Digital Foundry: PlayStation 5 / Unreal Engine 5 Reaction - Now This Is Next-Gen!

ShiningBash · May 13, 2020

This is blowing my mind that people watched the Anthem reveal, watched this demo, and are convinced that we've just seen the future. It broke my heart a little when this wasn't a short clip of an upcoming game, and I cannot understand the hype.

Edit: Poll needs third option for "Yes, if someone can show me an upcoming game that looks like the demo." I mean, look at this demo of Unreal Engine 3 from 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSXyztq_0uM. It's impressive...and very few games look that good in 2020.

Raide · May 13, 2020

I wonder how long till we see the tech demo on PC so we can get a real breakdown of CPU/RAM/GPU usage?

Soviet · May 13, 2020

napata said:
It's not raytracing. It's just rasterization. For some reason people seem to mistakenly link GI with raytracing.

It sure looks convincing.

-Le Monde- · May 13, 2020

ieandrew said:
Love it! The one thing that's a downer for me is that the character has to go through one of those 'sidle through this gap in the wall' things which is just a playable loading screen in the full demo video. I really hoped that all the SSD talk meant things like that wouldn't be necessary. Maybe it was just an artistic choice for the given environment this time around.

It will never go away because of this. But it won't be hiding load times.
I still expect Nathan, and Lara to have to squeeze through corridors, when going looking for treasures.

Cyclonesweep · May 13, 2020

TechnicPuppet said:
Not got the slightest interest in this. Could they not have demoed it with a game.

That will take a few years

Stacey · May 13, 2020

Raide said:
I wonder how long till we see the tech demo on PC so we can get a real breakdown of CPU/RAM/GPU usage?

would love a stealth release on the EGS.

KrAzEd · May 13, 2020

Geoff asked a great question to Tim about the differences between Xbox and Playstation and got a politician answer (aka no answer at all). Wondering if this was supposed originally be a part of the PS5 reveal at GDC, because these guys wouldn't even breathe the word Xbox.

riotous · May 13, 2020

Shogmaster said:
MS hasn't shared BC Pack compression info with all the devs yet either. Probably only the first party knows about implementing BC Pack as of now.

Yeah and even beyond that he didn't actually say it's only possible on PS5; it's vaguely implied... but they were fairly vague.

And there's still the question of "At what point does LOD become too high to make the game a reaosnable size."

As Sweeeny said... "you can have this degree of fidelity for as many kilometres and gigabytes as you wish"...

So how many gigabytes was that demo of the character traveling a few K?

Although their engineer did say today on twitter they are keeping that in mind, so this tech has some sort of compression aspect to it.

Raide · May 13, 2020

Stacey said:
would love a stealth release on the EGS.

Agreed. I am always interested in these tech demos on PC, since you get to see the scalability of an engine.

Elios83 · May 13, 2020

Really impressive stuff, it's a tech demo but they basically chose to make it really grounded into an actual gameplay-like situation, basically like a next gen Uncharted or Tomb Raider would look and play.
Ray tracing use for global illumination was also really impressive and that final scene with assets loading.
Tim Sweeney also stated that the engine was basically developed with a huge support from Sony so it will be particularly optimized for PS5.

Deleted member 30077 · May 13, 2020

Soviet said:
It sure looks convincing.

Yeah, I actually think the best looking console games will be the ones without raytracing.

BitterFig · May 13, 2020

ShinAmano said:
Oh I am sure that the further back you scale the worse it will get (obviously)

Obviously. But there is a difference between scaling with a simple resolution change, and scaling by having to create completely new assets (different LODs, normal maps) because one platform does not support the rendering technology of another platform.

Sparks · May 13, 2020

aggrocrog said:
This is blowing my mind that people watched the Anthem reveal, watched this demo, and are convinced that we've just seen the future. It broke my heart a little when this wasn't a short clip of an upcoming game, and I cannot understand the hype.

I keep seeing this sentiment and I don't understand it, "I've been disappointed by "future" demo's in the past, so let's stop dreaming and striving for the next level" is what it feels like to me.
This type of demo is way closer in our grasps then most. It's showing the merging of film and games which is an inevitability... it's exciting to see now.

