Digital Foundry: Gears 5 on PC- One Of The All Time Greatest PC Ports

reKon · Sep 7, 2019

elenarie said:
If you stick to Ultra and not Insane, you can push a lot more than 60 fps. :)

How how much are we talking? Lol, I only have an IPS monitor that I use mainly for work and does well for gaming too, but only maxes at 60hz. I'm thinking about getting something like this: https://www.amazon.com/LG-27GL850-B-Ultragear-Compatible-Monitor/dp/B07TD94TQF

scitek · Sep 7, 2019

elenarie said:
The game is not a port.

It is a port. From the PC to the Xbox One X and S.

Gestault said:
Something tiresome in any PC game discussion is people who complain about their performance as though it's an inherent issue with a game, while omitting that parts of their setup are below minimum/recommended specs. Like, I totally get that some games end up running particularly well for out-of-spec hardware (which is rad in its own way), but when you're stretching the limits of being in-spec and griping about the game being poorly put together, that's a heavy prompt for an eye-roll.

(Which isn't to say I'd be thrilled personally seeing placeholder textures on a seemingly adequate card, but min specs are what they are)

JahIthBer · Sep 7, 2019

Firefly said:
Did I hear them say cut scenes are 30fps on One X?

There is quite a few games that run at 60 but have 30fps cutscenes. Cutscenes push up the polygon count, lighting, post processing etc.

F34R · Sep 7, 2019

elenarie said:
If you stick to Ultra and not Insane, you can push a lot more than 60 fps. :)

I didn't even realize there were any Insane options! Lol. I turned the available ones on, nice!

Fredrik · Sep 7, 2019

Dreams-Visions said:
Great video as always.
Did you really take a picture of your monitor instead of pressing the print screen button?

lol I'm so used to Steam and F12, didn't know what to press in a Windows Store game :P

Firefly · Sep 7, 2019

JahIthBer said:
There is quite a few games that run at 60 but have 30fps cutscenes. Cutscenes push up the polygon count, lighting, post processing etc.

Yeah that I realise but I thought One X cutscenes were also 60fps.

elenarie · Sep 7, 2019

F34R said:
I didn't even realize there were any Insane options! Lol. I turned the available ones on, nice!

Same here, haha! :D I heard it during DF's awesome video from this thread.

Palookah · Sep 7, 2019

Salt.

It shall flow.

rokkerkory · Sep 7, 2019

Scarlett to run all options maxed out?

Dec · Sep 7, 2019

elenarie said:
Source on this?
For ^, everything before 1809 is irrelevant, so any data from before last September is useless. :)

You can feel it?

edit: I admit I don't use borderless ever since it was shit when I used it so maybe it changed in most games, but I see no reason to have windows be a middle man regardless.

leng jai · Sep 7, 2019

And people in the other threads still claimed they could barely see a difference between 1X and PC.

BladeRunner2099 · Sep 7, 2019

rokkerkory said:
Scarlett to run all options maxed out?

With Ray Tracing, Native 4K 60FPS & Ultra Texture Pack all in a glorious package on Day 1 of Scarlett.

Won't be surprised if its the best looking game on Scarlett along with FH5 and Halo Infinite.

JahIthBer · Sep 7, 2019

BladeRunner2099 said:
With Ray Tracing, Native 4K 60FPS & Ultra Texture Pack all in a glorious package on Day 1 of Scarlett.

Won't be surprised if its the best looking game on Scarlett along with FH5 and Halo Infinite.

Scarlett isn't using a 3080 Ti lol. I expect Scarlett would be Ultra textures & actually Native 4K, not Insane settings or added ray tracing.

BladeRunner2099 · Sep 7, 2019

JahIthBer said:
Scarlett isn't using a 3080 Ti lol. I expect Scarlett would be Ultra textures & actually Native 4K, not Insane settings or added ray tracing.

Well the Scarlett and PS5 will be using some form of Ray-Tracing and definitely think it will be part of the Scarlett package. Insane settings won't be possible for sure, maybe Native 4K 60FPS on High.

