and had a blast

Waiting for more updates for now before I jump back in tho

 

[KKRT]

My biggest takeaway is that asset streaming with SSDs really is going to change quite a lot. Excited for the next videos (especially those weird particle effects around the gun at the end).

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Thats not a gun, its a ground vehicle like Speeder in Star Wars. And it shows particles following SDF (Signed Distance Fields) around the vehicle geometry. They will use it for shield effect tech, atmospheric entry effects and collisions.

Btw the shots with asteroids where from current playable build, so those shadows are already in.

 

[Trace]

Dictator Dark1x

Thanks for this video, absolutely fantastic, and thanks for all the work you do despite the literal garbage that some people spew here about you. Gotta love some uninformed fanboy trying to attack you over putting out videos they don't like.

 

[Vlodril]

This forum usually has very quick moderation (too quick i could argue in some cases). It is baffling how on some threads that moderation disappears (star citizen threads been one of those).

 

[FoolsMilky]

Thats not a gun, its a ground vehicle like Speeder in Star Wars. And it shows particles following SDF (Signed Distance Fields) around the vehicle geometry. They will use it for shield effect tech, atmospheric entry effects and collisions.

Btw the shots with asteroids where from current playable build, so those shadows are already in.

Click to shrink...

Ah, thanks! Now that you say it I don't know why I thought it was a gun, but I guess that's just my lack of experience with the game (Or that the shot in the video doesn't have much around it for scale).

Yeah I didn't want to assume, I wasn't sure how many of the things in the video are up and working right now and which ones are still in the pipe or might need some optimization. Regardless, it's all still very impressive. Seems like flying around in general is going to look pretty impressive.

 

[molnizzle]

The issue is emphasis. For example I still believe that one key aspect that pulled Anthem back isn't solely design, but also a heavy, taxing engine that isn't suited for a game you're supposed to play for many, many hours. I believe for example part of the success of Destiny 2 is because it has a great engine that is smooth and tight. Anthem was not, even despite the huge downgrades to make performance acceptable, and still not good. The engine (or implementation) just didn't offer enough room to let the game breathe.

RDR2 I mentioned in the context of the PC port, that from what I read is still having lots of technical problems. While in your videos you explained that performance issues were justified, they still weren't entirely justified.

It's just the way you present the tech, and what to put emphasis on. Yes, you've touched on the negative of these games... Usually very lightly and partially.

(example: I haven't checked, have you made insight videos on how broken the DRM implementation was in Monster Hunter and how half the CPU was busy to NOT run the game? That would have been a informative tech video and good consumer advocacy. The type of video i DON'T expect from Digital Foundry, because... It's "politically" problematic, in the sense it might create you disagreements with Capcom. So why should you go there? But of course be quick to cover Denuvo in those cases the performance accusations weren't actually confirmed... If you want me to accuse of something more concrete, I guess)

But if you read what I wrote you see that I didn't mention specific games to make a point. My point was that ALL your videos align to a style, whether you cover something hugely criticized like Anthem or something more popular and seen positively. You still primarily emphasize everything the game does well. You cover, generally, some negatives too. But there's an overall slant toward the positive and "throw more hardware" to fix the problem. Or the "enthusiast" type of audience who wants to feel their money well spent and justified.

In fact, if I have to be honest, your videos are more advertisement for hardware rather than for games.

But hey, I watch your videos and continue to appreciate them. I also know they don't usually tell the whole (tech) picture. It's like watching videos from a huge Nintendo fan. You know they have the bias of the enthusiast, and so keep this context in sight. But it doesn't mean those videos can't be informative or interesting. You are "tech enthusiasts", and so one has to step back to reconstruct the context in order to properly evaluate that tech that you overly praised.

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DF became as popular as it is today by explaining which console port was shittier than the other one.

Your posts make no sense and are full of untrue information. You need a goddamn reality check.

 

[Dr_Biscuit]

Dark1x and Dictator. I commend your patience.
Personally each time I encounter those kind of nonsensical comments, their author goes directly to the ignore list.

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

It's probably the most technically advanced game yet. I am not too interested in it myself because of the heavy online component, but I can't wait for Squadron 42.

EDIT: Lol at the usual drama around this game in this topic. Be happy that something like this can still exist. It's pretty much what PC gaming was all about back then before everything was developed for consoles first.

 

[Chopin the Third]

Really enjoyed both this and the first SC video. This game makes me even more excited for PS5/XSX and future console generations. Though that's assuming we ever get anything this ambitious on consoles now that we have a much better baseline than current gen.

 

[--R]

So just finished watching the video. Even if the game and how it is being sold isn't of my liking, I can't deny that technically it's amazing. Dictator and Dark1x, thanks for your hard work with your videos every week. I really appreciate them!

 

[Spacecowboy]

Amazing tech

 

[CountAntonio]

Yeah - ResetEra - you disappoint me.

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Don't worry many of this places opinions are largely hyperbolic and irrelevant. What you do is greatly appreciated.

 

[Deleted member 1594]

People aren't going to like this but I feel Alex really doesn't like the fact next-generation consoles have features like hardware ray-tracing and comparable CPU/GPU. I've noticed his sniggering in other Digital Foundry video's when mentioning technologies in the PC space in context to consoles.

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Must be a misunderstanding on your part, because this is completely counter-intuitive for anyone that plays games primarily on PC. There's no reason to dislike next-gen consoles having good hardware and features. That means that games on PC can better utilize the more powerful hardware that will release in the years to follow. If consoles didn't have that, then the only thing we could push on PC are simply higher framerates and resolutions. Again. And nobody wants that. Consoles being better is better for PC.