Stacey · May 13, 2020

Raide said:
Agreed. I am always interested in these tech demos on PC, since you get to see the scalability of an engine.

My gpu is giddy right now but my cpu (2700x) is starting to sob :( hope it does scale well

JahIthBer · May 13, 2020

Raide said:
I wonder how long till we see the tech demo on PC so we can get a real breakdown of CPU/RAM/GPU usage?

Considering this runs at 1440p (dynamic) at 30fps, im going to guess a big fucking GPU bottleneck, you will need a 1080 Ti/2070/2080 to run this PS5/SX level min.
The funny part is the demo isn't even using RT & it still this demanding.

Shogmaster · May 13, 2020

aggrocrog said:
This is blowing my mind that people watched the Anthem reveal, watched this demo, and are convinced that we've just seen the future. It broke my heart a little when this wasn't a short clip of an upcoming game, and I cannot understand the hype.

Dude, Anthem environments are tiny (with all them fun loading between areas!) and flying is WAY slower.

If anything Anthem is exactly what shows how this is next gen compared to it.

Azerach · May 13, 2020

This looks very impressive from both content creation and gameplay perspective. Good stuff.

Rickyrozay2o9 · May 13, 2020

jot said:
Maybe I'm just an idiot, but this isn't exciting to me at all. It's a tech demo - this isn't a game anyone is going to play. These kind of graphics are still several years away. Cool, but fine I guess?

From what I'm gathering is since this is actually being played on the ps5 currently in gameplay form so I'd expect the major first party games to be on par with their own individual techniques of course right from the start. We just won't see this engines techniques untill it gets in the hands of developers and they validate if it's good to use or not over what they have. Either way this gives us a basis on what we should literally expect from a graphics fidelity standpoint given the developer choose to use it.

I'm interested in knowing how performance effective all this is with next gen systems. Like what things can Naughty Dog do with their engine in comparison to this one ect. Interesting times ahead indeed.

Pai Pai Master · May 13, 2020

TechnicPuppet said:
Not got the slightest interest in this. Could they not have demoed it with a game.

The only Epic Game using Unreal Engine 5 any time soon is Fortnite. The engine isn't available for other devs until late next year. So they created a playable game demo to showcase the engine.

Deleted member 56995 · May 13, 2020

I get the downplaying tech demo stuff, I really do, but the fact that this is fully playable with and would have been playable at GDC gets me so horny.

Deleted member 35631 · May 13, 2020

The reason Microsoft chose to reveal next game like that, it's because its executives think that games is what matter. They don't care what type of games. For them, showing games is a win, because they want people to know that they can play those games on Xbox.

Sony on the other hand, has been doing "cinematic" games. It's their strong hand, and they know they need to push graphics in order to make those experiences possible.

That doesn't mean that Xbox doesn't have cinematic experiences or that PS doesn't have arcade-y experiences.

The fact that Epic showed a real time game running on PS5, it's likely because Sony wanted to show that they are still committed to those "cinematic" experiences. Also, they might be paying the marketing or PR, just like how Microsoft is doing Assassin's Creed Valhalla marketing.

I really hope that this demo evolves into a game. The character seemed cool, and the premise of gameplay has potential. Maybe it's a game being developed by Sony and that is why they showed the tech demo on PS5?

Hybrid Rainbow · May 13, 2020

Sparks said:
I keep seeing this sentiment and I don't understand it, "I've been disappointed by "future" demo's in the past, so let's stop dreaming and striving for the next level" is what it feels like to me.
This type of demo is way closer in our grasps then most. It's showing the merging of film and games which is an inevitability... it's exciting to see now.

Exactly. I don't understand why so many people are in here actively trying to downplay this demo. We are seeing the future of games and you want to shit on it? Boggles my mind.

Raide · May 13, 2020

JahIthBer said:
Considering this runs at 1440p (dynamic) at 30fps, im going to guess a big fucking GPU bottleneck, you will need a 1080 Ti/2070/2080 to run this PS5/SX level min.