Eggiem · Sep 7, 2019

BladeRunner2099 said:
With Ray Tracing, Native 4K 60FPS & Ultra Texture Pack all in a glorious package on Day 1 of Scarlett.

Won't be surprised if its the best looking game on Scarlett along with FH5 and Halo Infinite.

Yeah, sure. Raytracing in 4k at 60fps in a 500€ console...

CloseTalker · Sep 7, 2019

leng jai said:
And people in the other threads still claimed they could barely see a difference between 1X and PC.

Realistically, only about 3% of those people have actually seen and played both versions. The other 97% are referring to heavily compressed youtube videos, probably watched on their phone or in a tiny browser window. It's just people talking out of their ass

BladeRunner2099 · Sep 7, 2019

Eggiem said:
Yeah, sure. Raytracing in 4k at 60fps in a 500€ console...

Ok not 2080ti level RTX but on 'low' found in cards like RTX 2060 atleast. Both PS5 and Scarlett are promising Ray tracing of some sort are rumoured to be using next gen RDNA cards which have some sort of Ray Tracing.

Cassius Bright · Sep 7, 2019

I'm running at 4k60 Ultra on PC and it is indeed a glorious experience. The optimisation is top notch. Love that HDR is available for PC this time too.

I'm staggered they got this running at 60fps on the Xbox One X. It's easily one of the best looking games of the gen, right up there with God of War and Horizon, yet it is somehow running at double the frame rate.

The Coalition are a very talented studio.

TaySan · Sep 7, 2019

Game runs fantastic, but HDR is really wonky on PC.
I don't know why Windows 10 struggles with HDR compared to consoles.

EVA UNIT 01 · Sep 7, 2019

1080
16gb
i7 6700 stock

All ultra
HD texture pack
21:9 ultrawide and still hitting 90+fps
Sooo good

TooLive · Sep 7, 2019

Eggiem said:
Yeah, sure. Raytracing in 4k at 60fps in a 500€ console...

People didn't want to believe a $500 console could deliver 4k 60fps before the X but here we are...

Musubi · Sep 7, 2019

Yeah, things like really granular settings and letting you know how much of an impact each setting has on all of your system resources is SO GOOD. Very impressed with what the Coalition is doing on PC right now.

EeK9X · Sep 7, 2019

Great job, as always, Dictator. I'm really, really glad that you addressed the issue of Win32 behaving just like UWP, as it goes against Phil Spencer's commitment to supporting Win32 games on Windows 10. Here's the direct quote, from his blog post just before this year's E3:

We want creators to be inspired to bring their best content to Windows 10, and we want Windows 10 to be the place where gamers come to discover their next favorite PC game. We recognize that Win32 is the app format that game developers love to use and gamers love to play, so we are excited to share that we will be enabling full support for native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store on Windows. This will unlock more options for developers and gamers alike, allowing for the customization and control they've come to expect from the open Windows gaming ecosystem.

Locking executables, encrypting folders and removing exclusive full screen is the opposite of "enabling full support for native Win32 games" and "allowing for the customization and control" we've "come to expect from the open Windows gaming ecosystem".

Now, it honestly feels like just another PR stunt, especially considering the timing of the announcement. Remember earlier this year, when he said it was "only the beginning"? Here's my post in that same thread:

EeK9X said:
At least once or twice a year ever since becoming the head of Xbox, in 2014.

2015: Here and here.
2016: Here and here.
2017: Here.
2018: Here.

Basically, every time they tried to launch a major game in the MS Store and it crashed and burned, with no improvements for subsequent releases.

I'll believe it when we start seeing some actual changes, instead of more annual empty promises.

You can add the commitment to Win32 to that list of annual empty promises.

elenarie said:
Exclusive fullscreen mode has been deprecated. So expect to see even less games having it going forward.

elenarie said:
It is an old and broken implementation that has never really been fixed, and allows apps / games to lock entire systems if they do something stupid.
Not even supported anymore in Dx12.

Starting with 1803, 1809 or 1903, can't remember which one, the very slight performance benefit that exclusive fullscreen had over borderless in Dx11 is gone as borderless now performs as well as exclusive fullscreen API-wise.
And older systems are not supported anymore anyways so they can burn in hell. :p

elenarie said:
Is it really, though? :D

I thought that one of the advantages of exclusive full screen mode was to allow games to run in frame rates and resolutions other than the currently selected ones in Windows, as Alex pointed out.

Both SOTR and Control have separate modes in DX12 for borderless and exclusive full screen, where you can change the display resolution (not just the render resolution) and frame rate, regardless of your desktop settings.

Also, my understanding is that Windows 10, like Windows 8 before it, forces the use of the Desktop Window Manager (DWM) compositor, meaning that applications running in borderless windowed will have triple buffering applied to them by default, eliminating tearing even when Vsync is disabled. If you run either SOTR or Control in their respective full screen modes with Vsync off, you get screen tearing, which suggests that they're bypassing the DWM, just like any exclusive full screen application.

Care to explain how exactly they work? Genuine question. The display resolution even becomes grayed out when selecting "borderless" in those games.

EvilBoris · Sep 7, 2019

EeK9X said:
Great job, as always, Dictator. I'm really, really glad that you addressed the issue of Win32 behaving just like UWP, as it goes against Phil Spencer's commitment to supporting Win32 games on Windows 10. Here's the direct quote, from his blog post just before this year's E3:

We want creators to be inspired to bring their best content to Windows 10, and we want Windows 10 to be the place where gamers come to discover their next favorite PC game. We recognize that Win32 is the app format that game developers love to use and gamers love to play, so we are excited to share that we will be enabling full support for native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store on Windows. This will unlock more options for developers and gamers alike, allowing for the customization and control they've come to expect from the open Windows gaming ecosystem.

Locking executables, encrypting folders and removing exclusive full screen is the opposite of "enabling full support for native Win32 games" and "allowing for the customization and control" we've "come to expect from the open Windows gaming ecosystem".

Now, it honestly feels like just another PR stunt, especially considering the timing of the announcement. Remember earlier this year, when he said it was "only the beginning"? Here's my post in that same thread:

You can add the commitment to Win32 to that list of annual empty promises.

I thought that one of the advantages of exclusive full screen mode was to allow games to run in frame rates and resolutions other than the currently selected ones in Windows, as Alex pointed out.

Both SOTR and Control have separate modes in DX12 for borderless and exclusive full screen, where you can change the display resolution (not just the render resolution) and frame rate, regardless of your desktop settings.

Also, my understanding is that Windows 10, like Windows 8 before it, forces the use of the Desktop Window Manager (DWM) compositor, meaning that applications running in borderless windowed will have triple buffering applied to them by default, eliminating tearing even when Vsync is disabled. If you run either SOTR or Control in their full screen modes with Vsync off, you get screen tearing, which suggests that they're bypassing the DWM, just like any exclusive full screen application.

Care to explain how exactly they work? Genuine question. The display resolution even becomes grayed out when selecting "borderless" in those games.

for control the executables specifically are aimed at win7 users rather than the intention of letting Win10 users have FSE.

GSYNC and Freesync are available in full screen borderless now aren't they? Perhaps the fixed refresh rate is Just missing if there is a future windows change that needs to happen first.

Dreams-Visions · Sep 7, 2019

Fredrik said:
lol I'm so used to Steam and F12, didn't know what to press in a Windows Store game :P

xD

TaySan said:
Game runs fantastic, but HDR is really wonky on PC.
I don't know why Windows 10 struggles with HDR compared to consoles.

I think that's been a running question for the last few years tbh.

EeK9X · Sep 7, 2019

EvilBoris said:
for control the executables specifically are aimed at win7 users rather than the intention of letting Win10 users have FSE.

Then again, the Steam version of Gears 5 is DX12 and can also run on Win7. I believe that and WOW are the only games using the DX12 API that can run on Win7.

Cordelia · Sep 7, 2019

DozyHoneyBadger said:
I'm staggered they got this running at 60fps on the Xbox One X. It's easily one of the best looking games of the gen, right up there with God of War and Horizon, yet it is somehow running at double the frame rate.