Oh for sure you will need a solid system. Interested to see if DLSS is part of this? After the recent CONtrol stuff, DLSS from a lower res upscaled could do wonders for UE5.

Deleted member 4970 · May 13, 2020

Can't wait to play with Lumen! Been messing with RT in UE4 but the need to still bake lights has made it tough!

FrostweaveBandage · May 13, 2020

aggrocrog said:
This is blowing my mind that people watched the Anthem reveal, watched this demo, and are convinced that we've just seen the future. It broke my heart a little when this wasn't a short clip of an upcoming game, and I cannot understand the hype.

Because it was an engine demo and not trying to sell any one game specifically?

Deleted member 4212 · May 13, 2020

Starting to reconsider my 'don't buy a PS5 at launch' strategy

Wrapped in Black · May 13, 2020

aggrocrog said:
This is blowing my mind that people watched the Anthem reveal, watched this demo, and are convinced that we've just seen the future. It broke my heart a little when this wasn't a short clip of an upcoming game, and I cannot understand the hype.

It's blowing my mind that you think those two things are similar in any way.

zombiejames · May 13, 2020

JahIthBer said:
Considering this runs at 1440p (dynamic) at 30fps, im going to guess a big fucking GPU bottleneck, you will need a 1080 Ti/2070/2080 to run this PS5/SX level min.
The funny part is the demo isn't even using RT & it still this demanding.

Important to keep in mind this is still being worked on and won't be available to the public for another year. Plenty of time for optimizations.

Pai Pai Master · May 13, 2020

aggrocrog said:
This is blowing my mind that people watched the Anthem reveal, watched this demo, and are convinced that we've just seen the future. It broke my heart a little when this wasn't a short clip of an upcoming game, and I cannot understand the hype.

I mean, what's not convincing about it? Sure it's not a real game that we're going to be playing in the future, but the technology showcased in this demo has incredible ramifications for both game development and visual fidelity going forward. Look at how much Unreal Engine 4 changed the landscape of the industry. It even reached beyond games and presents a paradigm shift in filmmaking. Unreal Engine 5 is literally the future lol

Stacey · May 13, 2020

Raide said:
Oh for sure you will need a solid system. Interested to see if DLSS is part of this? After the recent CONtrol stuff, DLSS from a lower res upscaled could do wonders for UE5.

I expect an rtx 2060 is capable of this demo at 1080p. But DLSS 2.0 could push us past 60fps.

Can you imagine that shit? amazing.

Coyote Starrk · May 13, 2020

It's not often that Era reminds just how petty and edgy some of the people here can be sometimes, but this thread did it lol The demo is absolutely jaw dropping and impressive as all hell by every conceivable metric and yet some people are still trying to downplay it or trying to console war over it.

Whatever happened to just being happy and excited when cool stuff is shown? Why does it always gotta be a pissing match for some people? Its depressing to watch people try and take the wind out of people's sails everytime we get something like this.

somerandomweirdguy · May 13, 2020

Nice to see tech advancing, but the console warring is already killing me. Suffering through garbage takes for the next year is going to be pain

Fardeen · May 13, 2020

it looks amazinggggggggggggg

SuperHans · May 13, 2020

So with Lumen you get a lot of the benefits of Ray Traced GI (no baking, dynamic, bounces) but with likely a much lower performance cost. Doesnt this really weaken the case for using Ray tracing?

Raide · May 13, 2020

Stacey said:
I expect an rtx 2060 is capable of this demo at 1080p. But DLSS 2.0 could push us past 60fps.

Can you imagine that shit? amazing.

Really exciting times because its not just about setting a resolution and off you go, so many new tech options are there now to make the most of the current and next-gen hardware.

nogoodnamesleft · May 13, 2020

Pcie4.0 next gen ssds and 3080ti cant come soon enough. I'm ready for this shit at the fullest everything

PiranhaMan · May 13, 2020

Shogmaster said:
Dude, Anthem environments are tiny (with all them fun loading between areas!) and flying is WAY slower.