The Coalition are a very talented studio.

Release those two games on PC and they'll run at 60fps and more :p

Anyway haven't bought the game but I like those graphic setting preview. More games need to have that.

Shame that PC Gamepass doesn't available here :(

Dreams-Visions · Sep 7, 2019

Cordelia said:
Release those two games on PC and they'll run at 60fps and more :p

Anyway haven't bought the game but I like those graphic setting preview. More games need to have that.

Shame that PC Gamepass doesn't available here :(

Hope it comes to you guys soon. I paid like 2 years up front or w/e and I feel like it's already half paid for itself.

Cordelia · Sep 7, 2019

Dreams-Visions said:
Hope it comes to you guys soon. I paid like 2 years up front or w/e and I feel like it's already half paid for itself.

I hope so haha. My neighboring country already have it so probably soon. VPN didn't worked unfortunately.

Grimminski · Sep 7, 2019

scitek said:
It is a port. From the PC to the Xbox One X and S.

That's some gorgeous ass motion blur

texhnolyze · Sep 7, 2019

RoboPlato said:
I've seen a lot of people on PC get really defensive over something being called a PC port or saying it as if it's an insult and I'm not sure I understand why.

I believe it's not about being defensive. It's about giving credits where it's due.

You don't want to lump together hardworking devs who actually worked on the PC version of games to make it as perfect as possible, with publishers who only bothered to hire 2 person to port their game to PC and be happy with it as long as it's running.

Barnabas Reynolds · Sep 7, 2019

TooLive said:
People didn't want to believe a $500 console could deliver 4k 60fps before the X but here we are...

But performance is in line with what we expect are comparable desktop GPUs, it's not like The Coalition did something on X that's completely impossible on the aforementioned GPUs. Without first making some big concessions, you'd need something like a 2080 Ti to do what you're asking, and, spoiler alert, you're not getting that in a $500 box in 2020.

Themaddestgamer · Sep 7, 2019

Trying to get my kids off the gsming PC so I can get this off Steam..

Wait, if I buy a month of gamepass ultimate for $12 off cdkeys I can play this?

Okabe · Sep 7, 2019

if only ya didin't need 1909 windows 10 to run it. Oh well.

and no im not getting it on steam i wanted to use my game pass to play it.

ss_lemonade · Sep 7, 2019

elenarie said:
It is an old and broken implementation that has never really been fixed, and allows apps / games to lock entire systems if they do something stupid.
Not even supported anymore in Dx12.

Starting with 1803, 1809 or 1903, can't remember which one, the very slight performance benefit that exclusive fullscreen had over borderless in Dx11 is gone as borderless now performs as well as exclusive fullscreen API-wise.
And older systems are not supported anymore anyways so they can burn in hell. :p

Is the game not having exclusive fullscreen the reason I get Windows 10 notifications just popping up at the lower right when they come in (like say, a chat message from google hangouts)? The notification doesn't even go away until I reach for my mouse to click close and because I have HDR enabled, the screen flickers with bad colors for a split second when the notification appears.

Tokyo_Funk · Sep 7, 2019

First Gears I am buying since 2. Looks solid.

Yudoken · Sep 7, 2019

This is one of the few recent demanding games I can run twice without handicaps on my i7 4790k/16gb DDR3/GTX 1080 nad the 2nd user with a GTX 770. Yes, literally.

Repost from my post in the performance thread:

If you happen to have two gpus and a good cpu (at least something like mine i7 4790k) and 16gb ram you can run on two seperate setups quite easily with Aster multiseat. Had some friends over (one with his own pc) and Gears 5 was a perfect fit for today. For tonight I reduced my own settings (normally 1440p high but for today I reduced it to medium because we just wanted to start quickly) but it was quite easy to pull off.
The CPU usage was quite high at around 100% but there weren't noticable or annoying hiccups and the games ran perfectly fine.
We played online without having a noticable handicap and had a great time. Definitly a game I will play again here.
Next time I will step it my settings to high because it ran cool enough on the 1080 (the Windforce GTX 770 is above the Strix 1080 which was heating up quickly but it was safe around under 90c).

icecold1983 · Sep 8, 2019

Great video. Missing the more detailed performance comparisons between X and the 580/1060. It seems like the X punches above its weight here based on the brief info given. I also prefer exclusive full screen.

elenarie · Sep 8, 2019

georaldc said:
Is the game not having exclusive fullscreen the reason I get Windows 10 notifications just popping up at the lower right when they come in (like say, a chat message from google hangouts)? The notification doesn't even go away until I reach for my mouse to click close and because I have HDR enabled, the screen flickers with bad colors for a split second when the notification appears.

Open the Settings app - System - Focus Assist. Enable automatic rules, when playing a game and when running an app in fullscreen.

See if this helps.

DOTDASHDOT · Sep 8, 2019

leng jai said:
And people in the other threads still claimed they could barely see a difference between 1X and PC.

Yep, if people were honest those SBS comparisons only go to prove how good the X is, so hard to see the difference with insane vs X, the only tangible option is SSR on PC, the rest? Well there is a reason why zooming into the screen is necessary to show anything at all.

Don't get me wrong, PC gaming is great for higher frame rates etc, but damn is there a lot of PC justification that goes on, and honestly I think the X (sans ray tracing) is embarrassing the PC sector, and why my high end system has no graphics card.

Cels · Sep 8, 2019

i like the game a lot so far (windows 10 MS store version), but what i don't get is why the game has to be locked down the way it is, but maybe i lack an understanding of the differences between UWP and win32.

i played gears of war 4 on pc, and while i liked it, i did not like that it was a UWP app. no exclusive fullscreen, the game's folders were locked down, etc
but gears 5 is a win32 game and they chose to lock it down the same way? i wonder if the steam version is going to have a locked folder and lack exclusive fullscreen too.

Dictator · Sep 8, 2019

This video is indeed about how amazing the performance and PC version of this game

icecold1983 said:
Great video. Missing the more detailed performance comparisons between X and the 580/1060. It seems like the X punches above its weight here based on the brief info given. I also prefer exclusive full screen.

THanks mate :D
X does not seem to punch above any weight at all - it just makes sacrafices that I was not willing to make for the PC footage. I just prefered to differentiate x settings from what I consider good visuals on PC. X1X is lower than high and surprisingly lower than medium in many cases - compromises I do not think pc user should go into. Especially things like SSR or world/foliage quality things which are IMO way too low on x1x - but it is targetting pretty high resolutions on average and has that jag CPU to contend with.

IMO, on PC it makes the most sense to just use those settings x uses as a guideline and excell past them. SSR being beyon high in this game has huge implicartions for how good the materials look, for example.

I really want to see this game ith rtrt reflections!

Edgar · Sep 8, 2019

DOTDASHDOT said:
Yep, if people were honest those SBS comparisons only go to prove how good the X is, so hard to see the difference with insane vs X, the only tangible option is SSR on PC, the rest? Well there is a reason why zooming into the screen is necessary to show anything at all.

Don't get me wrong, PC gaming is great for higher frame rates etc, but damn is there a lot of PC justification that goes on, and honestly I think the X (sans ray tracing) is embarrassing the PC sector, and why my high end system has no graphics card.

There's justification on every side. And embarrassing pc sector ? That's a bit much

leng jai · Sep 8, 2019

DOTDASHDOT said:
Yep, if people were honest those SBS comparisons only go to prove how good the X is, so hard to see the difference with insane vs X, the only tangible option is SSR on PC, the rest? Well there is a reason why zooming into the screen is necessary to show anything at all.

Don't get me wrong, PC gaming is great for higher frame rates etc, but damn is there a lot of PC justification that goes on, and honestly I think the X (sans ray tracing) is embarrassing the PC sector, and why my high end system has no graphics card.

Claiming people are clamouring to justify their PC by saying there's a difference in visual quality and then saying the X is embarrassing the PC sector in the same post is some top shelf irony.