If anything Anthem is exactly what shows how this is next gen compared to it.

What is also interesting is how in Anthem you can fall faster than you can fly/dive.

This demo is really showing how awesome Next Gen is going to be.

TheRulingRing · May 13, 2020

Honestly with how good this "fake" lighting looks do we even need ray tracing and its performance hit lol

Cyclonesweep · May 13, 2020

PiranhaMan said:
What is also interesting is how in Anthem you can fall faster than you can fly/dive.

This demo is really showing how awesome Next Gen is going to be.

Won't be right at the start of course but at least 3-4 years in for sure

Stacey · May 13, 2020

SuperHans said:
So with Lumen you get a lot of the benefits of Ray Traced GI (no baking, dynamic, bounces) but with likely a much lower performance cost. Doesnt this really weaken the case for using Ray tracing?

Hunt: Showdown uses voxel based real time GI (without RT) and it looks phenomenal, not sure how accurate it is compared to ray traced GI though.

Pheonix · May 13, 2020

The question is if the PS5 with its specs would run games based on its kinda tech and matching that level of fidelity at 1440p@30fps.

What kinda PC would you need to run it at 1440@60fps, or at 4K@60fps.

The bar has been raised.

Qvoth · May 13, 2020

this has got to be the most 1 sided poll i've ever seen on this forum

gofreak · May 13, 2020

jot said:
Maybe I'm just an idiot, but this isn't exciting to me at all. It's a tech demo - this isn't a game anyone is going to play. These kind of graphics are still several years away. Cool, but fine I guess?

I'd be hopeful we might have at least one game using a similar asset pipeline this year, from Sony first party.

Epic has been working with Sony on the storage side. You can be sure Sony's teams have been looking at similar stuff for some time (indeed some of their own work might be feeding back on the work with Epic and vice versa).

RedHeat · May 13, 2020

Stacey · May 13, 2020

Pheonix said:
The question is if the PS5 with its specs would run games based on its kinda tech and matching that level of fidelity at 1440p@30fps.

What kinda PC would you need to run it at 1440@60fps, or at 4K@60fps.

The bar has been raised.

Current cards will need DLSS 2.0 i suspect to reach 60fps

Pai Pai Master · May 13, 2020

TheRulingRing said:
Honestly with how good this "fake" lighting looks do we even need ray tracing and its performance hit lol

Raytracing will get better over time with hopefully less memory overhead. This feels like an active decision to provide devs with an easy to use alternative so they can focus elsewhere on how to balance things if they so choose. Or limited raytracing can be used to enhance what you can get out of the Lumen technology, doesn't have to be one or the other.

PiranhaMan · May 13, 2020

Cyclonesweep said:
Won't be right at the start of course but at least 3-4 years in for sure

Definitely

LiQuid! · May 13, 2020

It's a tech demo... In a very curated corridor... I'mma be impressed if/when we ever see actual games that look like this, especially open world games, but for now this does nothing for me

The most potentially exciting thing about this is that it could potentially decrease the development time and cost associated with AAA style games so maybe big studios will start taking risks with their games again but that might be wishful thinking on my part

ShiningBash · May 13, 2020

Sparks said:
I keep seeing this sentiment and I don't understand it, "I've been disappointed by "future" demo's in the past, so let's stop dreaming and striving for the next level" is what it feels like to me.
This type of demo is way closer in our grasps then most. It's showing the merging of film and games which is an inevitability... it's exciting to see now.

I am dreaming of the next level, but I don't get hyped for dreams being presented as reality. There have been too many trailers/demos over the years that never materialized for me to get excited without more.

Beef Supreme · May 13, 2020

To tell you the truth, I wasn't really impressed until the jumping scene. The you could not get my jaw off the floor. After this and Hellblade, I'm convinced we're all going to be very with next gen. Still wish they would have announced a game though.

Digital Foundry: PlayStation 5 / Unreal Engine 5 Reaction - Now This Is Next-Gen!

Do you think the demo is impressive?

Yes

No

Senior Games Artist

User requested account closure

User requested account closure

User requested account closure

Unshakable Resolve