Xiaomi · Sep 8, 2019

The one thing I wish they'd tighten up is load times. Game takes a long fucking time to load, even on an nvme drive. Similarly large games (ACOdd, Metro, Monster Hunter World) load so much faster.

icecold1983 · Sep 8, 2019

DOTDASHDOT said:
Yep, if people were honest those SBS comparisons only go to prove how good the X is, so hard to see the difference with insane vs X, the only tangible option is SSR on PC, the rest? Well there is a reason why zooming into the screen is necessary to show anything at all.

Don't get me wrong, PC gaming is great for higher frame rates etc, but damn is there a lot of PC justification that goes on, and honestly I think the X (sans ray tracing) is embarrassing the PC sector, and why my high end system has no graphics card.

I said they looked similar, and i stand by that. The insane reflections look great but they are more of a refinement IMO.

DOTDASHDOT · Sep 8, 2019

Edgar said:
There's justification on every side. And embarrassing pc sector ? That's a bit much

leng jai said:
Claiming people are clamouring to justify their PC by saying there's a difference in visual quality and then saying the X is embarrassing the PC sector in the same post is some top shelf irony.

I'm not saying that people cannot possibly see visual differences between X and PC, but its the hyperbole you hear time and time again "vastly superior" leagues beyond" "massively ahead" the actual reality isnt that at all.

I'm the least biased person in regards to what's what, and I don't care either way, but Gears 5 comparison just had thinking again, where on earth are the differences when SBS gameplay was shown, it's so difficult to see, which is where zooming in on still shots comes into play, and even then it's like 'eh?' Sure there are some but it's mostly pretty gradual, unlike SSR which looks really nice on PC. I'm just saying it as I've seen it, and yeah embarrassing is a bit OTT.

icecold1983 · Sep 8, 2019

Dictator said:
This video is indeed about how amazing the performance and PC version of this game

THanks mate :D
X does not seem to punch above any weight at all - it just makes sacrafices that I was not willing to make for the PC footage. I just prefered to differentiate x settings from what I consider good visuals on PC. X1X is lower than high and surprisingly lower than medium in many cases - compromises I do not think pc user should go into. Especially things like SSR or world/foliage quality things which are IMO way too low on x1x - but it is targetting pretty high resolutions on average and has that jag CPU to contend with.

IMO, on PC it makes the most sense to just use those settings x uses as a guideline and excell past them. SSR being beyon high in this game has huge implicartions for how good the materials look, for example.

I really want to see this game ith rtrt reflections!

Ya i wasnt sure, i recall you saying that with all high settings + ultra bloom and lens flare the 580 is about 45 fps and 1060 40 fps at 1440p with no resolution scaling? Thats lower than the lowest resolution John mentioned for the X. The settings where the X is lower than high were the ones you said didnt change performance much. Wasnt the X high for the performance sappers vol lighting and reflections?

Btw i hope you cover the new RTX GI on all light sources in the metro expansion pack!

DOTDASHDOT · Sep 8, 2019

icecold1983 said:
I said they looked similar, and i stand by that. The insane reflections look great but they are more of a refinement IMO.

W

icecold1983 said:
I said they looked similar, and i stand by that. The insane reflections look great but they are more of a refinement IMO.

Exactly, SSR is lovely but I'm just tired of the hyperbole which helps give 2080ti owners reasons to live, maybe I'd want that too if I had one, the PC game is awkwardly close to a £400 machine, and the comparison shows it.

EvilBoris · Sep 8, 2019

Cels said:
i like the game a lot so far (windows 10 MS store version), but what i don't get is why the game has to be locked down the way it is, but maybe i lack an understanding of the differences between UWP and win32.

i played gears of war 4 on pc, and while i liked it, i did not like that it was a UWP app. no exclusive fullscreen, the game's folders were locked down, etc
but gears 5 is a win32 game and they chose to lock it down the same way? i wonder if the steam version is going to have a locked folder and lack exclusive fullscreen too.

you can actaully go in and manually amend the video settings i is and stuff like you can on other games.
Unfortunately trying to force full screen exclusively doesn't work (as somebody has said it's actually been phased out, so maybe that is why)

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